A Sense of Doubt blog post #1757 - How to Manage Emotions at Work
I continue to be in low power mode.
Today's offering comes from a colleague at work.
Here you go.
There's always content, and if information doesn't want to be free (and maybe it does), people do want to be free.
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/21/781673489/how-to-harness-the-power-of-emotions-in-the-workplace
How To Harness The Power Of Emotions In The Workplace
December 10, 201912:03 AM ET
MEGHAN KEANE
Emotions at work don't just happen with hidden tears in the bathroom or an outburst during a meeting. Emotions happen when a deadline gets moved or when we don't get invited to a meeting. They happen when your boss sends a cryptic email saying "see me ASAP" or when a co-worker gets credit for a project they barely contributed to (again).
Anger. Excitement. Frustration. Pride. Hurt. Emotions are everywhere in an office, so why do we pretend they don't exist?
Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy believe the future of work is emotional. In their book, No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power Of Embracing Emotions At Work, the co-authors argue that effectively embracing emotions is essential for a better workplace. They aren't extending an invitation to be a "feelings firehose" as Fosslien puts it, but they do want to move away from the idea that professionalism means suppressing any emotion by acknowledging we're all emotional creatures — both in and out of the office.
Life Kit managing producer Meghan Keane interviewed Fosslien and Duffy about how we can be more in touch with our emotions at work.
This interview has been edited
for length and clarity.
When you refer to emotions in
the workplace, what are you referring to?
Liz Fosslien: What
we're really talking about is what to do when you have a strong feeling —
sitting down, acknowledging it, not suppressing it, trying to understand the
valuable data within it, and then sometimes acting on it. It's more about
admitting that we are emotional creatures and we're going to feel feelings,
whether we're at work [or] at home and figuring out the need behind those
emotions, what we should do next.
Being "emotional" is
often associated with women. Is understanding how to harness emotions at work
something women are always going to be tasked with thinking about?
Liz Fosslien: We
all have emotions and some of us have just been taught to express them more and
some of us haven't. It's really figuring out how can you harness the power of
the emotions within you. It's not that everyone should immediately start
talking about their feelings in the workplace. It's [for] really men, women,
whoever — this is valuable.
Mollie West Duffy: We
have this idea that women are more emotionally in tune and there is some
biological evidence. This is all changing because gender is more fluid now. But
the research does show that women do tend to pick up a little bit more on the
emotions of others around them, whereas men are more sort of task focused. But
I think it's a very small difference.
There can be lots of emotions
in decision making at work. What's a good way to use an emotion to help make a
decision?
Mollie West Duffy: The
idea that we make rational decisions without any feelings is wrong. But not all
feelings should be weighed equally. We divided it up into two different types
of emotions. One is relevant emotions and the other one is irrelevant emotion.
Relevant emotions are directly tied to the choice that you're facing. If you're
[thinking]: should I or should I not ask for a promotion? If the idea of not
asking fills you with dread, that is a relevant emotion. Irrelevant emotions
are unrelated. For instance, if you're sitting in traffic and you're really
irritated — that irritation is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the
decision that you may need to make it work. Our rule of thumb is to keep
relevant emotions and toss irrelevant emotions.
Let's say I see a male
colleague who's the same age as me, same qualifications get a promotion over
me. I feel envious. How would I dissect that emotion?
Mollie West Duffy: Envy
is something that we feel like is a negative emotion. But it actually can be
really helpful for us.
We interviewed Gretchen
Rubin, author of The Happiness Project,
and she told us about how she used to be a lawyer before she was a writer. She
was reading through her alumni magazine and all of the people who were lawyers
who were really successful lawyers, she [thought], "I'm mildly interested,
but I don't really care." Then when she read about people who had really
great writing career, she became really envious. Envy can reveal to us
something that we wish we had. Oftentimes we perform all these mental
gymnastics not to think about it. But if you're honest with yourself and just
let yourself feel it, it might be a sign that you need to make a change in what
you're doing.
What advice do you have for
supervisors about giving feedback?
Liz Fosslien: There was a study that
looked at performance reviews at a tech company over six years. They found that
women, and especially women of color, were much more likely to receive super
vague feedback that was not actionable. [So you start to feel like] it's
impossible to figure out what to do next, and I don't know how to move forward.
Therefore, I'm a bad person and it really spirals.
Whoever you're giving feedback to, make it specific, make it
actionable. That shows you care about helping someone evolve and helping them
level up.
What about dealing with a
frustrating colleague? What's a more productive way to deal with those emotions
rather than just venting to another co-worker?
Liz Fosslien:
Venting is useful for a small period of time, if you're doing it to someone you
trust. We always say don't just do something, stand there. If you're feeling a
really strong emotion, you sometimes just need to calm down because you're not
in a rational state [to] figure out what you want to do next. [Venting] becomes
negative and actually detrimental to your own success when it turns into
rumination, which is just venting to vent. You have not switched yet to a
problem solving state. I think a nice rule of thumb is a few minutes of venting
and then once you're a little more calm, really ask yourself, "what one
thing can I do differently or do I need to have a conversation with this
person?"
What other ways do you
recommend working with a coworker that kind of just rubs you the wrong way?
Mollie West Duffy: One
of them is to remember that they might have something going on you don't know
about. Remember, this person is a human just like me. This person has feelings
just like me. This person has needs just like me. And just to say, "can I
take a step back from this?" The other [strategy comes from] TV writer
Elizabeth Kraft. She has this line, "don't ingest." As much as you
can, limit exposure to this person. Put a bubble around yourself.
Liz Fosslien: We
describe that as an emotional flak jacket. I think often [there is] this
directive to be passionate about work. The danger of that is that work life
balance disappears. When you're so invested in your job, that's when a
co-worker that maybe drives you a little batty becomes this huge problem
because work is everything to you. Just taking the time to invest in non-work
things can be a really valuable way to come back to the office the next day
with a little more distance.
LOW POWER MODE: I sometimes put the blog in what I call LOW POWER MODE. If you see this note, the blog is operating like a sleeping computer, maintaining static memory, but making no new computations. If I am in low power mode, it's because I do not have time to do much that's inventive, original, or even substantive on the blog. This means I am posting straight shares, limited content posts, reprints, often something qualifying for the THAT ONE THING category and other easy to make posts to keep me daily. That's the deal. Thanks for reading.
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- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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