This will be a blog about emotion in the workplace. Basically, it will be an ongoing discussion of the wolf in the sheep's suit we all wear to work.
Thought is the widely esteemed, publicly presented office sheep. Rational thought is the wellspring from which we presumably derive business models, shrewd decisions, problem solving skills, critical analysis, five-year plans, short-term goals, and daily to-do lists. To be less plodding and give logic its' due, excellent thinking also spawns product innovation, process improvement, technological leaps and such ingenious solutions as the production line and the cubicle. You've really got to hand it to logic.
Feeling, on the other hand, fuels actions.
Emotion - passion, anxiety, love, envy, kindness, competitiveness, greed, rage, frustration, pride, shame - is under the table at every staff meeting, colors every performance review, runs the engine of every sales call. Emotion sits in on every business decision and traces every career map. It is the invisible guest at every performance review, job assignment or bonus. If thinking tells you where to go, feeling gets you going.
Emotion and reason are the psychic partners of business. Working perfectly, logic lays out your map, your business plan, your career strategy, your interview technique, your sales goal. Emotion gets you down the path. Or trips you up along the way.
We recognize the power of passion in the workplace readily when it spills into the hallway, as it does way too often with a boss who boils over before she can close the door. We note too the role of emotion when feeling is missing, and the sheep suit is just plain empty. That's when you are merely grinding through the days for the paycheck, and even the paycheck is not much of a pleasure.
The fact is, feeling is a force even when it's invisible, (because you've learned the lesson of professional masking), unexpected (because you wish you weren't so eager to leave home in the morning) and unwelcome (because you pride yourself on a ruthless appreciation of the bottom line if only these damn guilt feelings didn't make firing the incompetent practically impossible.)
The purpose of this blog is to help you make the emotional life of work work for you. You want the job you show for, the company you own or the team you manage to have the emotional fuel necessary to beat the competition, and to keep doing it day after day during difficult times. You want to mitigate the stress of your staff's workload and your own. You want to be able to see through your own emotional blind spots, the ones that make your own work harder than it has to be.
You want to inspire productive action in your direct reports, even when you have to give them negative news. You want to manage conflict and competition with a minimum of refereeing. You want to turn complaining customers into collaborative partners. You want vendors who want to perform for you, and bosses who appreciate your performance.
In other words, you want to build relationships. Relationships run on feelings. Feelings are shaped by what you think and what you do. That's true in every arena of life, but it is of particular importance in the workplace, where the power of emotion is likely to be less carefully examined, managed, exploited and enjoyed.
We'll do that here. Then you can take it to work with you.
