FaithRalston.com

He is a fine friend. He stabs you in the front.
-- Leonard Lewis Levinson

Are you stewing and unhappy about something at work? Every day you and the people you work with make decisions about what you're going to address and what you're going to ignore. The net result of these decisions is nothing less than your ability to achieve business success.

Projects at work stall when we waste precious time and energy on conflicts and trust issues. Then decisions get made for the wrong reasons, deadlines aren't met and we end up running in place rather than reaching our goals. Conversely, when we trust each other, feel free to share our opinions and successfully address the issues, we make gigantic leaps forward.

Despite the business impact of good working relationships, it's a hit-or-miss proposition whether we're successful in this area. Even strong leaders fold when confronted with interdepartmental wars, conflicts and performance issues. We can no longer leave this area of good working relationships to chance or chemistry. We need to learn how to work together. Specifically, we must be able to:

• Create environments where people feel safe to share their thoughts, feelings and insights in a constructive way.
• Foster feelings of hope and enthusiasm for change and calm feelings of anxiety and worry about the future.
• Take responsibility for creating good working relationships, despite past resentments and personality clashes.
• Respond wisely to emotional reactions and move past conflicts toward effective solutions.
• Motivate our selves and others to take consistent action toward our goals, despite immediate setbacks and disappointments.

We must learn how to harness the incredible power of emotions to meet our business challenges. Never has the need for this been so great. Turbulent work environments activate intense emotions in even the most composed individual. Emotional energy is powerful and vital. Like a wild horse full of potential, our emotional energy can be harnessed and tamed to help us achieve extraordinary results. Positive emotional energy creates compelling visions, ignites enthusiasm for new initiatives and helps us work collaboratively. We need this powerful force and we also fear its power.

Emotions forced underground

Organizational life requires that we work side-by-side, eight to twelve hours a day, five days a week. We spend more time with coworkers than we do with our friends, our significant others or our children. Our feelings and opinions don't go away just because we go to work. In the morning we can put on our work clothes, but we cannot take off our emotions.

Each of us can experience every feeling possible: anger, joy, jealousy, love, sadness, hope, guilt and fear (see Figure 2‑1). In the workplace, our emotional needs can manifest as resentments, conflicts, retiring on-the-job, petty turf wars, emotional outbursts and sabotage. It's unrealistic to think we can completely set aside our emotions at work.

Figure 2‑1: Universal feelings

So what happens to our emotions when we go to work? They go underground and become a powerful invisible force. Hours, days, months, sometimes years are spent protecting ourselves from people we don't trust, avoiding problems we can't talk about, working around performance issues, feigning acceptance to decisions and putting up with jobs that aren't right for us. Our honest feelings are hidden, denied and choked back, but rarely used to help solve our problems.

When I interview employees about issues at work, a flood of opinions, insights and feelings come pouring out. Often it's as if a dam has burst. These same employees often say, "Don't tell anyone I said this!" The things that bother us the most are the things we won't talk about.

We have inner gyroscopes

When unpleasant emotions are present, we know it. We feel them, regardless of whether they are shared openly. We have an "inner gyroscope" that tells us when things aren't right. It's a survival instinct. At work we know when our star is rising, whether a peer disapproves of us and if we're in sync with what's going on. We can sense layoffs coming. We know which people are likely to get promoted or demoted and whether a change is threatening to us. During these times we become speculative, worried, anxious and alert. Our emotions are warning us-that's their function.

This awareness is not limited just to us. Others pick up on our feelings with their intuitive radar. When we don't like someone, others usually know it. Let's imagine that we all acknowledge this uncanny ability and see how differently we'd behave. We would realize that all the "private conversations" we have about others are on some level known to them. Frightening, isn't it? We spend all this time avoiding difficult issues and we're dealing with them anyway, only covertly. (See Figure 2‑2.)

Figure 2‑2: Feelings and opinions

Most of us pretend that we don't have this awareness. Instead we develop upset stomachs, headaches and heartburn. Even those who do acknowledge these subtle feelings often don't have the courage or certainty to act on them. Our not-so-nice feelings are like a Pandora's box. We've been taught: don't open the box; don't ever open the box. Curiously, however, this is the very box we most need to open. And why not? The box is already open. We can hardly do more harm by releasing the hidden feelings.

False beliefs about business

Because emotions are crucial to our success, why haven't we welcomed them into the workplace before now?

In business we have the illusion of rationality. We trust data charts and financial reports to tell us whether we're making progress. Yet research indicates that our feelings are significantly faster than our rational brains at sensing whether we're on track or not. We've worked hard to bring rationality into business and I'm not suggesting that we throw it out. We simply need to add the emotional component back into the equation.

Fear of emotions

To understand how deeply embedded the idea of not sharing our feelings is, try to imagine an executive openly voicing one of these comments:

• "I felt left out when I wasn't invited to that meeting."
• "I am really scared about what this change means for me."
• "I feel unappreciated."
• "I was hurt by your actions."
• "I'm bored with my job and uninterested in my work."

It's hard to imagine anyone-much less an executive-expressing these feelings.

Whether we're employees, managers or executives, we've been taught from the time we were babies to suppress our true thoughts and feelings in order to be loved by those around us. At work, we're encouraged to express positive feelings but not negative ones. The cultural message is that feelings are too raw and primal and must be channeled into limited and acceptable modes of expression. We feel an instinctive danger, a fluttering in our stomach when we consider sharing our true reactions and feelings. Strong emotions of any kind make us nervous. People who are seemingly not in control of themselves make us nervous. We want them to "get a grip." We are afraid of emotions because we believe they are a force we can't control.

We believe that good business and emotions do not go together. We hold the following five erroneous beliefs about work that keep us from integrating emotions into our work practices:

Belief #1. Business is based on facts, not feelings. Business is logical. We make decisions based on facts. It's best to keep emotions out of it. We think: This plan sounds great in theory but it doesn't feel right. I'd better keep quiet. I have no data to back up my opinion. People will think I'm disloyal.

Belief #2. If we address the issues we won't get anything done. It's a detour to talk about how we feel; we need to focus on the project. We think: I realize that team members are upset about this decision, but I can't deal with this issue now or we'll miss our deadline. I don't have time to deal with everyone's reactions.

Belief #3. It's not safe to talk about what's really going on. We think: It'd be politically incorrect to speak against this new project.

Belief #4. Our feelings are invisible to others. We think: If I just keep my mouth shut, no one will know I'm upset about what's going on. I'll pretend that everything's okay.

Belief #5. We should focus on the positive, not dwell on the negative. We think: No one likes a naysayer. It's best to look on the bright side of things.

The following beliefs shape our attitudes and behaviors toward emotions:

• We are embarrassed to let others see our strong emotions.
• We think we must acquiesce to others when they have strong emotions.
• We believe facts are true but emotions are not to be trusted.
• We don't know what to do or how to respond to emotions.
• We ignore what our emotions are trying to tell us.
• We resent the time and energy it takes to deal with emotions.

We think that we must either make good business decisions or address our feelings. It's an either-or proposition. So we either ignore the human needs and make good business decisions or we take the other person's feelings into account and neglect the tough business decisions.

Harnessing emotional energy

Emotions are a powerful force for action. They can be used to solve the problems we face. The word "e-motion" literally means "to move forward." Our feelings and opinions can be harnessed for the benefits they bring. Specifically, emotions can be used to:

Improve communications. When emotions are part of our discussions, we achieve deeper levels of understanding and appreciation about the real issues.

Find underlying cause of problems. Emotions can lead us to the root cause of problems and help us resolve the real issues. Appreciating and respecting each other's feelings helps us work in greater harmony and get more done.

Reduce interpersonal conflict. Even longstanding conflicts are resolved when emotional needs are honored and acknowledged. When we resolve our concerns we can focus on the work at hand.

Gain commitment to new initiatives. Expressing concerns and addressing our fears help us to fully commit to new initiatives.

Opening a Pandora's box

When we first open a Pandora's box, it is overwhelming and frightening. Gerry, a product manager in a software development company, wants to communicate the new corporate strategy to her employees. As employees learn about the strategy, it's painfully clear that they're angry about being left out of the decision-making process. They feel isolated and excluded from key decisions and many don't trust each other. Gerry is discouraged. Instead of embracing the strategy, employees are having a gripe session about the lack of leadership! She feels embarrassed to have these issues discussed so openly. She doesn't want to deal with her employees' frustrations. She thinks the entire session is taking a wrong turn.

What Gerry doesn't realize is that this discussion is a direct step toward employee commitment. Once employees express their doubts and fears, the discussion progresses to a positive tenor. They begin talking about the strategy and what they can do to implement it. Negative energy must be released before positive energy is available.

Emotional energy is fuel for action

Emotional energy is fuel for action regardless of whether it's positive or negative. When our feelings are held back-such as when we think the boss is making a mistake, a peer is out to get us or a technical problem is being ignored-it‘s harder to feel enthusiastic and move forward. Emotionally, we have one foot on the brake. By ignoring unpleasant reactions we unwittingly smother the thing we desire most-emotional commitment and creative involvement. When negative energy is suppressed, so too is positive energy.

The vital bonds between us

Emotions are our "human bond" with one another. They connect us across races, economic barriers and social differences. We connect by sharing our fears, concerns and joys. Simply laughing together is a bonding experience. Tragedy and danger also unite us-when a death occurs and we rally around the employee to help; or a risky business venture requires us to work night and day against great odds to meet a deadline. We always remember these times. The feelings evoked are what build our relationships with each other.

At work we crave the feeling of aliveness that comes from honest relationships, but we don't trust the emotional vulnerability that's necessary to achieve it. To harvest the vibrant energies of hope, optimism, passion and commitment, we must also welcome frustration, despair, worry and fear. Our emotions are paired like Siamese twins that cannot be separated. If we want the one, we must also embrace the other. Welcoming the expression of emotions frees up enormous energy to focus on our collective goals.

Key Learning's

1. Precious time is wasted on hidden agendas, conflicts and mistrust at work.

2. To succeed, we need to learn how to work together.

3. We can simultaneously address emotional concerns and make good business decisions.

4. Positive and negative emotions are paired like Siamese twins-if we want one, we must also welcome the other.

5. Emotions are a powerful force for action.

6. Our feelings and opinions can be used to improve work relationships and effectiveness.

Topics

• Creating Positive Climate