No Hard Feelings: Emotions at Work and How They Help Us Succeed

by Liz Fosslien

Two major changes necessitate a deep understanding of emotion at work. The first is how much we interact with our colleagues. Today, the top skills employers seek are the ability to work on a team and the capacity to communicate verbally with others. As The Economist stated, “In modern business, collaboration is next to godliness.” But the downside to more collaboration is more conflict. We can all relate to Elaine’s famous Seinfeld line, “I had to take a sick day. I’m so sick of these people.” The second change is our relationship with our jobs. We work more than ever, we place a premium on meaningful work, and we increasingly let what we do define who we are. These shifts influence everything from our health to our motivation to our decision making.

less passionate about your job” doesn’t mean “stop caring about work.” It means care more about yourself. It means carve out time for the people you love, for exercise, and for a guilt-free vacation. It means remind yourself that few people look back at their lives and wish they had stayed at the office until 10:00 P.M.

But chronically overworking is bad for your health and—counterintuitively—for your success. In fact, productivity starts to drop after working about fifty hours per week. Perhaps you’ve heard the old saying, “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” In other words, giving yourself less time might make you more efficient.

The busier we are, the more important we feel. We consider ourselves tougher and more dedicated than our lazier colleagues. Work provides us with a sense of purpose and can offer instant gratification in the form of praise, raises, and promotions. But the more we tie who we are to what we do, the more we emotionally attach to our jobs. We put constant pressure on ourselves to always be our best and then feel exhausted when we fail to live up to this unrealistic standard. And when we depend on our bosses for validation, the smallest bit of critical feedback starts to feel like a rejection of our entire selves.

Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action,”

How do you stop stressing about the things you can’t control? First, you have to be diligent about recognizing what you can’t control. If you feel responsible for the beyonds, you’ll never be able to confidently say you’ve done enough and relax.

Take the break you can, whether it’s a vacation, a day off, or a minibreak. Make time to be rigorously unproductive, see friends and family, and step away from your email and phone. Stop feeling bad about feeling bad. Reframe your stress as motivation or excitement. Prevent rumination by viewing your thoughts as simply thoughts, not as inevitable truths. Stay in the present and take care of the things within your control.

We’ll show you how your emotions create and sustain motivation and pinpoint the four main reasons why you might be lacking motivation: (1) you have no control over your work; (2) you don’t find what you do meaningful; (3) you’ve stopped viewing work as a place to learn; and (4) you don’t like your coworkers. These are thorny problems, so this chapter might feel more prescriptive than others.

A job won’t always align perfectly with what we love to do, but there are ways to make our least favorite tasks bearable if we remind ourselves of the people our work affects.

research suggests our real motivation isn’t a what, it’s a who. People with friends at work find their jobs more satisfying and are less affected by stress. “Motivation comes from working on things we care about,” notes Sheryl Sandberg. “It also comes from working with people we care about.”

“The worst thing we do is bravely step out of the mold but then stupidly use someone else’s rubric to judge our own lives every day. If you’re going to forge your own path, then do so without judgment. It is a beautiful thing to want something for yourself that originates from you.”

Segmentors draw a distinct line between their personal and professional lives. (“I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn but please never follow me on Instagram.”) Integrators don’t create boundaries between work and home. (“How are we not friends on Snapchat yet?”)

To increase your autonomy, make small changes to your schedule. Job craft: shift your responsibilities toward the things you enjoy to make your work more meaningful. Push yourself to acquire new skills. The more you know, the more you’ll enjoy your work. Invest in workplace friendships to give yourself another reason to look forward to work.

Emotion is part of the equation. You might eventually decide to ignore a feeling, but you should acknowledge it exists.

But emotions aren’t mystical signals; they’re based on expertise, experience, and rapid information processing (the psychologist William James described gut feelings as “felt knowledge”).

Relevant emotions are a common currency that let us compare apples and oranges. Sometimes you’ll have to pick between options that can’t be neatly compared (e.g., should I go to law school or become a yoga instructor?). In these situations, how each choice makes you feel can help when your pros-and-cons list falls short.

What’s the anxiety? Where do you feel it in your body? What is the desire being mirrored? What is the desire underneath that anxiety? Once you discover the desire, do you choose to act on it? If so, what are the creative action steps?

“When people asked Amos how he made the big decisions in his life, he often told them that his strategy was to imagine what he would come to regret, after he had chosen some option, and to choose the option that would make him feel the least regret,”

I’ve asked friends, “Will you feel more regret in a year if you’re still with this guy or if you’ve broken up with him?” This works because it forces us to try to picture where we’d like to be in the future, and in our visualization, look to see: Will I be using my grad degree? Will this guy keep making me happy?

Though we tend to be drawn to the status quo, research shows change might make us happier.

How to reduce biased decisions in the hiring process: Prepare. Make sure you understand what skills and attributes you’re looking for in a candidate. If you’re pulled in to interview someone last minute (unfortunately, this happens a lot), ask the hiring manager to give you a copy of the job description and a few example questions. Remove names from résumés when screening. When researchers submitted identical résumés to businesses, those with white-sounding first and last names received 50 percent more responses than those with African American–sounding names, an effect that hasn’t diminished since the first such study was done in 1989. Ask for work samples. Give candidates a typical problem they might face in the role or an issue you’re currently working on. Then ask them to write out a basic overview of the methodology they would use to solve it. Work samples tend to be the best predictors of how someone will perform on the job—significantly better than interviews, education level, and even experience—and make it easier for evaluators to judge candidates based on skills. Don’t try to “break the streak.” Even the order in which we interview candidates can affect how we perceive their competence. As interviewers, we tend to believe there should be an equal number of strong and weak applicants. If we talk to five outstanding people in a row, we’ll assume the sixth candidate is less likely to be good, just to break the streak. Make interviewers give each candidate a numerica...

Balance activities with communication. B. Byrne, a product manager at Coinbase, shared the following analogy: every relationship, professional or personal, is like building a tower of popsicle sticks. Experiences (e.g., eating together, working on a case together, or coauthoring an article) are the popsicle sticks, and communication is the glue. If you do things together but never take the time to discuss your feelings or needs, the tower will be constructed of only popsicle sticks and will eventually fall over. But if you overanalyze every interaction and never step back to simply enjoy each other’s company, the tower will be weighed down by glue and melt in on itself.

“If two men on the same job agree all the time, then one is useless,” wrote movie producer Darryl Zanuck. “If they disagree all the time, both are useless.”

Slacker behavior needs to be addressed directly with the slacker(s). Although it may seem easier to address the problem with your entire team by saying, “Some people are slacking off,” this approach will make the nonslackers worry unnecessarily about their performance while the slackers can remain oblivious. Don’t punish the whole for the actions of a few.

Difficult conversations can feel so daunting that we’re tempted to just avoid them. But if you avoid discussing an issue with a coworker, you deny him (and yourself) the opportunity to improve an uncomfortable situation.fn1

In studies of married couples, those who remain calm during arguments are the happiest and longest lasting. These couples frequently use humor and affection to defuse tension, which allows them to work through issues more quickly.

Apologizing Sometimes you’ll be on the receiving end of a valid confrontation. There are three steps to constructing a great apology: 1. Admit your mistake. Suppress the impulse to explain your actions—this usually makes you look defensive or worse, like you’re making excuses. If you do want to give context, make sure you’re still taking responsibility for what you did. For example, say something like, “I fully admit that I snapped at you. I want you to know I slept really badly the night before, but that’s no excuse for my behavior.” And be specific! “Specific shows that you understand where someone is coming from,” advises Tom. Finally, acknowledge the other person’s feelings. You might say, “I didn’t know you think my emails are curt. I’m glad you shared that with me.” 2. Say “I’m sorry.” Too many “apologies” don’t contain an explicit apology. A good rule when saying “I’m sorry” is to stop after those two words. The fastest way to enter faux apology territory is to append “if [my rude behavior] made you feel that way.” Don’t imply the other person is being overly sensitive—take ownership of your mistake. 3. Explain how it won’t happen again. Tell the other person what you’re going to do differently in the future so you don’t repeat your mistake. Here’s an example: “I didn’t proofread the deck carefully enough before I sent it to the client, so there were several typos. I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again. Next time, I’ll slow down and have someone review my work.”

Tips for introverts: Let people know when you need space. Start by saying something like, “I really like working and talking with you.” Then explain you’re better able to concentrate when you have quiet time by yourself. Expect to make some concessions; you do still have to work with others. Avoid sending extroverts excessively long emails. Extroverts, who often prefer to discuss issues or ideas in person, might skim through only the first paragraphs. Prepare for meetings in order to feel more comfortable speaking up and then try to chime in during the first ten minutes. Once you’ve broken the ice it will be easier to jump in again. And remember, a good question can contribute just as much as an opinion or statistic. Tips for extroverts: Send out agendas before meetings to give introverts a chance to prepare their thoughts. This will help facilitate equitable discussion. For example, email a prompt to the group ahead of a meeting and then start by going around the table and having each person share their thoughts one by one. Don’t rush to fill in pauses, and let introverts finish speaking before you chime in. Suggest breaking into duos or small groups to discuss ideas and then reporting back to the larger team. And our biggest pieces of advice: give an introvert time to come out of his shell, and don’t stop extending invitations!

three rules for giving feedback that makes the receiver feel good (or at least less bad): (1) focus on specific behavior, (2) make it about bridging the gap, and (3) remember: how you say it matters.

Be mindful of withholding specific feedback because you’re afraid of hurting the other person’s feelings. We’re more likely to give the most valuable, actionable feedback to people we know—which means we might be keeping other colleagues from the information they need to get promoted.

One more piece of advice: studies show people are much more receptive to negative feedback if you first say, “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations of you and I’m confident you can reach them.”

Diversity is having a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice, and belonging is having that voice be heard. “We

Not belonging or a sense of isolation is among the strongest predictors of turnover. A study analyzing emails showed new employees who do not switch from “I” to “we” pronouns (which the researchers used as a sign of belonging) during the first six months at their jobs are more likely to leave.

How to create a culture of belonging: Assume good intentions. If a colleague you know and trust missteps, explain why their behavior made you feel excluded and propose an alternate action. “Intentions do matter,” notes Pat Wadors. “Give people room to learn from their mistakes.” Belonging starts with onboarding. At Warby Parker, employees call new hires before their start date to tell them what to expect at orientation and to answer any questions. New Google employees whose managers give them a warm welcome on their first day are more productive nine months down the line. Assign “culture buddies.” Buffer, a social-media-management company, pairs new hires with employees who already understand the culture. At the end of the first week, this culture buddy sits down with the new hire to answer questions, give feedback (e.g., how the tone of their emails is coming across), and help them understand that feeling a bit out of place at first is normal. Make sure belonging doesn’t nosedive in meetings. Appoint one person to be an objective observer during each meeting. That person’s job is to record group dynamics, noting who speaks the most, who isn’t given any time to speak, and who keeps talking over other people. At the end of the meeting, have the observer suggest ways to improve group dynamics.

When Harvard Business School professor Bill George analyzed more than a thousand leadership studies, he found that a single best profile of a leader doesn’t exist. That’s because the key to being a great leader doesn’t have much to do with specific personality traits. It has to do with emotional intelligence.

Male leaders also benefit from investing in empathy. Research by Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, shows that men’s brains are more likely to tune out emotion and start problem solving when presented with an issue. The ability to block out others’ distress works in their favor during a crisis but can leave those around them feeling lost or unsupported in an emotionally trying situation. Studies show that high emotional intelligence makes for a top-performing leader, no matter their gender.