What’s Possible When We Surface Emotions At Work?
Conventional belief: If we allow colleagues to share negative or personal emotions at work, it will derail the work. We’d be talking about our feelings all day and get nothing done.
Yes, that is possible. But what else is possible?
I’d like to share a personal anecdote to fuel our collective imagination around this topic.
It was August 2020, our 5th month of shelter-in-place when I found myself in a homework screaming match with my 8-yr-old. He was in his first week of distance learning at school. We need to turn in homework before 5pm everyday. On that day, I have back-to-back meetings on Zoom. I only have 30 minutes to help him finish homework before my next work call with my colleague Sarah. My son gets distracted every step of the way. The pressure cooker in me starts to boil… 15 minutes into the meandering homework emergency, I lose my temper. I scream at him. He screams back. He feels hurt. That hurts me! On top of all this, my meeting with Sarah begins in a few minutes!
I don’t even remember how we manage to turn in his homework that day. All I remember is that I am a few minutes late for my meeting with Sarah. I am shaking inside. When I hop on Zoom, I still feel so much tension in me. “How are you doing, Carol?” Sarah asks. I feel I can’t really show up in an authentic way for this meeting if I don’t tell her about the “thunder storm” inside me. I want to just name it out loud and move on with our planned agenda. I begin to share a few sentences about the incident. To my surprise, tears burst out. I am not embarrassed about my tears. I know that once I name my emotions, I can move on more freely.
“I feel okay now. We can get started.” I say. To my surprise, Sarah says, “Just trust me on this, Carol. Close your eyes. I’ll time it for 90 seconds. You can stop at any time you want.” She guides me into a meditation to simply notice where the tensions reside in me. The sensations. The tingling, the anger, the shaking. “Just be with it,” she says, “What shape or color does that tension have inside you? No need to change it or do anything about it. Just be with it. Take a few deep breaths. Slow down.” Her voice stops. I don’t feel any pressure to change my feelings. Instead, I can simply tend to the feelings and sensations. The “thunder storm” in me starts to subside. I let out a sigh. After the sigh, the tension in me drops significantly. I don’t try to suppress any feelings that arise. The shaking inside of me somehow comes to stop on its own course…
For the rest of the meeting, I feel highly engaged. In retrospect, that 2 minutes we spent “deviating” from our agenda was in fact a hidden switch that unblocked tremendous energy in me and generated deeper trust in my relationship with Sarah: I know that she cares about my wellbeing and that I can bring my authentic self into our working relationship.
After our meeting, we talked about my experience. We realized that this incidence underscores our shared aspiration of practicing a new way of working together—a way of collaborating where we are not fixated on an outcome. Instead, we practice being aware of the changing conditions of our collaboration. We don’t lose sight of the content or the goals of the work. And in addition, we pay attention to the process, to the conditions within us and around us. We encourage each other to bring our whole selves into our work.
“That’s the whole point! That’s the reason why we are trying to do something different together!” Sarah exclaimed with a smile. In every moment that we can be truly present at work, we are more aware of what emerges, the subtle changes in our environment, the details of the task itself, or important context we would otherwise fail to see. Full presence allows us to develop a more nuanced understanding of complexity as well as noticing new opportunities sitting right in front of us. When we don’t hold onto the original goal too tightly, the emergent outcome can be 10 times better than what we could’ve imagined. If we work this way, it’s an opportunity to deepen our own awareness, connect with ourselves and others, and grow inwardly and outwardly.
Can we invite our whole selves in at work and still get things done and achieve collective goals? I believe that we can. But we are not going to do it in an extractive way that maximizes efficiency for the employer. We are not going to use human awareness and sensibility as a means to pursue endless greed and control.
What we can do instead is to encourage seeing “work” as a vehicle to cultivate awareness and unleash human potential in our colleagues, bosses, and customers. Cultivating human potential is the seed we sow. Awesome collaboration, products, services, and income simply arrive as abundant fruits of the seeds that we sow in ourselves and others. It may take longer for these fruits to grow. It may sound impossible for those who expect quick results. But it’s the kind of work that gets me excited to jump out of bed every morning and rest deeply every night. It sustains my enjoyment of work and life for the long haul…
Written by Carol Xu