How do you behave at work when you bring in a bad mood from home? How do negative emotions affect your performance at work? How do you manage unfavorable feedback from your manager? Do you tend to neutralize the negative affects by ignoring or acting radically or try to retaliate by tackling it through a discussion?

How can you possibly change or affect the mood and emotions of an employee or manager at work? Not an easy task or an easy answer for all situations but certainly something to think about and act to make some changes to make the workplace more positive and happier place to be in.

“When we are dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bustling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.”
– Dale Carnegie

My inspiration for this post came from the Knowledge at Wharton website. The article was alright, the discussions that followed were better. The topic must be taken up at various levels and the employers and the human retargets should consider it as an important task to address this issue.

To quote a couple of my comments on this article:

A quoted in the article “While you can’t necessarily change your coworkers, people can take steps to avoid catching a negative mood.” But still, when you have the upper management or your immediate manager non-supportive and negating your ideas, it is hard to have a positive outlook. Employees need positive feedback, and if they do not see that coming, or [do not] even get acknowledged for their work, it is time for them to look elsewhere. The point is, we need better management training – not only for the technical skills but more on people management which is lacking in even large organizations. It is essential for employees to positive at work — but this has to be supported by upper management. I truly endorse the idea of business schools teaching [this topic]. It is an essential skill and would benefit companies if they incorporated the same in their work culture. Many managers, if not most, do not have a business school education.

This is an appropriate article to be read by one and all, and also something to be thought about in the light of recent news reports that suggested that a “performance review may have sparked NASA shooting.” What does one say to something like that? Can emotional outbursts be that violent? That is something we should think about seriously. These topics must be taken up with HR departments of every organization. It is time we trained the HR departments and upper managements to in deal with such situations. Intolerance in society should be understood first and then proper action taken to address it. I agree with what you say here: “The state of the literature shows that affect matters because people are not isolated ’emotional islands.’ Rather, they bring all of themselves to work, including their traits, moods and emotions, and their affective experiences and expressions influence others.”

Some of the comments that just struck through the discussion:

I would also note that while emotions can be “messy” they are also very necessary. Passion is what drives excellence! – Steve Chase

There were some very interesting questions put up for discussion at the very beginning of this article. Can you contribute your thoughts on the same? What do you think about managing emotions at work?