Archives - Business: Page 47
Author: amparo enriquez (Sun Sep 18, 2005 12:11 am)
Title: emotions at work
Today businesspeople are often trained to dispense with emotions in favor of rational analysis and urged to make choices using logical devices such as decision trees and spreadsheets. But evolutionary psychology suggests that emotions can never be fully suppressed. That is why for instance, even the most sensible employees cannot seem to receive feedback in the constructive vein in which it is often given. Because of the primacy of emotions people here bad news first and loudest.
Managers should not assume they can balance positive and negative messages. The negative by far have the greater power and wipe out in one stroke all the built-up credit of positive messages. In fact, because of the primacy of emotions, perhaps the most discouraging and potentially dangerous thing you can do is to tell someone he or she failed. Be careful, then, of who you put in charge appraisal systems in your organization. These managers most be sensitive to the emotional minefields that all negative messages must navigate.
In deed humans almost always frame and interpret comments related to work negatively, their priorities are usually established giving top consideration first to the negative repercussions the comment might have on their jobs. This is bad news if we consider that information in order to be best applied, for the benefit of the organization, should flow freely and interpreted objectively, giving high priority to the benefits it might bring to the company.