No Hard Feelings and Big Feelings

Transcript

Hello, I'm Frank Bonacquisti.

In this Book Insight, we're looking at two books by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy – "No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work," and "Big Feelings: How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay."

They both focus on emotions in the workplace, and they're illustrated with cartoons by Fosslien.

Along with being a best-selling author and illustrator, Liz Fosslien is a marketing and design consultant. She's currently head of content and communications at Humu, a company that works with leaders to manage effective teams. And Mollie West Duffy is an L&D head at Lattice, and a former organizational design lead at global innovation firm IDEO.

The two of them first collaborated on articles, and then on books about the important role that emotions play in our professional lives.

The books are aimed at a general audience of working adults. Whether you're a CEO, a manager, or a remote employee, you'll find something to relate to here. Because we all have feelings, and like it or not, they follow us to work.

So keep listening to discover healthy ways of bringing emotions into the workplace, strategies for bringing out the benefits of tough emotions, and what exactly "big feelings" are in the first place.

Let's start with "No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work." This is the authors' first book together. It became a Wall Street Journal bestseller and was named as one of Fortune.com's Top 10 Business Books of 2019.

The book opens with a cartoon that sets the tone for the themes to come. It shows an office full of workers in different rooms, doing everything from giving a presentation, to getting a raise, to celebrating an employee's birthday. And beside each worker is a word showing how they feel.

It's usual in Western cultures for professionals to think or act like emotions have no place in the office. The authors began their careers with that attitude, too. And through experiences that were sometimes painful, they learned otherwise.

When they started working together, writing about emotions at work, they ran into miscommunication and stress. They scheduled time to resolve issues, and learned that they needed to honestly discuss their feelings in order to collaborate in a healthy and productive way.

Working effectively involves building skills to manage our emotions. Notice that this is different from suppressing them. It means matching our expression of emotions to the situation we're in.

This often involves finding a middle ground between checking our feelings at the door and expressing them with gusto. It also means learning how to tune into our feelings and translate them appropriately into action.

So, how do we build these skills? The authors lay out seven rules for managing emotions at work. Each one is covered in a chapter that focuses on an important aspect of working life, such as health, motivation, communication, and leadership.

Some of these rules are counterintuitive. Take the health chapter's rule: be less passionate about your job. It's become a cliché to say that people should find work they're passionate about. And it's great to care about what you do at work, but not at the expense of your own wellbeing. If you find yourself caring too much about what happens at work, it takes a toll on your peace of mind.

The authors advise prioritizing yourself over your job and setting healthy boundaries. Take breaks. Build relationships outside of your job. Don't pressure yourself to feel positive. Ups and downs are normal.

The authors bring in some interesting research about venting. Talking about feelings with colleagues can help people handle stress, but revisiting negative feelings with someone leaves both parties feeling more anxious and depressed. So, open up when you need to, but keep it limited in scope. And talk to people who will challenge you as well as those who will support you.

"No Hard Feelings" is full of clear and well-researched advice about all the ways our feelings can guide and help us at work. For decision making, for example, we can learn to discern the difference between feelings related to the decision, such as which outcome we might prefer, and feelings that have nothing to do with it, such as stress about a personal matter. The first category of feelings is helpful for making our choice; the second, not so much.

Balanced emotion management is important for individuals at work, and it's equally important in teams. When we're hiring someone, we need to put our feelings to one side, because they often come from bias. For example, we might feel connected to an interviewee because they're similar to us, but that doesn't mean they're the best person for the job.

Once a team is working together, they benefit from building a sense of psychological safety. That means trusting and feeling comfortable around each other. Along with improving collaboration, this allows team members to express disagreement without making it personal.

We all influence our workplace's emotional culture. So a company can choose to set explicit norms. The U.K. Government Digital Service, for example, has a list saying that it's OK to ask for help, to have quiet or loud days, or to challenge things you aren't comfortable with.

Marginalization can impact emotional expression at work, too. Employees in minority groups often carry heavy emotional burdens and might not feel comfortable expressing emotions. In many cases this is because their emotional expression gets stereotyped or viewed differently. The authors explore differences including gender, race, age, culture, and even introversion versus extraversion.

Because expectations of extra emotional labor take a toll, it's important to actively commit to creating a diverse workforce, and explore interventions that increase a sense of belonging. Create environments where members of minority groups are comfortable and are encouraged to share their feelings. Acknowledge the challenges they face, and take action to solve problems.

For leaders, the book presents a nuanced discussion of the role of vulnerability. It can be effective to show vulnerable emotions in difficult situations, but only if that's balanced by the leader clearly showing a way forward.

Throughout the book, the authors demonstrate a balanced expression of their own emotions. At times they share stories of their personal vulnerability that relate to the content. Some come from their own lives and others are about business leaders. These stories help readers connect to their own emotions along with making a point.

Fosslien's black-and-white line art cartoons are scattered throughout each chapter. They're funny and whimsical. They also cleverly illustrate the discussion, adding insight into what feelings at work might look like.

One cartoon shows a continuum between how you look in your passport photo and how you look in drunk photos. An arrow designates a point on the line slightly closer to the drunk photos and is labeled with the words: how much emotion we think you should express at work.

Another diagram shows pictures of the "seven deadly work stressors," including a skeleton drawing for "sleep deprivation" and a spider's web for "unrealistic deadlines."

The book's structure is very clear. Each chapter ends with a list of its key points, and all of these are presented together at the end of the book. Further resources and chapter notes are also included.

The authors present assessments for some of the key skills they discuss. There are quick assessments for your emotional tendency, your team's psychological safety, and your sense of belonging in your organization. The authors also point readers to their website, which includes further assessments related to the content of both of their books.

"No Hard Feelings" is packed with insights into the importance of emotions at work. The authors' second book, "Big Feelings: How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay," takes the emotional journey a step further.

What are "big feelings"? The authors use this term to refer to difficult emotions such as uncertainty and burnout. After publishing their first book, both Fosslien and West Duffy found themselves navigating health issues that brought up these difficult emotions.

Then, with the COVID-19 pandemic, pretty much everyone faced some of these big feelings. Strong negative emotions tend to be stigmatized, and while there's less of that now, people still feel the need for more tools to cope with these strong, pervasive feelings.

We can't get rid of big feelings, and we benefit from acknowledging them. For this book, the authors spoke with a diverse group of academic researchers, including psychologists, and readers from many demographic groups.

"Big Feelings" challenges three misconceptions. The first is that big feelings are necessarily negative. It's true that they're uncomfortable, but they play an important role in our lives – and accepting them can make us feel better.

The second is that we can think ourselves out of big feelings. Nope! They're part of life. And often, they're caused by structural forces outside our control. Third is the myth that we're alone in experiencing big feelings. The truth is that everyone experiences them, and when we express them, we can find support and connection.

The authors use the same format here as in their first book. Cartoon illustrations add gentle humor to a difficult topic. Take the visual contrast between a tiny dot labeled: "the size of the problem" and a giant mass of scribbles labeled: "my anxiety about the problem."

Because the content is more personal, with a big-picture focus rather than an explicit workplace lens, "Big Feelings" leans more heavily on personal stories than "No Hard Feelings" does. Both authors go into some detail about their health crises – mental and physical. Fosslien writes about her panic attacks, and West Duffy discusses a period of suicidal feelings. Like in the first book, they share other people's stories, too.

The book tackles some challenging emotional territory that isn't covered very often, including comparison, despair and regret. There's discussion of grief and shame, but there's less of it because, as the authors say, these big feelings have been written about more extensively by others.

The comparison chapter will resonate with anybody on social media. The authors cite a study where over 75 percent of people reported comparing themselves to others recently. It's easy to envy someone else's life milestones or filtered Instagram pictures.

But the cure for comparison blues isn't less comparison. It's listening to our comparisons because they often point to things we want. The authors guide readers through using their self-awareness to turn envy into action, avoid bitterness, and keep things in perspective. Remember, what we see from other people is often the highlights of their life rather than the full picture.

The book's discussion of burnout is nuanced, touching on multiple factors. When someone says they're burnt-out, they might be talking about one of a range of experiences, which can include exhaustion, cynicism, and/or feelings of ineffectiveness. Each type of burnout requires a different response. These can range from putting in less effort to being more proactive, so it's important to get clear on the feelings you're actually dealing with.

Despair, too, is discussed with a degree of clarity that isn't often found in popular books. Maybe because despair was only detailed with a clinical list of criteria in 2020. Some of its indicators overlap with depression or anxiety, such as feeling hopeless, unloved, or worrying a lot. But others, such as loneliness and helplessness, are unique.

Despair is emotional territory that requires help and support – often professional support. It's not something you can just work through. But the authors give tips on handling it and engage in some myth-busting. No, you can't make this feeling go away by looking on the bright side; you have to acknowledge and work through the pain. And having objectively good things in your life doesn't invalidate the emotion.

The back of the book includes lists of general and chapter-specific resources, which range from a note on therapy, to a values list, to helpful books, guided meditations, and hotlines.

Assessments are included for your burnout profile; for perfectionism; for how you express anger; and for your tolerance of uncertainty. All except the perfectionism inventory are based on tests that therapists use.

One strength of these books is how the authors acknowledge their own blind spots. They can't speak to all experiences, which is one reason they include stories from people whose backgrounds and experiences are different.

The U.S. is referred to at one point in "Big Feelings" as "here," which is jarring because it's the one place where the authors assume a particular context for the reader. Elsewhere, they write about their own experiences as Americans, but for the most part they're conscious of this bias, and the book is written fairly, generally.

Both books present an overview of broad topics. Any of the chapters could be the subject of its own book. This breadth is both a strength and a weakness. If you're looking for deeper coverage of one of the themes the authors touch on, they cite their sources, so you can explore them for yourself.

In "No Hard Feelings" the authors claim, quote, "We wrote this book for anyone who has felt alone, bored, frustrated, overwhelmed, or insecure at work," end quote. And "Big Feelings" says it aims to "make experiencing big feelings less lonely." The books do what they promise by talking about emotional territory that often isn't openly discussed and showing just how universal these feelings are.

There's a lot of overlap in these two books' intended readership, but it's a Venn diagram, not a circle. Professionals, managers and leaders will likely find "No Hard Feelings" relevant and appealing. "Big Feelings" can be equally useful for a non-working audience, such as retirees and students. After all, everyone deals with big feelings.

This second book is useful for a professional audience, too, but it's not as quick and easy to use with a team. And it will appeal to people who are willing and eager to confront challenging emotions, while perhaps deterring readers who aren't as keen to get so personal.

We recommend these books for anyone who's interested in learning about the important role of emotions in our work and personal lives. They're accessible, insightful, warm, and funny, and they'll likely help you understand your own feelings better.

"No Hard Feelings" and "Big Feelings" by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy are published by Portfolio Penguin.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.