Organizational Dynamics

The Goodness of Bad Feelings at Work

Haig Chahinian

During the course of the day, many of us shy away from bad feelings. You know the ones: the day’s coasting when you see, or hear, or remember something and immediately feel embarrassed, or guilty,  or doubt-ridden. “Buck up,” and “soldier on,” you think to yourself, platitudes that fall flat.

Which is why Pooja Nath, founder of Piazza.com, didn’t recite these phrases to herself when she felt bad as a college student studying in the computer lab. Profiled recently in the New York Times, Nath’s story goes like this:

When Pooja Nath was an undergraduate at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, an elite engineering school in India, she felt isolated. She was one of the few women on campus. While her male classmates collaborated on problem sets, Ms. Nath toiled in the computer lab alone.

“Back then, no one owned a laptop, there was no Internet in the dorm rooms. So everyone in my class would be working in the computer lab together,” she said. “But all the guys would be communicating with each other, getting help so fast, and I would be on the sidelines just watching.”

The experience as a young woman in that culture formed the foundation of her start-up in Silicon Valley, Piazza.

About her company, a homework help site:

Students post questions to their course page, which peers and educators can then respond to. Instructors moderate the discussion, endorse the best responses and track the popularity of questions in real time. Responses are also color-coded, so students can easily identify the instructor’s comments.

Although there are rival services, like Blackboard, an education software company, Piazza’s platform is specifically designed to speed response times. The site is supported by a system of notification alerts, and the average question on Piazza will receive an answer in 14 minutes.

You see that? Those crap feelings you sometimes experience on the job can help you find fame and fortune. The task is not to silence your emotions, but rather to tolerate them, and listen to them.

If you can do this, your bad feelings may help you make decisions about your professional path. How great is that?

One last bit that floors us: the average question on Piazza will receive an answer in 14 minutes. What does this mean? Yes, the technological infrastructure of Nath’s business is impressive.

Also, there’s an ever-increasing expectation that we are always in front of a screen. Which makes us feel scared, and anxious as we consider the prospect of being in front of a back-lit screen at all times.

We’ll tolerate these uncomfortable feelings, open to the goodness they may still bring.

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Not Just for 7 Million* Gay People

Haig Chahinian

Hooray for more research! Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Karen Sumberg of the Center for Work-Life Policy have published an article in the Harvard Business Review outlining their study on coming out at work.

They’ve found that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees who reveal their sexual identity are generally more successful. From the article:

Our research suggests that many are hiding needlessly and that “out” workers may stand a better chance than closeted workers of being promoted (although there are still relatively few openly gay senior executives). This appears to be the case largely because closeted workers suffer anxiety about how colleagues and managers might judge them and expend enormous effort concealing their orientation, which leaves them less energy for actual work. Further, LGBT workers who feel forced to lie about their identity and relationships typically don’t engage in collegial banter about such things as weekend activities—banter that forges important workplace bonds.

What good news! That we already knew.

Now let’s do an exercise. For a moment, let’s not only consider the LGBT population; let’s think about everybody at work. Nearly everyone at work struggles in some way to be fully open about who they are. So we’re going to substitute “humanity” for “orientation” in the paragraph above, and omit the terms “gay” and “LGBT.”

So once more, this time thinking about all people:

Our research suggests that many are hiding needlessly and that “out” workers may stand a better chance than closeted workers of being promoted (although there are still relatively few openly gay senior executives). This appears to be the case largely because closeted workers suffer anxiety about how colleagues and managers might judge them and expend enormous effort concealing their orientation humanity, which leaves them less energy for actual work. Further, LGBT workers who feel forced to lie about their identity and relationships typically don’t engage in collegial banter about such things as weekend activities—banter that forges important workplace bonds.

Mostly works, right? Regardless of what specifically you may be striving to conceal about your self, it’s increasingly evident that hiding is detrimental to your career. Seven (7) million* gay people can’t be the only ones to benefit from coming out at work. Clearly there’s opportunity for everybody!

If you’re wondering what parts of your self can be liberated on the job, look no further.

We love how this research supports the broad viability of bringing your whole self to work.

So what are you waiting for? What would you love to reveal about your self at work, that you haven’t already?

* Estimated number of LGBT employees in the U.S. private sector

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Come Out at Work: As Undocumented

Haig Chahinian

If you want to change the world, that is.

We’re reminded of the pain and anguish that can be part of revealing your true self at work. While exposing our vulnerabilities often makes us stronger, it can also come with great risk. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas knows first hand, and in the New York Times he recently asked the journalistic questions to himself and published the story of coming out as an undocumented American.

Born in the Philippines, at the age of twelve Vargas was sent by his mother to live in America with relatives.  He earned a merit-based scholarship to California State University San Francisco, and through diligent work–and sometimes illegal means–as a first year student he gained employment at The San Francisco Chronicle. Vargas built on this experience, and procured journalist roles at other preeminent media outlets such as The Philadelphia Daily News, The Huffington Post and The Washington Post.

But his identity as an undocumented immigrant took unsustainable amounts of energy to hide. In the Times, he recounts: Read more →

When is it OK to Change Your Mind? [video]

Haig Chahinian

Let’s get right to the answer: always. It’s always OK to change your mind at work, as long as you remain thoughtful and emotionally grounded in your decisions.

Case in point: New York State Senator Mark Grisanti (R-North Buffalo) who spoke on Friday during the Marriage Equality Act floor debate. Said Grisanti:

I have never in the past four months researched an issue or met with so many people and groups on a single issue such as this.  I have struggled with this immensely, I can tell you that.  I have read numerous documents, independent studies, talked with a lot of people on both sides of this issue.

As a Catholic I was raised to believe that marriage was between a man and a woman.  I’m not here however as a senator who is just Catholic.  I’m also here with a background as an attorney, through which I look at things and I apply reason.

I know that with this decision, many people who voted for me will question my integrity a short time ago.  I tell you though that I have studied this issue.  For those that know me, they know that I have struggled with it.

To those whose support I may lose, please know that in the past what I was telling you, and what I believed at that time was the truth.  But by doing the research and ultimately doing what I believe to be the right thing, to me shows integrity.

I would not respect myself if I didn’t do the research, have an open mind and make a decision  — an informed decision — based on the information before me.  A man can be wiser today than yesterday, but there’ll be no respect for that man if he has failed in his duty to do the work.

I cannot legally come up with an argument against same-sex marriage.  Who am I to say that someone does not have the same rights that I have with my wife who I love, or that have the 1300-plus rights that I share with her?

We admire the way he openly works the various parts of him self: Catholic, senator, attorney, man and husband. And in addition to the signing of the glorious bill into law, the result of his actions include Governor Mario Cuomo’s accolades. The New York governor referred to Senator Grisanti as “people of courage and people of principle.”

To be sure, in exploring the act of changing your mind, we don’t mean reacting impulsively, or not remaining true to what you believe (*cough* CindyMcCain). We’re talking about the necessarily introspective re-consideration of an idea or belief.

Watch Senator Grisanti’s whole, yet brief, speech.

What have you experienced when you’ve changed your mind at work?

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Let Out Your Inner Drummer [video]

Haig Chahinian

We loved The Carpenters back in the day, and “Superstar” remains up there among our all-time favorite songs. The duet comprised Karen Carpenter and her brother Richard Carpenter, based in Southern California. What you may not know is that Karen identified first as a drummer, and as a singer second.

Which can be hard to believe given how silky her voice was. Take a look below at the absolute joy she exudes while banging those drums! Her drumsticks seem to be a natural extension of her hands.

While Karen desired both to drum and sing for the Carpenters, Richard wanted her not to hide behind the hulking drum sets, and to be seen more fully at the front of the stage only singing. It was a more commercially appealing proposition, and so Karen came center stage, away from her beloved drums.

Legend has it that her new placement on stage ultimately contributed to her demise. It seems without the creative and rhythmic outlet of drumming, along with difficult family dynamics and–oh, yes–international stardom, Karen Carpenter developed anorexia nervosa. She succumbed to the eating disorder early in 1983.

What do we learn here? If you have a strong desire, or something essential in you — a talent and drive for drumming, or a proclivity to create order out of reams of data —  exercise it! Let it all hang out, and not only will you feel freer at work, you’ll likely meet great success.

It would have been exciting to see what would become of the Carpenters’ success had Karen stuck to the drums.  We’re bummed that we’ll never know.

What do you have inside of you that needs to be let out?

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Reveal Emotions, Decrease Anxiety

Haig Chahinian

The newest champion of bringing your whole self to work is Anne Kreamer, who recently published It’s Always Personal: Emotion in the New Workplace. She distilled the essence of her book in an article called “Taking Emotions to Work” printed this weekend in the New York Times.

The last paragraphs of the article zero in on a message we promote at Whole Wide Work, that there are productive benefits to feeling and relating your emotions on the job. From the Times article:

I like to imagine that if men and women were to express more emotion routinely and easily at work — jokes, warmth, sadness, anger, tears, joy, all of it — then as a people we might not feel so chronically anxious and overwhelmed. By denying the range of emotional expressiveness intrinsic and appropriate to the workplace, we find ourselves at a loss for how to handle this brave new boundary-less world.

Overtly acknowledging how and in what measure anger, anxiety, fear and pleasure color and shape our working lives can help us manage those emotions and use them to our benefit, both at work and at home.

What we’re striving to avoid is anxiety, usually the culprit in worker malaise, and often the product of suppressing feelings on the job. So the more you let out, the less anxious you are. And naturally, the less anxious you are, the more productive you can be.

The reviews of the book are in, and those seeking a better understanding of anger in the workplace, for example, may find some relief in these pages.

Have you decreased your anxiety in the workplace by revealing more of your feelings? Do tell–

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Come Out and (Press) Play

Haig Chahinian


June is LGBT–lesbian, gay, bi and trans–Pride month, when queer folks and allies come together in the name of pride and the pursuit of equality, inside and outside of the workplace.

Coinciding with the occasion, In the Life Media has produced a series of videos called “LGBT Executives Speak Out” in which corporate and non-profit leaders reveal their advocacy work. Press the play button to view the segment above, which features Bobby Wilkinson of State Farm Insurance.

The series is an interactive supplement to “A Message of Hope” viewable in its entirety here.

How do you like the videos?

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