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Moods & Emotions - a work place case study

Recently I worked with a group of supervisors around the role that moods and emotions play in the work place. For our discussion purposes ‘emotions’ are those moment by moment emotional shifts we experience, whereas ‘moods’ are the prevalent emotion or emotions that we find ourselves in.

We discussed six prevalent moods of life as below:

*Facticity - what we assess as unchangeable

*Possibility - what we assess as changeable

*Uncertainty - what we cannot confidently predict will occur

OPPOSE

In each box write your response to each mood and where this might be occurring for you at work.

Resentment

I resent that …

e.g the size of my budget for this financial year is not good enough and I am resentful about this

Resignation

I am resigned to …

e.g. nothing we can do with a reduced budget could possibly work so why bother?

Anxiety

I feel anxious about …

e.g. therefore nothing or nobody is going to get taken care of and I am concerned about this

ACCEPT

Peace

I accept that …

e.g. this is the budget for this year and I will work within this

Ambition

I am ambitious about …

e.g. given the budget what is possible this year?

Wonder/Speculation

I am willing to speculate about …

e.g. we could … or perhaps talk with or …

Generally our predisposition to act is impacted by our mood. The moods of resentment, resignation and anxiety will often prevent or limit our ability to take good and appropriate action. Whereas the moods of peace, ambition and speculation allow for action that may not previously been thought of or acted on.

In our case study the Supervisor went back to her team and took them through the above chart. They collectively made the assessment that as a team they were caught in “resignation”. This showed up in statistics, with their site showing up as a ‘problem’ site behind in their caseload and not delivering to standard. Morale was low and the office looked and felt overwhelming.

Once the prevalent mood had been identified and agreed on, there was further agreement that they didn’t want to stay caught in this mood. As a team they brainstormed ways of managing resignation in a practical and on a day to day basis.

Team meetings are now held regularly with attendance expected and on time. There is a brief opportunity to ‘debrief’ and then work is assigned by collective agreement. The office received a team ‘make over’ with encouragement to tidy and personalise each desk area and the main reception area was gifted a ‘feng shui’ tidy up and presentation.

Naming and being able to discuss ‘resignation’ without getting stuck in it has been a breakthrough for this team. Morale is up, desks have remained clutter free, clients report feeling welcomed and there is a complete turnaround in the statistics - they are a lead team.

Not bad from talking about emotions in the work place!