THE EXPLOITATION OF EMOTIONS

What do scotch, soda, and whipped topping have in common – other than belonging to the general class of food/drink stuffs?

Answer:  Psychologists and advertisers who’ve discovered that joy (or its lack) is big news these days.

Johnnie Walker claims that joy helps people achieve more.  Reddi-wip, that we don’t have enough of it daily.  And Pepsi, that it’s a great inducement to song and happiness.

All these brands and others capitalize on the state of our hearts and minds, hoping we’ll walk with joy and Johnnie, add whoosh toppings to our meals, and drink more contentedly.

Jaded?  Sure.  But there’s a good point hidden by the hype.  Which is figuring out how, exactly, to infuse this state of being into our everyday doings.  In other words, into our favorite four-letter word:  Work. 

These days, in our meaderings around the Fortunate 500s and others, we deal with executives, managers, and associates – and watch.  A lot.  There’s much earnestness.  Deliberate conversations.  Determination to meet deadlines.  Intelligent and often soul-searching questions. 

Yet, within all this busyness, there’s not much levity or laughter.  Rarely do we see folks smiling when they exit a meeting or town hall.  Leaders might throw in a joke or personal aside or two before moving into the main subject.  And in cafeterias and break rooms, people occasionally grin when engaged in a personal round-table dialogue.  But not much else.

Perhaps our consumer marketers are right:  Is it time to embrace the ordinary stuff, to celebrate small wins, and to nurture at-work relationships with joy?

LIKE MY LOGO, LIKE ME

Suddenly, logo-speak has gotten a lot more popular.

It’s no wonder:  With major enterprises like Airbnb and Google and Starbucks changing their primary look and feels, the talk centers on the whys and the styles.

Journalists, naturally, love to bash the new.  And pinpoint trends.  Google is criticized for its kindergarten-like fatter strokes.  Airbnb, for its erudite change (the design is called Belo, or a symbol of belonging).  And Starbucks, for its attempt to extend the brand beyond coffee.

The so-called logo trends, though, caught our eyes (and brains).  Many label the updates friendly and less formal.  More humanistic.  Calming.  Youthful and approachable.  Because, or so goes the reasoning, companies just wanna be liked.

Does anyone understand all that comes from the use of sans serif type, round letters, and bright colors? 

As uncommon consumers, we admit, the brand name gets our attention first.  We do the associating and the memories based on experiences with the humans who represent the company:  The friendly (or not so) drive-thru individual delivering our coffee.  A retailer who went out of the way to special-order for us.  The Web site that doesn’t chew up and spit out our credit cards – and actually gets us information via chat.

Sure, a logo is a symbol of the business’ public face, its identity.  But how much more frequently do we connect that nameplate design with a real being, an employee, an ambassador – than we do with Product Sans or names on soda cans or round and squat fonts?

WHY EMPATHY RULES

Atticus Finch is sticking in our minds these days.

And not due to Harper Lee’s just published Go Set a Watchman.

It’s this quote:  “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ... Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

That sage piece of advice, as true today as 55+ years ago, needs to penetrate the hearts of business leaders and their employees. 

Oh sure, for some, the ‘empathy’ quotient works.  It’s how the CEO of Intuit designs his products, all the EQ stuff Daniel Goleman talks about.  For many companies that exist on growing relationships, it’s the second Golden Rule, the way their people connect and relate to others.  It’s the honest, dedicated interest in others, beyond selfies, out of cubicles and open work space.

There’s even a strong data-driven tie between empathy and positive performance, demonstrated in the 2000s by the Center for Creative Leadership’s research.

Yet.  Why do so many sidestep the emotion play when launching a Customer Experience initiative?  How often do company communications actively, even proactively talk about listening – and express bona fide emotions?  Where do learning and development professionals, those responsible for creating required (and not-so) courses, stand on encouraging workers to cultivate compassion, to take genuine perspectives, to make themselves vulnerable in the right ways (after listening hard)?

Or from Scout’s point of view:  "Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in."

THE PROBLEM WITH SMILEY FACES

Fun.  Creativity.  Laughter.  Engagement.

Bah, humbug.  We’re tired of the happiness@work drumbeat.

And we ignore the overwhelming amount of articles and treatises and tomes that explain, in five, eight, ten or 12 steps, how to encourage those smiley faces in the office.

Why? 

Is it, as author William Davies insists, because corporate and government interests fix on the happiness quotient, without drilling into the context that started the not-so-content quotient?

Could our sadnesses be attributed to bosses who are negative or simply not great people managers?

Perhaps it’s due to the belief that happiness is 1) up to the individual and 2) somewhat fleeting in its appearances?

We vote for the last.  [Even though umpteen studies say that happiness is the ultimate productivity booster.]

Instead, from our forays into Fortune 500s and private firms alike, we find that the real test of engagement at work is the person who’s found a calling, who’s content in what s/he does, and who feels that s/he makes a contribution to the company.  Not happiness.  It’s all about the nature of the work (thank you, Dan Pink) and the deep-down belief that we make things happen – and that things don’t happen to us. 

Others might call it open awareness, the ability to see the big picture and not be held back by self-imposed limits.  Or simply another way of defining the ultimate selfie.