What can you feel at work?

I have a question for you: When you are at work, what are you allowed to feel? I don't mean what do you allow yourself to feel. What limitations are placed on your emotions by supervisors, coworkers, corporate culture...your CEO? 

If you just started making a list, I hate to tell you, "Houston, we have a problem, here." But before we get to that problem context!

I have a friend with two amazing daughters, ages 7 and 9. A few months ago, we were doing a "catch up" session. During the call, youngest daughter interrupted, sobbing and angry. Her sister had, in the way on siblings can, mortally wounded her pride. As a result, she was refusing to do her homework. 

Any parent will recognize this as a tantrum. Instead of anger or frustration, though, Mom took another tack, and it was jaw dropping.

"Right now, you're feeling big feelings, and that's perfectly okay," Mom said. "So go have your big feelings, and when you're finished, come back and I'll help you get started."

This simple Mother-Daughter exchange encapsulates four amazing responses to an emotional state many of us consider unpleasant:

• She acknowledged the validity of the emotion: You're having big feelings, and that's okay.
• She granted space to experience the emotion: Go have your big feelings.
• She accommodated the emotion: Go have your big feelings...
• She presented a strategy to address what's next: When you're finished, come back and I'll help you.

This simple parenting moment between a mother and daughter was jaw dropping in its implications. And I cannot help but think how transformative this short exchange could be if we tattooed it on the eyelids of every corporate leader in America. That brings me back to my original question:

What are you allowed to feel at work?

In 1952, "The Power of Positive Thinking." transformed the corporate landscape. Suddenly, people could perform better, relate better, feel better just by thinking positively. Apparently, the power of optimism had been lost for a few centuries. Yes, positive thinking can positively affect outcomes. But that positive thinking can't come at the expense of disallowing other, legitimate emotional responses.

Unfortunately, that message was lost on corporate America. 40 years later, the takeaway is "If you think positive, then things will be positive." 

We know this mentality as toxic positivity. You're not allowed to feel anger, frustration, fear, or loathing. No matter the situation, you must remain positive.

With a nice dollop of implied or else on top.

Today, it seems everything that ever happens is "great." You see it in the language used. Teams don't fail to meet goals, they didn't "achieve at the anticipated level so have the opportunity to grow next quarter." The company didn't miss revenue targets. Revenues slowed, offering us the opportunity to accelerate into the next quarter. Sure, we just passed you over for that promotion. But you weren't slighted. You just have the opportunity to prove your worth to the company.

(Aside: If you're seeing a pattern, you're not wrong. Toxically positive cultures frame virtually every situation, no matter how dire, as an "opportunity" to in some way "grow." The building catches fire and burns down? Great news! It's an opportunity to get that new coffee machine we've wanted!)

Toxic Positivity in the Real World

Long ago, in a galaxy far away, I had a corporate gig. Our VP called a huge meeting. It seemed upper management had determined our division was underperforming and over-resourced. We weren't working hard enough and there were too many of us for the work we had.

To address this problem, the company carved out a huge segment of the division, taking with it all the resources, staff, and materials, to create a new division. The cost? The same. The people? The same. The product? The same.

We all saw it: new division, no cost savings, no new revenue. But management promised: This wasn't anything to worry about. It's just an opportunity for you to grow!

We were expected to clap and cheer, which we all did--though none of us felt particularly excited about it. We were scared as hell. We just were not allowed to express it. We all shared the creeping sensation of that horrid emotional beast, the question, "What's coming next?"

We didn't have to wait long for the other shoe to drop. A few months later, we all went into another company-wide meeting. The CEO announced the company had decided to "part ways" with dozens of our coworkers without warning. These coworkers were our colleagues, our friends, our compatriots in the trenches. And poof! Gone.

Cost-cutting had taken hold.

Again, we were assured this was no cause for concern, not a negative thing. Even the act of firing thirty or so people got wrapped in a euphemism. They didn't get fired. They "were separated" from the company. Even the phrasing was precise, using passive voice to deflect responsibility for these terminations:

They were separated from the company.

"We didn't fire them. They were separated by some mysterious, detached third party."

This Dalí-esque framing didn't stop there. "The Team"--all of us who had survived the winnowing--should be "excited for this opportunity" (there's that word again) to "step up" for the company and to "grow" into "new roles" and "take on new leadership opportunities."

To be clear, not a one of these opportunities were "new." They were just "recently made vacant." Nevertheless, our role was to be excited and happy the company saw fit to fire dozens of our friends to make room for us to take on more work for the same pay and to show leadership how committed we were to the mission. And like some demented village elder in a Shirley Jackson yarn, we were expected to clap and cheer.

Which. We. All. Did.

Good and Bad Emotions

We weren’t allowed to express our sadness at losing teammates or concern about our own futures. Those feelings were "bad." Pretty soon, people expressing those "bad" feelings were also shown the door. Remember the "always be positive" subtext: or else.

In a recent episode of Adam Grant's Re: Thinking podcast, psychologist Susan Davis notes the idea of "good" and "bad" emotions permeates psychology and society at large, but she challenges this notion.

"Some emotions are so-called 'positive' and some emotions are so-called 'negative,'" Davis told Grant. "And when you come to a categorization of emotions with an inherent judgment about those emotions, what it can lead to is default strategies that are ineffective."

This ineffectiveness bears out in the evidence. Multiple studies suggest corporate cultures practicing toxic positivity experience higher turnover rates and lower productivity. For those of you without MBAs, that's a one-two combo to the stomach and liver of the company. Training employees is an expensive investment, and if they're leaving that becomes sunk cost. Meanwhile, you're getting a lower return-on-investment for those employees who do drink the Kool-Aid and stick around.

Not only is toxic positivity bad for the company. It's also bad for the employee, as well. Writing for Very Well Mind, social psychologist Kendra Cherry says many psychologists view toxic positivity as a form of gaslighting because the false narrative causes you to question your experiences and emotions.

Put another way: toxic positivity may not be just a bad coping mechanism. It may be abuse.

"An abusive person might use it to devalue, dismiss, and minimize another person's emotions and experiences," Cherry writes. "They might even use it as a way to downplay the seriousness of their own abusive actions."

Take Aways

First, employees should demand more of their employers. They should feel comfortable in their workspace. That means:

• Toxic positivity is a form of abuse, and it’s not one you should tolerate.
• Yes, in a healthy workplace, you’re allowed, even encouraged, to embrace all of your emotional responses--happiness, joy, elation, satisfaction and anger, frustration, fear, or--yes, Ethel, even loathing.
• No, you can stand in the middle of the bullpen and shout your anger like a lunatic or stand in the coffee room sobbing uncontrollably. But you should feel comfortable saying to yourself and to your leaders, “I’m sorry. I need a moment because I am feeling a little upset right now.”
• Yes, you should also be allowed to share thoughts and strategies with coworkers feeling the same emotions.
• No, you're not allowed to poison the well of your coworkers' positive feelings by focusing solely on the negative all the time.

Moreover, for managers who might be realizing they're operating in (or in some cases actively creating) toxically positive environments, it's relatively easy to correct. It takes forethought, consideration, strategy, and a little time for both you and your team to understand and begin stamping out. That means:

• Recognize toxic positivity when you see it and, when you do, counter it with a realistic and accurate assessment of the situation.
• Acknowledge the emotions the situation is making you feel, as this will signpost to your team they can do the same.
• Allow your team to express those emotions both to you and to their colleagues. To 10x this effect, provide them with a dedicated safe space in which to discuss these matters, such as a third-party platform for chat and discussion or a designated place where team members can go to ask questions and express how they are feeling.
• Steer clear of framing emotions as positive or negative. Corollary: also skip phrases like "you are angry" in lieu of "you are feeling angry." We aren't our emotions. We are feeling them.
• Provide guidance for how you are processing how you are feeling and how you plan to move forward. This reinforces emotions are temporary feelings, not states of existence.
• Offer guidance to the team member about next steps they can take, while maintaining a focus both for your company and for them of what has to be done and why it's still important. Just because we're having big feelings, we don't get to ignore what needs to happen.
• Most importantly, validate how they are feeling and why they feel this way. Avoid invalidating those feelings with negator phrases like, "I understand how you feel, but...." Put the period after feel.

Toxic positivity is something to be stamped out or avoided. Leaders should employees the space to feel all their emotions. Encourage employees to understand they are permitted to feel those emotions. Embrace a paradigm in which emotions aren't states of existence but are, instead, passing reactions to be experienced and moved on from.

Do this, and you're much more likely to get all that teammate has to give—and then some.