Toxic Emotions at Work: How Compassionate Managers Handle Pain and Conflict, by Peter J. Frost. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2003. 245 pp. $27.50 (cloth) ISBN 1–57851–257–3.
✍ Scribed by Laura A. Boehme
- Book ID
- 102254955
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2004
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 64 KB
- Volume
- 15
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1044-8004
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Toxic Emotions at Work: How Compassionate Managers Handle Pain and Conflict
explores what organizations and their leaders do to produce emotional pain, how that pain can become toxic, and the effect that pain can have on individuals and the workplace. Regardless of the organization or job level, emotional pain-caused by anything from overwork to abusive bosses to budget pressures to unexpected family traumas-is an inevitable byproduct of an employee' s work life. When employee pain is acknowledged and managed, it can be transformed from an emotional obstacle to a constructive force for change. To illustrate the varied tasks that toxic handlers take on, Frost provides many examples (p. 5):
Technically speaking, Alexandra was responsible for commercial and smallbusiness accounts, but in reality she spent at least half of her time counseling coworkers. For instance, she frequently played peacemaker between the bank' s large administrative staff and its constant stream of new M.B.A.' s. It was incredibly delicate stuff.
Alexandra also spent hours on end talking other managers through their fears and insecurities around our possible merger with another bank. It was in the newspaper regularly, and people would come running to her office. Everyone was terrified they were going to get fired. One by one, she would calm everybody down so they could get back to their real jobs.