The story behind the deck
The Emotional Culture Deck was designed to fulfil a simple, but critical, shortcoming in many organisations.
Most organisations and leaders don’t pay enough attention to how employees are or should be feeling. They underestimate how central emotions are to building the right culture and employee experience.
So we designed and developed the deck over two years with dozens of organisations around the word to solve this problem.
We are a leadership company that exists to create successful, empathy-driven organisations and leaders. Our job is to help leaders reimagine the way they get their people and customers.
Our best work is when we're able to design tools that move organisations beyond just talk and create real behaviour change within workplace cultures and customer experiences.
We believe that to make an impact on your world you need to understand how to switch people’s behaviours. It's part science, part creativity.
What does the research show about emotions & workplace culture?
Studies show the significant impact of emotions on how people perform on tasks, how engaged and creative they are, how committed they are to their organisations, and how they make decisions.
When leaders recognise emotions in the workplace, and consciously shape them, they can better serve and motivate their people.
Research shows emotional culture influences employee satisfaction, motivation, connection, engagement, burnout, teamwork, and even "hard" measures such as financial performance and absenteeism.
Why we need to flip the conversation about culture?
Traditionally, companies focus solely on their shared values and behaviours to try and guide how their people think and behave at work.
But the other critical part of how people think and behave at work is the emotional culture of a company – how people feel. Because how people feel (or don't feel) drives the way people think and act.
So as leaders, let's start by asking ourselves: What do we want our people to feel? Next find out what your people want to feel and not feel at work. Then design your culture to support these emotions.
The above is based on the work of Sigal Barsade & Olivia (Mandy) A. O’Neill. The Emotional Culture Deck is inspired by their research found in the article from Jan-Feb 2016 HBR Issue – Manage Your Emotional Culture.