Toxic Emotions at Work: How Compassionate Managers Handle Pain and Conflict [Hardcover]

Through personal stories shared by people from a wide array of organizations, as well as by the author himself, we are invited as readers to get the inside view on life in such organizations. And the journey takes place through the lens of a hitherto largely invisible or hidden topic: the role of compassion and suffering in organizational life. We see how pain and conflicts are handled by people, who work like amateurs at a radioactive site, to quote one of many metaphors in this book. This is an example of living research about what really matters in organizations, putting the spot light on questions of life and death, pain and suffering, compassion and courage, hope and fear, comfort and despair, trust and betrayal.

As the book is written, so to speak, from the line of fire, with many examples of first-hand experience of the topic, it is impossible not to be captured and moved by the stories shared. The phenomenon of toxic handling and pain and suffering becomes very real. Of great value to the field of organizational theory is also the emphasis on all aspects of the human being, not just our social and communicative capacities. Physical, emotional and spiritual strengths and capacities are also discussed and brought to the reader's attention, aspects of which there has been a call in organizational research, in its tendency to treat people as "walking heads".

It is also research which I think, when read in-depth, challenges and questions many elements of contemporary, dominate business ideologies. What will happen when the task of toxic handling is both rewarded and seen in organizations, and when toxic handling is a standard question on the agendas of board meetings? And what would have to change in our cultural framework for that to happen? What will happen when the emotional aspects of organizational life are not only treated as an opportunity or problem for management, and enhancement of productivity? When they are given the space to exist in their own right, and for their own right? These are vital questions for the future in many organizations where there is a struggle for survival today.

In naming this phenomenon, and creating a legitimate language around it, there is the possibility to create new realities in organizations as well. In calling this phenomenon toxic handling, and in showing how research can be an endeavour of compassion also in its form and presentation, Peter J Frost and his colleagues create new perspectives, new frames and new questions for research.

There are, as I have said, many deeply moving stories in this book, especially the author's openness in writing about his own experience and how this led him into this research. It is research, as I said earlier with the power of touching your heart, not just speak about it. I will share one beautiful extract, which touched my heart, to give a sense of the wisdom and knowledge shared on these 250 pages. It is a quote from a dialogue with Dadi Janki, a woman from India, 80 years old, who was one of ten 'wisdom keepers' at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, 1992.

"Her stated goal in life is to be of benefit to each person she meets and to turn her thoughts to help lift them into happiness. (...) When asked how she stays in such a state of joy and happiness in the face of the suffering of others, she said: 'I do not identify with the pain of the other person. I do not take it on! When pressed for an explanation, she replied: 'To take it on would be to double the amount of pain the world!' 'How then do you help?' was the next question. 'I try to wrap the other person's suffering in love, she replied." (Frost 2003: 107).

This is toxin handling in action. And to live healthier lives in healthier organizations we still need to learn. Peter Frost helps us a step on the way in naming an aspect of life we all know, but many have been afraid to speak of.

Toxic Emotions covers ground that has been worked before. Workplace pain has been discussed by self-help authors ("working wounded") and academics who have studied burnout and stress. Frost's remedies also remain conventional: get exercise, stay detached, be positive, find space outside work.

The willingness of executives to explore feelings is no longer new either. See Marsha Sinetar's The Mentor's Spirit and Mark Albion's Making a Life, Making a Living. And I once heard a speaker insist that therapy was no longer a taboo topic. "Everybody either has been in therapy or has a family member in therapy," he said.

The book's contribution comes from integrating these topics and putting them together and offering a research rather than a self-help context. The "toxin" medical metaphor offers a creative context to explore workplace pain and make the topic more accessible to those skeptical of new age "woo-woo."

Toxic Emotions seems directed entirely to managers and focuses on what managers can and "should" do --
and that's both the strength and limitation of the book. Employees are depicted as passive victims who need management intervention to survive.

Unfortunately, most people aren't as lucky as the clerk who was "rescued" from a toxic boss. They need to learn to protect themselves and take charge of their own lives.

And some very fine managers will never be able to function effectively as healers. I was surprised to see no reference to outside resources, such as coaches or consultants. I can understand the author's suspicion of the coaching industry (coaching schools tend to be atheoretical, to say the least) but carefully-selected coaches and consultants can often be less costly and more effective than managers whose gifts lie elsewhere. And, while confiding in a manager may bring short-term emotional relief, someday those confidences may backfire. Hiring a coach seems cheap if the only alternative is to risk your career by being too open.

Consultants can also help managers and employees implement Frost's suggestions. For example, they can teach employees to develop positive attitudes and create more balance in their lives. Saying "Just get a grip!" works well with some people but others remain clueless -- and some, temperamentally, cannot just shed their frustrations the way they shake water out of an umbrella. They need to learn to compensate or find a new workplace -- both time-consuming options that call for one-on-one learning experiences.

We also need to consider the bigger picture. All organizations may contain the potential for developing toxins. Even Southwest Airlines has been sued by an employee who felt victimized by an overzealous prank. And some employees are more susceptible to toxicity, just as some sneeze more during allergy season.

I suspect a large amount of workplace pain comes from feeling trapped, a source not mentioned here . We need not just empathetic managers but an infrastructure to support alternatives to corporate employment.

The absence of cultural support and societal infrastructure to support self-employment, discussed by Pink (Free Agent Nation) and Bridges (JobShift), accounts for a large part of workplace pain.

There's a bit of irony in the book's opening anecdote. The author learns he has cancer -- from a call his oncologist makes on a Friday night!

Frost was set up for a weekend of helpless worry. Couldn't the call wait till Monday morning, when he could at least go into action right away or at least get an emergency appointment with a therapist? A reminder that toxic systems exist in every sector -- so taken for granted that the author doesn't even comment.