Madison life - Career: how to handle your emotions at work

As women, we’ve been taught that the fastest way to commit career suicide is to allow our emotions to permeate into the workplace. A heated argument here, an angry outburst there or breaking down in tears – they’re all guaranteed to make women look unprofessional at best, unstable at worst. And if there’s anyone who can sum up the competitive, no-bullshit management style that keeps high-flying companies at the top, it’s Manhattan PR powerhouse Kelly Cutrone, who’s famed for her cutthroat quip, “If you have to cry, go outside”.

But should we simply bottle up our emotions at work? Offices are not the macho-dominated domains of old. Latest figures show that almost 55 per cent of Australian employees are women; we make up over half the professional market, too. There’s more oestrogen in the office than ever before, yet we adhere to rules that are seriously – perhaps dangerously – outdated.

Author Anne Kreamer knows this all too well. At the height of her career in the mid-90s, she was senior vice president for kids’ television channel Nickelodeon. She had just sealed a multimillion dollar deal with Sony when the chairman of the company abused her for failing to drive the stock price up. In the middle of her own celebration party, Kreamer crumbled and – in her own harsh words – became “a pathetic subspecies, crying female scum.” Since then, she has researched intra-office dynamics and realised it’s impossible for women to become emotionless robots just because the professional framework says so. Now, Kreamer’s written a book about the subject, called It’s Always Personal: Emotion In The New Workplace. We sat down with her to discuss shifting office dynamics in the 21st century.

madison: How integral are emotions in today’s professional landscape?
Kreamer: Since the industrial revolution, we’ve been taught workplaces are a realm of complete rationality. You have deliverables, returns on investment and performance evaluations – all of which are quantifiable and devoid of emotion. But all that ended in the early 2000s when MRI technology allowed scientists to study living human brains for the first time. They discovered emotions are central to absolutely everything we do and all decisions we make. It’s ironic that the rational realm of science has finally allowed us to start the conversation that it’s impossible to function in the workplace without emotion.

madison: Is that what you mean by “the new workplace”?
Kreamer: Absolutely. This is the first time scientists have shed light on how people operate from a neurological basis. This is also the first time in history women make up more than 50 per cent of the workforce, so there are implications for that. And thirdly, people don’t wake up, get dressed and travel to one specific office. We work in our cars, at the airport, in Starbucks… plus we’re texting and emailing constantly. There’s no longer a single sacrosanct sphere that represents “our workplace”.