Dan Erwin

Once More: What Do Managers Do All Day?

Austerity. Employee engagement. Social media. Crowd-sourcing. Entrepreneurial. Social networking. Restructuring. Innovative. Internet company.

Words come and go. The verbiage changes, but how has this changed what managers actually do?

In a recent conversation with a Gen-Yer, just 14 months into his first management job, he downloaded most of his day at my request. He uses different language than most of my exec clients. His context, an internet company, is a lot different than theirs: technology, small appliance, agribusiness, etc. Does that mean that the heart of what he does daily is different than what 45 year-old execs at old-line firms do?

For the sake of audience appeal and to desperately offer newness, I need to be able to answer my question with a big, detailed “yes.” There are a lot of new approaches to management: new frameworks, models and buzzwords. But does the heart of managing more traditional companies differ from the heart of managing internet startups today? Or is the new language just new hype?

The context is different
It took only a bit of reflection to realize that at the heart of what managers do, nothing has changed. Oh yeah, the context is quite different, as are the products. But whether you manage at Facebook, GE or General Motors, the heart of management is action.

Most of us know that the orderly reasoning about managing is intriguing, but fairly useless. Even with just a semester of business, you know the business language, describing how managers are supposed to work. A rational approach to management includes the following: planning, organizing, staffing, coordinating, recruiting, etc., etc. When managers step away from the work, most of them still use the terminology of management. But we all know those descriptions have a lot of fiction in them. Managing, like other experiences in life, is messy. Very messy.

The Gen-Y manager
Listening to that Gen-Yer’s talk about chairing a meeting of eight people where an important and controversial issue was to be decided, I thought about his frustrations. He’d gradually come to realize that managing is not what he expected. It’s all action: 10 to 12 hours a day.

Here are six conditions that are completely reflective of what he experienced. Only the conditions were formulated nearly 25 years ago. Not surprisingly, my young friend said that they were completely identical with his 2012 experience. This is a highly descriptive statement about what managers do and can’t do all day:

As a manager, you “cannot avoid acting.” At each moment of the meeting you are acting. Even letting things go constitutes an action—and with effects you may or may not want. So, you are always “thrown into action, independent of your will.

“You cannot step back and reflect on your actions.” You have to rely on your instincts to react and act in real time, even though you may reflect on the meeting later on and realize or wish that you had done things differently.

"The effect of your actions cannot be predicted.” There are too many paths that any action could lead to, so you cannot always depend on rational planning to find steps that will achieve your goals. Instead, you have no choice but to “flow with the situation.

“You do not have a stable representation of the situation.” Things in the meeting evolve continuously. At any moment, you only see fragmentary pieces. The overall pattern of the meeting is only discernible after it is over.

“Every representation is an interpretation.” Even after the meeting is over, your description of what transpired at the meeting will never be the only one. Someone else will read the meeting differently and so the facts will always be elusive—what one must work with is opinions and interpretations.

"Language is action.” Every time you speak, you are not merely stating the facts, you are acting. You are actively shaping and constructing a definition of the situation and trying to persuade others of the facts as you see them and the action s that you believe must be taken. The rhetorical nature of managerial action cannot be escaped and must be constantly attended to.

That new Gen-Y manager breathed a sigh of relief. He expected his job to be something different than what he was experiencing. It was liberating to talk through these actions. They were pragmatic. His practice is not so much about business hype, but what works.

The more you know and understand a situation, the easier it is to work in that situation. I rarely get stressed by a situation I understand. So, like my Gen-Y friend, I find this description liberating. I’m very curious to know what you think about it.

Note: The six points are from Robert G. Eccles and Nitin Nohria, Beyond the Hype: Rediscovering the Essence of Management.
Photo fm Flickr.com: by **Anissa**

Where New Employees Go Wrong

Effective socialization strategies can impact the company bottom line early in a new employee's tenure. 

One of my friends recently left her consumer products' firm and accepted a project role in a medium-sized software firm. Over the past two months, I’ve quizzed her about her firm’s assimilation process. Frankly, I’ve been surprised and delighted by the firm’s approach to new employees. They’ve emphasized organizational culture more than her new job. Unlike her organization, far too many firms fail in this fundamental process. And, as a result, the productivity of the employee suffers. But her new firm takes a multi-pronged, strategic approach to its assimilation process. The result, thus far, is one happy camper, who’s digging into her new role with a great deal of enthusiasm. 

Her experience reminds me that new employees easily go wrong because most firms provide far more information about the employee’s initial job tasks than about the organization’s culture.

Task information that comes from the top of the organization down to the lowest-level employee is usually specific and narrowly defined. Cultural information, in contrast, is vague or sometimes implied. That's a dangerous situation. Research shows that without effective assimilation processes, gossip often plays a large role in the employee's assimilation. Susan Hafen,at Utah's Weber State University,found that gossip has a major role in enhancing workplace deviance behaviors. Lacking cultural input, new employees have no way to evaluate gossip which detracts from the desired goals of organizational citizenry. Her research serves as an important warning to firms regarding the assimilation process. 

The cultural values and principles of the organization and the kind of supportive (or non-supportive) environment has direct bearing upon an individual’s ability to understand the task and its importance. For example, in some organizations, collaboration work is highly valued and rewarded, whereas in others only individual efforts are recognized. The more cultural information is unclear or uncertain, the more the new employee needs help in understanding it. Without detailed cultural information, employees have difficulty assessing cultural information from their new colleagues. That’s a potentially dangerous setting, one that could easily impact long-term productivity. 

Employee socialization is also especially important. One of my clients, a senior manager at a major small appliance firm, told me that the first problem he encountered in his job was one that took four years to get over. The facility was one in which the average years of service was about 10 years--yeah. . . there still are places like that. When he first arrived, the employees felt that he could not be trusted and that he couldn’t possibly know what he was doing. His predecessor had retired from the position after 15 years, and had given him his blessing as the new replacement. Still, he was viewed as an interloper and an incompetent by most of the employees--even though he came into the new role with extensive experience. The problem resolved itself after several years, but he told me it was very troubling at the start. An effective assimilation process, with a focus upon socialization, would have made for an easy adjustment. When he was promoted to VP a few years ago, one of the first issues he dealt with was the firm’s entire assimilation process. He emphasized the costs of poor assimilation processes several times as he related that story to the CEO. Once the CEO understood the finances of the problem, my client got the needed support—and made some significant changes in HR. 

How do better companies integrate the new employee? 

Rather than focusing solely on the formal orientation process, smart companies take a multi-pronged approach to employee entry. Traditional approaches include the formal orientation programs, socialization strategies, training programs, and formal and informal mentoring. Research from as far back as 2004 recommend advanced communication and information technologies including e-mail, web pages, voice mail, instant messaging and video-conferencing. A sizable amount of research and corporate resources are expended on socialization processes. What corporations and especially HR need to keep on the front lobes is that the socialization processes are critical to maintain a dedicated and loyal workforce. Indeed, how seriously the organization takes it obligation to socialize new members determines the degree of turnover and, ultimately, productivity.

When the Going Gets Tough, Will the Tough Really Get Going?

You know the old proverb about toughness. And if you went to Sunday School, it took the form of "tribulation is good for you," and you will not "suffer more than you are able to handle." This powerful, religious and cultural strain of our Western belief system holds that high performance requires tribulation. It argues that "dissatisfaction, discomfort and distress" actually galvanize performance. And indeed, some research, such as that of George and Jhou from 2007, demonstrates that negative moods signal a problem to be solved, driving the person onward into performance.

But an equally strong thread of conventional wisdom stresses that success comes from enjoying the work. As recently as 2008, Michael Riketta of Aston University in the U.K. found that higher job satisfaction, the enjoyment of your work, predicts better performance.

So how do you make sense of these two conflicting threads? Is either true? or both? Leave it to Teresa Amabile and her husband Steven Kramer, the real experts in the fields of performance and creativity, to answer this question. Harvard's Amabile has researched in this field for years, reporting regularly in the Harvard Business Review, and now in the fine new book, The Progress Principle. What they found is that there's a bit of truth in both threads, but that there's a far better way to go at work and life than either of the two principles actually offers.  

In a fabulous piece of comprehensive research, Amabile and Kramer collected diaries from a broad sampling of workers and managers over ten years. Their conclusions were built on the diaries of 238 professionals from 26 project teams over the duration of their projects. Nearly 12,000 entries later, they discovered the dynamics of the "inner work life" of professionals and especially its impact on their performance and the entire organization. They've found that performance is driven by a constant interplay between how a worker sees things happening, his/her emotions and the resulting motivation.

Take, for example, my architectural clients, who find themselves two weeks behind on a major elementary school project. The senior associates have added staff to the project, the members are working side by side, seven days a week, some as much as a 12 to 14 hours straight, all understanding the importance of their success to their own reputation, their jobs and the firm. The boss walks in and to their delight calls a halt for a lunch break. Outside there are stacks of pizza, the grills are going with brats and burgers. Beer and pop are available, and the warmth and support for all the team is on display. A seemingly trivial event causes the project members to perceive their work and themselves as important and valued, adding to their stash of very positive emotions. At the end of the day the team is happy and excited about the project, having leaped to the task and put great effort behind it. It is, as one of the members said, one of the "best days of the month." What got done on that good day? As Amabile and Kramer point out, people perform best when their workday experiences include more positive emotions, passion for their work and the supportive, favorable messages of their leaders. Put simply, employees are "working under the influence" of their inner work lives.

So how can you have a lot more of those great performance experiences? 

The key is simple: progress through "small wins." More than two years ago, I wrote about the personal satisfaction, delight and success of small wins in my blog on motivation and small wins. I learned years ago that small wins works because success breeds success. To have success, it's important to make it possible for yourself and your team. Small wins is a calculated, smart effort to break down, to chunk your work and your projects into pieces small enough to achieve on a regular, sometimes even on a daily basis. Chunking makes for a win and motivation, all at the same time. It's serendipity!

When you dig deeper into the process of small wins, what you find is that when people's best days are compared to their worst, the most important difference is being able to make progress in their work. Managers can learn an awful lot from that well-researched principle. Although many of you are fortunate in your managers, that's not always the case. Let's be honest. There are a lot of demeaning creeps out there. Men and women who aren't interested in the work life of their employees. One Gen-Yer said to me that he walked into a session with his boss in a good mood, but always left depressed. She made him hate his job. So rather than go into a funk, he learned the power of small wins for himself, his job, and even his relationship with that asshole boss. The strategy enhanced his feelings of control, made things a little better, and actually chipped away at the power of that dysfunctional culture. He looked out for small but sweet victories that he could win--a tactic that gave him staying power until he was able to successfully transfer out of that sicko group.

Amabile and Kramer have also found that small wins is the secret sauce of high performance. It doesn't make work easier or eliminate frustrations and struggles because most work today is not trivial. But the more small wins, the better able we are to hurdle those really difficult projects.

The Progress Principle spells out the issues in superb fashion for us all.

See my: Motivation and small wins.  Why small changes work and big changes don't.

See also: Amabile and Kramer: Harvard Business Review, Inner Work Life and The Power of Small Wins.

Bob Sutton's new "Good Boss, Bad Boss"

I'm nearly halfway through a galley of Bob Sutton's masterful new book, Good Boss, Bad Boss.  This is going to be a blockbuster.  It's a book we'll all want to devour and use.  I'm already thinking about some bosses who'll want this book and planning it as a gift for them.  These are men  and women who are trying to become better bosses and I know they'll find this very helpful.

You could, I suppose, think of this as a sequel to his last blockbuster, The No Asshole Rule.  But here, he sets out to contrast the differences between the best and worst bosses.   

I really like the way Bob's wife set this up for him.  A boss herself, she wants to know what a great boss looks like.

Some of you might be tempted to say that you know what a good boss is and what he/she would look like.  I'm very, very skeptical of those comments.  It's like saying you know what a good marriage or a good relationship looks like.  I've been around the barn enough times to know that what a good marriage or a good relationship looks like to one person is not what it looks like to another.  Instead a good marriage or a good relationship is good for both parties.  Same with a good boss.  She's a good boss for herself and a good boss for her subordinates.

You'll find a good boss spelled out in detail with plenty of evidence backing up the conclusions, and many highly useful recommendations.

Stay tuned.   I'll be writing about this book on several occasions, teasing you with reasons to add it to your bookshelf and start putting its recommendations to work for yourself.

Good Boss, Bad Boss will be available on September 7.

Five Keys for New Managers, Personal Power and Decision Making

Recently in coaching conversations with several new managers, I found myself thinking about Harvard's David McClelland and his findings about managers.  In his now classic research he found that managers fall into three motivational groups.  His conclusions are timelessly pertinent: 

• Affiliative mangers need to be liked more than they need to get things done.  Their decisions are aimed at increasing their own popularity rather than promoting the goals of the organization. 
• Managers motivated by the need to achieve focus on setting goals and reaching them, but they put their own achievement and recognition first.  In contrast to highly affiliative managers, they aren't worried about what people think of them.
• Institutional managers are interested above all in power.  Recognizing that you get things done inside organizations only if you can influence the people around you, they focus on building power through influence, rather than through their own individual achievement.  People in this third group are the most effective and their direct reports: 
• 1. Have a greater sense of responsibility.  
  2. See organizational goals more clearly.
  3. Exhibit more team spirit.

Again and again it's clear that effective delegation may be one of the most difficult tasks for new managers.  Their reluctance to delegate assignments has roots in real fears of two kinds:

• Losing stature.  "If I assign high-profile projects to my staff, they'll get the credit.  What kind of visibility will I be left with?  Will my boss understand the value I'm adding?"
• Overburdening the staff.  "Will my staff resent me?"

Five keys for new managers!

1. You are no longer an individual contributor.
2. Your main task is the development of talented staff.
3. You are a partner with your boss--not his/her servant.
4. You have key corporate objectives to achieve--through others!
5. You are responsible for holding staff acountable.

The essence of a manager's work is that by giving away power, you increase the total sum of power.  And as a leader, you actually gain more power.  Indeed, successful management is more an art than a science.   Successful managing is so satisfying that it becomes addictive!

How One Massachusetts Town Made History

Cities make history in a lot of different ways.  Florence, Italy, was the city-state made influential by the Medici's and their gifts to the arts.  Washington and London are famous for their politics.  New York and London are famous for their financial acumen.  St. Petersburg, Russia is famous for the monuments left by Peter the Great.  Jerusalem is famous (or infamous) as the center of three great religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

Now comes the delightful suburban Boston community of Newton.  A professional ghetto filled with psychiatrists, other physicians, Harvard, MIT and BU professors, is, as the Times puts it, a "brainy and self-assured city of 83,000.

Newton, Massachusetts is the first city to elect a black president, a black governor and a black mayor.  The population is less than 3% black.  People were willing to look beyond race in making their decision, and that's a tribute to Newton and its progressive nature.  Ummmm, yeah.  The mayor's wife is a project manager in the child development program at Harvard.

New Manager Interpersonal Skills: Gaining Personal Commitment

One of the on-going tasks of new managers is gaining the kind of buy-in and commitment to projects that will result in high productivity.  It’s a common scenario for the new manager.  She focuses on project objectives, making certain they’re well understood by her team, creates a schedule, talks through the issues that she believes may create difficulty for her team, and sets them free.

She checks in with a team member the next day, only to find out that little has moved off the dime.  Why does this happen?

One reason is that new managers often ignore a simple fact:  commitment happens at an emotional level rather than at a rational level.  For assignments to gain the kind of support from individuals that results in success, managers will need to understand the commitment process.

As a hands-on consultant who does a lot more than develop plans or advise, I have to gain the personal commitment necessary to achieve agreed-upon objectives.  I’ve found that the commitment process has three distinct stages.

Understanding:  This stage is about making certain through explanation and clarification that the information has moved from my mind to the receiver’s gray matter and that she understands it.  Often, managers seem to assume that understanding or talking about something is all that’s necessary to achieve the desired results. 

Buy-in:  The second stage focuses on the beliefs of the individual.  Here, you’ll want to make certain that the individual understands the personal implications of this task, and believes it will benefit both the organization and herself.  Beliefs, in contrast to information and mere understanding, are about emotions. 

Ownership:  This is the ultimate stage, the point where the individual accepts personal responsibility for helping you achieve your objectives.  Typically, this is where the team member starts talking about timelines and asking about the processes of achievement.  In effect, the team member says that she is taking personal responsibility for implementation.  I typically close off the conversation with, “Let me double-check.  What are the next two or three steps you’re going to take?”

Managers need emotional commitment, not just the compliance of their team members.  You can’t get that without highly focused interpersonal communication. 

When a Gen-Yer Manages Gen-Yers

A recent post on Brazen Careerist discussed one of the first issues every new Gen-Y manager faces: how do you manage someone your own age or someone who is a friend?  

The insightful comments that followed the post reveal the kind of motivation and commitment every executive wants in his/her managers.  They demonstrate the kind of personal wrestling with new responsibility that makes for success.  Taken together, the comments read like the frustrations of a new manager from any generation.  But here's what Gen-Yers have to say:

• We're not used to having someone our own age being in charge of us.
• Gen-Yers don't take work as seriously as they should.  Too often deadlines are missed or opportunities are not taken because Gen-Yers don't have the drive they should.
• It's great that many Gen-Yers approach me as a friend.  Befriending one another makes the boss more approachable and more respected.
• Maybe a little formality between boss and report is necessary.
• How do you think Gen Y will do managing Gen X or Boomers?
• I don't believe in looking down at your employees and I also don't like to be strongly authoritative.
• It's hard to tell someone your own age he needs to be a little more responsible and proactive with his job issues.

When I analyzed these comments, I found that they are all focused on one issue: what relationship between manager and subordinate will be most productive? 

The best way to deal with these issues is through the use of a "relationship format."  Most Gen-Yers are familiar with digital formats on which you store, discover or deliver information.  Excel, for example, is a format that enables users to plug in information and come up with specific outcomes.  A relationship format builds on the same principle.    

The objective of this work-relationship format is to enable a manager and subordinate to work together most effectively.  Although a manager can initiate the process, it works better when the subordinate initiates and manages the format.  That way the conversation becomes an act of self-advocacy and tells the manager that he or she intends to make the relationship work.  The process was spelled out by Ed Schein of MIT more than twenty-five years ago.  (It's a tragedy that it has not been widely disseminated.) 

Remember that the basic task between manager and subordinate is to build a relationship and establish an emotional climate that facilitates getting things done effectively, and provides a set of agreed-upon relationships that support decision making and business.  The questions asked by Gen-Yers need to be answered by each manager.  The answers may change over the years, but the answers need to be mutually agreed upon.  The conversational format normally includes answers to the following:

• How will we set mutually shared goals?
• How will we go about solving problems?
• How will we make decisions?
• How will we ensure follow-through and completion of tasks?
• How will we keep our lines of communication open?
• How will we manage our differences?

If you don't know each other very well, you may want to begin with a conversation about the first question.  Set up a 45 minute appointment and start talking.  It might sound like this: "I've not worked with you as a manager, and I'd like for our relationship to be a success.  Can we talk about project goals?  Do you prefer to talk big picture, or are you more analytical and prefer to start out our relationship with work tactics?  I'm comfortable either way." 

Make certain that over the next few weeks you consider all of the issues. . . take notes, and follow through on the decisions.  Managers consistently love the process.  One of the most typical comments from both both subordinates and managers is, "Wow, is that useful.  It saves hours and hours and prevents all kinds of breakdowns.  I can work with this guy."  

This format, supported by protocols and scripts, is a proven step-by-step strategy for gaining a particular response--techniques that can be used to resolve recurring issues.  In the near future, I'll lay out some of the typical issues that come up and provide you with actual protocols and scripts to deal with them.

FYI:  Brain scientists have recently researched the actual impact of such techniques as protocols and scripts on brain development.  They've found that every technique or skill we develop exists as a circuit in the brain.  In the language of scientists, "experience-expectant processes" are teed up and waiting to create skill circuits.  A "skill has to be formed and optimized," but circuits are available and waiting to lock onto those skills that are in the development stage.  Technique development, the practicing and repeating of a skill initiates an expertise circuit.  The effect is further development of your brainpower and your work expertise.

 

CAN YOU FLY BELOW THE RADAR AND STILL BE SUCCESSFUL?

General James Jones, Obama's national security advisor, seems to think so.  But will this approach work for your career? 

In an interview with the New York Times, Jones presents his case, arguing that low profile does not necessarily mean low impact. 

“You can be a leader that takes charge of every meeting and takes charge of every issue and rides it to its conclusion and plays a very, very dominant role,” he said. “For me, that has the effect of muting voices that should be heard.”

There's no question that the best creative decision making comes from a team of experts.  Contrary to conventional wisdom, innovation is not necessarily a personal gift.  It's a contact sport, and so Jones' use of his team is spot-on. 

What's not clear from the interview is the backstory.  However, I'm quite certain that you don't get to be a four-star Marine general without knowing how to work the system, make significant contributions to the Corps, get buy-in to your ideas and become an expert at managing up.  The Marines are just as political as the White House or any American corporation, but they believe in team-building and--almost uniquely--practice it.  Richard Holbrooke, now working with Mrs. Clinton at the State Department, confirmed my suspicions about Jones' team-building and said that Jones had produced "a sophisticated, multilayer decision structure at the National Security Council that did not exist before."  

I assume Holbrooke means Jones has an extensive network of smart colleagues, regularly interacts with them, creates and makes the necessary policy adaptations to gain his team's long-term support.  As a result of his "teeing up" activities, you can be certain he's got an impeccable knowledge of all the issues, able to assess both the competency and policy insights of his team members to determine their real value.  The reports on Jones’ style indicate that he’s not afraid to delegate, and does an exceptional job of it.  With that base of support, speaking up is not as necessary, especially with a president as highly deliberative as Obama who likes to ask the questions. 

Well, can you fly below the radar and still be successful?

I doubt it.

Jones comes to his position with a great reputation already in place.  He has had long and obviously successful experience with teams, making it possible for him to bring ideas that are already vetted to his president.  

Contrast that rich background to your own and to corporate America.  In the early years of your business career you’ll be devoting the majority of time to your basic business expertise, finance, marketing, technology or whatever.  At the same time you’ll be figuring out your role, how to work with different and sometimes difficult people more effectively, building a network of intelligent colleagues and developing the street smarts to manage the whole system.

On top of all that you’ll need to develop an image as an able and competent thinker and strategist.  Of course, to build that reputaiton you’ll need to demonstrate that you deliver well and meet job expectations.  But image is also tied to your ability to make important contributions to the thinking and deliberating of managers and execs, and that can only be demonstrated by speaking up.  For millennia we’ve known that your image is the strongest persuasive tool you have.  The enduring value of this information is that we know that our image is created through communication with important managers and their teams.  The  content or substance of your informal/formal messages, the justifications you provide for your recommendations and the values you espouse all affect your image or reputation.  Whenever you find yourself in a new setting, you will have to re-create and re-mold this image.  It will be built on your “upward voice,” and you can’t do that below the radar.  Especially in the early years of your career, it’s a fact that in American corporations you’re going to have to speak up, gain a hearing and have impact if you want to be successful.

That’s a lotta stuff for the first few years of your career.

But image management has shown itself to be a continual task in the global economy.  I’ve been surprised at how often executives as high as EVP in major corporations have asked for my coaching in this matter.  Curiously, all the eight or ten execs that were specific in their requests for help in image management wanted to be seen by their managers as a “strategic” executive.  Lack of that reputation was holding back their future and they understood the importance of their upward voice.

So, can you succeed in business below the radar screen?

In the first four to six years of your career?  Absolutely not.  In the rest of your career?  Maybe.  General Jones is a very unusual animal and the success of his model has not yet been proven.  He will not be a useful model for 99% of us business professionals.

So, what has been your experience with this issue?  And how have you resolved it?

 

NEW MANAGER SKILLS: HANDLING TOXIC EMOTIONS

Toxic emotions in the work setting are an occasional occurrence and an occupational hazard.  You're fortunate as a new manager if you have a built-in "handler," an employee who knows how to defuse the anger, fear, resentment, jealousy, shame or guilt that inevitably surface among the workforce. 

Since the possibilities for a built-in handler are slim, you might as well get used to emotionality.  It happens.   When someone goes off, there's no reason to be surprised or all tense about it.  We humans are emotional animals and some of us handle emotions poorly.  In spite of the fact that most people get nervous as hell around emotions, there's nothing wrong with sitting and observing unless you sight blood.  Then you can take action.  (Sometimes the rush to psychology and patient cure is nonsense.)

Emotions are actually announcements.  They let you know that something important or valuable is going on.  Make certain you've got some clarity before you hurry to intervene.  In a job setting most people will eventually work out their s - - t.   Or, as one my exec clients once said to two of his directors, "You guys resolve your conflicts or you're both gone."  It worked.

FYI:  Employees think their job's on the line with an outburst, and they'll usually feel guilty or ashamed and may even come asking for forgiveness.  Don't kid yourself.  Some managers are shamans--witch doctors.  Get into that role.  After you go through the priestly rite of forgiveness, you need to find out what's going on.  Then you can ask what that person is going to do about his stuff in the future.  It's all really no big deal, in spite of what the lawyers say.  (This is not quite tongue in cheek, but almost.)

However, when toxic emotions continue long term, they can result in poor performance and lowered morale. The success of many projects depends on the effectiveness of handlers who can assuage the pain from toxic emotions and channel it for the good.  Indeed, recent research suggests that all decisions are emotionally based.  Some emotions like excitement, enthusiasm and inspiration are essential to leadership success.  The fact of the matter is that a great deal of leadership is about emotion management. 

So how do you handle toxic emotion in the workplace?

First, you need to know how to identify toxic emotions.  The emotional condition is an upset state, characterized by shock, diffusion and transference.  Shock is the most extreme form of emotional upset usually accompanied by the loss of an employee's critical skills.  Shock can be accompanied by diffusion, which is excessive physical movement, movement outside the norms of a person's usual physicality.  Transference becomes obvious when an employee begins to relate differently to his/her colleagues.  In short, when you see a person acting differently than usual, perhaps hand shaking, redfaced, perspiring, talking a blue streak or clamming up, you may well have toxic emotions on your hands.  After you've worked with a person a month or so, you can tell when their speech, language and behavior are beyond their norm.  Most organizational cultures don't permit yelling or other extreme emotions, which may well intensify the visible tension in an employee.

Toxic emotions present a number of problems for the new manager.  They make a person less predictable, take time to build up, and are slow to decay.  And most of us don't cool down very fast.  Emotion often feeds upon itself, creating a spiral effect.  When professionals are agitated, and thus less able to think clearly, you'll find that they are nearly compelled to make critical decisions.  People respond to emotion with emotion, resulting in an ongoing spiral, rather than resolution.  Finally, emotions are very self-centered, making the decision process very suspect.

What are the best ways to deal with toxic emotions? 

If your bell is ringing and you can sense the toxic emotions rising in yourself, take yourself out of the decision process.  My personal rule is that two situations require me to remove myself from decisionmaking:  fatigue and emotionality.  I've programmed myself to remember Voltaire's rule:  I've got so much to do, I need to go to bed.  Aside from lack of sleep, or burning the candle at both ends, toxic emotionality will quickly fatigue me. 

Second, don't spend much time trying to understand or resolve another person's upset.  Lower your voice, look him/her in the eye, perhaps touch them on the arm (depending on the culture), and say something to the effect of, "sounds like this is personally frustrating.  We can talk about it at another time."  If you're in a team meeting, a bit of good humor or levity will go a long way toward relaxing the individual and the team.

Some conversational styles accelerate toxicity. Judgmentalism and blaming rarely result in positive emotionality.  Skilled managers know how to delete judgmental statements from their conversation in order to keep people on an even keel. 

Positive feelings, like exhilaration and enthusiasm, are another animal.  They enhance performance and are purposefully generated by the new manager.