Emotional Expression Misalignment

After last month's open masterclass based on the book No Hard Feelings, one of my clients asked if I could host the same workshop for their organization internally.

Since I often don't do the same thing twice, I shifted the original design, to include some of the work of Erin Meyer in her book Culture Map to include this matrix of emotional expression and relationship to confrontation.

Before the participants created this shared whiteboard, I first invited them to mark the three dots on their own, so that they wouldn't be swayed by the anchoring bias.

Then we moved to the Miro.

🔴 The red dots represent how they rated themselves (probably not 100% accurate since we all have blind spots)

🟢 The green dots represent how they rate their team.

🔵 The blue dots represent how they rate the company globally.

What do you notice?

Where are most of the blue dots?

What must that be like if you are a red dot in the upper left, and working at an organization with a global culture the exact opposite?

We talked about a number of implications:

• The "champagne effect" (probably not a real term), which is when you get shaken, but try to keep it bottled up, until you get one last shake and your cork pops, spraying everyone in it's path. (This has happened to me.)
• Feeling like you have to chameleon yourself to match the culture, which means you're not fully self-expressed.
• Code-switching, or language-switching (perhaps more positive then chameleoning), where you purposely adapt to the situation at hand, like when you go to a new country and have to switch to a new language.
• Creating space for emotional expression that is the "right channel" even if at a lowered volume.
• Designing your day to support your emotional expression -- bookending draining meetings, with more joyful interactions, as one example.

Where would you put yourself on this matrix?
And your team?
And your organization?

What are the impacts on you?
What can you influence and change?

Originally posted on LinkedIn with comments.

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