Overview

Who hasn’t felt, at least at one time, overlooked, overwhelmed, or overly self-critical at work? The Emotional Life of Organisations explores the often-overlooked emotional fabric that shapes organisational life. Organisations grow, compete, and change based on the emotions that drive people's choices, politics, and goals. Emotions can either energise or paralyse people. Most business books ignore this fundamental driver of organisational behaviour and almost exclusively focus on the logical and ‘cognitive’ aspects of work. Using an easy-to-read and engaging style, this book will help people and businesses understand the important role emotions play in the workplace by using research, stories, useful tips, and writing assignments to explain: • Motivation: The emotions that motivate employees and how leaders can channel them. • Anxiety: Navigating workplace uncertainty, fear, and self-doubt. • Criticism: Managing the emotional impact of giving and receiving feedback. • Envy: Understanding and addressing envy in the workplace. • Change: Helping teams through the emotional rollercoaster of transformation. • Well-being: Recognising and managing burnout, addiction, depression, and the effects of emotional strain. • The emotional impact of remote working. The knowledge gained through reading this book is powerful in helping leaders, managers, and employees to improve well-being, motivation, and performance at work.

Full Product Details

9781032856384

Table of Contents

Reviews

“Feelings and emotions are not topics commonly associated with corporate strategy, but Michael masterfully details how central they are to the workplace. He explores how emotions drive decisions and negotiations, and how they shape corporate culture. The book not only presents real-world examples of how emotions have impacted various organisations, but also draws on psychological insights from Freud to Kahneman to highlight the root causes of historical decision-making mishaps – while offering a roadmap to learn from them. From the role of emotions in negotiation and interpreting feedback, to the value of emotional granularity in workplace relationships, the book offers invaluable insight into how emotions influence so many aspects of an organisation – as well as a practical roadmap for applying those insights. Its relevance to the modern workplace cannot be overstated.” Philip Daniels, Founding Partner & Chief Investment Officer, Balbec Capital LP ""Organisational failures rarely spring from faulty code or dusty strategy. They germinate in the emotional currents no dashboard tracks and quietly corrode resilience and create opportunities for attacks from the inside. In The Emotional Life of Organisations, Dr Mike Drayton follows incidents from factory floors to intelligence centres, showing how a single bruised ego can rupture safeguards and undermine operations faster than any hostile actor. His accessible psychology-based approach lays out how respect levels, stress and ambiguity skew hormones until judgement buckles and teams either lock tight or shear apart at the moment unity is required. Conversely, purposeful joy and psychological safety emerge as the countervailing forces, converting emotional capital into renewable energy that fuels problem-solving and forward drive. Reading these pages made immediate sense of nights I have spent in situation rooms, when fatigue thinned tempers and critical decisions turned on whether someone felt heard or respected. Dr Drayton gives language and structure to those half-seen dynamics, explaining why a team can swing from sharp coherence to catastrophic drift in minutes and, just as quickly, recover with a well-timed dose of levity. Each chapter closes with reflection prompts that turn insight into practice. By the final chapter, operators want to read cortisol spikes as readily as network logs, and boards are reminded that culture now sits beside cyber and physical assets as infrastructure to defend. In high-pressure environments, that insight is priceless.” Sebastian Bassett-James, UK Cabinet Office

“Feelings and emotions are not topics commonly associated with corporate strategy, but Michael masterfully details how central they are to the workplace. He explores how emotions drive decisions and negotiations, and how they shape corporate culture. The book not only presents real-world examples of how emotions have impacted various organisations, but also draws on psychological insights from Freud to Kahneman to highlight the root causes of historical decision-making mishaps—while offering a roadmap to learn from them. From the role of emotions in negotiation and interpreting feedback, to the value of emotional granularity in workplace relationships, the book offers invaluable insight into how emotions influence so many aspects of an organisation—as well as a practical roadmap for applying those insights. Its relevance to the modern workplace cannot be overstated.” Philip Daniels, Founding Partner & Chief Investment Officer, Balbec Capital LP ""Organisational failures rarely spring from faulty code or dusty strategy. They germinate in the emotional currents no dashboard tracks and quietly corrode resilience and create opportunities for attacks from the inside. In The Emotional Life of Organisations, Dr Mike Drayton follows incidents from factory floors to intelligence centres, showing how a single bruised ego can rupture safeguards and undermine operations faster than any hostile actor. His accessible psychology-based approach lays out how respect levels, stress and ambiguity skew hormones until judgement buckles and teams either lock tight or shear apart at the moment unity is required. Conversely, purposeful joy and psychological safety emerge as the countervailing force, converting emotional capital into renewable energy that fuels problem-solving and forward drive. Reading these pages made immediate sense of nights I have spent in situation rooms, when fatigue thinned tempers and critical decisions turned on whether someone felt heard or respected. Dr Drayton gives language and structure to those half-seen dynamics, explaining why a team can swing from sharp coherence to catastrophic drift in minutes and, just as quickly, recover with a well-timed dose of levity. Each chapter closes with reflection prompts that turn insight into practice. By the final chapter, operators want to read cortisol spikes as readily as network logs, and boards are reminded that culture now sits beside cyber and physical assets as infrastructure to defend. In high-pressure environments, that insight is priceless.” Sebastian Bassett-James, UK Cabinet Office

“Feelings and emotions are not topics commonly associated with corporate strategy, but Michael masterfully details how central they are to the workplace. He explores how emotions drive decisions and negotiations, and how they shape corporate culture. The book not only presents real-world examples of how emotions have impacted various organisations, but also draws on psychological insights from Freud to Kahneman to highlight the root causes of historical decision-making mishaps – while offering a roadmap to learn from them. From the role of emotions in negotiation and interpreting feedback, to the value of emotional granularity in workplace relationships, the book offers invaluable insight into how emotions influence so many aspects of an organisation – as well as a practical roadmap for applying those insights. Its relevance to the modern workplace cannot be overstated.” Philip Daniels, Founding Partner & Chief Investment Officer, Balbec Capital LP ""Organisational failures grow in the emotional undercurrents that no dashboard tracks – quietly corroding resilience and opening the door to internal threats. In The Emotional Life of Organisations, Dr Mike Drayton draws on real-world incidents, from factory floors to intelligence centres, to show how a single bruised ego can unravel safeguards faster than any hostile actor. His psychology-based approach reveals how stress, ambiguity and lack of respect distort hormones, skew judgement, and fracture teams just when unity is most needed. Yet, the antidote is clear: psychological safety and purposeful joy convert emotional energy into fuel for resilience, creativity, and drive. This book resonated deeply with my own experience in situation rooms, where decisions often turned on whether someone felt heard or respected. Dr Drayton offers language for these hidden dynamics – explaining how teams snap from coherence to chaos and back with a joke or gesture. Each chapter ends with practical reflection prompts. By the final page, you’ll see culture as core infrastructure – vital to protect."" Sebastian Bassett-James, UK Cabinet Office

Author Information

Michael Drayton is a Clinical Psychologist, Executive Coach, and Organisational Consultant. He is affiliated with Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, where he coaches on the Executive MBA and a range of senior leadership programmes. His work integrates clinical psychology, systems psychodynamics, and behavioural science to explore the emotional undercurrents of organisational life. He is the author of The Saboteur at Work and Leading Hybrid Organisations, and has over 20 years’ experience consulting to leaders and organisations across the public and private sectors.

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