OBAT WORK68 Part 1 Understanding the Workplace
ETHICAL DILEMMAEXERCISE
Managing Emotions at Work
Our understanding of emotions at work has increased rap-
idly in the past decade. We are now at the point that we
are capable (or close to it) of managing the emotions of
employees. For instance, companies that want to create
open and friendly workplaces are using the selection
process to “select out” job applicants who are not outgo-
ing and enthusiastic, and are providing training to teach
employees how to smile and appear cheerful. Some organ-
izations are going further in trying to create “emotionally
humanistic” work environments not only by shaping the
emotions that employees evoke in their daily contacts with
customers but also by selecting employee applicants with
high emotional intelligence; controlling the emotional
atmosphere of teams and work groups; and using similar
emotion-management practices.
Groucho Marx once joked that “the secret of success in
show business is honesty and sincerity. Once you learn how
to fake that, you’ve got it made.” In many service organi-
zations today, Groucho’s remark is being applied. For
instance, telephone-sales staff in a number of insurance
companies are trained to evoke positive feelings from cus-
tomers—to make it easy for them to say “yes.” Employees
are taught to avoid words with negative connotations andreplace them with upbeat and confidence-building words
such as “certainly,” “rest assured,” “immediate,” and
“great.” Moreover, employees are taught to convey these
“scripts” in a way that seems natural and spontaneous. To
ensure that these “authentic” positive feelings are consis-
tently evoked, the phone calls of these salespeople are
often monitored.
Organizations such as McDonald’s, Disney, and
Starbucks select and program employees to be upbeat and
friendly. They allow employees no choices. Moreover, these
organizations export their emotional expectations to wher-
ever they locate in the world. When the hamburgers or
lattes come to town, the typical grimace of the Moscovite
or shyness of the Finnish employee is subject to a similar
genre of smile-training.
Is asking people to feign specific job-related emotions
unethical if it conflicts with their basic personalities? Is
exporting standardized emotional “rule books” to other
cultures unethical? What do you think?Source:This dilemma is based on S. Fineman, “Managing Emotions at
Work: Some Political Reflections” (paper presented at a symposium at
the Academy of Management Conference, Washington, DC, August
2001).CASE INCIDENT
The Rise and Fall of Dennis Kozlowski
The Dennis Kozlowski story could be titled “The Good, the
Bad, and the Ugly.” The good: As CEO of Tyco International,
Kozlowski oversaw the growth of a corporate giant. At its
peak, Tyco was gobbling up 200 companies a year. Under
his leadership, the value of Tyco increased 70-fold. In 2001,
Kozlowski proclaimed his desire to be remembered as the
world’s greatest business executive.
The bad: Things turned sour when Kozlowski and his
former chief financial officer were accused of running a
criminal enterprise within Tyco. The two were charged with
stealing $170 million (US) directly from the company and
pocketing an additional $430 million through manipulated
sales of stock, and found guilty in June 2005.The ugly: Kozlowski’s actions almost destroyed the com-
pany where he worked for 27 years. In 2002 alone, the value
of the company’s stock dropped $90 billion!
To understand Kozlowski’s behaviour, we should look at
the events that shaped his personality. He spent his early
years in humble circumstances. He grew up in the 1950s
and 1960s in Newark, New Jersey. He said he was the son of
a Newark cop turned police detective. Only after he was
indicted did it come out that his father was never a police
officer in Newark or anywhere else. However, his mother
did work for the Newark Police Department as a school cross-
ing guard. His father, in actuality, was a wheeler-dealer who
was a practised deceiver and an effective persuader. He had