There is a persistent idea in business that feelings are something to manage around the edges… if at all. We can acknowledge them, make space for them, perhaps even ask people how they’re doing. But eventually we need to get back to the serious stuff: the facts, the strategy, the numbers, the work.
In fact, my entire career has been built around the idea that culture is not about feelings. Feelings are not facts. The number one reason people cite for choosing me as their keynote speaker is because I am data driven and avoid the touchy-feely stuff when it comes to business results.
But what happens when feelings are the thing preventing us from getting the results?
Enter story about The Body Shop. Anita Roddick had built a global brand around being a business that was “good.” Then a journalist published an investigation challenging some of the company’s ethical claims and accusing The Body Shop, in effect, of failing to live up to the story it had told about itself. Millions of dollars in revenue were perceived to be at risk. Franchisees who had invested their savings and livelihoods in the company feared for the survival of their businesses. People who had joined The Body Shop precisely because they believed they were part of something good suddenly felt as though they were being labeled the bad guys.
Naturally, everyone wanted to argue about the facts. How should they defend themselves? This is how most organizations respond when they’re under attack, and for good reason. Facts matter. If allegations are made, you should investigate them.
But Josh Mailman, one of the founders of the Social Venture Network, suggested that the Body Shop employees do something that must have sounded almost absurd under the circumstances: stop talking about the facts and start talking about feelings.
Roughly 200 people gathered in a Quaker-style meeting to talk about feelings, not facts. Someone would speak, and then there would be silence. Another person would speak, followed by silence again. Ram Dass, a stakeholder in the company, led the meeting.
People talked about fear. They talked about the conflict that had emerged inside a community that had felt like a family. Franchisees talked about their livelihoods. People talked about the responsibility that comes with building a business around moral claims, and the pain of suddenly having those claims turned against them. And everyone listened.
It’s tempting to hear this story and think: fine, but what does any of this have to do with business performance?
Feelings matter to the bottom line when they begin determining what people are capable of hearing, deciding or doing.
Think about how often this happens inside companies. A leadership team knows a strategy isn’t working, but nobody wants to disappoint the CEO who championed it. Employees hear the word “restructuring” and become so afraid for their jobs that they can barely absorb the rest of the message. Two executives begin with a legitimate disagreement over strategy and end up fighting over whether they respect each other.
We call these strategy problems, communication problems, performance problems and reputation problems. But they’re also emotional problems.
And this is also where culture and polarization intersect. We tend to think polarization means people strongly disagree. But disagreement alone isn’t particularly dangerous. Healthy organizations need disagreement. Polarization happens when the disagreement becomes attached to identity.
It is no longer simply, I think you’re wrong. It becomes, Your being wrong tells me something about who you are. Once that happens, facts start behaving differently. Evidence that contradicts my position doesn’t just challenge my argument; it threatens my identity, my status, my belonging, perhaps even my livelihood. So I defend harder. We both become more certain. Eventually, we are surrounded by information and increasingly incapable of learning from any of it.
The Body Shop was caught in exactly this trap. The question underneath the controversy wasn’t merely whether particular claims were accurate. It had become a question of identity: Are we the good guys or the bad guys?
That’s an almost impossible question for an organization to investigate honestly while everyone in it is busy defending the answer.
The purpose of the Quaker meeting was to allow people to talk about fear, anger, betrayal, responsibility and loss without immediately turning those feelings into arguments. They created a little distance between identity and evidence. People could hear one another without every statement requiring a response.
The outcome of the meeting was a decision to bring in independent expertise, including a Stanford business ethics professor, to examine the company’s practices. The goal was to find every place where the company had gotten something wrong and fix it. They were not seeking answers on if they were good or bad. Good and bad were identities. Error was information they could actually act upon.
There is something profound in that declaration, particularly for leaders trying to navigate a polarized culture. It removes identity from the equation without removing accountability. It made confronting the error easier because an error no longer has to constitute a verdict on who we are. That is a very different way of thinking about accountability. If I have to prove I’m a good leader, every mistake is evidence against me. If I am committed to becoming a better leader, a mistake is information about what I should do next.
The same is true of organizations.
Perhaps this is why some attempts to address polarization fail. We keep trying to get people to agree on who is right when what we really need is a way for people who disagree to move.
And that is how we define leadership: the creation of movement. Sometimes that requires data and sometimes that requires asking “What does this feel like for you?”
So when do feelings matter to the bottom line? When they interfere with our ability to think and act in ways that get results. At that point, dealing with them isn’t soft. It’s the work.
Elsewhere In Culture
Culture Work or Gossip?
I’ve worked hard to stop gossiping in my personal life, but I’ve found the line much harder to navigate at work. In this episode, I share the test I use to tell the difference between genuine culture work and gossip, plus what I’ve learned from Culture Partners CEO Joe Terry’s approach to complaints: bring the people involved directly into the conversation. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ceo-daily-brief-with-dr-jessica-kriegel/id1725350421?i=1000781928685 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4ZMl4SAxZm5vEPDlrlwbA4?si=5b63486d37134d50
Are You Capable of More? (with Chris Sund)
Chris Sund joins me to unpack his research on human potential, including why 92% of people believe they’re capable of more than what they’re currently doing. We dig into the self-doubt, fear of failure, busyness, and comfort that can hold us back, plus what it actually takes to move through those barriers and take ownership of reaching our potential. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ceo-daily-brief-with-dr-jessica-kriegel/id1725350421?i=1000782669098 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/297kyPDsJSK2hNdAarAKf7?si=21664e93f84340ee
How to SHIFT Your Mindset
Before you can change culture, you may need to change the way you’re thinking. In this episode, I break down the SHIFT Model from Surrender to Lead, our five-step framework for helping leaders stop fighting reality, focus on what they can control, move beyond fear, and ultimately take the next right action. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ceo-daily-brief-with-dr-jessica-kriegel/id1725350421?i=1000782926005 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3DF56qpIE8CiNtUxoEpLf0?si=5ee0ce62786044b4
And coming later this week…
How to Break Down Silos
Departmental silos often start with teams focusing on what they need from each other. In this episode, I share a simple exercise for flipping that dynamic by asking what experiences another team needs from you to see you as a great partner. I also share how one sales and marketing organization used this approach to move beyond blame, build trust, and find practical solutions to work better together.
Are You Asking the Right Questions? (with John Frehse)
John Frehse joins me to talk about the workforce data hiding in plain sight and why leaders often miss what it’s actually telling them. We dig into overtime, retention, people analytics, and how AI can help leaders go beyond simply looking at the data to start asking better questions about the beliefs and behaviors driving their results.