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PLENARY Unconventional: Crying at Work Q Tipster: Present This Q Research: Live + Online Q House Directors
UNCONVENTIONAL PromotingTears W
HEN IT COMES TO WORK, IT’S BEST to leave your feelings at home. Right? Not exactly, according to new
research by Anne Kreamer, a former corporate executive and author of the new book It’s Al- ways Personal: Emotion in the New Workplace. In her examination of the role of emotion
at the office, Kreamer notes how the recently acquired ability to map our neural circuitry has changed our understanding of brain function. Rather than impeding rationality, emotions, it turns out, are an essential part of the executive skill set, including decision-making. Nowhere does Kreamer’s book run more
counter to popular perception than in her reporting of who is crying at work, why, and how it affects others peoples’ perceptions. It’s no shock to learn that women cry at work much more often than men. Over a 12-month period, 41 percent of women had cried at work, com- pared with 9 percent of men. What is more surprising is how widespread
the tears are. Despite the perception that someone who cries at work can’t be success-
ful, people at all levels of management reported they had cried at the office. And it wasn’t related to how happy they were with their jobs. Although crying at work is generally perceived
as not just embarrassing but career-limiting — If You Have to Cry, Go Outside is the title of one new book aimed at women —Kreamer’s research found that most workers don’t consider workplace emotion to be a bad thing. Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed said that seeing a col- league get emotional made them seem more hu- man. And fully 88 percent (93 percent of women and 83 percent of men) think that being sensitive to others’ emotions at work is a positive trait. The findings “really flew in the face of the
prevalent notion that showing a lot of emotion at work is a bad thing,” Kreamer writes. “It also underscored for me that the moment is ripe to seriously reevaluate how we can use emotion more effectively on the job.” n
— Barbara Palmer
FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.annekreamer.com/its-always-personal
TIPSTER
3 Ways to Wow Your Audience
1. Deck out your
presentation deck with audio, video, and pictures.
2. Make timely
tweaks to keep things fresh.
3. Tell a few good
stories to make your slides human.
— From a Fast Company blog post (http://bit .ly/lsLPgO) by Amber MacArthur, vice presi- dent and co-founder of MGImedia
RESEARCH TheNewMath = Face-to-Face + Virtual
climbed, there’s been a growing sense that they not only don’t diminish face-to-face meetings, but actually complement them. New research released by PCMA, UMB Studios, and the Virtual Edge Institute (VEI) — based on a survey of marketing and event professionals — supports that view with hard data.
A 20
S THE NUMBER OF digital and hybrid events has
Instead of pitting digital
and face-to-face events against one another, “the event and meeting indus- try would be best served to look at the combined effect of wrapping a digital event strategy around physical events and meet- ings,” VEI Executive Direc- tor Michael Doyle writes in the report, “Business Motivations and Social Be- haviors for In-Person and Online Events,” “thereby increasing the overall
pcma convene September 2011
value of the sum of its parts.” Below are some key
findings from the report: u 78% of all respondents Say it is “important” or “very important” to be able to view online content during an event.
u 80% of all respondents Are “comfortable” or “extremely comfortable” connecting with strangers in both virtual and face-to-face settings.
u 33% of virtual attendees u 78% of face-to-face attendees Have shared contact informa- tion with other attendees.
u 41% of virtual attendees u 51% of face-to-face attendees Have texted or tweeted to share information.
FOR MORE INFORMA- TION: www.virtualedge institute.com/business- motivations-report