Many of us have witnessed -- sometimes in helpless horror -- how a simple problem can spin into a corporate crisis as people take sides, outside professionals are brought in, and company reputations suffer...
Everything was exposed and raw as if a common energy had stripped away the veneer of civilized behaviors...People took sides, hid, ran, quit, overworked, underworked, ate too much, drank more, complained more, went silent, changed jobs, exited. They reacted as if all their system had been tossed into the air and was never going to land again.
This wasn't the scene of a criminal act, earthquake, or terrorist attack. Rather, it was the disruptive and costly outcome of months of escalating workplace tension in the wake of changed management policies. Like a tornado, two violent co-workers had left 600 others in emotional rubble.
That company could have been prepared with corporate policies and procedures to defuse such emotionally charged situations - long before alarming human and financial costs hit its bottom line. Managers could have learned to recognize and stop "emotional spinning" from gathering destructive force. The old paradigm of separating humans from humanity during work hours is not only antiquated thinking, it's high risk corporate behavior!
"Dr. Vali" calls her ground-breaking solution Emotional Continuity Management. She provides tools you can use right now to avoid costs in decreased productivity, injured goodwill, employee turnover, plummeting employee engagement, and severed business relationships.
In this practical book, Dr. Vali gives you:
Real-life case studies that show you how to calculate bottom line, dollars and cents costs of disruptive employees and managers and emotionally charged incidents.
Proven techniques to help you identify variations in behavior that are early warning signs of trouble. She compares them to "tornado warnings" and provides a 5-point scale.
An understanding of the psychology driving "emotional terrorists," who stage themselves as victims and gather an army of acolytes to assist in their campaigns of emotional disruption, and a game-plan for managing such attacks before, during and after an event.
Practical tools for managing workplace emotions before, during and after an emergency, based on the author's extensive on-the-ground experience in counseling first responders and victims during major national and international disasters.
Policies and procedures for working with military veterans returning to the workplace - and the need to deal with PTSD.
Techniques for containing and mitigating the damage created by workplace bullies - and when to decide if an "amputation" is required or a less-extreme strategy is needed.
Sample policies and plans, and detailed instructions for company-wide training programs, up and down the organization.
"Demonstrates that Emotional Continuity Management is not a "soft" issue and makes a compelling case that it relates directly to cost and increased risk - which should definitely take human emotions much higher up the Board agenda. ECM definitely ranks high as a new topic for Business Continuity practitioners to master."
--Lyndon Bird, FBCI, Technical Director, Business Continuity Institute
"Provides concepts, theories, and real life examples that put much of the behavior I've seen as a corporate leader into context. Compels us to accept that people have emotions, and to consider that those emotions -- when out of control and unmanaged - have real, measureable impacts on an organization."
--Martin Greenwood, Former Executive Director, Verizon
"You'll look with new eyes at the enormous role played by human emotions in today's business. I endorse this new book as a guide for the 21st century global workforce."
--James J.Cappola, MD, Ph.D., Medical Director, Medical Affairs, Harvard Clinical Research Institute
Vali Hawkins Mitchell, Ph.D., LMHC holds a Doctorate in Health Education and Masters degree in Applied Psychology. As a Certified Traumatologist, her critical insights on the real human factors of disaster and emergency planning have been shaped by her experiences with major events such as the World Trade Center, Hurricane Katrina, Samoan earthquakes, Indonesian tsunami, and Pacific Northwest Wildfires. She is considered a leading authority in the growing field of Emotional Continuity Management and a highly regarded public speaker and trainer, author, consultant, and educator.
