Connect First

August 26, 2019
Katzman, a clinical psychologist and corporate consultant, explains how to change the way emotions are viewed in the workplace in this helpful primer. Through Katzman’s research, she’s discovered a common theme among employees: namely, the desire for a greater sense of respect, inclusion, and meaning at work. Too often, she finds, management styles and company cultures give rise to hard feelings, misinterpreted motives, and bruised egos, resulting in the loss of skilled and experienced employees and the proliferation of avoidable stress. To combat this problem, Katzman puts forth 52 suggestions, most quick and inexpensive to implement, which are applicable for every level of an organization. Her proposals center on common human values and generating trust, and she offers a step-by-step guide to basic—yet, she asserts, often noticeably absent—ways of eliciting a sense of shared purpose. These include ordinary courtesies, such as saying “please” and “thank you”; using (and, thus, remembering) people’s names; and carefully listening to others, as well as, more broadly, connecting people’s jobs to a larger mission. For those looking to make a positive difference at work, Katzman offers an easy-to-use, encouraging guide that employees at all levels can adopt to instigate change.