Many people will be experiencing painful emotions in the times to come. For some this will manifest as fear and guilt; for others, shame at not being able to meet performance expectations. Asking these people to “make an effort” or “smile a little” has a name in psychology: surface acting. Very damaging, this request to act “as if” everything was going well creates emotional dissonance and weakens commitment, well-being

At the end of a webinar a manager told me: “Some of my employees feel guilty for not being able to manage everything at once: teleworking, their children, household tasks… I would like to help them, but I don’t know how”. Guilt is an emotion that is as unpleasant as it is useful: it appears when we feel we have caused harm and urges us to remedy it. However,

We haven’t all experienced lockdown in the same way. Some have felt indispensable, others useless. And others have lacked recognition because teleworking has rendered their contribution invisible. These differences naturally give rise to tensions like mutual stereotyping, disintegration of teams and declining performance. How can these be avoided? Psychology’s solution is the “superordinate goal”, i.e. a goal that can only be achieved through the active participation of each member

Have you ever heard of the “bystander effect”? In psychology it is the phenomenon that the more people there are in a place, the less likely any one individual is to help someone in trouble. It is basically due to a dilution of responsibility (there are lots of people; someone else is bound to help on my behalf). When coming out of lockdown, many employees will experience bouts of