Why do emotions matter at work?
Facing the ecological emergency, internal transformations or growing pains, teams go through a real emotional roller coaster: anxiety, denial, resistance, impatience. In most meetings, one question dominates: “How is the project going?” The other question, “How are you?”, is asked far less often. Emotions left unspoken stay at work and slow action down; understanding them creates movement.
Emotions are one of the human factors that shape our behaviors: the human factor fresk explores the others, from cognitive biases to habits and social norms, and the imaginaries fresk works on how we see nature.
A belief inherited from an industrial view of work still sets emotions against rational decisions. The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio showed, in Descartes’ Error, that emotion is the biological compass of action: it gives us the capacity to decide, to commit and to act effectively. In his words, “we must learn to nourish the good emotions that allow humans to prosper.”
When the expression of emotions is held back, a gap opens between what people feel and how they behave. Unspoken anger turns into cynicism, irritability or passive opposition. Fear and sadness show up as constant over-adaptation, avoidance of sensitive topics and a loss of initiative. Joy, on the other hand, drives action over time. Over the long run, these mechanisms weaken relationships, slow decisions and weigh on the collective dynamic.
The manager’s role is changing: from task controller to facilitator of human dynamics. When people can feel, name and share their emotions, they flourish, and performance follows. This means knowing how to:
1. Create spaces of psychological safety to welcome what the team feels.
2. Develop emotional intelligence to turn tensions into drivers of movement.
3. Integrate emotional signals into decision-making.
The order matters: the flourishing of people comes first, and smooth relationships, lasting commitment and the organization’s performance follow from it.
What are eco-emotions?
Eco-emotions are what we feel when facing ecological issues, environmental or social. Anger often comes with a sense of injustice and the perception that citizens, businesses or politicians act too little, as the philosopher Sophie Galabru explores. Environmental awareness also brings pleasant emotions: Panu Pihkala explains that motivation and determination grow from the desire to do something useful, and that pleasure, joy and pride arise when people take action. Jeroen Kraaijenbrink describes the stages of the roller coaster we all ride when we change our behavior: from denial and anxiety to acceptance, hope, and finally energy and enthusiasm.
Where do these emotions come from? Depending on how we see nature, we perceive either a crisis of resources or a crisis of relationships. A crisis of resources speaks of what we will lose: it feeds anxiety, guilt and renunciation. A crisis of relationships speaks of what we will all gain by weaving mutually beneficial ties: it feeds momentum, pride and joy. This is why the emotions fresk follows on from the imaginaries fresk: changing our relationship with nature changes what we feel, and what we feel sets us in motion.
Developing emotional intelligence: our reference experts
| Daniel Goleman | Emotional intelligence is the capacity to identify, understand, manage and use our own emotions and those of others, so that we act with full awareness of what influences us and communicate better, to move together. |
| Dacher Keltner and James Gross | The word emotion contains motion. They define emotions as “biologically based patterns of perception, experience, physiology, action and communication”, short-lived, which occur in response to specific physical and social challenges and opportunities. |
| Antonio Damasio | Emotion is the first condition of reason. Through somatic markers, it acts as a biological compass that lets us assess situations instantly, sort priorities and commit to one action over another. In a company, emotion is the alert and motivation system that makes action possible. |
| Aaron Beck | According to Beck’s cognitive triad, our emotions, thoughts and behaviors constantly interact. Developing emotional intelligence means becoming aware of the emotions, thoughts and actions at play in the present situation. |
What are the three scales of the emotions fresk?
The fresk can raise awareness among varied participants. Within a team, it develops emotional intelligence at three scales: individual, team and over time. It works best as prevention, to strengthen collective intelligence and grow an emotional culture of the team or the company.
The individual scale The inner compass Participants move from an emotion they undergo to an emotion they decode. Emotion is a biological signal that starts in the body to inform a decision, then an action. The workshop makes the emotion, thought, action loop visible: facing a transformation, fear (emotion) can lead to “I’ll never make it” (thought), which leads to avoiding the task (action). |
The team scale Psychological safety Collective emotional intelligence means a team able to share its emotions in its interactions. Hearing a colleague express a doubt eases emotional solitude and creates psychological safety: the feeling that showing vulnerability is safe. |
The project scale Energy over time A project follows a fluctuating emotional curve. Launch often brings enthusiasm, with a risk of blindness, or anxiety, with a risk of paralysis. Mid-project, the dip brings fatigue, irritability or discouragement, where the gap between what people feel and what is expected peaks. Closure brings a sense of achievement, or exhaustion. The fresk takes stock at critical phases, or as a full emotional review at the end. |
From psychological safety to flourishing.
On the human dynamics lever of our Capacity Score, an organization moves from risk management to awareness, then to psychological safety, and finally to vocation and flourishing. The emotions fresk starts by creating psychological safety. Its horizon is flourishing: the joy and pride of contributing, which Panu Pihkala sees arise when people act usefully, and which we call joy as a regenerative energy (in French). This is where the regeneration of people within organizations takes shape.
How does the emotions fresk work?
The fresk is a moment to step back from our emotional functioning, individually, as a team and over a project. After a series of short theoretical inputs, participants share their experiences and receive collective feedback. Each one then reflects on their emotions, thoughts and actions in light of a chosen professional theme and their own challenges. The workshop helps participants:
→ become aware of their emotions, thoughts and reactions in a real professional situation;
→ bring to light the emotion, thought, action loops and their effects;
→ identify the underlying needs at work;
→ step aside to widen their options and act more effectively, individually and collectively.
| 1 | Inclusion session. |
| 2 | Choose a theme, such as letting go. |
| 3 | Share a memory from professional life. |
| 4 | Step back from that memory to name the emotional states experienced. |
| 5 | Feel again the sensations of that moment. |
| 6 | Notice the thoughts linked to these emotions and sensations. |
| 7 | List the reactions they trigger, and their consequences. |
| 8 | Explore underlying needs by identifying primary needs. |
| 9 | Draw your own diagnosis (emotions, thoughts, actions), then share it if you wish and choose what to shift to act more effectively. |
The workshop is thematic: mobilizing a team around an environmental project, exploring other ways of working together, improving communication within the team, or learning to let go. It serves communication, leadership, decision-making and learning. Watch our masterclass on emotions, and read the masterclass deck on eco-emotions and learning (in French).
The winners of the Laurels of Regeneration show where the energy of a team can lead: products and services whose business model increases the capacity of life to prosper, from Jardins de Gaïa and Laines Paysannes to C’est qui le Patron ?!. The awards are supported by the Regenerative Organic Alliance, the Rodale Institute, Land to Market and, in France, the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB) and around fifty partners.
Who uses the emotions fresk?
We run the emotions fresk in companies and local authorities to cultivate emotional intelligence, and at the end of projects for a three-hour emotional review of the team (in French): the team names what it went through, from launch to closure, and what it carries into the next project. A tailor-made discovery session costs €1,500 for ten people, with rates for local authorities and associations on request. You can also train as a facilitator of the emotions fresk (in French).
Case study: elected representatives of Groupama
We ran an emotions fresk for a group of Groupama’s elected representatives, to close their support program. The theme they chose: letting go, a theme that invites everyone to slow down, listen, feel and trust. Together, we explored how emotions show up in the body, in our thoughts and in our actions, to understand how they set us in motion. Letting go means welcoming what is, to move forward with more accuracy and momentum. Talents for the Planet has also shared its feedback on the fresk.
“It’s a learning process that takes practice to become a reflex, but one session is enough for participants to grasp the full measure of emotions.” HR director |
“The emotions fresk helps a team manage its emotions better.” Participant |
“It gave me new momentum for my project with my colleagues, because we connected on another level.” Participant |
“The emotions fresk lets us regain power over our emotions and turn them into a driving force!” Participant |
“We realize how important it is to align our thoughts, emotions and actions to act in full awareness.” Participant |
The regenerative economy requires a shift in mental models, in each person and in the team. Our three fresks and the Regenerative Circle Leadership work on it from four angles.
| The imaginaries fresk | How we see nature: four relationships with nature, and the vision a team wants to compose. |
| The emotions fresk | What we feel: the emotions that change brings up, in each person and in the team. |
| The human factor fresk | How we act: the behavior changes a transformation asks of each person. |
| The Regenerative Circle Leadership (in French) | How we lead: a year-long path for executives and managers, on regenerative organizational strategy, from leadership to culture and governance. |
Emotions set a team in motion. The Regenerative Business Model Canvas gives that motion a direction: in five workshops, a coalition of partners designs a product or service that increases the capacity of life, human and non-human, to prosper. In France, the Laurels of Regeneration show companies already doing it.
Discover the Regenerative Business Model CanvasSee the Laurels winners→ What elite athletes teach us about managing emotions under pressure
→ Which brands are reconnecting people with nature?
→ Capacities beyond business as usual: cognition, emotions and imaginaries (in French)
→ Emotions in companies: toward an emotional review at the end of a project (in French)
→ The place of emotions in behavior change, with Jacques Fradin (in French)
→ The emotional roller coaster (in French)
→ How beliefs about emotions shape how people feel, act and interact (in French)
→ Emotions are the condition of reason (in French)
→ Joy as a regenerative energy (in French)
→ Eco-emotions and eco-anxiety: how to develop emotional intelligence (in French)
→ Biophilia against eco-anxiety: wonder, gratitude and the joy of nature (in French)
Sources: Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence · Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error · Dacher Keltner and James Gross · Aaron Beck, the cognitive triad · Sophie Galabru · Panu Pihkala · Jeroen Kraaijenbrink · Jacques Fradin.
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