The Intersection of Emotions and Work with Humu Head of Communications and Content Liz Fosslien

In this episode of Redefining HR, I spoke with author Liz Fosslien about the intersection of emotions and work. Liz is head of communications and content at Humu, a company dedicated to making work better with science, machine learning and a bit of love. If her name sounds familiar, you might know her from her books, such as “No Hard Feelings,” or as one half of Liz and Mollie, the writing-and-illustration duo. 

And today, Liz and I are discussing her career journey, her role at Humu and her work as an author and illustrator. We also dive into the creative process for the Liz and Mollie illustrations and how they have bridged the gap between emotions and work.

We also discuss the power of “nudges.” This is a technique used by Humu, which sends nudges to employees at big companies “to help them take small steps that have a really big impact on how they feel and the people around them feel,” Liz says. This is just one way to help people demonstrate how they feel at work. 

“How do we embrace emotion in a way that is effective, that helps us have more productive teams and support one another?” Liz says.

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How Nudges Encourage Employees

When Liz joined the Humu team, she became one of the company’s first “nudge” writers. These aren’t physical nudges. Liz explains that these are “short, science-backed suggestions.” 

“You don’t have to act on them, but hopefully, they’re convincing enough that you do. They really break down big goals into mini milestones. So the goal when we’re writing nudges is that it should never be unclear what to do,” Liz explains. 

Through these nudges, Liz and her team can give employees specific feedback, phrases and frameworks to help them navigate work and work-related situations. While these nudges can help everyone, they aren’t generic. Humu individualizes the content based on signals it receives. 

There are three levels to how nudges operate: what the organization wants to work on, what the team and manager want to tackle, and what the individual wants to address.

“So let's say the organization wants to be innovative. The individual wants to learn to speak up more in meetings. And the team is working on being inclusive,” Liz says. “We might send a nudge to the manager that's like, ‘Ask everyone to run an experiment that week and then come to the next team meeting and share what they did.’”

These nudges don’t have to be every day, either. Humu’s approach isn’t a barrage of notifications but one small suggestion with a “big compounding impact,” Liz says.

The Reality of Emotions at Work

Liz has extensively researched how vulnerability can show up in the workplace. The term “vulnerability” has been used more in recent years to describe leadership traits, and I think that it has significant merit. Through her research, Liz found that there is a spectrum of vulnerability that most people fall under. 

“So we found that there’s a spectrum. And so on one end of the spectrum is under-emotors, which you identified as people who are just not gonna share as much. And then there’s over-emotors that have no poker face. You know what they’re feeling. And we’ve found that the best leaders tend to act as even-emotors,” she says. 

Determining where you are on this spectrum can help you establish your base tendency and self-correct based on the situation. Liz suggests practicing what she and her co-author Mollie West Duffy call “selective vulnerability, which is pairing a moment of openness that builds trust with a path forward.

“So you’re both acknowledging emotions and then showing that you thought through the situation enough to still be a stable guide for your team,” Liz adds.

What People Need for Success

Liz was once set on becoming an investment banker. She thought banking culture was like in the movies, where success correlated with being brash and cutthroat, but then a study told her otherwise.

“They actually found that hedge fund managers who are throwing the coffee against the wall, slamming the notebook on the table, they have much lower returns on investments than the teams of managers who are supportive, encouraging people to ask questions, making it OK to admit mistakes,” she says. “So that to me was different.”

In their books, Liz and Mollie go deeper into how emotions are essential at work and how being able to express them creates a better environment. Every organization expresses their care for emotions in a different way, whether it’s Google or Goldman Sachs or a hospital or a fire department.

Liz explains, “I think something that I hadn’t even really consciously thought about was that the things we write about hold true in every single kind of environment. The exact ways that they show up might look a little different, but fundamentally, people are motivated by being treated well.”

People in This Episode

• Liz Fosslien: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Humu website