• 4 min read

🔥 Should emotional regulation training be required at work?

Besties, We have a serious problem with corporate leadership in this country.

(TW: Mental health, toxic work abuse, suicide)

Too many people in positions of power have little to no ability regulate their own emotions.

It's basically why I started Backroom. (While I love brand marketing to its core, it's not really why I quit my job. I literally couldn't find a place to work that wasn't destroying me inside.)

I left corporate agency life over a decade ago because frankly I was not okay from watching leadership yell, throw physical things across the room, kick me under the table, and make innuendo over interns eating carrots.

Being in my own Backroom bubble of mutual respect and emotional intelligence, I forget that this is still very much a problem in America...until I hear stories from friends, colleagues, and LinkedIn connections constantly.

This study by MIT Sloan says that 5 attributes of toxic culture have the largest negative impact on how employees rate their experience: disrespectful, noninclusive, unethical, cutthroat, abusive.

Toxic workforces:

  • Led to ~$16B in health-related costs in 2008
  • Is 10x more likely to cause attrition than low compensation
  • Caused 20% of employees to quit
  • Is the strongest predictor of a negative Glassdoor review
  • Decreases productivity of about 75% of employees who stay, costing companies up to 18% of the employee’s salary each year

And most of all... they are totally unnecessary. If we stop tolerating toxic behavior, while also training emotionally unintelligent leaders (and employees!) to self-regulate, how much money could we save as a nation, not only how many lives lost to workforce-induced suicides.

So I raise the question: should employers start instituting emotional regulation training as a standard? If not as a standard, should it be a first response to HR complaints from employees experiencing abuse on their behalf?

And hey. I love high revenue performers as much as the next CEO. But if it's creating a culture of fear and churning top talent in other areas, what's the long term downside?

Now, to lighten the mood a bit....

The 2010s were a hot time for campaigns and timely social posts. But...you can save ONLY ONE and the rest have to go. Which do you choose? Vote here.

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What to Know This Week

👻 With the rise of ghostwriters and AI tools for LinkedIn content, I stand firmly that authentic, human content will win in the end. Here's why I won't ghostwrite content for my clients.

🎙️ "People will be loyal if they believe in what you're doing, if they've been using your product for a long time, and you've given them an exceptional level of service, AND LISTEN TO THEM." - me. (Listen to the full episode on The Marketing Millennials.)

🥹 Our private group is giving me all the feels. Watching people jump at the opportunity to help each other has shown that community is the single most powerful antidote from feeling desperately alone in our efforts.

📈 I hit 50,000 followers on LinkedIn this week which is wild since I never set out to grow anything on this platform (and over 21M impressions wth). I'm so grateful for the community I've built. If you want to know the things I did day over day I made a playbook, get yours here.

🎒 The LinkedIn Cohort is half full! When I announced it I wasn't sure what the response would be and I'm amazed at how many of you have signed up already.

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🙋‍♀️ Are you asking what you want, or waiting to be discovered? Some of the best things that have ever happened to me, I asked for. I'm not too proud to speak up when I want things, and I think that's taken me and my agency a long way. After all, if we don't ask for what we want, someone else will.. and they'll get it. Learn a few ways you can ask for what you want next week.

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