Now to enter the controversial and confusing world of emotions: We had some strong showing of emotion on our team this week and I was so excited. Finally breaking through the shell of avoiding conflicts and feelings. Ooh, the F-word. Feelings . A scary topic for most engineers I know, including myself. I was a firm believer that Feelings were an engineer's worst enemy. Even worse than the F-word is the E-word. Emotions! I would think, "Oh stop being so emotional and just be rational and logical! It's not that hard…"

As I've worked with more and more teams, I have come to appreciate the significant role our emotions play in the solutions we create.

I love how Jim and Michele McCarthy take on emotions and their importance to ourselves, our teams, and our products in their book "Software For Your Head". This book is overflowing with magnificence, I reference it every week and am still on the long journey of understanding.

From Software For Your Head: Core Protocols For Creating and Maintaining Shared Vision

Emotion, Where the Useful Info Hangs

A large percentage of people believe that expressing emotion at work is inappropriate or unprofessional, so they maintain an emotional façade, usually presenting a diminished emotional affect. When emotions are expressed indirectly at work, the distance between people increases. Emotional self-repression reduces both team efficiency and product quality. When you hide behind any kind of façade, you are necessarily less present than you could be, and that intentional interjection of distance constrains engagement levels. It's a layer of ambiguity, made of human energy. Any awareness that you exercise is usually required to monitor the layers more completely and/or to build up the façade even more.

What next? Look at the Check In pattern.