E

em>Envy makes people destructive and ruins the innovation potential of great companies. It can, however, be harnessed to drive better performance.

Envy is destructive for two overarching reasons. For one, it blocks cooperation and it also creates politics; the undercover, disguised forms of undermining behavior that manifest themselves when good ideas are trashed and malicious gossip is spread.

Perhaps the biggest catalyst for growth of envy is the fact that many will not admit to feeling envious '€” after all, this is a taboo emotion in work settings. Employees don'€™t want to talk about it to their superiors or among themselves, fearing that this is personally demeaning. Unconscious envy can be particularly destructive because people cannot identify and name it and thus call envy under more socially legitimate terms such as undeserved outcome.

This means that envy, which begins as one employee'€™s desire to have another employee'€™s financial and non-financial success, ends up manifesting itself in poisonous ways, such as employees preventing or hindering the completion of tasks, slowing down information sharing and deliberately tripping each other up.

Where does envy exist?

At the individual level, envy may manifest itself when employees see fellow co-workers being promoted or praised, or having a better job or pay than themselves. On occasions, there may be reasons to feel slighted, if mutual effort has been put into a task or project but only one person has been recognized. Similar feelings may arise, if a co-worker is promoted for seemingly reaching higher goals than those of others.

At the intergroup level, envy is even more opaque and arises among departments or teams. For example, the engineering department may feel envious of the marketing department if the latter is perceived to enjoy better access to resources.   Similarly, an innovation team may become the target of envy when its innovation output receives more recognition than other teams working in the same project.   Most of us have heard these complaints before.

At the organization level, envy may arise when senior executives of companies compare themselves to one another, ranking their pays and bonuses in relation to those of others; competing for the title of CEO with the biggest company size or the biggest pay.

Overcoming envy

Marina Biniari of Aalto University and I found in our paper Bringing Honey Out of People: How Managing Envy Helps the Organizational Innovation Process, that envy within an organization can be managed and even channeled to become an energizing emotion rather than a destructive one.

The first step on the path to recovery is the acknowledgement of envy and its potentially harmful role at work. It has to be perceived not just within ourselves, but also in other people. This requires the emotional intelligence of the leader to recognize the existence of envy within their employees and to see it as an important problem to address. Middle managers are best placed to start identifying the problem.

Using what I call '€œemotional authenticity'€, they can set up a system of complete feedback transparency and confidentiality, akin to testifying in a witness protection program. Often, envy can be quickly rooted out when someone feels completely free to describe their feelings without fearing repercussions.  A private conversation with complete safety protection is necessary to enable this dialogue.

At this stage, our research shows that middle managers can play an important role in balancing the emotional exchanges between employees. They should focus on empathizing with those feeling envious, calming them and helping them to realize a different perspective, perhaps suggesting they emulate the behavior of those they envy as one way of achieving similar goals.

At the same time, middle managers should urge the ones being envied to share with and coach the envious. This will have the perceived effect of '€œrestoring fairness,'€ while concurrently rewarding the standout performers for their cooperation. This approach makes the envied employees feel proud and enthusiastic about their achievements and the envious feel secure and more committed to the constructive growth of the organization.

Channeling envy for good

Next, an input-output analysis is required to turn the destructive power of envy into a force for good. In the first step, top management is essentially building the dam to contain the envious emotions, managing the output is where it can be unleashed to drive results by motivating employees. Guaranteeing a certain reward for emulating another person or group at the individual or inter-departmental level can be a powerful catalyst for positive behavior. Linking collaboration with performance rewards will also forge a more positive environment.

Without actively managing envy, the leadership can shout '€œcollaborate!'€ from the roof tops, but it won'€™t make a difference without emotional oversight.

Top management also plays a role by leaving room in the corporate strategy for the management of collective emotions, envy being an important one. Benchmarking against competitors can be selectively used to motivate employees to undercut competitors and making sure that collaboration is rewarded, not discouraged.

A high performance orientation doesn'€™t have to foster harmful internal competition, it can also give meaning to work interactions while reducing the perception of inequalities and unfairness. Top management can do this by enacting routines to help employees overcome the stress of organizational change and progress; and selecting middle managers who are able and willing to work with employees to temper their raw feelings in a discreet manner. Encouraging the personal development of the envious, and acknowledging the excellence of the envied employees could create better collaborative conditions at work.