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the beetle song says love is all you
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need but a new study by Wharton's Nancy
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rothbard finds that maybe love isn't all
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you need in the workplace Nancy thanks
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for being with us today thanks Rachel
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now your study focused on an interesting
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environment in it was firehouses and
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firemen could you talk to us a little
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bit about how you picked what why
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firemen and what you were looking at
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what you were trying to find sure so uh
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this is a study that's co-authored with
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Mandy O'Neal who's at George Mason
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University and what Mandy and I did was
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we really wanted to go in and understand
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how the culture the emotional culture of
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an organization could affect how people
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both interact in the in the workplace
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but also what the effects of them on
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them physiologically might be and so we
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were really interested in looking at
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emotional culture and in particular
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culture of Love which you've already
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talked about as well as another
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particular ular type of culture that
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often emerges in organizations
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especially masculine organizations which
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is called culture of joviality and
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culture of joviality is sort of the fun
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the joking the pranks kind of a macho
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you know backs slapping uh teasing type
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of a culture uh culture of companionate
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Love is really one where there's a sense
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of compassion caring affection for one
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another and what was really interesting
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about looking at this question in the
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context of firefighters is that this is
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a really ex extreme setting to think
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about the question of love you know a
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lot of uh the P there there's a little
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bit of past research that's looked at
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culture of companion at love and that's
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looked at mostly healthc care settings
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and and other kinds of uh organizational
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settings where it might be more expected
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whereas we we really wanted to look at
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an extreme case to see does love matter
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and is love evident in these masculine
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organizations and now what you found was
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is that love does matter but some other
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things matter too so tell us a little
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bit about some of the work that you did
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which was very I mean involved a lot of
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actually going into firehouses talking
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to these people and tell us a little bit
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about what you found sure so this study
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um this actually paper comprises two
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studies the first study was a
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qualitative study where we did
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interviews with a bunch of firefighters
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at uh 27 different uh groups of
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firefighters uh 27 different uh shifts
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and stations and so what we looked at
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with those groups uh is we just sort of
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went in and we wanted to know really the
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questions about culture but also what
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made their jobs tough or what were what
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was the what were the challenges that
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they were facing in their jobs and there
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were a couple of really interesting
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things that emerged from that stage of
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the research one is that when we ask
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people
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what's the toughest thing about your
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job the answer they gave us was actually
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really surprising so this is these are
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groups of about 97% men we we actually
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interviewed a 100 men in this first
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study or 100 people in this first study
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and 97 of them were men there were three
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women in the entire group and that's
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very uh prototypical and and and uh
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expected in in this firefighting
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occupations and so what what we found
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was
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we said what's the mo what's the most
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challenging thing about your job over
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half of them said work family conflict
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which was a huge surprise to us we were
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not expecting that to be you know the
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the answer it makes a lot of sense in
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retrospect because a lot of the the the
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way they work they're they're on these
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shifts and these these overnight shifts
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and they they're they their jobs are
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really affected by the type of shift
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work that they do um and the type of
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work that they do is often very
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emotionally stressful uh firefighters
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interestingly um firefighters are not uh
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most of their job is not fighting fires
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most of it is emergency response anytime
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911 is called the there are firefighters
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who have to respond and so they actually
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are at the scenes of all sorts of
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emergency calls and situations some of
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them more stressful than others uh and
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some of them quite quite stressful um uh
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indeed and so what we found when we we
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were talking to them was that you know
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some of the stresses that they
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experienced on the job they they really
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were concerned about those spilling over
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to the home so one story that we that we
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that really sticks in my mind from from
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this first study was of one of the
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firefighters who described how he really
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wanted to really keep the the workplace
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separate from his home life and so he
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actually kept a pair of flip-flops in
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the station where and he would wear
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those back and forth between his home
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and work because he didn't want his
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boots from that he wore on on scene to
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to even enter his house because he
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really felt like he didn't want it to
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contaminate the work to contaminate his
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home and so he was really had a very
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extreme example of trying to keep these
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two apart um you know a lot of the other
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things that we that we talked about with
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the firefight also had to do with the
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culture that they you know of of of
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their of their station and of the
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firehouse and so one of the themes that
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emerged was this culture of joviality
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which we expected the you know the
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pranks the humor all of the kind of fun
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things that they do to keep themselves
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occupied and to relieve the
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stress um but the second emotional theme
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that emerged around culture was this
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theme of companionate love and another
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way to think about companionate love is
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brotherly love right so it's it's not
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romantic love it's it's the kind of you
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know compassion you know giving each
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other a hug if you know something
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something tough has has come up um
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making sure that you're there for each
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other that you know each other deeply uh
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and that you show that you care about
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one another and sometimes that can be in
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like small acts like washing the dishes
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or making sure that you have somebody's
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favorite snack uh you know that that
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you're that you're making in in the
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kitchen and and so there's a lot of
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there's a lot of camaraderie and
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brotherly love that we also saw at some
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of these fire stations um and what's
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really interesting about this this study
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to me is we we looked at firefighters as
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an extreme case of masculine
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organizations but this really can apply
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to lots of different organizations it
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can apply to all sorts of settings where
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the Norms are really masculine uh in
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terms of the dominant expected Behavior
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we we see all sorts of examples of you
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know that kind of camaraderie the the
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Frat House culture you know on Wall
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Street you know just as we do on you
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know in the firehouse or in you know
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police stations or in Army kinds of
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settings where which might be a little
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bit easier to see the connection with
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firefighters but we see we see these
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same types of behaviors in lots of
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different occupational settings now the
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first part of the study focused on these
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interviews so tell us a little more
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about the second part of the study and
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where you where you went from there sure
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so in the first part part of the study
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as you said we did these interviews we
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we we had a couple of surprises that
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that arose along the way um one of the
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other pieces that uh we saw there was
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that one of the ways that firefighters
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talked about coping with some of these
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stresses was through suppression through
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kind of bottling it up and keeping it
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all in or separating it as I talked
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about before
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but what the literature says about
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suppression is that that's actually
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often a very bad thing sure uh and and
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that can lead to all sorts of negative
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Health outcomes and other
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problematic um outcomes on things like
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risk-taking uh you know and and and the
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like and so what what we found was that
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when so so so we we we basically figured
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that what we wanted to do is think about
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okay how do all these things go together
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and so we did a second study where we
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surveyed a lot more folks so we had 27
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uh groups uh in in the first study in
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the second study we had 68 uh fire uh
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you know fire stations and what we did
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was and about 600 people that we that we
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surveyed um and so you know a lot of
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folks that we surveyed we also then
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surveyed their supervisors so the the
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battalion chief the person who was in
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charge of the fire stations what we
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asked the battalion chief was What's the
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culture of the station right do you see
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it being characterized by joviality by
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these jokes these pranks the teasing the
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amusement do you see it being
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characterized by compassion by
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tenderness by by love and so what we
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what we found is and and you know they
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could have answered both and in indeed
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in our in our um in our interviews we
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found there were some stations that were
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characterized by both there were some
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stations that were characterized by
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either just joviality alone and there
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were others that were characterized by
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just love alone and some that you know
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exhibited neither of those
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characteristics so we did a survey of
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you know and and we we had about 600
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respondents uh that we surveyed and we
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got about
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324 uh participants who responded to the
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survey and what what happened was that
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that when people said that they felt
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like they experienced a lot of work
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family conflict and they were also
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suppressing that conflict it turns out
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that was kind of a bad thing as the
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literature would suggest and in fact we
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found that those folks engaged in more
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risk taking off the job so they reported
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you know you know uh more alcohol use
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things like uh doing high-risk types of
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occupations
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um or high-risk types of hobbies uh Etc
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and but when people were in cultures
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that were the Battalion Chiefs had rated
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as being high in both
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joviality and companion at love that
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risk-taking was reduced and so there was
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something about being in a culture where
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you were able to both joke around but
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also get the um you know the feelings of
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compassion and caring of Brotherly
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Love from your fellow firefighters that
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really tempered each other and allow
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people to I think probably vent a little
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bit in the workplace so they didn't have
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to let off that steam off of work so
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they it was making it easier for them
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not to take work home with them exactly
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so this study looks a lot at these looks
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very closely at these organizational
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cultures at warehouses how can someone
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apply this at their office I mean I
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would think that sometimes it's very
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hard to know what your organizational
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culture is because you have to be you
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have to be pretty honest with yourself
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sometimes especially if you're the
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manager and you might be the one who's
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modeling this so how can someone take
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this research and maybe diagnose the
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culture and their organization and even
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try to improve it to apply some of what
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you found so actually there it it it's
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fairly straightforward to diagnose your
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culture first first of all you have to
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though be willing to look and be open to
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what you find so first when you think
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about emotional culture there's there's
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signs all around us there's artifacts
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there's there's statements there's
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stories that people use that you can you
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that you can use to really diagnose that
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and understand it with culture of
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joviality the thing that you want to
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look for as a manager is is it going too
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far are the is the teasing and the
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pranks you know it may be very fun high
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energy high octane but is that going too
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far and that's the thing you worry about
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with a culture of joviality right is it
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is it is it crossing the line to
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bullying or harassment and that's what
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you don't want as a
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manager with culture of companion at
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Love Actually what you want to look for
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are things like are people caring about
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each other are they are they checking in
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when somebody's sick are they you know
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making sure that they know how things
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are going with a particular individual
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and so as a manager you can model that
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behavior if your employees out sick for
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a couple days you can send them a note
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or give them a phone call and say hey
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just thinking of you how you doing is
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there anything I can do to help you know
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those kinds of things really help to
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model a culture of love where people
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feel like others are looking out for
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them that they care about them and that
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that they matter in that organization
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and so you know I think it's actually it
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it it's not as hard as it might seem to
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model those things and to and to check
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to see whether you have a culture of
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joviality in addition to a culture of
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love you just have to be be willing to
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stand back and kind of take a closer
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look at it yes you need to take a look
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and see now this study seems to debunk a
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little bit some of the stereotypes that
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we may have about male-dominated
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workplaces in that you did find a
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culture of lots of companionate love or
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Brotherhood that was going on and I
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think sometimes we may
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stereotype that male dominated
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workplaces are not like that that it's
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something that you would find more with
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female dominated workplaces do you feel
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like the study kind of puts that on its
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ear a little bit or absolutely one of
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the things that we found that was really
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fascinating in this setting is that when
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we looked at culture of love you know
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this was not something that we had
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necessarily gone in expecting to see
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culture of joviality yes but culture of
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love no and what was fascinating about
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it to us is that it really did appear
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very strongly in this setting and when
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we think about masculine organizations a
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lot of times we think these are
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organizations where it's not okay to
00:14:40
express any emotion much less love and
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yet we saw all sorts of emotional
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expression going on including love and
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how do you plan on following up this
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research well uh my my co-author Mandy
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has a study where she's looking at
00:14:55
culture of uh different emotional
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cultures in a hospital setting and and I
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think it's going to be really
00:15:01
fascinating for me one of the things
00:15:03
that was really interesting about this
00:15:06
is this piece where work family conflict
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just sort of seem to emerge almost out
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of nowhere in these ma masculine
00:15:13
organizations and that's something that
00:15:16
really hasn't been looked at in the
00:15:17
literature as much we when we talk about
00:15:20
work family conflict we tend to think
00:15:21
about that also being very much uh in in
00:15:25
we think about women experiencing work
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family conflict but but focusing on men
00:15:30
and the fact that men experience work
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family conflict too just as powerfully
00:15:35
is a really important finding that we
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saw here that I really want to explore
00:15:39
further in future research Nancy thanks
00:15:42
for being with us today thanks Rachel
00:15:55
[Music]
