Our resident corporate Agony Uncle, CEO Ken Cheng, tackles business challenges – so you don’t have to.
Dear Ken Cheng,
I have an employee who seems to be crying a lot. How do I make sure they’re okay without intruding on their personal lives?
– Jimmy, Rochester
Ken Cheng:
If you’re not crying at work, you’re not working hard enough.
Evolutionary biologists have spent years working out why humans cry, and while people certainly cry when they are “sad”, “upset” or even “depressed”, it is actually a signal of awe and wonder.
If your employees are crying, it’s because they have such overwhelming admiration of you and your talents, there is no other course of action than to burst into tears.
I have probably made several hundred people cry. Was it always necessary? No. Could it have been avoided? Maybe. Do I enjoy doing it? Yes.
It’s become so commonplace in the office that I have scheduled in “Crying Time” at several intervals throughout the day. In the women’s bathroom there is a step-by-step instructional guide of how to cry in front of the mirror in an empowering way that will add to their narrative arc.
A lot of people wish they cried less. Well, I once met an employee who I could never make cry. Guess what? They turned out to have a defect in their brain that made them unable to experience empathy. That man is probably in prison somewhere.
Crying is simply good for you.
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