Game-Changing Research Collaboration Opportunity with Professor Michael Parke at Wharton Business School

Update from Jeremy originally posted in our Elephant Rider Community here >

How Our Community Shapes the Future of Emotional Culture

Hi everyone, I've got some exciting news to share! We're teaming up with Professor Michael Parke from Wharton for a special research project, and we're inviting you to be a part of it. We’ve been in discussion together since he came into our Community earlier this year to share his research on voicing negative emotions at work (see more here if you missed it)

What's this research all about? We're researching the impact of our ECD workshops (specifically affect labelling) on employees, their leaders and their teams.

Here's the scoop: To make this study happen, we need to work together as Elephant Riders to run a series of workshops over the next four months. We're aiming for a minimum of 100 participants across all workshops, whether that comes from many small teams or a few larger ones. This flexibility means whether you're working with a single team or across multiple organisations, there's a spot for you in this project. Here's an important clarification: you don't need to be running workshops with 100 people yourself to participate.

Here's where it gets practical: If you end up taking part in this research project with us, we need people involved in workshops you run to fill out quick surveys before and after the workshop. It's just a few minutes of their time, but it will provide us with loads of valuable insights, and the data Michael Parke and his team at Wharton need for their research purposes. The outcomes of the entire research project will be available to everyone involved.

What we need from you if you want to take part:

• Be planning to run Map Your Emotional Culture Workshops in the next four months. It doesn't matter if your workshop is with 5 people or 15; every bit counts towards our goal.

• The workshops you run only need to cover up to the point where each in has identified their top five desired and undesired emotions (so that included individuals selecting their top five desired and undesired).

• Completing the Emotional Culture Canvas isn't a requirement for this study, but it's okay if you go beyond our needs.

We will have more details to share on what criteria there is for the workshops to qualify to be part of this project once we’ve finalised the research methodology. When it is available, we will be able to share more with the Elephant Riders who have expressed interest in taking part in this project.

Interested in joining us? Here's how you can help:

• If you're up for it, you will play a key role in running workshops as part of this research project and getting your workshop participants to complete the surveys pre and post-workshop.

Interested in getting involved? You'll be crucial in facilitating these ECD workshops and helping us gather data through quick pre and post-workshop surveys. This data is key to the research and will be shared with everyone involved.

Want to join or know more? Please drop a comment below. We're eager to have as many Elephant Riders as possible, regardless of the size of your workshops. This project is about collective contribution, curiosity, and learning from the outcomes.

Full transparency: We hope to include as many Elephant Riders as possible, but we might not be able to accommodate everyone interested in this particular project. This doesn't come easily to me—I feel both anxious and uncertain about making these choices quickly, especially because, at this stage, we don’t have specific selection criteria to share. But I'm hopeful this project will kickstart more ongoing research opportunities with Michael, meaning there'll be chances for everyone interested to eventually be able to contribute in some way – fingers crossed.

Timeline:

• To begin with, we want to collect data from ECD workshops between May and August 2024. So, if you have workshops planned in this timeframe, they could be eligible to be part of this research.

• If you have workshops planned outside this timeframe - please let us know, and we can consider how they might become eligible to be part of future research projects that we’re considering.

If we pull this off together, it might be one of the next most pivotal moments in the history of The ECD and our Elephant Rider Community. I feel excited at the prospect of you joining us and being part of this collaboration journey. And if you can’t take part for any reason, I will take you all on the journey with us and share everything we learn (and fail at) along the way.

If you have any questions or thoughts, click here to share your comments in our Community. Let's make this research something really special together.

What we now know about emotions. There is increasing evidence to show that the emotional culture of an organisation influences employee satisfaction, burnout, absenteeism, teamwork and team performance, and ultimately, financial performance. Click here to learn more.