The Business Case for Emotion

Logic may be praised in the boardroom, but billion-dollar consumer brands rest on a foundation of emotion. “All other things being equal” (ceterus parabus) is a handy perspective to adopt when you want to limit the variables in your analysis. But in the real world, human behavior is stubbornly, and wonderfully, irrational and hard to predict.

People respond to emotion. We buy based on it. We decide based on it. We stay or leave jobs because of how we feel—about the work, the mission, and the people. (And the compensation, for sure.) Thinking is part of decision-making, but it’s assuredly not the whole deal.

We’re emotional beings living in a multisensory world.

The most effective companies already know this. Advertisements, packaging, sounds, and scents spark emotions. The smells of fresh coffee, chocolate chip cookies, or baked bread trigger feelings more effectively than a billboard ever will.

We are more deeply and immediately affected by our senses and emotions than we are by cold, hard logic.

Emotions rule at the point of sale and the more we learn about human behavior, from the social sciences as well as neuroscience, the more clear it becomes that emotions drive behavior more broadly.

And while facts remain as facts, and profoundly important in our denialist and anti-scientific political climate, they will increasingly become the domain of artificial intelligence.

Emotional intelligence will be the engine of strategy in the near future. Emotions are an asset—unless we’re too 'businesslike' to admit it.

I’m not suggesting swapping spreadsheets for marshmallows. But let's be honest about the vital role emotions play in our decision-making process.

So let me ask: How are you building emotions into your strategy?