"Feelings and emotions are not topics commonly associated with corporate strategy, but Michael masterfully details how central they are to the workplace. He explores how emotions drive decisions and negotiations, and how they shape corporate culture. The book not only presents real-world examples of how emotions have impacted various organisations, but also draws on psychological insights from Freud to Kahneman to highlight the root causes of historical decision-making mishaps--while offering a roadmap to learn from them. From the role of emotions in negotiation and interpreting feedback, to the value of emotional granularity in workplace relationships, the book offers invaluable insight into how emotions influence so many aspects of an organisation--as well as a practical roadmap for applying those insights. Its relevance to the modern workplace cannot be overstated." Philip Daniels, Founding Partner & Chief Investment Officer, Balbec Capital LP

"Organisational failures rarely spring from faulty code or dusty strategy. They germinate in the emotional currents no dashboard tracks and quietly corrode resilience and create opportunities for attacks from the inside. In The Emotional Life of Organisations, Dr Mike Drayton follows incidents from factory floors to intelligence centres, showing how a single bruised ego can rupture safeguards and undermine operations faster than any hostile actor. His accessible psychology-based approach lays out how respect levels, stress and ambiguity skew hormones until judgement buckles and teams either lock tight or shear apart at the moment unity is required. Conversely, purposeful joy and psychological safety emerge as the countervailing force, converting emotional capital into renewable energy that fuels problem-solving and forward drive. Reading these pages made immediate sense of nights I have spent in situation rooms, when fatigue thinned tempers and critical decisions turned on whether someone felt heard or respected. Dr Drayton gives language and structure to those half-seen dynamics, explaining why a team can swing from sharp coherence to catastrophic drift in minutes and, just as quickly, recover with a well-timed dose of levity. Each chapter closes with reflection prompts that turn insight into practice. By the final chapter, operators want to read cortisol spikes as readily as network logs, and boards are reminded that culture now sits beside cyber and physical assets as infrastructure to defend. In high-pressure environments, that insight is priceless." Sebastian Bassett-James, UK Cabinet Office