by Mark Schiffman, M.S.
There is a substantial discussion on the costs that mental illnesses have on both a macro and micro economic level. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported that in 2006 mental health care in the U.S cost $57,500,000,000, equivalent to the cost of cancer care. For example, depression and anxiety have direct treatment costs, as well as lost productivity and absenteeism from work. The reason that these two mental illnesses make success at work difficult is fairly straight forward. They are both emotions that generally lead us to avoid goals and situations.
However, when it comes to anger disorders, it is much more difficult to discern the financial costs. Anger is an approach emotion, not an avoidance one. Many people who get angry at work think that the anger they are expressing actually helps them reach their goals. Oftentimes, this is true. Getting angry at a meeting, may make others listen to you and get them to agree on your proposal. However, things are not always as straightforward as they seem.
Five minutes after agreeing to your proposal, the guy you yelled at goes back to his desk and sticks a pin into the voodoo doll he made of you. The woman who you cut off while she was giving her suggestion, sends a text message to your other coworker on how big of a jerk you are. Your boss, who you think was impressed with your idea, is planning on reporting you to HR for cursing and sending a vague threat in an e-mail last week.
While anger often does help us reach our goals, more often than not, those are only short-term goals (“They listened to my proposal”). There are usually more negative long term repercussions to our anger (“You’re fired”). The trick is being able to weigh the short-term benefits with the long-term costs and realize that it may be more beneficial to forgo the anger and use a different approach.
