Emotional Fit
The goal is not just to feel good, but to feel right
“For more than two decades, I have studied what we feel, what we long for, and how our feelings shape the complex, high-stakes world of work. Eventually, I discovered a radical new solution to feel right, save time, and perform at your peak – it’s called EMOTIONAL FIT.”
Jochen Menges
Stop trying to make everyone happy.
Start helping people feel what helps them thrive.
Most organisations have a blind spot.
They invest heavily in engagement, wellbeing, culture, and purpose. They offer benefits, perks, flexible work, recognition programmes, and leadership training. Yet employees still feel disconnected, exhausted, or misunderstood.
Why?
Because people do not all want to feel the same way at work.
Some want to feel inspired. Others want to feel calm. Some thrive when they feel challenged and energised. Others do their best work when they feel secure, respected, or focused.
Our research across tens of thousands of employees worldwide shows that people differ dramatically in how they want to feel at work—and that individuals perform better and experience greater well-being when their actual emotional experiences align with their desired emotional experiences. We call this Emotional Fit.
The Emotional Fit Workshop
The Emotional Fit Workshop helps leaders and teams discover, visualise, and strengthen alignment between desired and actual experiences at work.
Using our signature Emotional Fit Dartboard, participants identify the emotions that matter most to them, assess how often they experience those emotions at work, and pinpoint the gaps that may be limiting performance, motivation, collaboration, and innovation.
The workshop creates powerful moments of insight:
Why does one employee crave excitement while another seeks calm?
Why do some team members flourish under pressure while others want to avoid stress?
Why do seemingly successful workplaces still leave people emotionally unfulfilled?
Participants leave with a personalised Emotional Fit profile and a practical roadmap for increasing emotional fit in their daily work.
Ideal For
Executive teams
Leadership retreats
Culture transformation initiatives
Team development programmes
Future of Work conferences
Organisations seeking to improve wellbeing, engagement, retention, and performance
What Participants Gain
✔ Greater self-awareness about their emotional needs at work
✔ A deeper understanding of the emotional diversity within their team
✔ Insight into the emotional conditions that support their best performance
✔ Practical strategies for creating more emotionally intelligent workplaces
✔ A shared language for discussing emotions, motivation, wellbeing, and culture
✔ A sense of team spirit where everyone is responsible, not just the leader
The Outcome
The most successful organisations of the future will not be those that create the happiest workplaces.
They will be those that create workplaces where people can experience the emotions they need to do their best work and become their best selves.
The Emotional Fit Workshop helps organisations make that future possible.
Life is guided by one overlooked question
We all know that emotions matter — and that happiness is life’s ultimate goal. But here’s the twist: your happiness isn’t mine.
Not everyone wants to feel the same way. Some of us crave pride. Others long for calm. Some come alive in curiosity or challenge. Yet others want thrill and excitement. There are more than a hundred different positive emotions we can strive for — so which one do you want?
When we get to feel the way we want to feel, things change profoundly. We slip into flow, our performance rises, our health strengthens, our connections deepen — and happiness follows.
That’s the power of EMOTIONAL FIT: it reveals that thriving isn’t about chasing one universal feeling — it’s about finding your own.
How do you wish to feel, at work and in life?
We asked over 18,000 people across 35 countries this simple question “How do you want to feel at work?”
The answers: “Appreciated,” “Respected,” and “Accomplished” come in first. But not for everyone. Instead, there is huge variety. One person’s ideal workday might hum with challenge and excitement, while their colleague across the hall yearned for contentment and focus.
That is a powerful insight. There is no single emotional destination that can satisfy all of us. We are each tracing a different path, led by different emotional needs.
So, which emotions do you wish to feel, at work and in life?
Name them. Honor them. And where possible, seek them out.
Finding Emotional Fit
The culture of hustle keeps shouting its tired mantra: double down, toughen up, bounce back faster. You can do it! And the harder we push, the emptier we become. We need a new strategy for thriving.
EMOTIONAL FIT is that strategy. It is the antidote to burnout culture. And unlike so many quick fixes, it doesn’t rest on the illusion that happiness exists outside of real life, somewhere beyond the mess of work, the chaos of parenting, and the ordinary friction of our days. Because while a yoga retreat may temporarily address the symptoms, what we really need is a cure for the illness.
EMOTIONAL FIT is about feeling the way we want to feel, when we want to feel it. It’s about redesigning your approach to fulfillment, and discovering how success and well-being coexist. It is a small investment that saves time and energy and multiplies returns through progress, persistence, and performance.
Emotional Fit Workshops
Emotional Fit at work is a team task. It’s not the leader’s responsibility to create the right feelings in the team - every team member needs to be involved. Jochen Menges has designed a signature tool - the Emotional Fit Dartboard - that takes teams on a multi-step journey to identify the emotions that matter most to them, assess how often they experience those emotions at work, and pinpoint the gaps that may be limiting performance, motivation, collaboration, and wellbeing.
The workshop creates powerful moments of insight:
Why does one employee crave excitement while another seeks calm?
Why do some team members flourish under pressure while others struggle?
Why do seemingly successful workplaces still leave people emotionally unfulfilled?
Ideal For
Executive teams
Leadership retreats
Culture transformation initiatives
Team development programmes
Future of Work conferences
Organisations seeking to improve wellbeing, engagement, retention, and performance
The Outcome
The most successful organisations of the future will not be those that create the happiest workplaces.
They will be those that create workplaces where people can experience the emotions they need to do their best work and become their best selves.
The Emotional Fit Workshop helps organisations make that future possible.
Participants Gain
✔ Greater self-awareness about their emotional needs at work
✔ A deeper understanding of the emotional diversity within their team
✔ Insight into the emotional conditions that support their best performance
✔ Practical strategies for creating more emotionally intelligent workplaces
✔ A shared language for discussing emotions, motivation, wellbeing, and culture
✔ A sense of team spirit where everyone is responsible, not just the leader
Join the Emotional Fit movement
To find out more about how you can feel, do, and ultimately be your best, at work and in life, follow me on LinkedIn where I share science-based updates on emotional fit. Stay tuned, because big news is coming soon!