Put Emotion Back in Business — book cover
The Book · Coming 2026

Put Emotion Back in Business

…where it belongs.

The business world has spent thirty years pretending emotion is a distraction. The research says the opposite. This book is the honest, evidence-first case that fear is a productivity tax — and that compassion is a mechanism of commitment no incentive package can buy.

Available in hardcover · ebook · audiobook (read by the author)
ρ = .43
Psychological Safety Is Performance Infrastructure
Personnel Psychology · 2017 · Meta-analysis
16 months
Cultures of Care Cascade to Clients
Administrative Science Quarterly · 2014
SMD = 0.47
Emotional Competencies Are Trainable
BMC Psychology · 2024 · Meta-analysis
What's inside

Seven Chapters. One Argument.

…the shape of the book.
  1. I
    The Fear Tax

    How psychological unsafety drains performance — and how organizations begin to pay it back.

  2. II
    Compassion Is Not Softness

    It is a mechanism of commitment. What Lilius and colleagues actually found.

  3. III
    The Culture of Care

    Barsade & O'Neill's 16-month study — what companionate love did for staff and for the people they served.

  4. IV
    You Can Train This

    Emotional competencies are developable. The science of durable emotional learning.

  5. V
    The EI Myth

    What the multi-source studies really show — and why culture, not scores, is the operative unit.

  6. VI
    Burnout Is an Organizational Problem

    Not a personal failure. The intervention landscape, honestly appraised.

  7. VII
    Five Things Your Leaders Can Do Tomorrow

    Translating decades of research into a behavioral vocabulary managers can practice at 9 a.m.

The core claim
The emotional conditions of organizational life are performance conditions. Fear, care, safety, exhaustion, compassion, and commitment are not attitudes layered on top of work — they are the substrate through which work is either possible or impaired.
From the research memo
Nine peer-reviewed studies · 2008 – 2024
About the author

Antoinette Peragine

…born in Brooklyn, formed in rooms.

Brooklyn-born, Italian-American. An actress who worked with Peter Weir, Ivan Reitman, and Geena Davis. A Comedy Store paid regular since 2009, discovered by Mitzi Shore. Producer of Los Angeles weddings under a nickname Bravo gave her: The Wedding Buddha. And host of Antoinette & Friends — a cultural archive of conversations filmed by Norman Seeff.

Comedy Store · Paid Regular Class of 2009
Discovered by Mitzi Shore
Featured film: Fearless (1993)
Directed by Peter Weir · with Jeff Bridges
Antoinette & Friends
Filmed by Norman Seeff · a cultural archive
The Wedding Buddha
15+ years producing L.A. events
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