Stress Management, a priority training topic back in the eighties and nineties, is making a big comeback. Today’s work climate is plagued with budget cuts, heavy workloads, and fewer employees being expected to do the work previously intended for numbers greater than their own. The current stress-related statistics reveal:

• Job burnout experienced by 25% to 40% of U.S. workers is stress related
• Depression is the leading occupational disease of the 21st Century
• $300 billion, $7,500 per employee, is spent annually in the U.S. on stress related compensation claims
• Employee stress levels are positively correlated to on-the-job accidents, work days missed due to illness, and team and individual effectiveness

In response to a client request, I recently developed a stress management workshop that I called, “Got Resiliency?” My workshop identifies and explores three steps to increasing one’s resiliency and capacity for healthily coping with life’s stressors. Over the course of my next few blog entries, I will share the three steps along with practical application ideas for you to use to increase your own resiliency and health. (Contact me for your personalized “Coping and Stress Management” assessment).

Three Steps to Greater Resiliency:

• Awareness of Stressors
• Self Support (emotional, mental, spiritual)
• Wellness Support (physical)

 

Step 1: Awareness of Stressors

This involves increasing your awareness to your own unique stressors, how you respond to these stressors, and what symptoms you experience as a result of your response.

Stressors fall into two general categories: External stressors and Internal stressors. External stressors are those coming from our environment, our work, our family, etc. Some examples are: work demands, relationships with boss or co-workers, family concerns, moving, death of spouse or loved one, finances, illness, etc. External stressors may be things outside of our control (traffic jam, death of a relative, car or major appliance breaking down), or they may be things that we have some ability to influence such as our relationships with others and our health.

Internal stressors are those that come from within and include one’s:

• Expectations of self and others
• Self Image
• Perspectives or perceptions
• Beliefs or Assumptions
• Fear and Anxiety

External stressors are relatively easy to identify. Our internal stressors, the ways in which we cause ourselves stress, unintentionally, and perhaps unconsciously, are somewhat more evasive at first. Use the checklist below to identify your top few stressors in each category.

EXTERNAL WORK-BASED STRESSORS.

_____Too many responsibilities

_____Demanding or Unreasonable Deadlines

_____Conflicts with management or co-workers

_____Demanding or difficult customers

_____Conflicting demands / unclear expectations

_____Lack of control over my workload and/or decisions affecting my job

_____Job insecurity due to cutbacks, layoffs, downsizing, reorganization

_____Limited opportunity for advancement and/or inadequate pay

_____Other ________________________________________________

EXTERNAL PERSONAL /HOMELIFE STRESSORS.

_____Death of significant person i.e., a spouse, friend, relative, or family member:

_____Separation or divorce

_____Health problems or injury

_____Finances (not enough money and/or heavy debt:

_____Conflicts with mate, inlaws, family or friend(s):

_____Challenges with children

_____Other ________________________________________________

INTERNAL STRESSORS

_____Expectations of self & others (should’s, have to’s)

_____Poor self-image; lack of belief or confidence in self

_____Perspective on situations that leave me feeling “stuck,” hopeless, or resigned

_____Worry, anxiety, fear over future / future events

_____Regret, resentment, guilt over past / past events

_____Lack of asserting or clearly stating my needs and wants in a situation

_____Lack of control or power over my circumstances

_____Other ________________________________________________

 

Most of our stress comes from within, not from without. Even in the face of the most challenging external circumstances, we GET TO CHOOSE our response, our perspective, our approach. Our response, perspective, approach, in turn, either increases our resilience, our calm, our groundedness, OR leads us to experience more stress.

Below is an introduction to several strategies for increasing our capacity to choose the resilient, empowered approach to our stressors. Stay with me over my next several blog entries as I’ll share specific ideas, information, and techniques in each area below.

Step 2, Self Support, looks at how we support ourselves towards greater resiliency in an emotional, mental, and spiritual sense. Specifically important are:

• Inner dialogue: the conversation you carry on with yourself all throughout the day. Is it positive, negative, affirming, demeaning, full of unmet expectations (i.e.: should have done this; shouldn’t have done that)?
• Presence and Appreciating What is: the art of living in the here and now
• Perspective: the way you view or perceive a certain situation, your work, a relationship, etc.
• Beliefs: The underlying “truths” we hold about ourselves, others, organizations, relationships, etc. For example: “I have to be in control of this or…” “This ______ is going to be difficult.”  “I’m not good enough, smart enough, experienced enough, ______enough to do this well.”

Self support is an interesting area to explore. Often, our currently method of “supporting” ourselves in this area is unconscious, habitual, and not so, well, supportive.  I’ll share techniques and ideas for developing a practice of conscious self support in Part 2 of this blog series.

Step 3, Wellness Support, looks at how we support our bodies towards greater resiliency in a physical sense. Specifically important are:

• A good, clean diet, filled with whole food nutrition
• Amount of exercise or movement we provide for ourselves
• Amount of clean water we drink each day
• Amount of sleep we allow for ourselves each night

Wellness support is a big topic, and will be the focus of Part 3 of this blog series.

Complete your personalized “Coping and Stress Management” assessment.

 

Denise@SherpaDeCoaching.com      610.287.2989

Join the discussion: Share your tips for effectively managing stress and for increasing your resilience.

Post your comments here or on my Facebook page:  SherpaDe Coaching

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Please join me and my colleague Mark Izzo of Converge Solutions, Inc. for this hands-on webinar event. We’ll look at the critical timing, in advance of the economic upturn, for you to increase your organization’s levels of employee engagement and  customer engagement and how these translate into greater market share and increased revenues.

Prior to the event, each individual participant will complete our assessment exploring critical activities for CEOs and HR executives to master in order to prepare their organization IN ADVANCE of the upturn. You’ll learn how to most effectively target your time and energy towards what is needed most, right now, within your own team and organization.

Register NOW! Space is limited.

Has the recession impacted levels of employee engagement? Current research reveals that recession-related trends, such as layoffs, pay cuts, and increased workloads, have resulted in a general decline in employee engagement and productivity. This trend was predicted by many experts. In May, 2009, BusinessWeek magazine published an article on this topic. The article offered two differing opinions to the question: Is the recession a time to be focusing on employee engagement? Below are a few excerpts from the expert who responded, “YES.”

“Employee engagement will hit historic lows in the coming years and cost employers billions in lost productivity—and cost consumers in the form of a more frustrating I-don’t-really-care-about-you customer experience. Employee engagement is directly related to the experience customers desire.

This “Great Recession” will widen the gap between the few companies that deliver a consistently good experience and the great majority whose employees are more disengaged than ever and deliver poor service. A Quantum Market Research study revealed that between fall 2007 and fall 2008, nearly one-half of companies surveyed had a decrease in employee engagement scores, measured by an employee’s willingness to put in extra discretionary effort for the good of the business, speak positively about the business to others, and stay loyal to the job.

What if all employees in your company were engaged and willing to give the company 15 minutes of discretionary effort each week? The ROI would astound you and the improved customer experience just might make the difference between surviving the Great Recession and thriving in it.”

Important questions for your consideration:

• How has the recession impacted employee engagement at your organization?
• Would you or your leaders benefit from expansion of your current approaches to employee engagement?

So, who is an engaged employee? Here is a short checklist of characteristics.  An engaged employee:

• is loyal, productive, perhaps even passionate and applies discretionary effort to his/her work
• understands the organization’s priorities, goals and desired results
• knows how the work he/she performs contributes to the success of the organization
• feels that his/her personal values align with the values of the organization
• receives appropriate and timely rewards, recognition, and reinforcement
• is directly involved in discussions and decisions impacting his/her work
• feels positive about the leadership of the organization and has a good connection/relationship with his/her immediate supervisor

Think about the employees of your organization or members of your team.  How would you rate them compared with the checklist above? How might they rate themselves?  And again consider these questions:

• How has the recession impacted employee engagement at your organization?
• Would you or your leaders benefit from expansion of your current approaches to employee engagement?

Now IS the time to take action and ensure your organization’s future.

Now is the time. Let’s explore ideas for assessing and increasing engagement levels within your organization. Send me an email or give me a call:

DeYarrison@SherpaHigherPerformance.com

610.287.2989

One of the most common scenarios I am asked about by team leaders is how to help geographically dispersed team members become more cohesive and operate with a strong sense of team unity. Sound familiar to you too?

As they say, there is no substitute for face time; and I would agree. I am big fan of face time. For most organizations with virtual teams however, face time is not a frequently occurring situation (especially in a down economy). And building a cohesive team requires frequent, intentional interactions. It is important to regularly look for and talk about the things the team does well and to engage in retrospective dialogue around setbacks and “failures” to learn as much as you can and keep the team moving forward.  Below are three suggestions to get you started.

1. The foundational step in creating a cohesive team is building trust. Towards trust building, it is useful for people to spend time getting to know each other and exploring their similarities and uniqueness. Prepare 2 or 3 “self-disclosure” questions prior to each meeting and have every team member take a turn responding, round robin fashion. Questions can progress from fun trivia type questions to more meaningful or work-related questions as the trust builds. For example, “What is your favorite vacation spot?” is a risk-free question, while, “Who in your life has most influenced your career? What did he/she do?” may feel more risky to some. The purpose is to allow for discovery of the things people have in common and to gain greater insight into what makes each other tick.  Team members might rotate the job of coming up with the questions and facilitating the discussion.
2. Another important step towards trust building is providing the space for team members to discuss individual expectations and the values that are important to them as a member of the group. Ask team members to think about what they value most in relationships and come prepared to each share their top 3 values. After each team member shares his/her list, explore commonalities and themes. Build this into the team’s Guiding Principles or Operating Agreement and have each team member verbally agree to uphold. This leads nicely into an opportunity to proactively talk about the area where most teams have trouble: accountability. Explore questions like: “How will we know that we’re doing/upholding ‘abc value’? What will be different or enhanced?” “What will we do when someone violates a guiding principle?” “How will we handle accountability?”  This could all be done in one long meeting or divided into segments to be facilitated over a few team meetings.
3. As trust builds and the Team Guiding Principles take shape, plan 10-15min at the beginning of each team meeting for a “team process check-in.” This is the time, before the team begins discussing the tasks at hand, to focus on the process of being a cohesive team. At each meeting, pose a question for the team to explore together. Examples include:

• What’s good about the way we’ve been making decisions together? What’s working well for us?
• What would you (each team member) like to see more of regarding our communication about “abc”?
• Let’s reflect on Project X (just concluded). Name 1 or 2 things we did really well and how it contributed to the project’s success.
• What wins or successes are we celebrating today (remember to include the small everyday ones)?

Consider what might be possible when your team engages in this level of Everyday Teambuilding throughout the year. What results could you expect to see that you are not seeing today?