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M E M O
From: David E. Edell, President
Date: January 8, 2004
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Stressed for Success
by Kathy Simmons
Reprinted by Permission. Copyright The Greater Washington Society of Association Executives. Executive Update, July 2000. www.GWSAE.org
Stress has been called "the 20th century epidemic" for good reasons. In the United States, experts at the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health estimate that stress costs American industry $200 to $300 billion a year in absenteeism, diminished productivity, employee turnover, accidents, medical costs, and workman’s compensation. An estimated million-plus employees are absent on an average workday due to stress, and 60 to 80 percent of on-the-job accidents are stress-related.
But not all stress is bad. Most people don’t realize that a shortage of stress can be as detrimental to the psyche as an overabundance. Eustress, the Greek word for "good stress," helps maintain emotional equilibrium. Without it, boredom, apathy, and irritability will develop. Too much stress (distress) can produce similar results, along with fatigue and a sense of defeat. Making peace with stress does not mean eliminating it from your life. Rather, it requires you to respect a healthy level of stress and to carefully avoid an overdose.
What Ignites Bad Stress?
No one is immune from stress. A recent Gallup poll shows that only 14 percent of workers are dissatisfied with their jobs, while 34 percent are dissatisfied with how much stress they face at work. Stress ranked highest in a list of common workplace problems that elicit the greatest levels of employee dissatisfaction — even exceeding recognition, promotion opportunities, and salary. Respondents pointed to the following stressful workplace situations in particular:
Professionals who are unable to influence decisions or solve problems that affect them are very vulnerable to stress. So are employees who live in constant fear of losing their jobs due to politics or downsizing, particularly if they have few other options (e.g., older employees and employees with few skills).
- Inadequate Information
Unclear job expectations, inadequate information to perform successfully, and a lack of understanding about how a job fits into the "big picture" all create undue stress.
- Dysfunctional Dynamics
A support system of people who genuinely care fulfills the core human need of acceptance. An atmosphere of duplicity, backbiting, and secret agendas will quickly take its toll on even the hardiest soul. People can withstand significant pressure if they feel appreciated. Reductions in benefits, pay, or acknowledgments magnify stress. Other culprits include inadequate feedback and constructive "face time" with the boss.
- Mismatched Missions
An honest sales representative is told to "forget" about a known product defect in order to encourage sales. Think of a car with unbalanced wheels — it may run for many months, but the damage is being done. Supporting values different from your own creates inner conflict that will wear down your "emotional tread."
- Identifying Too Strongly With Work
Work can be too meaningful. We can all name colleagues with few outside interests who pour themselves into their jobs and enjoy the label of workaholic. Their lack of balance causes work problems to register quickly on their stress Richter scale. While the challenges they face may not be particularly demanding, their outlook causes them to be.
Women are particularly susceptible to this tendency. Harriet B. Braiker explains the "Superwoman" phenomenon in her 1986 book, The Type-E Woman: "She will keep coping by trying to rise to each and every occasion, pushing herself beyond safe or reasonable limits, without adequate regeneration and rejuvenation of her resources, until she is thoroughly depleted by her own good intentions.People Professions
Counselors, social workers, and teachers are high burnout professions, but they are not the only ones. Managers also face a unique challenge — communicating and negotiating both upward and downward. As Archibald D. Hart describes in The Crazy-Making Workplace, "They get complaints, see the deficiencies, and have to defend the lack of adequate resources for the job. These roles are fraught with frustration."The Stress Tool Box
The following tools can help develop a more balanced approach to managing both personal and professional stress:The kudzu phenomenon. Kudzu, a prolific vine particularly rampant in the American Southeast, weaves itself around living vegetation, eventually killing it by blocking out sunlight. Unmanaged stress is a lot like kudzu; it will soon strangle joy out of your life. Hans Seyle, a noted authority on stress management, says, "Stress is the wear and tear on your body caused by life’s events. It is the body’s physical, mental, and chemical reactions to circumstances that frighten, excite, confuse, endanger, and irritate." Note the key word: reactions.
Daniel Goleman, author of Working with Emotional Intelligence, compares the reaction of two executives at regional telephone companies, an industry besieged by competitive pressure and change. One of the executives is wound as tightly as a rubber band: "My life seems like a rat race. I’m always trying to catch up, meet deadlines. Even though I’m nervous and tense, I’m also bored a lot of the time." The other executive says, "I’m almost never bored. Even when there’s something I have to do that doesn’t strike me as interesting at first, usually once I get into it, I find it worthwhile in a way that teaches me something."
Goleman explains that the first executive ranks low in hardiness or resilience, the ability to stay committed and feel in control rather than threatened by stress.
The same circumstances — deadlines, budget constraints, and fast-paced change — hardly faze some managers, while they leave others drained and tense. Why? It’s a matter of perspective and attitude. To avoid the "kudzu affect" of stress, you must diligently control your attitude. Otherwise, negative views will choke out your resilience and stifle your effectiveness.
Stop the martyr madness. Do you often mention how late you "had to" work or how you must eat lunch at your desk every day to keep up? No time for vacations or even a coffee break? Nobody (even you) is that indispensable!
Susie Mantell, author of the bestselling relaxation audio, "Your Present: A Half-Hour of Peace," customizes stress management programs for Fortune 500 companies. She explains to executives that people who schedule time to relax experience enhanced mental clarity, memory, and inner calm, and express greater pleasure in their jobs. "For some," Mantell says, "one half-hour of relaxation can actually provide two to three more-productive, focused hours to achieve goals and objectives."
Put goals under the microscope, not telescope. Most executives are highly adept at juggling many balls but still feel like none of these tasks has met their high standards. Focusing on the task at hand is a sure way to reduce stress and increase your satisfaction level.
Richard Schlegel, president of Spectrum Organization Services, a Nevada-based association management company, knows the value of focus. "My strategy is to think of everything I do as a project that has an end," Schlegel says. "I move from project to project knowing that there is a completion point for each one. Compartmentalizing and prioritizing my activities helps me to not get overwhelmed by the big picture and to be able to effectively focus on each project and see it through to the end."
Can’t we all just get along? "Work would be great — if it wasn’t for the people," one manager complained. Dealing with unreasonable, unreliable, and uncaring coworkers can be frustrating, even downright infuriating at times. Clients and associates part company due to bad attitudes or short tempers — both the end results of poor stress management."
The bottom line of any organization has as much to do with physical and emotional health as it has to do with business acumen and a crack staff," Mantell explains. "Organizations are still comprised of people, with all their human gifts and frailties."
Beware of Burnout
Kemmons Wilson, founder of Holiday Inns, delivered the following address to a graduating class, "I really don’t know why I’m here. I never got a degree, and I’ve only worked half days my entire life. My advice to you is to do the same. Work half days every day. It doesn’t matter which half you work — the first 12 hours or the second 12 hours."Wilson’s intent may have been admirable, but his recommendation was not. In fact, it was a recipe for burnout. Two California psychologists, Ayala Pines and Elliot Aronson, pioneers in burnout research, describe this state as "physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion caused by long-term exposure to emotionally demanding situations."
This condition manifests itself with three behaviors, according to Andrew J. DuBrin, author of Human Relations: A Job-Oriented Approach:
Marta Driesslen, owner of Cambridge Career Services, experienced burnout several years ago. "I used to believe that if I did not ‘be there’ for my clients 24/7, then they would feel that either they were not getting their money’s worth or that I had not delivered on my promise to provide service excellence." After numerous physical problems, Driesslen took stock of her work attitude, noting, "I realized that if I continued to burn up my human engine without giving it much-needed relief, then I would eventually be shut down permanently."
Driesslen now limits work to Monday through Friday, accepts no phone calls past 7:00 p.m., and routinely asks herself throughout the day, "What is the best use of my time for this moment?" She also refuses to allow herself "to be tyrannized by the ‘urgent.’" Driesslin advises her overly stressed clients to simplify their lives and discipline themselves to listen and respond rather than assume and react.
Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow — Or Is It?
In a laboratory experiment, frogs were placed in a shallow pan of lukewarm water. They were able to jump out any time. Under each pan, a burner was set to gradually heat the water. As it became hotter, the frogs remained motionless. They adapted to the adverse conditions, never becoming uncomfortable enough to jump out of the pan. Is this an admirable example of change management? Hardly. The frogs died because they maintained a behavior that prevented them from jumping out of a dangerous situation.
With stress, you must know when you are reaching your boiling point. If you have a job that does not fit your skill set, your stress level is undoubtedly high. According to Psychologist Bill Crawford, author of All Stressed Up & Nowhere To Go!, "Suffering is when we don’t make the change. The frogs didn’t listen to the signal and suffered as a result. Often, we don’t listen to the signal of stress in our lives until it becomes a severe problem and, like the frogs, we suffer as a result."Bob McDowell, a retired psychotherapist in California, worked in high-stress jobs, including as a child abuse investigator, paramedic, and counselor for 20 years. He began to lose sympathy and empathy for those who relied on him for strength and emotional support.
McDowell recalls his feelings of "same old story, similar circumstances, different person, different day" — an admittedly inappropriate attitude for a helping professional. Although he prided himself on his ability to dissasociate, it seemed that years of doing so had finally caught up with him. Finally, he became so tired of feeling depressed that he "woke up" and gave himself permission to make a career change."
I’ve never looked back" says McDowell, who now enjoys success in the real estate industry. He has not, however, forgotten the pain of burnout. His soon-to-be-released CD, "Stress Management For Life" www.amazon.com, aims to help others avoid the same plight.
Practice "Safe Stress"
Successful people have learned to manage their personal stress, and you can, too. Your physical and emotional health, career success, and relationships with co-workers and family will all benefit tremendously if you learn to practice safe stress.# # #
