Easing Work under Stress

Three Principles

Everyone at work is a unique human being, with personal feelings, needs, interests, convictions and circumstances. This human nature must be perceived and taken account of in this Grouping.

The present focus is on stress as it exists in any workplace: not on the emotional or personal aspects of stress. Work-place stress can and must be handled so work can continue and the atmosphere can remain harmonious.

There are three principles to apply at work in relation to offering flexibility. These correspond to the Pentads and apply both in management adaptation and in personal presence. The principles, as shown in the diagram, are: 

■ Engagement : Be Engaged-CG53
■ Sensitivity : Be Sensitive-CG52
■ Responsiveness : Be Responsive-CG51

Engagement  functions so as to get oneself in the correct frame of mind to handle evolving work issues effectively and to interact with relevant staff.

Sensitivity functions so as to take account of another person's experiences and circumstances when interacting around work issues.

Responsiveness functions so as to sustain effective relating, during interactions on work issues, by doing whatever is constructive and helpful.

The Problem

At times of major stress, financial or practical or political, just when change is essential and flexibility is most needed, it is often most lacking.

Why?

No-one can be forced to engage, to be sensitive or to be responsive, but managers can reasonably expect this of employees. If so, they ought also to expect it of themselves (because they are employees).

The status hierarchy suggests that those higher in the organization should realize that they are a model for others, like it or not. Nowhere is this more important than in regard to management's personal presence.

● Cultures of confrontation may develop if there is a long history of weak management. Flexibility becomes difficult because everything becomes a trial of strength. Such situations are particularly harmful to achievement and represent a separate issue.

● In many conventional organizations, the culture allows people to operate on automatic, or to free-ride on the creative efforts of colleagues. Mutuality and presence are missing. Leadership is authoritarian and distant. Change gets imposed suddenly or mechanically, often via a Head Office memo, and without time for discussion and reflection.

● In new economy businesses, like software or biotech, where exchange of knowledge is central to the work, teams will be rendered useless if key staff are not genuinely present.

● Power-drenched managerial cultures often prevent participation, because threats, humiliation and abuse lead to a reflex inner personal withdrawal.

► Now see more details of adaptation and presence.

Originally posted: 11-Nov-2011