Tag Archives | work

What’s Your Knee-Jerk Response?

March 2015

A Powerful Predictor of Workplace Stress

The world is full of danger and when people feel safe, they trust and cooperate. When they don’t, they waste time and energy defending themselves from each other.

We live most of our lives wired and wound up, rarely pausing to relax or unplug from the daily grind.  What are the consequences of your ever-hectic life?  When you are stressed at work, you lose natural qualities of communication, compassion, patience, cooperation and creativity.

Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential and more profitable than others? Why do some people naturally command greater loyalty?

Research shows that what you do with your knee-jerk reaction is key to workplace stress.

Business relationships are often rocky due to poor communication, misinterpretation of facts and pressurized environments. Mole hills become mountains and mistakes become disasters in the course of a day.

Whether you are the president of the company or the assistant who sets up the conference room — your communication style can have an enormous affect on others.

Knee Jerk Reactions that Create Stress:
Passive or Aggressive Communication
When you don’t proactively ask for what you want or need from your employees/boss – you are passively communicating. With a passive style, you don’t often share your true thoughts and feelings, especially if you think it will lead to conflict.  You aren’t direct and succinct during or after confrontation.

Passive communicators often believe they ‘aren’t good enough’ and that ‘other people are better’, and so you take the ‘one down’ position.  This creates resentment and long-term stress.  You might resort to sarcasm or gossip to indirectly communicate your feelings — neither are helpful.

If you use aggressive communication, you take the ‘one-up’ position. You might attack, belittle, blame, criticize and generally denigrate the other person to get what you want.

People who speak with an aggressive style tend to use the words,  ‘always’ and ‘never.’   For example, an aggressive communicator might say, “You never finish your reports on time. You’re always sloppy!”

You might think your aggressive style is direct and effective but it tears down feelings of equality. Trust, faith, safety and goodwill in your workplace relationships will erode.  People will eventually leave you or turn on you.

Reactions that Reduce Stress:
Assertive Communication
Assertive communication is a balanced communication style that privileges each voice in the conversation equally. An assertive communicator will freely and respectfully disclose their feelings, thoughts, wants and needs in a way that can be heard by the other.

The basis of assertive communication is to treat all people equally. You support yourself in having a perspective and a voice, and you also respect that your employee has a perspective and a voice that may be different from yours, but is just as valuable.

Assertive communicators use ‘I’ language to express their thoughts and feelings.

Assertive communicators will expect that differences will arise in their team and be prepared to move into difficult and anxiety-provoking discussions with a goal of equality and resolution.

An assertive communicator doesn’t blame others for how they feel which is an important distinction from the aggressive communicator who will often blame others for the way they are feeling.

How to Shift Your Knee Jerk Response

1. Take a breath or 2 or 3. Slow yourself down for the briefest of pauses—just enough time to subvert your default reaction. In that moment, notice your gut reaction. How do you tend to handle poor performance? Do you get angry? Stressed? Needy? Distant? Your goal is to give people what they need to perform, not what you need to release.

2. Decide on the outcome you want.  Be specific — maybe it’s improved performance. What does this particular person need in order to turn around this particular poor performance or failure? Maybe it’s help defining a stronger strategy, or brainstorming different tactics, or identifying what went right. Maybe they need to know you trust them, you’re on their side and that mistakes happen.

3. Choose a response that will achieve the outcome you want, rather than simply making your already obvious displeasure more obvious.

The added bonus in changing your knee-jerk response?  It will improve your marriage and personal relationships, as well.  An extra goody for you and everyone in your life.

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Type A’s & Stress

June 2013

There is no doubt that work is important in today’s society.  People who are hard workers and take their jobs seriously are often rewarded with promotions, bonuses and accolades from family, friends and the boss.  Our results-oriented culture admires people who produce – that makes sense.

However, hard work and success can actually become addictive.  Without even realizing it, a person driven by success begins to measure their personal worth by how much they get done and how successful they become.  Fearing failure and needing to experience the next success, a person may be driven — moving from one success to the next, faster and faster.

Often times, this personality trait is seen as early as grade school or high school.  It carries a badge of honor for the youngster to succeed in one or more areas, especially if it results in athletic and scholastic achievements.  Teachers, parents, coaches, friends – send the message that “you are somebody” as the child or adolescent begins to equate success to self-worth.

RESEARCH
In the 1950’s, two heart specialists – Rosenman and Friedman – developed the term, Type A.  They conducted an 8-year study of middle managers and executives and asked questions such as:
• Do you feel guilty if you use spare time to relax?
• Do you need to win in order to derive enjoyment from games and sports?
• Do you generally move, walk and eat rapidly?
• Do you often try to do more than one thing at a time?

Rosenman & Friedman described Type A behavior as competitive, ambitious, impatient and aggressive.  Type A’s tend to have a harrying sense of time urgency.  Individuals displaying this pattern seem to be engaged in a chronic, ceaseless and often fruitless struggle with themselves, with others, with circumstances, with time and sometimes with life itself.

RESULTS
Energetic and strong-willed Type A’s become caught in a self-made trap of attempting to hold everything together, trying to achieve greater success, negating the poetic and personal side of life and struggling to answer the question, “Has it been worth the price?” as marriages dissolve, their children grow distant or they are laid off from their beloved job. Type A’s are so focused on the destination – that they treat themselves like machines until they break down one way or another.

The first step is a candid self-appraisal.  How many of these beliefs do you hold?

  • I must always be competent.
  • I must get everything done on time.
  • I don’t have the limits of normal people.
  • I must work hard all the time.
  • I feel more valuable when I accomplish something.

The  second step is to begin to softly shift those beliefs.  You might find a phrase to say yourself several times a day that is meaningful to you:

  • I do not need to work harder than others.
  • I am a worthwhile person — separate from my work.
  • I am loved for who I am — not what I do..
  • I can rest.  I don’t have to do it all.
  • I do not have to control everything.

The  third step is consciously take time each day to slow down:

  • Take mini-breaks throughout the day (stretch, walk, eat lunch with someone).
  • Take deep breaths and relax your shoulders, neck, jaw, hands when you feel tension increasing.
  • Set a goal for what time you’ll leave at the end of the day — and stick to it.
  • Leave your briefcase at work.

I encourage you to reach out to a mentor, spiritual advisor or counselor if you are having trouble making changes by yourself.

I’m here if you need help.

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