Anxiety

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 100 of 501 · 20 per page

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  It didn’t matter. The switch obfuscated the ‘who’ part of it.” Ziob mitigated as much uncertainty as he could, and built a team that thrived by providing the best information available and an environment for his team to analyze their future and make informed decisions as a group. In interviewing his direct reports, Wiseman told us, “to a person they said that their leader created a learning environment where people could experiment, take risks, and make mistakes. It is what allowed their team to make intelligent decisions in times of uncertainty.” Method 2: Loosen Your Grip in Tough TimesIn an interview with Nicole Malachowski, the first female pilot in the U.S. Air Force demonstration squadron the Thunderbirds, she explained how pilots fly when turbulence or headwinds occur. “It’s human nature to try to resist change. When we are flying in formation three feet apart, at 450 miles per hour, upside down, we have a contract with each other. It’s to loosen your grip. If you fly with your hand on the stick with all five fingers tight, and you try to react to every bump, you get into what we call a pilot-induced oscillation. Bigger corrections. It’s unsafe and makes things worse. That’s not how you nurture change. When things get bumpy, we lighten up on the stick, using just a few fingers.” Unfortunately, research shows more than half of workers say their managers become more closed-minded and controlling during ambiguous, high-pressure situations. Malachowski’s analogy is a terrific way to think about leading a team through uncertainty. If we, as leaders, fight change or try to control every aspect of our employees’ work during a crisis, we’ll typically make things worse. If leaders stay loose—open and curious—they’ll be more successful in the long run and keep their teams together. Reimagine the scenario with Brett Fischer and Lisa. It was certainly a very busy day in the store and the pressure was on Brett, as the manager, to deliver. Instead of taking a few minutes to have that caring, focused one-on-one with Lisa, picture what would have happened if he had tried to micromanage her—perhaps motioning from across the room to speed things up with a few twists of his hand, or by taking over himself, or by giving her overcomplicated instructions about how to behave from then on. How often do we, as leaders, start to micromanage when things get tense? Tasha Eurich, an organizational psychologist who writes on self-awareness and suffers from anxiety herself, told us that leaders must live in the moment during a crisis. “There’s such uncertainty. During the pandemic, for instance, we worry, when will there be a vaccine, when will I get to go back to the office?

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  Worse, they don’t speak up when they should. In an interview we conducted for this book with Dr. Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School and author of The Fearless Organization, she explained, “When people feel heightened interpersonal anxiety, they worry, ‘Will I get in trouble if . . . ?’ or ‘Will I get rejected if . . . ?’ Psychological safety represents an absence of interpersonal anxiety—the ‘What do you think of me?’ anxiety, which is so prevalent in the human experience and can get in the way of people doing the right thing, from offering up an idea to averting a crisis by speaking up.” Clarity from managers in one-on-one settings gives workers a sense of what’s allowable and what’s not, and what kind of actions are necessary in the moment. It also helps employees take on new projects or oversee tasks, because they understand the parameters of their new responsibilities and what freedoms in decision-making they do and don’t have. Here’s an illustration. We once visited with Brett Fischer, who was director of merchandising for Major League Soccer’s Real Salt Lake, the day after his team had hosted a playoff match. Fischer had assigned a friendly, outgoing worker named Lisa to tend one of the cash registers in the team store. Fischer had been busy, and in giving Lisa the assignment he simply said, “Work your magic,” and off he ran to other matters. Lisa began chatting with each customer in line, asking them a question, telling a funny story here and there. On this huge game day, her friendly conversations were slowing the line to a crawl. Fischer pulled Lisa aside and said, “I wasn’t clear. This is on me. Normally it’s great that you talk with customers. But today, we need a sense of urgency at the register. Here are our options: We can put someone else up front and allow you to engage with customers on the floor, or you need to focus on getting that till to go a hundred miles an hour.” At first, he said, Lisa was defensive and hurt. “She thought I was criticizing her as a person,” he said. Her anxiety was ratcheted up. But Fischer clarified to Lisa that speed was what their clients needed on this very busy day. She eventually said, “I want to stay on the register.” Fischer checked on Lisa several times in the hours that followed, and her line was humming. “By the end of the game, she left feeling like a million bucks,” he said. This was, admittedly, a modest interaction. But aren’t most in a team?

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  Imagine you have a best friend with anxiety, Diaz says, “and you say: ‘Why don’t you talk to someone else.’ Or, ‘Go take medication.’ How long would they be your friend? People need to have a good relationship with their manager.” He adds that leaders convey a counter-productive message when the only means of assistance they offer is sending their people away from the company. The message is: Work is toxic; you need to get the heck out of here to heal. Why, he asks, would anyone come back to your team or company if they think it’s the problem? Diaz isn’t suggesting that people suffering from heightened anxiety shouldn’t speak to a therapist; he fully endorses therapy. But he argues that managers must take responsibility and do what they can to alleviate some of the strains work life is placing on so many of their people. “It’s like we are blaming the individuals for having issues,” he says. “What about us? Are we supporting them? Am I approachable as a manager? Am I scared of the issue?” There’s the heart of it: Are managers willing to be present with an employee as that person makes sense of their mental health issue? Do they know how far to help without it becoming a counseling session? This is vital knowledge for managers these days. At Kraft Heinz Company, Shirley Weinstein, head of Global Rewards, says if the global pandemic of 2020 had one heartening result, it was the realization to managers at all levels that anxiety is a real business issue. “They’re home with family, feeling the additional pressures and the need to stay connected with their teams. They experienced it; a realization that mental well-being is a real concern,” she said. Weinstein added, “We want our leaders to help with their employees’ anxiety and emotional well-being, which is compounded with today’s uncertainty. However, there’s still this lingering stigma on mental health. Do I raise my hand and say, ‘I need help’? When you look at EAPs, utilization is not increasing even in the midst of the pandemic. There is a concern: ‘If I tell my manager, how will they react? What are they going to do?’ And have we properly coached our managers on what they should do?” To help address this very real issue, one of the leadership principles at Kraft Heinz is “Empathy and Care.” Weinstein says that managers must learn to understand and diagnose what their employees are facing, “whether that be workload, work-life balance, mental health, stress, burnout, anxiety, or reduced energy levels. We are thinking about how we make sure our managers are equipped to recognize the situation, where they may be contributing to the problem, and how best to address the issues with empathy and care. We haven’t completely cracked that nut yet, but we have started the conversation.”

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  They communicated the pending challenges with employees and displayed a commitment to try to retrain workers, not wanting to abandon the knowledge and passion their people had. Since 2013, AT&T has spent some $250 million each year on employee education and professional development programs, not to mention more than $30 million annually on tuition assistance. By 2018 the company estimated that half of its employees were actively engaged in acquiring skills for newly created roles. People who’d been retrained were filling half of all technology management jobs and received half of all promotions. Network support specialist Jacobie Davis has been with AT&T for more than twenty years in a variety of positions from sales to 911-line maintenance. Given the transition to a software focus at the company, he repositioned his skills to earn a spot as a product development engineer in cloud-based test environments. He said, “It’s really hard to describe the vast difference between the things we’re moving toward and the types of legacy technology I’ve been working on. It’s like night and day.” (We introduce a Skill Development Model to help with this process in Chapter 4 .) Here’s a company that understood that huge layoffs would undermine trust in management, trust that was necessary for employee engagement, innovation, and performance. Since the inception of this talent overhaul, and in large part by communicating truthfully with and retraining its workforce, from 2013 through 2019 AT&T increased revenue from $129 billion to $181 billion, reduced its product-development cycle time while accelerating time-to-revenue, and even made Fortune ’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list for the first time. If executives at a company aren’t employing an honest and clear approach like this, team leaders may have limits about what they can share to help reduce uncertainty, but within those limits we find there’s much they can do. In an interview we conducted with Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath, she said this involves managers trying to absorb as much uncertainty as possible, instead of pushing it onto their people (admittedly this might increase managers’ own anxiety levels somewhat, but leaders typically can accept a lot more risk than their people). McGrath cited an example of a product development team at an insurance company she was working with. As background, insurance in America is regulated state by state, so whether a new product can be launched in a particular state depends on the state regulatory committee. The project lead, Bill, asked his contact in operations, Todd, if his team would be ready to launch the new product they had been developing, but Todd hemmed and hawed. Dr.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  The employees told us how appreciative they were of their team leader, who was effective in relieving anxiety about keeping up on the expectations for speed. She coached her workers to accept that the system was what it was, and other regions of the country weren’t any faster. She encouraged her people to redirect their attention to accuracy . She absorbed any flack from above, and helped her team focus on what they could get done each day. She helped them establish workable timelines and motivated them to deliver; and at the end of each week they celebrated quality successes. She said, “What we can control is our work ethic, the quality of the product we deliver, and how we treat each other and our clients.” What this boss had her people practice is called “emotional acceptance.” She didn’t try to quash feelings of stress with positive thinking, which often just makes things worse. Instead, she restructured their to-do lists to give emphasis to what they could realistically master. Unfortunately, vague or unrealistic goals aren’t uncommon nowadays. Unreachable or ambiguous targets are often used to push teams to their limits. But when no one ever reaches the mark, it can lead to burnout, disengagement, and intense anxiety about missing expectations. This leader was able to explain how each person was making valued contributions, and it made all the difference. One way to do this is to redistribute employee to-do lists to ensure that each item contains an action verb, e.g., “Return phone calls within one hour.” If you can’t find a concrete action verb for a goal, it’s a sign that the action is beyond a person’s control and is likely to cause undue stress. As one example, a goal of “good phone habits are essential” is vague and will most likely cause more stress for team members. Method 5: Have a Bias to Action“To help our people self-regulate their anxiety, we show them how to accept risk and have a bias to action,” explained Stan Sewitch, vice president of Global Organization Development for the WD-40 Company. “One of the best stress relievers—proven to be useful in reducing the sympathetic nervous system enervation—is movement. That can include intellectual movement as well as physical.” With a team-wide bias to action, employees become less afraid to make decisions and move forward, even in the face of uncertainty. In these cultures, people don’t spend days, weeks, or months debating if their approach is the only logical one; they do things and realize not everything will be perfect. They are also not afraid of being held accountable for making a poor decision. This is such an important concept that “Bias for Action” is one of retail giant Amazon’s core values. As that company proclaims: “Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  This can especially ratchet up anxiety for lower-power people, underrepresented minorities, and younger workers. “It’s almost a disloyal thing to say I’m really overloaded, and this will push me over the edge,” said Dr. McGrath. “It’s important for managers to make it okay to have that dialogue. And for leaders to remember that the more senior they are, the more their suggestions are commands.” McGrath recalls being a PhD student at Wharton. She was busy running a research center, managing undergrads, and completing her own studies, all while commuting an hour each way and raising two kids under the age of four. “I showed up one day and the head of our center introduced me to a visiting scholar from Singapore. He wanted me to escort the professor around for the day. I asked for a word in the next room, and I told him that if he thought that was the best use of my time, I’d do it; but I made him aware of all the things that would not get done that day. His eyes got wide and he admitted he had no idea.” McGrath had the courage to speak up to her department chair and have an open dialogue about priorities because trust existed in the relationship. Method 6: Avoid Distractions In a series of experiments conducted by PhDs Joshua Rubinstein, a researcher at the Federal Aviation Administration, and Jeffrey Evans and David Meyer of the University of Michigan, test subjects were required to switch between different tasks, such as solving math problems. No surprise, the participants lost time when they had to move back and forth from one job to another. As tasks got more complex, participants lost more and more time trying to get back up to speed. As a result, the multitaskers were significantly slower at accomplishing the overall set of assignments than control groups that completed one task then moved on to the next. The research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology , found productivity decreased by as much as 40 percent when test subjects were repeatedly switching tasks. A University of London study shows that workers who are distracted by incoming emails and telephone calls drop ten points on IQ scores on average. And yet more than half of the 1,100 people surveyed said they responded to emails immediately or as soon as possible, with 21 percent admitting they would interrupt an in-person meeting to respond to a text or other electronic missive. Lead researcher Dr. Glenn Wilson said that such unchecked infomania can reduce workers’ mental sharpness. “Those who are constantly breaking away from tasks to react to email or text messages suffer similar effects on the mind as losing a night’s sleep,” he said. One of the traits we’ve noted in high-performing people is their remarkable ability to reduce distractions and calmly concentrate on one subject at a time. In the biography Abraham Lincoln , Carl Sandburg shared a story of a young Lincoln.

• From A History of God (1993)

  He would not have approved of Pascal’s wager, since it was based on a purely subjective experience, though his own demonstration of the existence of God depended upon another type of subjectivity. He was anxious to refute the skepticism of the French essayist Michel Montaigne (1533–92), who had denied that anything was certain or even probable. Descartes, a mathematician and a convinced Catholic, felt that he had a mission to bring the new empirical rationalism to the fight against such skepticism. Like Lessius, Descartes thought that reason alone could persuade humanity to accept the truths of religion and morality, which he saw as the foundation of civilization. Faith told us nothing that could not be demonstrated rationally: St. Paul himself had asserted as much in the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans: “For what can be known about God is perfectly plain to [mankind] since God himself has made it plain. Ever since God created the world his everlasting power and deity—however invisible—have been there for the mind to see in the things that he has made.” 7 Descartes went on to argue that God could be known more easily and certainly ( facilius et certius ) than any of the other things in existence. This was as revolutionary in its own way as Pascal’s wager, especially since Descartes’s proof rejected the witness of the external world that Paul had put forward in favor of the reflexive introspection of the mind turning in upon itself. Using the empirical method of his universal Mathematics, which had progressed logically toward the simples or first principles, Descartes attempted to establish an equally analytic demonstration of God’s existence. But unlike Aristotle, St. Paul and all previous monotheistic philosophers, he found the cosmos completely Godless. There was no design in nature. In fact the universe was chaotic and revealed no sign of intelligent planning. It was impossible for us to deduce any certainty about first principles from nature, therefore. Descartes had no time for the probable or the possible: he sought to establish the kind of certainty that mathematics could provide. It could also be found in simple and self-evident propositions, such as: “What’s done cannot be undone,” which was irrefutably true. Accordingly, while he was sitting meditating beside a wood stove, he hit upon the famous maxim: Cogito, ergo sum; I think, therefore I am. Like Augustine, some twelve centuries earlier, Descartes found evidence of God in human consciousness: even doubt proved the existence of the doubter! We cannot be certain of anything in the external world, but we can be certain of our own inner experience. Descartes’s argument turns out to be a reworking of Anselm’s Ontological Proof. When we doubt, the limitations and finite nature of the ego are revealed. Yet we could not arrive at the idea of “imperfection” if we did not have a prior conception of “perfection.” Like Anselm, Descartes concluded that a perfection that did not exist would be a contradiction in terms.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Satan lets loose all his forces. Thus far we have resisted him by prayer. Yesterday after my sermon the chimney of my quarters was set on fire,* no doubt by Satan himself who has very much frightened my poor hosts. I suspect Satan of ridiculing our efforts, or of threatening [us with] something else.4 On February 10, Luther wrote to Kathie again, making the chimney fire sound more dangerous than in his previous communication and then telling her that a huge and heavy stone almost brained him during one of his celebrated bowel movements. He explained that mortar in the wall above the toilet had been dripping down, and when someone had come to fix it, he merely touched the wall with two fingers, and the stone—about three feet long and six inches thick—had immediately fallen. Had it fallen of its own accord while Luther was on the toilet, it might well have struck him dead—and right in the cloaca. Kathie had made it clear in her letters that her worries over her husband at this time were so severe that she was losing sleep over them. Whether these were premonitions of his death, no one can say, but one doesn’t get the impression that this sort of thing was typical of her. She knew her husband’s health was poor, that this had been an especially bitter winter, and that owing to a recent sudden thaw, causing serious flooding along the route Luther and his sons had to travel, his trip had been perilous. Luther was indeed not well, but he nonetheless never ceased teasing his Kathie about her concerns, although behind the teasing lay a pastor’s and husband’s concern for his beloved wife: To my dear wife, Katherine Luther, doctoress and self-tormentor at Wittenberg, my gracious lady, Grace and peace in the Lord! Read, dear Kathie [the Gospel of] John and [my] Small Catechism, of which you once said: Indeed, everything in this book is said about me. For you want to assume the cares of your God, just as if He were not almighty and were unable to create ten Dr. Martins if this old one were drowned in the Saale or suffocated in a stove. . . . Leave me in peace with your worrying! I have a better Caretaker than you and all the angels. He it is who lies in a manger and nurses at a virgin’s breast, but at the same time sits at the right hand of God, the almighty Father. Therefore be at rest. Amen.5 Luther wrote his last letters to Kathie and Melanchthon on the fourteenth. He told Kathie that all was well and that God willing he would begin his return journey that week. He also sent along the gift of some trout he received from the wife of Count Albrecht. He said that his boys were still in Mansfeld with his brother, Jakob, who was taking good care of them.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  It succeeded in 1512, but there were no practical consequences: Ludolphy, Friedrich der Weise, 255. 12. Weiß, Die frommen Bürger. 13. Erfurt was not an imperial city, though it longed to be one; see R. W. Scribner, “Civic Unity and the Reformation in Erfurt,” in Scribner, ed., Popular Culture, 185–216. 14. Certainly the “shameful” death of Kelner seems to have made an impression on him, and he recalled it several times: WT 1, 487; 2, 2494a and b, 2709b. He blamed Erfurt for being too proud and holding both Mainz and Saxony in contempt. 15. Interestingly the Wittenberg professor Henning Göde was centrally involved for Saxony in the negotiations that led eventually to Saxony’s resumption of its dominant position in Erfurt, so Luther probably knew about these developments from Saxony’s point of view; Ludolphy, Friedrich der Weise, 252–56. 16. WT 5, 5375. Mathesius, Historien, 11–12, says that the monks confiscated the Bible they had given him; Ratzeberger, Luther, 46–48, that he had to do the work of a “Hausknecht,” sweeping and cleaning, instead of studying. 17. WT 5, 5375. 18. WS 41, 447:16 (sermon, 1535), WS 17, 1, 309. Luther was particularly opposed to the Carthusians’ vegetarianism, which he considered unhealthy: WS 42, 504 (lectures on Moses, 1535–45). 19. WS 10, 1, pt. 2, 436. 20. Brecht, Luther, I, 64; WS 11, 202, 11ff; WS 46, 24:34; WT 1, 708; WT 5, 5428. 21. WS 17, 1, 309:31–34. 22. WS 32, 327:21–22. 23. WS 11, 60:20–22. 24. WS 33, 83:31–36; 84:1–5. 25. WT 2, 1746, 203:43–45: He continued that Aristotle and Bonaventure were the figures he held in high regard. 26. WS 38, 148:6–8; the Latin term he uses is tentatio . 27. WT 1, 518. 28. WS 45, 152:8, 36–37; WT 1, 137, 59: 27–32; WT 2, 2318a. 29. WT 1, 122, 50:28; see also, for example, WT 2, 1492; WS 21, 358:17; WS 31, 1, 148b:3; WS 40, 2, 91–92. 30. WT 1, 141, Dec. 14, 1531, 65:13–14. 31. WB 5, 1377, Jan. 31, 1529, 14:14–15. 32. WB 5, 1671, [Aug.] 1, 1530, 521:6. 33. WB 5, 1670, July(?) 1530, 518–20; he even suggested committing a small sin. 34. LW Letters, I, 27–8; WB 1, 28, 26 Oct. 1516, 72:6–10; 10–11; 12–13. 35. WB 1, 18, June 30, 1516; 13, May 1, 1516; he also complained about another monk who would bring shame on the convent at Eisleben. 36. Brecht, Luther, I, 98–105. 37. WT 5, 5344, 75:2; summer 1540. 38. Though his later self, recalling this, immediately added, “And the Devil shat his thanks on the Pope,” as if the city’s reputation for holiness still needed a bit of prophylactic mud-slinging: WT 5, 6059. 39. WT 3, 3781. 40. WT 3, 3479a.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  Research by Deloitte has found that organizations that effectively nurture their people’s desire to learn are at least 30 percent more likely to be market leaders in their industries. While the phenomenon of career anxiety may seem a massive societal shift that managers might not have a lot of control over, in fact, there is a great deal they can do. We agree with J. Maureen Henderson of Forbes, who cautions leaders not to simply resign themselves to millennial “high turnover and short staff tenures rather than [focus] on retaining their existing employees.” Indeed, we have found that when leaders offer younger workers regular chances to learn and advance—and find ways to help secure their futures within an organization —many of those valuable employees prefer to stay. If leaders are seeking to retain the best young workers, and reduce unnecessary career anxiety in their people, then addressing concerns about job security, growth, and advancement are vital. This is a terrific way for leaders and their firms to stand out in a competitive job market. According to Corporate Executive Board research, only one in ten organizations have what can be defined as a learning culture: a workplace that supports organizational and independent quests for knowledge that will advance the company’s mission (not to mention make workers more skilled and add more value). We understand that for a busy manager—and is there any other kind?—the notion of closely shepherding each person’s career development may seem overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be burdensome. Following the methods we outline here will not only address your employees’ anxiety about where they’re heading, it will relieve the tension you feel about their worries and demands. Method 1: Create More Steps to Grow More than 75 percent of Gen Z workers say they believed they should be promoted within their first year on the job. If it’s possible to implement, one highly effective means of alleviating employee anxiety about advancing is simply to create more steps on the promotional ladder. This was done to great effect at the appropriately named Ladders, an online job search website. The company’s founder and CEO, Marc Cenedella, said of his tech-savvy young workers, when they “arrived at my company, they fussed over promotions, pay, and responsibilities. They demanded work far out of line with what their capabilities and experiences qualified them for.” At the time, Ladders had a program that enabled a new hire to be promoted to senior associate within two years. “To our Gen X way of thinking, this was way fairer than what the baby boomers put us through,” he said. But the young workers coming in perceived it as a slow passing of years with nothing to show for it on their resumes. Cenedella admits that, at first, he tried badgering younger colleagues into seeing things his way. But eventually he realized he’d have better results by adapting his own point of view.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  We assessed her team using our Motivators Assessment and conducted 360 interviews, and we believed that Greg was not likely to find her management job satisfying or be especially good at it. As background, we built the Motivators Assessment with Drs. Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, authors of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 , to help determine an individual’s unique core drivers on the job. Twenty-three motivators emerged from our research that motivate people at work—from creativity to ownership, from money to learning. After having now surveyed more than 100,000 people with the Assessment, we’ve found a crucial element in employee engagement is for people to be authentically motivated by the work they’re doing. Makes sense, right? The highest producing workers have a good quotient of work on their plates that’s truly engaging for them. Of course, all of us have aspects of our jobs we don’t particularly enjoy. Everyone has to take out the trash, so to speak. But we’ve found managers can help employees become more committed, confident, and satisfied in their careers by helping them understand that while compensation and promotions are important, just as vital is doing something they’re passionate about, with work they find interesting and rewarding. Employees who feel anxious about their career path may actually be on the wrong path. Caring managers can often help them know if that’s the case, which we were hoping would happen in Greg’s situation. Discovering a mismatch between an employee’s work and the kinds of tasks that would be more motivating also provides the opportunity to do some job sculpting with the employee: finding assignments they might transfer to someone else on the team, tasks that may be altered somewhat to become more motivating, and—best of all for the manager and employee—those things that they’ll love doing may be added to a person’s plate. Rather than just giving employees promotions or raises (which can’t be done very often), we’ve found this process of sitting down and sculpting their jobs can be powerful in increasing worker engagement and sense of direction. This is why we created the Motivators Assessment in the first place, to help leaders pinpoint what most engages their employees in their work. The assessment is now used by hundreds of organizations around the world to help managers better align their employees’ jobs with core drivers, with well-documented results in performance and retention.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  What’s Not Happening . . . and What Is In some cases, exclusion is not intentional; and inadvertent actions can be tricky to spot. They are sins of omission: the result of help not offered, conversations not engaged in, camaraderie not shared. How are managers supposed to see what’s not happening? There’s actually quite a lot that team leaders can do to encourage inclusion; for instance, looking carefully for anyone on the team who may seem to be left out (all the more important when some or all of a team works remotely), which person is regularly cut off during group discussions, who is regularly chatting with whom, and who doesn’t seem to be interacting with anyone. By watching, a manager can gain awareness and insight. But regular one-on-ones are probably the best way to understand what’s really going on: asking about people’s interactions with others on the team and if they are having challenges with any specific personalities. At FYidoctors, doctors and team leaders follow what they call a Ten-Ten Commitment in their optometry clinics, labs, and home office departments. “For the first ten minutes of each day, leaders walk around and ask their team members how they are doing with a friendly hello and no other agenda but a welcome to the day,” said president Darcy Verhun. “It’s incumbent on the leaders to do this to demonstrate visible leadership and caring. It’s ten minutes at the start of the day, and another ten minutes at the end of the day to see how everyone’s day has gone. I’m amazed at the power of a simple check-in.” Verhun added, “These check-ins are not so that the team can hear the leader’s story, but so the leaders can hear their team members’ stories and connect. We have received such positive feedback from the team on this leadership commitment and have found it reduces anxiety.” But even if managers pick up on exclusion, they still need specific approaches to help their people move from feeling isolated to connected and accepted. We are not necessarily suggesting dragging everyone out for karaoke or starting a potluck Friday, but a few ideas that can help immediately include: Ensure that all team members can contribute in meetings and have their voices heard in a calm, organized manner. Buddy new hires up with more seasoned employees who they might form a connection with (friendly seasoned employees, that is). Spend time in every meeting recognizing the contributions of individuals as well as those of the group as a whole. Go out of the way to make remote workers feel fully accepted—e.g., even though some people may be working in the office, now and then ask everyone to join meetings via electronic means.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  SUMMARYManage Healthy DebateMany people today are conflict-avoidant—sidestepping uncomfortable situations and holding back on giving honest feedback.The best work groups are places of high trust and high candor, where team members debate to drive problem-solving. When employees are free to speak up and know their voices will be heard, it can increase engagement, enhance psychological safety, and bolster self-confidence and a sense of ownership.Leaders facilitate this by encouraging debate in a safe environment. They set ground rules and encourage all voices to be heard, de-escalate quarreling, ask team members to clarify their opinions with facts, and create clear plans and timelines for moving forward.Managers can spot employees who may be conflict-averse if they shy away from difficult conversations, try to change the topic or flee the scene when things get tense, get uncomfortable during debates, or resist expressing their feelings or thoughts during meetings.Methods that managers can use to coach their employees to find their voices and work through difficult conversations include: 1) address the Issue, Value, Solution, 2) don’t delay, 3) stick to facts, 4) use your words, 5) assume positive intent, 6) have a plan, 7) give and take, and 8) get comfortable with the uncomfortable. 7Become an AllyHelp Marginalized Team Members Feel Valued and AcceptedIn recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. —Thurgood Marshall Many people in leadership roles do not fully understand that bias still occurs in our work cultures, and some unfortunately don’t believe it exists at all—dismissing this issue as people being overly sensitive to political correctness. Yet in conducting interviews for this book, it became starkly apparent that there has been a historic pattern of anxiety in particular groups within the workplace—those too often made to feel like “others.” Those at the most risk are women, people of color, those on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, members of religious minorities, and those with disabilities (note that this isn’t an exhaustive list). Each of these groups has faced unique oppression in the world at large, and it is mirrored in the workplace with significant implications on their productivity and engagement and our organizational success. Understanding, as leaders, how to be allies with all individuals and foster a diverse and inclusive conversation is the beginning of change. In writing this chapter, we did not wish to speak over voices within these communities and the insight they have. What we’ll present here will be eye-opening information about the real ways that discrimination can lead to significant anxiety in the workplace for marginalized groups. And we will highlight the thoughts of those who belong to some of these communities to best help leaders understand better how to help these individuals thrive. Not All Anxiety Is EqualMental health issues do not care about your race, gender, or identity; anyone can experience the challenges of anxiety. But socioeconomic disparities—such as exclusion from health, educational, social, and economic resources—often contribute to rates of psychological distress in minority communities.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  In a 2017 study led by Thomas Curran of the University of Bath in England, the team analyzed data from more than forty thousand American, Canadian, and British college students, showing that the majority had significantly higher scores than previous generations on measures of: irrational personal desire to never fail; perceiving excessive expectations from others; and placing unrealistic standards on those around them. There is plenty of research to suggest that social media is contributing to this rising fear of failure, pressuring young adults to compare their own work achievements to their peers’ (usually unfavorably), as is worry about achieving high marks for those in school. The motivation of many college students who strive to produce only perfect results is driven by fears of negative outcomes. The paradigm shift from “Cs get degrees” to “I’ll never be able to afford a mortgage if I don’t get into a good grad program” has provided many students a somber motivation to strive for flawlessness and ramped up levels of worry, stress, and anxiety. If there’s one thing the college admission scandal of 2019 taught us, it’s that the anxiety students and parents feel is palpable and can push those with wealth and power to make terrible decisions. The message for youth was unfortunate: Successful people should do whatever they can to get ahead, even if it means cheating. Back in our day (the early fourteenth century), most studious high school students just hoped to get into university—any university, really. But in the modern world, students are driven to achieve near-perfect GPAs to get into the “right” school, and then to keep excelling to get into prestigious graduate schools. To accomplish this, rich families hire tutors and send their kids on elaborate community service trips to boost their resumes, while students from economically disadvantaged families usually have to work part-time or full-time to pay for tuition, leaving less time for study. Universities unwittingly encourage competition by pitting students against each other. Online systems—now used by almost every university—instantly show students their scores on each assignment and test compared with the mean and class highs. Anthony admits checking his university’s online Canvas system at least once an hour on days his test scores would post.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  By ensuring all voices have a chance to be heard, it helps team members deal with any uncertainty they may be feeling about a key decision, and feel they are more part of the solution.” Another manager who has brought an inclusive perspective to various leadership roles throughout his career is Mark Beck, who we met when he was a senior leader of Danaher, a seventy thousand–employee science and technology company. He now owns a group of precision manufacturing companies know as B-Square Precision Group. To encourage healthy debate, Beck says, he might take the side of a person whose view is under assault in a meeting, even if he doesn’t necessarily agree with it. This isn’t gamesmanship, it’s to show that the person is offering up a reasonable way of thinking that should be respected. “The attacker usually steps back a little and softens their tone when a leader does that,” he says. Another way Beck ensures his people will continue to offer their views: “When all arguments have been made, a leader has to make a decision,” he said. “You can still do it in a way that doesn’t seem like someone’s won and someone’s lost. A leader might say, ‘The arguments on both sides have been fantastic. I can see why it would be reasonable to go either way. But we’ve got to make a decision. Here’s why I think we need to go this way.’ Then, the next time, people on the team won’t be afraid to make a stand. No one will feel like they’ve lost; each teammate will know the leader appreciates his or her honest input.” Conflict-Avoidant versus Peacemaker In all this, we do not wish to denigrate the role of a peacemaker in a team. Peacemaking can be an asset not only in one’s own career advancement but for a team as a whole. And a person whose nature is to avoid conflict may, in the proper setting, become just the one to play an important part in mending broken fences in a team. We admire the thinking of Drs. Emma Seppälä of Yale and Kim Cameron of the University of Michigan, whose research shows that employees who make the most positive impact on team performance foster social connections with others on the team and organization, are highly empathetic, go out of their way to help others, and help create a safe team culture that encourages members to express themselves—even if those conversations are difficult. What Seppälä and Cameron describe as ideal is part peacemaker, part tough guy/gal when debate is necessary. It’s a terrific, balanced definition because playing the role of peacemaker can, if taken too far and motivated by an excessive desire to avoid conflict, lead to a good deal of emotional wear and tear and anxiety, especially from self-criticism. Quite a few people we interviewed who suffer from heightened anxiety told us they feel guilty about conflicts on their team or with their loved ones at home.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  That can exacerbate anxiety, as years can pass without even a hint of moving up. Peterson says, “Leaders need to help team members figure out that just being excellent in their current role is not going to get them where they want to go. What will get them to the next level are new and different skills.” He advises managers to take their team members through something he calls the “reality test,” looking back a week and then ahead a week at their calendars to see how much of their time is spent on tasks that will help get them where they want to be a year from now. Do their daily actions align with their expressed goals? Obviously the bulk of a person’s time will be spent on current tasks, but if little to no time is spent in learning and growing, there’s little chance the person will ever move up. So leaders can do a lot to help, allowing their people dedicated time each week—just an hour or two is a big start—to learn desirable skills and align their focus with their long-term personal development goals. This is a powerful way to help people feel supported. Of course, this implies that managers have met individually with all of their employees to understand their career goals and how they might help them get where they want to go. Method 3: Help Employees Assess Their Skills and Motivations Another part of coaching, and helping tamp down anxiety about the path forward, is helping employees gain clarity about the path they’d actually most like to travel, which many employees are unsure of. Indecision can lead to career stress, and taking the wrong path can move people into roles they’re neither well-suited for nor very interested in—just because they think they need to keep moving up. Not long ago, we coached a department director about some possible pitfalls if she promoted Greg, one of her employees. The director was about to be moved to another role and had been grooming Greg to take her place. We assessed her team using our Motivators Assessment and conducted 360 interviews, and we believed that Greg was not likely to find her management job satisfying or be especially good at it. As background, we built the Motivators Assessment with Drs. Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, authors of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, to help determine an individual’s unique core drivers on the job. Twenty-three motivators emerged from our research that motivate people at work—from creativity to ownership, from money to learning. After having now surveyed more than 100,000 people with the Assessment, we’ve found a crucial element in employee engagement is for people to be authentically motivated by the work they’re doing. Makes sense, right? The highest producing workers have a good quotient of work on their plates that’s truly engaging for them.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  If you come out leading with the facts, the predictive part of the mind that induces anxiety has nothing to work with. Or, if you try to solve a problem without a clear discussion of the issue and how that affects your team values, e.g., “Sam, what are we going to do about Landex?” then you may never learn the real reasons for his actions. Method 2: Don’t Delay “Although deferring a difficult conversation can result in temporary relief, things simmer, problems get worse, and projects get off track or fail,” says Amy Jen Su, managing partner of Paravis Partners, a leadership development firm. When managers display what candor looks like themselves—addressing problems immediately, and with care, empathy, and directness—the message spreads throughout a team that this is appropriate behavior. In addition, as a leader works with conflict-averse employees, she may have the employee consider what would boost confidence in dealing with the conflict immediately versus putting it off. Does the employee need support during the meeting, or to role-play what might be said? Has the employee considered what business objectives are at risk by not confronting the issue in a timely manner? Method 3: Stick to FactsLeaders should teach employees to provide evidence around issues of concern when a conflict ensues. “By naming names, identifying events, describing situations, and illustrating behaviors, the leader seeks to get down to basics,” write Drs. Tim Porter-O’Grady and Kathy Malloch, authors of Quantum Leadership . A goal of conflict resolution is to ensure that all the tangible issues are laid on the table in clear enough terms that all the players can see them plainly. When the facts are fully presented, it’s remarkable how quickly many conflicts can be resolved. With that said, ensure your people have accurate and relevant sources to glean facts from. Also help them understand how you want them to research the issue they will discuss and debate, including what you consider a credible source (e.g., internal reports, industry journals) and what is not (e.g., Wikipedia, social media). Method 4: Use Your WordsAmy Edmondson of Harvard Business School told us managers must teach their people to have the courage to “use their words” to convey what they see, think, worry about, and need help with. She said, “Many leaders fail to recognize the implications of silence in moments when people could have spoken up. The surprise is how often the use of words is stymied by interpersonal anxiety.” That doesn’t mean meetings must get bogged down in endless clarification and discussions. Psychologically safe meetings don’t have to take longer. What it does mean is managers must show vulnerability and admit they don’t have all the answers. Otherwise people are sizing up the situation: “If I get the sense that you don’t think you’re a fallible human being, like the rest of us, I’m sure as heck not going to stick my neck out.”

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  While 40 percent of boomers stayed with an employer for at least twenty years, and one in five stayed for thirty years or more, relatively content to climb the corporate ladder in the company’s own due time, 78 percent of Gen Zers and 43 percent of millennials surveyed in 2018 planned to leave their companies within two years to pursue greener pastures. Yet leaders must understand that all this job hopping is not just about a fear of missing out or a desire to get promoted, it’s also about wage stagnation. Entry-level jobs, especially in urban areas, do not pay salaries that enable young people to build lives. According to Brookings Institution data, 44 percent of all workers qualified as “low wage” earners in 2019. Their median hourly wages were $10.22 an hour, with annual earnings of about $18,000. In short, said Brookings, “there aren’t enough good jobs to go around,” and young people are well aware of it. The fact is, most of us measure ourselves by hitting life markers: graduating from high school, attending college/starting an apprenticeship, getting a decent job, marrying, buying a home, having children, and so on. Society tends to think of these milestones as events that “settle” people. But access to these markers has changed for the rising generations. The average age to get on the housing ladder now is well over thirty. Add bloated student loans, lower wages, and fewer high-paying opportunities, and many of the things that society considers part of “normal adult life” can feel a long way off, if not unattainable. Instead of midlife crises, we are now seeing what we call the “quarter-life crisis,” where those in their twenties are facing serious unrest about the quality and direction of their lives. One young worker spoke for her generation when she told us, “We no longer see companies as having our best interests in mind. We understand that shareholder value is king, and we can be replaced by cheaper labor.” This is why, according to a 2018 study by ManpowerGroup, 87 percent of millennials ranked job security as a top priority (more than likely to be even more important in the post-pandemic world). All this may also help explain why so many young workers are concerned with gaining new skills in their jobs. A Gallup poll of millennials found 87 percent “highly value” growth and development opportunities—almost 20 percent higher than Gen X and boomer workers. Sadly, the same poll found that only 39 percent of young employees felt that they had “learned something new on the job in the past month.” Helping people develop new skills can be a terrific opportunity for enlightened managers to keep and engage their workforce. Research by Deloitte has found that organizations that effectively nurture their people’s desire to learn are at least 30 percent more likely to be market leaders in their industries.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  Yes, people may have goals, but, as Anthony described: Anxiety can be ratcheted up when employees are not given enough guidance about how to achieve their goals; when no one takes the time to show them approaches that have been most effective or warn them of common mistakes to avoid; or when a manager does not help them deal with challenges that emerge. Another young employee confided to us, “I would kill to have my boss take a few minutes now and then to help prioritize all that’s going on and maybe give me an idea of how much latitude I have to make my own decisions.” That comment bears rereading for all of us in leadership. In many cases, bosses think they are clearly communicating their expectations, when in reality, they aren’t being clear at all. This can cause workers to stall or misfire. But the best leaders, when they realize they aren’t being clear, accept responsibility, allow themselves to be corrected, then do what they can to more clearly explain what is needed. And when times are uncertain, targets should be shortened considerably, says Deepak Nachnani, CEO and founder of human capital management company peopleHum. “Thinking too far in the future causes stress, which raises anxiety levels. When we are in survival mode in our company, we set weekly goals. ‘What are we going to do next week?’ You don’t talk about long-term goals then; you keep people working on very short-term targets so they don’t have a chance to have negative thoughts come into their minds.” Method 4: Keep People Focused on What Can Be ControlledSome of the factors that will affect an employee’s performance, and the future of any team or business, are simply beyond any individual’s control. An economic downturn will most likely impact sales; a failure of a key supplier will slow your production and deliveries to clients. When team members concentrate their thoughts on what they can’t control, anxiety grows. Part of effective leadership is about helping workers acknowledge what they cannot change and direct their attention to what they can change. That’s a better tension reliever than a session of acupuncture. We visited once with a customer service team. The department was assigned part of the US as a territory. During a focus group session, employees identified the company’s antiquated system for managing workflow as a pain point. None of the team members could keep up with demand. They were incredibly frustrated. Despite that, however, the team achieved high marks for the quality of their work.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  In the first couple of sessions, the kids were terrified. Then they learned they didn’t get to have an opinion without something to base it on. So they would turn to page eighteen and point out that Jack stole the white hen and golden harp, so that’s why they believed this.” (We wish every manager would make note of this idea in facilitating conversations and before making any decision.) Number three, she said, is to ask everyone. The instructors taught Wiseman to keep a chart with each student listed and put a check mark next to the child’s name every time one commented. “I was thinking: I can track that in my head. But I tried this, and it made a big difference. It allowed me to say, ‘Robert, we’ve heard from you twice, but Marcus, we haven’t heard from you. We’d like to hear from you before we move on.’ It allowed everyone to participate.” Wiseman told us the debate tips immediately made her a better leader. SUMMARY Manage Healthy Debate Many people today are conflict-avoidant—sidestepping uncomfortable situations and holding back on giving honest feedback. The best work groups are places of high trust and high candor, where team members debate to drive problem-solving. When employees are free to speak up and know their voices will be heard, it can increase engagement, enhance psychological safety, and bolster self-confidence and a sense of ownership. Leaders facilitate this by encouraging debate in a safe environment. They set ground rules and encourage all voices to be heard, de-escalate quarreling, ask team members to clarify their opinions with facts, and create clear plans and timelines for moving forward. Managers can spot employees who may be conflict-averse if they shy away from difficult conversations, try to change the topic or flee the scene when things get tense, get uncomfortable during debates, or resist expressing their feelings or thoughts during meetings. Methods that managers can use to coach their employees to find their voices and work through difficult conversations include: 1) address the Issue, Value, Solution, 2) don’t delay, 3) stick to facts, 4) use your words, 5) assume positive intent, 6) have a plan, 7) give and take, and 8) get comfortable with the uncomfortable. 7 Become an Ally Help Marginalized Team Members Feel Valued and Accepted In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. —Thurgood Marshall Many people in leadership roles do not fully understand that bias still occurs in our work cultures, and some unfortunately don’t believe it exists at all— dismissing this issue as people being overly sensitive to political correctness. Yet in conducting interviews for this book, it became starkly apparent that there has been a historic pattern of anxiety in particular groups within the workplace— those too often made to feel like “others.” Those at the most risk are women, people of color, those on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, members of religious minorities, and those with disabilities (note that this isn’t an exhaustive list).