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.

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• From Story of O (1954)

  This is how they lift the fish at the market, O was thinking, by the gills, and how they pry open the mouths of horses. She also recalled that the valet Pierre, during her first evening at Roissy, had done the same to her after having fastened her in chains. After all, she was no longer mistress of her own fate, and that part of her of which she was least in control was most assuredly that half of her body which could, so to speak, be put to use independently of the rest. Why, each time that she realized this, as she - surprised was not really the right word - once again persuaded, why was she paralyzed each time by the same feeling of profound distress, a sentiment which tended to deliver her not so much into the hands of the person she was with as into the hands of him who had turned her over to alien hands, a sentiment which drew her closer to René when others were possessing her and which, here, was tending to draw her closer to whom? To René or to Sir Stephen? She no longer knew.... But that was because she did not want to know, for it was clear that she had belonged to Sir Stephen now for ... how long had it been? Anne-Marie had her stand up and put her clothes back on. "You can bring her to me whenever you like," she said to Sir Stephen. "I'll be at Samois (Samois... O had expected: Roissy. But if it did not mean Roissy; then what did it mean?) in two days time. That will be fine." (What would be fine?) "In ten days, if that suits you," Sir Stephen said, "at the beginning of July." In the car which was driving back home, Sir Stephen having remained behind at Anne-Marie's she remembered the statue she had seen as a child in the Luxembourg Gardens: a woman whose waist had been similarly constricted and seemed so slim between her full breasts and plump behind - she was leaning over limpid water, a spring which, like her, was carefully sculptured in marble, looking at her reflection - so slim and frail that she had been afraid the marble waist would snap. But if that was what Sir Stephen wanted... As for Jacqueline, she could handle her easily enough merely by telling her the corset was one of René's whims. Which brought O back to a train of thought she had been trying to avoid whenever it occurred to her, one which surprised her above all not to find more painful: why,

• From Story of O (1954)

  With René gone, Sir Stephen having escorted him to the door, she waited thus alone, motionless, feeling more exposed in the solitude and more prostituted by the wait than she had ever felt before, when they were there. The gray and yellow silk of the sofa was smooth to her cheek; through her nylon stockings she felt, below her knees, the thick wool rug, and along the full length of her left thigh, the warmth from the fireplace hearth, for Sir Stephen had added three logs which were blazing noisily. Above a chest of drawers, an antique clock ticked so quietly that it was only audible when everything around was silent. O listened carefully, thinking how absurd her position was in this civilized, tasteful living room. Through the Venetian blinds could be heard the sleepy rumbling of Paris after midnight. In the light of day, tomorrow morning, would she recognize the spot on the sofa cushion where she had laid her head? Would she ever return, in broad daylight, to this same living room, would she ever be treated in the same way here? Sir Stephen was apparently in no hurry to return, and O, who had waited so submissively for the strangers of Roissy to take their pleasure, now felt a lump rise in her throat at the idea that in one minute, in ten minutes, he would again put his hands on her. But it was not exactly as she had imagined it. She heard him open the door and cross the room. He remained for some time with his back to the fire, studying O, then in a near whisper he told her to get up and then sit back down. Surprised, almost embarrassed, she obeyed. He courteously brought her a glass of whisky and a cigarette, both of which she refused. Then she saw that he was in a dressing gown, a very conservative dressing gown of gray homespun - a gray that matched his hair. His hands were long and dry and his flat fingernails, cut short, were very white. He caught her staring, and O blushed: these were indeed the same hands which had seized her body, the hands she now dreaded, and desired. But he did not approach her. "I'd like you to get completely undressed," he said. "But first simply undo your jacket, without getting up." O unhooked the large gold hooks and slipped her close-fitting jacket down over her shoulders; then she put it at the other end of the sofa, where her fur, her gloves, and her bag were. "Caress the tips of your breasts, ever so lightly," Sir Stephen said then, before adding: "You must use a darker rouge, yours is too light." Taken completely aback, O fondled her nipples with her fingertips and felt them stiffen and rise. She covered them with her palms. "Oh, no!" Sir Stephen said.

• From Story of O (1954)

  "You really like him all that much?" O said to Jacqueline as the car left the city and moved along the upper coast road. "Is that any business of yours?" Jacqueline responded. "It's René's business," she retorted. "What is René's business, and Sir Stephen's, and, if I understand it correctly, a number of other people's, is the fact that you're badly seated. You're going to wrinkle your dress." O failed to move. "And I also thought," Jacqueline added, "that you weren't supposed to cross your legs." But O was no longer listening. What did she care about Jacqueline's threats. If Jacqueline threatened to inform on her for that peccadillo, what did she think would keep her from denouncing Jacqueline in turn to René? Not that O lacked the desire to. But René would not be able to bear the news that Jacqueline was lying to him, or that she had plans of her own which did not include him. How could she make Jacqueline believe that if she were to keep still, it would be to avoid seeing René lose face, turning pale over someone other than herself, and perhaps revealing himself to be too weak to punish her? How could she convince her that her silence, even more, would be the result of her fear at seeing René's wrath turned against her, the bearer of ill tidings, the informer? How could she tell Jacqueline that she would not say a word, without giving the impression that she was making a mutual non-betrayal pact with her? For Jacqueline had the idea that O was terrified, terrified to death at what would happen to her if she, Jacqueline, talked. From that point on, until they got out of the car in the courtyard of the old farm, they did not exchange another word. Without glancing at O, Jacqueline picked a white geranium growing beside the house. O was following closely enough behind to catch a whiff of the strong, delicate odor of the leaf crumpled between her hands. Did she believe she would thus be able to mask the odor of her own sweat, which was marking darkening circles beneath the arms of her sweater and causing the black material to cling to her armpits. In the big whitewashed room with the red-tile floor, René was alone. "You're late," he said when they came in. "Sir Stephen's waiting for you in the next room," he added, nodding to O. "He needs you for something. He's not in a very good mood." Jacqueline burst out laughing, and O looked at her and turned red. "You could have saved it for another time," said René, who misinterpreted both Jacqueline's laugh and O's concern. "That's not the reason," Jacqueline said, "but I might say, René, your obedient beauty isn't so obedient when you're not around. Look at her dress, you see how wrinkled it is?"

• From Story of O (1954)

  Sir Stephen's quit, self-assured voice rose in an absolute silence. Even the flames in the fireplace flickered noiselessly. O was frozen to the sofa like a butterfly impaled upon a pin, a long pin composed of words and looks which pierced the middle of her body and pressed her naked, attentive loins against the warm silk. She was no longer mistress of her breasts, her hands, the nape of her neck. But of this much she was sure: the object of the habits and rites of which he had spoken were patently going to be the possession of (among other parts of her body) her long thighs concealed beneath the black skirt, her already opened thighs. Both men were sitting across from her. René was smoking, but before he had lighted his cigarette he had lighted one of those black-hooded lamps which consumes the smoke, and the air, already purified by the wood fire, smelled of the cool odors of the night. "Will you give me an answer, or would you like to know more?" Sir Stephen repeated. "If you give your consent," René said, "I'll personally explain to you Sir Stephen's preferences." "Demands," Sir Stephen corrected. The hardest thing, O was thinking, was not the question of giving her consent, and she realized that never for a moment did either of them dream that she might refuse; nor for that matter did she. The hardest thing was simply to speak. Her lips were burning and her mouth was dry, all her saliva was gone, an anguish both of fear and desire constricted her throat, and her new-found hands were cold and moist. If only she could have closed her eyes. But she could not. Two gazes talked her eyes, gazes from which she could not - and did not desire to - escape. They drew her toward something she thought she had left behind for a long time, perhaps forever, at Roissy. For since her return, René had taken her only by caresses, and the symbol signifying that she belonged to anyone who knew the secret of her ring had been without consequence: either she had not met anyone who was familiar with the secret, or else those who had remained silent - the only person she suspected was Jacqueline (and if Jacqueline had been at Roissy, why wasn't she also wearing the ring? Besides, what right did Jacqueline's knowledge of this secret give her over O, and did it, in fact give her any?). In order to speak, did she have to move? But she could not move of her own free will - an order from them would immediately have made her get up, but

• From Story of O (1954)

  What her lover wanted from her was very simple: that she be constantly and immediately accessible. It was not enough for him to know that she was: she was to be so without the slightest obstacle intervening, and her bearing and clothing were to bespeak, as it were, the symbol of that availability to experienced eyes. That, he went on, meant two things. The first she knew, having been informed of it the evening of her arrival at the chateau: that she must never cross her knees, as her lips had always to remain open. She doubtless thought that this was nothing (that was indeed what she did think), but she would learn that to maintain this discipline would require a constant effort on her part, an effort which would remind her, in the secret they shared between them and perhaps with a few others, of the reality of her condition, when she was with those who did not share the secret, and engaged in ordinary pursuits. As for her clothes, it was up to her to choose them, or if need be to invent them, so that this semi- undressing to which he had subjected her in the car on their way to Roissy would no longer be necessary: tomorrow she was to go through her closet and sort out her dresses, and do the same with her underclothing by going through her dresser drawers. She would hand over to him absolutely everything she found in the way of belts and panties; the same for any brassieres like the one whose straps he had had to cut before he could remove it, any full slips which covered her breasts, all the blouses and dresses which did not open up the front, and any skirts too tight to be raised with a single movement. She was to have other brassieres, other blouses, other dresses made. Meanwhile, was she supposed to visit her corset maker with nothing on under her blouse or sweater? Yes, she was to go with nothing on underneath. If someone should notice, she could explain it any way she liked, or not explain it at all, whichever she preferred, but it was her problem and hers alone. Now, as for the rest of what he still had to teach her, he preferred to wait for a few days and wanted her to be dressed properly before hearing it. She would find all the money she needed in the little drawer of her desk. When he had finished speaking, she murmured "I love you" without the slightest gesture. It was he who added some wood to the fire, lighted the bedside lamp, which was of pink opaline. Then he told O to get into bed and wait for him, that he

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

  She told us she’d never been big on conflict. “I expect my employees to do their jobs without hand-holding,” she said in our first session. In 360s with her team, we heard several complaints that her new employees didn’t know where they really stood with her. Everything was hinted at. “Become a better coach” and “become more assertive” were the two leadership skills we worked with her on over the coming months. Executive coach Peter Bregman had a similar experience with two of his clients. One of them was seen as the apparent successor to the CEO, but he had a problem. “Several of his direct reports were close friends, and he didn’t hold them accountable in the same way he held his other direct reports,” said Bregman. “They didn’t do what he asked and weren’t delivering the results expected. It was hurting his business and his reputation.” Bregman said the other members of this team saw the problem clearly enough and they admitted it was affecting their own motivation because of the unfairness. The leader, on the other hand, had blinders on. He didn’t see it. Bregman’s other client was CEO of a fast-growing billion-dollar enterprise. “He’s warm, gregarious, and authentic,” said the coach. “He’s learned, the hard way, that having friends when you’re the boss can be complicated.” He used to have work friends come to his house for dinner and get to know his family. “But then I had to make hard calls for the good of the business, including firing one of them, and it became too painful. I became hesitant to make decisions because of it. So no, I’m not looking for friends at work.” Bregman explained that this second leader doesn’t avoid friendships with employees because he is a bad guy. He avoids them because he is a good guy. Indeed, it can be hard for leaders to have close friends in the employee ranks, either because they can’t separate friendships from business decisions, or because they have to make tough calls that may destroy those relationships. “There’s plenty of research supporting the idea that having friends at work makes you happier and more engaged,” Bregman adds. “But the research doesn’t address that friendships at work are tricky, especially when you’re the boss.” This means for those who are promoted from individual contributor to manager, or from manager to a manager-of-managers, they can choose to be proactive. Says Professor Art Markman of the University of Texas at Austin, “Make an effort to take some of your [work] friends out and talk to them about some of the stresses and responsibilities of the new position. Help them understand some of the tensions you’re feeling. You may assume that your friends will implicitly understand the tensions you have, but they are much more likely to be sympathetic if you have an open conversation.”

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

  Anthony is passionate about raising awareness of mental health issues. We Thrive TogetherAdrian, Chester, and Anthony have created the We Thrive Together community, which brings together passionate working adults and leaders to eliminate the stigma of anxiety at work and create positive mental health in the workplace. There is no charge to join or be a member of Thrive, and the site contains a wealth of resources and peer support. Find a link to the community at GostickandElton.com. Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com . More Praise for Anxiety at Work“Few things can paralyze the progress of any team or organization like anxiety. After decades of working with CEOs and business owners, I’ve noticed many have a negative mind-set when it comes to dealing with stress—a mindset that needs to be changed. Anxiety at Work offers practical ideas to help leaders develop healthier mindsets and healthier teams. This is a smartly written, step-by-step guide to creating a work culture that will attract and retain great people.” —John C. Maxwell, #1 New York Times bestselling author and world-renowned leadership expert “I’ve personally known anxiety—the struggle just to get out of bed every morning. Overcoming these feelings in myself, and helping others face their challenges, has been my life’s work for the past decade. I’m so grateful Gostick and Elton have turned their attention to helping in the working world, where tens of millions of employees feel overwhelmed and overanxious. In this fabulous new book, leaders will learn how to identify anxiety in their team members, understand the triggers of anxiety, and provide the right support. Anxiety at Work is the tool that businesses have been waiting for.” —Mel Robbins, daytime talk show host, CNN on-air analyst, and #1 bestselling author of The 5 Second Rule “When our team members feel too much anxiety, they attack change; they become combative or controlling as they try to ease the pain they feel. This makes organizational change difficult, even impossible. In this brilliant new book, Gostick and Elton help leaders build resilience with practical tools culled from decades coaching leaders to improve their organizational cultures.” —Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, world’s #1 leadership thinker and author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There “Anxiety at Work is brimming with practical ideas on how to create a safe, productive place to work—from the globally recognized thought-leaders in culture and employee engagement. This desperately needed guide will become an instant classic.” —Dr. Tasha Eurich, New York Times bestselling author of Insight and Bankable Leadership “Savoring this book feels like snuggling up in a warm comforter on a cold day. The enormous demands of our world are mitigated by using the insights offered. The ideas, stories, and tools will help anyone tame apprehensions and turn anxiety into assurance.” —Dr.

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

  My business partner and I had an honest discussion with her, and she admitted she’d had panic attacks before these appointments. She had gone home and told us she had an upset stomach. “We recruited her because she could bring important skills to our team,” Huey said, “so we decided to work on ways to relieve her anxiety. When tasks felt like too much, we turned them over to others. The good news is she felt incredibly embraced by what we did, and she’s not had another panic attack at work. She’s also been able to accomplish all we’d hoped.” As Huey gave us this account, we noted that perhaps his worker had felt that physical symptoms would be seen as more real than mental ones (though at times anxiety can certainly manifest in physical sickness). We wondered if she had, in the past, a manager who dismissed her mental health—prompting her to avoid the true issues she was facing. The good news is that Huey was astute at listening, took the time to understand what the problem was, and found inspired ways to help. * * * Working to make team members feel understood, accepted, and secure is an extraordinary team-bonding opportunity. Research leaves not the slightest doubt that it’s also a powerful productivity booster. Devoting a little extra time and attention to this new way of managing will pay off in spades, and that is a great anxiety reliever for leaders as well, many of whom are concerned with their own job security. According to management consulting firm McKinsey, “numerous studies show that in a business-as-usual environment, compassionate leaders perform better and foster more loyalty and engagement by their teams. However, compassion becomes especially critical during a crisis.” Of course, none of us is immune to the pressures and threats pervading work life these days. And employees aren’t going to entirely stop feeling worry, stress, or anxiety, no matter what we do; and there is little managers can do about many of the challenges that are buffeting workplaces today. The pace of change is not going to slacken, and the competition isn’t going away. But within our teams, we can go a long way to relieving tensions, providing support, inspiring enthusiasm and loyalty, and creating a safe place for people to spend their days. Having a healthy workplace is a goal we can all feel good about. 2How Anxiety Fills the GapHelp Team Members Deal with UncertaintyIf you aren’t suffering from anxiety, you aren’t paying attention. —Comment from an interview with a forty-seven-year-old man Few things cause more anxiety than the unknown, and few things generate more unknowns than our modern workplaces. And the biggest unknown of all: whether our jobs will last. By July 2020, 60 percent of American workers said they were concerned about job security. From the younger workers we interviewed, even before the pandemic, we found job fears are leading to a generation in perpetual angst.

• 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

  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 Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  In this chapter, Kahneman sets the stage by contrasting decisions made from experience with those made from description, highlighting key distinctions in how individuals assess risk. He cites studies, including one by Hertwig et al. (2004), that reveal the impact of rare events on decision-making. These studies show that people are often swayed by their direct experiences rather than statistical information, leading them to make choices that do not align with the probabilities conveyed through descriptions. The stark difference in outcomes is exemplified through scenarios illustrating how choices can significantly differ when one relies on personal experience versus abstract data, ultimately challenging the reliability of intuition in decision-making processes. In this section, Kahneman delves into the critical differences between decisions made from personal experience and those derived from abstract descriptions. He references landmark studies by Hertwig et al. (2004) to illustrate how experiential knowledge often leads individuals to favor outcomes that align with their direct encounters over statistical information. This contrast underscores the potential for irrational decision-making, particularly in contexts where rare events are downplayed in favor of more palatable descriptions. Kahneman provides vivid examples, demonstrating that when individuals make choices based on personal experience, their judgments may significantly diverge from actual probabilities, revealing a systematic bias that can have real-world consequences. This examination serves as a springboard for discussing the broader implications of these decision-making modes in high-stakes environments. This section introduces the concept of the "description-experience gap," delineating how individuals tend to underestimate the impact of rare events when they rely primarily on descriptive information over experiential incidents. Kahneman amplifies this argument with data indicating that traditional descriptions fail to capture the intricacies of real-life decision-making scenarios. This gap is crucial as it reveals that people are ill-equipped to process rare events statistically, leading to significant emotional and cognitive biases. Notably, Kahneman connects this gap to the "disposition effect," drawing on behavioral finance to illustrate how investors often make irrational choices, such as prematurely selling winning stocks while clinging to losing investments. The lack of alignment between description and experience poses substantial risks, particularly to professionals operating under uncertainty. In this section, Kahneman explores the pervasive influence of emotional biases on decision-making, particularly within financial contexts. He discusses the "sinking feeling" that often accompanies financial losses, which can lead individuals to behave in ways that contradict rational models of economic behavior. Drawing on concepts from psychology, he identifies how emotions such as regret and anxiety can distort perceptions of risk. Kahneman reinforces this with empirical studies that highlight the tendency of investors to overly focus on past losses rather than future probabilities, effectively leading to irrational risk aversion. This discussion emphasizes the necessity for decision-makers to develop awareness of their emotional triggers to mitigate skewed judgments and enhance decision quality.

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

  Beth Schinoff of Boston College and Blake Ashforth and Kevin Corley of Arizona State University say that remote work is changing how we relate to our coworkers in two important ways. First, employees are going to become less likely to live close to their coworkers. “This means that we may not have the opportunity for in-person, informal shared experiences . . . as well as organizationally sponsored shared experiences.” Second, workers will increasingly rely on technology to communicate with colleagues versus face-to-face interactions. Interacting through media like text, instant message, and even teleconferences can make it harder to get a sense of who someone is. “We can’t assess body language and other nonlinguistic cues in the same way we can in-person,” the authors say. “When we work via technology, it is also more likely that we will only communicate with our virtual coworkers when we have a reason to.” Given these fundamental differences in how we relate when working virtually, how do remote colleagues gain the friendships that are necessary to enhance engagement and loyalty, not to mention drive better outcomes? Schinoff and her colleagues advocate developing a cadence. “Remote workers feel like they have cadence with a coworker when they understand who that person is and can predict how they will interact,” they write. “Cadence is especially important when we work virtually because it helps us anticipate when we will [need to] interact with our virtual coworkers and how those interactions will go, things that are much easier to do when communicating face-to-face. When we don’t have cadence with our coworkers, we might find it difficult to get in contact with them or find it frustrating to interact with them when we do.” What can leaders and managers do to establish such a cadence when their people are remote? This involves setting the stage for employees to get to know each other. But instead of asking team members to introduce themselves, which can be anxiety-inducing, roundabout ways can produce better results. For instance, one manager had employees share a song with their teammates that they had enjoyed listening to in the past week; another asked her people to share something off their bucket list. The spotlight moment became more about how awesome Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” is, or why Machu Picchu would be so cool to visit, than about the person; yet these quick sidelights gave tons of insights into the employee’s personality.

• 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

  In terms of spotting that someone is a perfectionist, Dr. Alice Boyes, former clinical psychologist and author of The Anxiety Toolkit , advises that they might seek excessive guidance, seem loath to take any sort of risk, and treat every decision as if it were a matter of life and death. It’s a good assumption to make that those displaying perfectionist tendencies have anxiety. Harvard University research adds that perfectionists tend to become overly defensive when criticized. Healthy strivers, by contrast, tend to take criticism in stride as they push for superior results. And while strivers tend to bounce back from failures, perfectionists often become preoccupied with their missteps or the mistakes of others. Okay, so what’s to be done to help these employees? What follows are a series of methods we’ve found are helping in leading those with perfectionist tendencies. Method 1: Clarify What Good Enough IsFirst, take a little time to consider whether you, or the organizational culture, might be stoking perfectionism in those with a tendency toward it. In our coaching of leaders, we often find that they push themselves and their team members to not only high standards, but unrealistic ones. In this way, leaders can become overly harsh in criticizing employee work, and their focus on addressing problems and putting fires out takes up so much of their time that it leads many to overlook offering praise to their people—ramping up anxiety considerably. Well-calibrated and well-timed recognition of good work can help everyone feel more confident that they’re doing all they can to help the team. It can also help people learn the boundaries of what counts as acceptable work—when good enough is good enough. If left entirely on their own to determine whether their work is up to snuff, perfectionists are more than likely to overthink and rework, make tweaks, second-guess, or even do too much—such as doing inventory for everyone instead of only on the products they were asked to count, or handing in War and Peace when their boss really wanted an executive summary. We know that most managers have no desire to handhold their people, and they rightfully worry about micromanaging, but with employees who tend toward perfectionism it’s important to guide them clearly through the standards you’re looking for. Anthony recounts how helpful this was when he transitioned from working in chemistry labs to biotechnology labs. “In chem labs, we were accurate in weighing and measuring re-agents to several decimal places,” he said. “It was time-consuming and several hours were allotted to make measurements accurate.

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

  Peterson, former director of executive coaching and development at Google, stressed to us that many employees don’t understand that they’ve got to invest quality time every week in preparing to take on future roles. Too many employees are focused only on optimizing their performance in their current role, which, of course, is something every manager wants every employee to do. But a focus too exclusively on pleasing one’s current boss, without looking ahead and planning for growth into new challenges, leaves people feeling at the mercy of just the one person they report to. 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 MotivationsAnother 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.

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

  These check-ins before diving in should not be rushed, and people should have time to tell their stories if they want to share. It’s up to a leader to dig below the “fine.” “The workplace of tomorrow will be much more human, and less transactional than it’s been,” Vincent added. “As we create deeper bonds, it’s ultimately going to benefit the company with more productivity, more collaboration, more innovation.” With all of this, note that it’s never appropriate to ask someone, “Do you have anxiety?” As Anthony explained, “That is a privacy violation and can make things worse. Instead, consider privately asking something such as, ‘I notice you are having a hard time in these specific stressful situations. Is there anything I can do to help?’” Evidence on the value of frequent check-ins comes from BetterWorks research, which found employees who meet and discuss progress toward goals with their managers weekly are up to twenty-four times more likely to achieve their targets. By providing constant reviews, managers are also able to give tough feedback when necessary and quell anxious feelings in many employees who are doing good work but are actually concerned about their performance. According to a Leadership IQ survey of thirty thousand people, only 29 percent of working adults know whether their “performance is where it should be.” Just as troubling, more than half say they rarely know if they are doing a good job. Tyler, a customer service employee we met, said he began to feel adrift after moving from a highly communicative manager to a new boss who was more tight-lipped. Not knowing what this new guy thought about his performance, or if he felt he could progress any further, Tyler finally pushed the boss for some feedback to lessen the uncertainty he was feeling. They sat down and the manager delivered some positives he had seen to date and also gave some things to work on. Tyler told us he found the improvement ideas “jarring,” and ended up obsessing over the negatives. He’s not alone. The human brain has a negative bias. There is a greater surge in electrical activity in our brains in response to down news than upbeat news. And it’s like Velcro when we hear bad things about ourselves—even if the good outweigh the bad by ten to one. Ironically, that may have been why this manager was so loath to give feedback to any of his people in the first place. Tyler allowed us to coach him to try something new when the pair met again. We told him to first pay attention to any and all positives the boss was saying and write them down.

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

  One CEO we discussed this with admitted, “Honestly, we have used pressure as a weapon to get people to perform better. We’ve cranked up the anxiety more than thinking about how we could alleviate it.” And yet in the same conversation, this bright leader bemoaned his company’s struggle to retain capable workers and said “the ability to get and keep great talent will be the biggest differentiator in the next decade.” There’s the rub. With so many employees experiencing heightened degrees of anxiety at work, leaders simply can’t afford to aggravate things further, or leave team members on their own to either “buck up,” “opt out,” or “calm down.” As a famous saying goes: “Never in the history of calming down has anyone ever calmed down by being told to calm down.” Too many managers buy into the old-school belief that it’s best to let anxious workers weed themselves out: They’re just not cut out for the job or I don’t have time to worry about everyone’s mental health , they’ll confide to us. But there’s simply no basis in fact that those who experience anxiety are less capable, weaker, or less valuable. In fact, it’s often the opposite. Those who produce the best results are often riddled with strong feelings of anxiety. One study found 86 percent of those with high anxiety were rated as uniquely productive in their jobs. Makes sense: Employees who feel worried about not being good enough often work harder to try to prove themselves. Research also shows a large percentage of highly intelligent people experience anxiety in greater numbers than the general populace. Mensa members have been found to suffer from anxiety disorders at twice the rate of the national average. The best leaders are beginning to understand that creating a healthy place to work can embrace those with anxiety—people who may be extremely capable and intelligent—while creating an environment that is more positive for everyone. And that can be a powerful accelerator of team success. Take the recent transformation of the England men’s national football (soccer) team. Previously, England’s players admitted they were so anxious about the media diatribe if they failed that it often became a self-fulfilling prophecy, as seen in 2016 when an England powerhouse team was knocked out of the European Championships by the tiny nation of Iceland. Manager Roy Hodgson stepped down at that point and a new coach was hired: quiet, unassuming former player Gareth Southgate, whose first focus would not be on tactics or fitness but on building a cohesive, positive culture. Two years later, in 2018, on the biggest stage—the World Cup—England finished in the top four, the country’s best outcome in fifty-two years.

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

  It took him until his senior year to realize the wisdom of just putting his head down and working hard to learn, grades be damned. “Early in my college years I’d grown frustrated when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to master every concept when taking four or five science classes at once. If I wanted to be able to grasp the next concept, sometimes I had to move on with just a basic understanding of some ideas.” Anthony said his freshman year he had been so stressed that he withdrew from a class because he had started the semester with a C average in that class and then got a D on his midterm. “I probably could have pulled through and gotten a passing grade had I just adopted the mindset that I was there to learn, was new at this science stuff, and even a C would be good enough in my first hard science class.” He had been driven by a system that rewards high grades over becoming well-educated. In such places, grading drives uniformity. There is no place for risk, adventure, or genuine learning when your only goal is to please a professor and get an A. Students start to treat the entire thing as a game, working just hard enough to survive so they can move to the next level. Near the end of his life, Albert Einstein told the New York State Education Department, “A society’s competitive advantage will come not from how well its schools teach the multiplication and periodic tables, but how well they stimulate imagination and creativity.” How to Spot ItBefore addressing what a manager can do to help perfectionist employees stay on track and meet their deadlines, it’s important to briefly share some insights about different types of perfectionism and how to spot them in a team. The work of Paul Hewitt of the University of British Columbia and Gordon Flett of York University in Toronto has clarified that there are three basic types of perfectionism. When focused inward, toward the self , perfectionism leads individuals to hold unrealistic expectations of themselves and make punitive self-evaluations. This is self-oriented perfectionism. Alternatively, when people perceive demands for perfection coming from others —bosses, spouses, friends, even strangers—leading them to believe they must be perfect to gain approval from the world—they’re suffering from socially prescribed perfectionism. Finally, when perfectionistic expectations are directed toward others , people impose unrealistic standards on those around them. This is other-oriented perfectionism. These are by no means mutually exclusive; people might be under the sway of several or all of them. But knowing about the differences is helpful in considering the best means of assisting employees. We can ask ourselves, Is an employee beating himself up, making critical comments about himself or his work? Does one worker seem to be thinking you’re expecting more of her than you are? Is another employee overly critical of the work done by colleagues or subordinates?

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

  One group does better than the other. If you had to guess, which would you say drop out more often: Taskers or Optimizers? McGrath told us, “The people who drop out are overwhelmingly Optimizers. They focus on the big picture; and they don’t rest because they are always thinking about the next thing they have to do. The secret of success for the Taskers is they take this monolithic thing and break it into chunks. It’s task, rest. Task, rest.” As the saying goes, you don’t try to eat an elephant all at once; you have to divide it into easily digestible parts. This chunking tactic is also used by athletes. “You’ll see many ultramarathoners and triathletes doing this. They focus on the next immediate objective—the next point on the horizon—and prevent their minds from passing to the entire race,” writes Charles Chu in his newsletter the Open Circle . The point for leaders: Many of our employees are feeling overloaded with crushing amounts of work to accomplish, and it’s leading to unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety. A first tactic any manager can try is to help team members break down their work into optimal chunks. Of course, this is only one of a number of methods of helping lessen the mental weight of workloads. In this chapter, we’ll explore those tactics and how they may be best implemented to reduce anxiety levels and build resilience in team members. But first, it’s important to address a few widespread misconceptions about overload. They Just Can’t Keep Up (and Other Common Myths)Most common of the myths of overload: Many managers believe it is an individual failure, thinking, Oh, he just can’t keep up. Consider that in the US alone, research in 2019 from global staffing firm Robert Half showed 91 percent of employees felt at least somewhat burned out at that moment, defined as mentally and physically exhausted from work. That’s a clear indication that the problem is more macro than micro. Some managers argue it is a lack of resiliency that’s at the core of this issue. Yet some of the most resilient of all workers experience burnout in high numbers. Take the case of health-care professionals. As Adam Grant of the Wharton School reported in the New York Times , “More than half of doctors and a third of nurses regularly feel burned out,” and that was before the COVID-19 crisis. As their dedication to their work during the outbreak admirably demonstrated, battling through long days in hellish conditions, these are among the most resilient people on the planet. Adrienne Boissy, MD, chief experience officer at the renowned Cleveland Clinic, makes the point forcefully. “I held three jobs in college, completed a residency for four years, and this was followed by two years of fellowship.

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

  Anthony offers a great bit of advice for leaders: “When you say you want to meet with someone, no matter what it’s about, don’t leave them wondering if they are out the door. Because many will. People aren’t ignorant to unstable economic climates or the practice of silent layoffs. Specifically explaining that you want to meet tomorrow to go over revisions to a report, or whatever, is going to save your people a day of worry that could be spent productively.” In all of this, we are not suggesting leaders should try to become therapists. Can you imagine? It’s vital that we turn to specialists to provide counseling; and for employees feeling anxiety symptoms at any level, referral to a company employee assistance program (EAP) or a licensed counselor can be extremely helpful. Managers can play an active role in finding the help their people need, and formal programs can have huge payoffs. PricewaterhouseCoopers has found, for example, that for every $1 invested in mental health programs, organizations receive an average return on investment of $2.30, seen through improved productivity, fewer compensation claims, reduced absenteeism, and reduced presenteeism (showing up for work even when sick, overly fatigued, or otherwise not operating at normal levels of productivity). Forbes reports the total cost of overall poor employee health at more than $530 billion in the US alone, with much of that attributed to impaired performance. Harvard Medical School research adds that the mental health aspect of wellness has usually been overlooked in that analysis. The mindset that mental wellness is the responsibility solely of the employee and does not need to be considered by an employer is not a financially sound decision, the Harvard researchers explain. “In the long term, costs spent on mental health care may represent an investment that will pay off not only in healthier employees, but also for the company’s financial health.” So, to be perfectly clear, we’re big fans of offering mental health assistance. But EAP referrals and formal internal programs aren’t the only answer. Managers have an important role to play as well. After all, a team is a tight social network with its own dynamic. As leaders working in an unpredictable time, we have to be particularly sensitive to the fact that our team might be more vulnerable to anxiety. Encouraging people to be open about their struggles and lending an ear as a boss can do much good. As one young worker confided to us, “Nine times out of ten when we complain we just want to be heard, and it doesn’t involve advice or problem-solving. Just, ‘That sounds really hard. I can’t imagine going through that. I’m here for you.’ We want an advocate in our boss, not someone who is tolerant of the issue.” Peter Diaz, CEO of the Workplace Mental Health Institute, points out that managers can “have a default to [refer everyone to an] EAP,” which often leaves employees with wrong impressions.