Anxiety

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

  Yet Sabat notes that stepping up once isn’t enough, and allyship is a journey that grows throughout a leader’s career. “Be open to criticism and feedback,” he adds. “If someone calls you out on the way you [respond to a situation], or if you said something problematic, be open to learning and growing.” Method 4: Advocate Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, says addressing imbalances requires those who have power and influence to extend their privilege. For instance, she says, “In every organization, there are many people—from senior leaders to first-time managers—who have the power to elevate women in the workplace.” One of those who advocated for Wojcicki was Bill Campbell, executive coach to a who’s-who of tech superstars. “I learned about an important invitation-only conference convening most of the top leaders in tech and media, yet my name was left off the guest list,” she said. “Many of the invitees were my peers [other tech CEOs], meaning that YouTube wouldn’t be represented while deals were cut and plans were made. I started to question whether I even belonged at the conference. But rather than let it go, I turned to Bill, someone I knew had a lot of influence. He immediately recognized I had a rightful place at the event, and within a day he worked his magic and I received my invitation.” When allies assume the role of advocates, they use their influence to bring peers from underrepresented groups into new circles. They hold their leadership peers accountable for including qualified colleagues of all genders, races and ethnicities, abilities, ages, body shapes and sizes, religions, and sexual orientations; and they actively mentor those from underrepresented groups and introduce them to people in their network. This means they aren’t just behind-the-scenes mentors, but public advocates for those they are mentoring. They find terrific satisfaction in identifying high-potential diverse talent, providing them stretch roles, and helping them overcome obstacles. They find this kind of mentoring behavior is good not only for the protégé, but for the leader and the organization. SUMMARYBecome an AllyThere has been a historic pattern of anxiety in particular groups within the workplace—those too often made to feel like “others.” Of particular concern are women, people of color, those on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, members of religious minorities, and those with disabilities.Many in these communities must hide their true identities. But when managers create cultures where people feel comfortable being themselves, dramatic performance gains can be unlocked as everyone is able to focus all their attention on work.Many leaders do not understand the level of implicit bias that occurs in our work cultures. Microaggressions are biases that reveal themselves in often subtle ways and leave people feeling uncomfortable or insulted.

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

  Of course, friendships in the office can be tricky. As a note: Team members’ interpersonal relationships are typically none of our business as managers; that is, until team performance is impacted. When taken to extremes, for instance, cliquishness can create Survivor -like alliances and tribes that can cause more exclusion for some. Also, when boundaries are blurred between the professional and the personal, there’s an opportunity for feelings and group performance to be hurt. However, the fact that there is potential for entanglements is not an excuse for managers to avoid connecting employees with each other. Workers don’t necessarily have to go out for drinks or share intimate personal details about themselves, e.g., So that’s the story of my lower back tattoo. No, positive relationships are built on vulnerability, authenticity, and compassion—and those can happen within work hours, within healthy boundaries (such as establishing rules about avoiding office gossip and that everyone should be included and treated equally). Managers should also model those behaviors in their interactions with their team members, say Seppälä and King. So, should managers try to be friends with those they supervise? While they can be warm and caring, managers should not be too chummy with their employees. We could point (as a bad example) to the wayward wisdom of Michael Scott of The Office , who was so concerned with being his employees’ best friend that he couldn’t hold anyone accountable. “Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy: both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me,” he said. Though entertaining, no one should ever attempt to emulate Scott’s behavior in the workplace, or anywhere else. We were once asked to coach a high-potential manager. The division director admitted he’d promoted the fellow to a supervisory position because, in addition to being competent in his finance role, he got along with everyone. “He was the guy you’d most want to go to a party with,” said the director. But once Mr. Life of the Office became the “boss,” he became Mr. Tough Guy. What friendships had existed became frayed. No one wanted to even have a casual conversation with him. It seemed like all he could talk about was deadlines and quotas, and his constant scowl seemed to show his team members they weren’t doing all they could. It took considerable coaching, as well as some pretty blunt 360-degree feedback, to get him to see the light, that he’d gone too far and was adding significantly to the team’s anxiety levels. In another case, we were asked to work with a leader who had come from outside the organization to assume a senior role over a team that needed some direction.

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

  Rewarding those who ask for help is critical, she concluded. “Let them know it is excellent behavior.” Team check-ins might be done in regular staff meetings or in special update meetings. The goal is to ensure that all team members are on the same page as time progresses by asking questions such as: What fresh obstacles are we facing to hitting our team targets, what will we not be able to deliver on time if things keep going as they are, what are we hearing from the client, who on the team is held up waiting for what deliverables, and who needs help? As to individual check-ins, anxiety can be allayed when leaders regularly ask employees about their workloads privately. Let’s face it, some people will never be comfortable talking about feeling overloaded in a team setting. A particular issue to be aware of is that new hires and younger workers are often more reticent to ask for help, for various reasons. They’re afraid of being a burden. They want to look capable. For many, they’re used to being able to do all their work on their own (as with their college course load). Their lack of familiarity with many aspects of business procedures can be daunting or frustrating. It’s important to tell your people that you see asking for help as a sign of strength rather than weakness. Also let every employee know that you’re asking the entire team about how they’re managing their loads in individual meetings; that way they won’t feel singled out. You want to be sure that in asking, you convey that you’re doing so in order to solve problems where you can. Then it’s important to follow up to do just that. To lessen anxiety, we’ve found some good questions to ask in these individual check-ins include: Do you feel like you can complete the project by deadline without having to work unreasonable hours? Is there anyone else on the team who could help so you could meet the deadline? Is there any part of this project that might be delayed? Do you need any additional training or resources to be successful? What have you learned that we might do differently next time we are up against a task like this? Of course, wrenches can be thrown into the works at any moment that will require emergency one-on-ones.

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

  Such inclusion helps people feel like they are being brought into the inner circle to brainstorm solutions to challenges. Ambiguity either prolongs inevitable bad news or widens the trust gap. Or both. We were particularly affected by a conversation we had with Ryan Westwood, CEO of business management firm Simplus, who spoke about the link between anxiety and uncertainty. “There is an inherent distrust in leaders today,” he said. That is a powerful understanding, and we wish every manager knew how true it is. Westwood continued, “You have to prove that you can be trusted. When this pandemic hit, the first thing we did was cut the pay of the executive leadership, including myself. We communicated that early and it sent a message that we were willing to make sacrifices.” Still, three months into the crisis, the CEO and his team realized that they would have to make a few tough cuts. “We held an all-hands meeting with more than five hundred employees around the world, and I told everyone we’d tried to make it through without any layoffs, but we were going to have to, and it would affect about 3 percent of our people.” He explained why the cuts were absolutely necessary—showing the numbers—and Westwood outlined the plan for those who would be affected. “It was amazing how many messages I got later that said, ‘I never feel like I’m going to be blindsided here,’ or ‘I always feel like you’re going to be honest with me.’” The actual reduction in force was only 1 percent by the end because his team rallied and was able to minimize the impact. Openness, especially about delicate matters, is much too rare. As we consult with organizations, we find that many leaders come up short at helping employees honestly understand whether or not they have a solid future within the organization, or at what level their opportunities may top out. At one manufacturing plant, for example, the HR manager had worked for twenty years to receive the proper accreditations and certificates so that he might take over when the vice president of HR retired. When the day finally came and he sent in his application for the big job, he received a one-line email response from the CEO. It read, “We could not support you in this role.” There was no warning. No face-to-face candor. Just twenty years of work and then those eight words that would shape his, his coworkers’, and his family’s perception of the company forever. In contrast, in interviews we conducted at the American Express call centers, we were struck by how each member of Camaraza’s leadership team seemed compelled to be respectfully honest with employees about their development opportunities and career potential, even if they decided to leave because of that clarity. Asking someone to sail blindly into the future is never a good idea—for a team member or the organization.

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

  There are times we can incorporate employee suggestions into our strategy and there are times we can’t. There are decisions made above us that we like, and some we might not agree with as a leadership team, but you have to always explain the reasoning and listen with real intent to the feedback.” In this way, no matter what’s going on—good or bad—we face uncertainty together, as a team. SUMMARY Lead through Uncertainty Uncertainty can trigger various responses in people, often with negative consequences on performance. The most common uncertainty for today’s employees is whether or not a job will last. Uncertainty is exacerbated when managers don’t communicate enough about challenges facing their organizations and how those issues may affect their people and their teams. A good deal of employee uncertainty is about their own performance and development, i.e., How am I doing? and Do I have a future here? By meeting one-on-one regularly to evaluate performance and growth opportunities, leaders can help team members avoid misreading situations while enhancing their engagement and commitment to the organization. Leaders can use a set of methods to help reduce uncertainty: 1) make it okay to not have all the answers, 2) loosen your grip in tough times, 3) ensure everyone knows exactly what’s expected of them, 4) keep people focused on what can be controlled, 5) have a bias to action, and 6) offer constructive feedback. 3 How to Turn Less into More Help Team Members Deal with Overload You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass. —Timber Hawkeye In order to become a Navy SEAL—part of the world’s most elite special forces unit—one must first pass through what is called “Hell Week.” During this fourth week of basic conditioning, recruits train for five days and five nights solid, with a total of four hours of sleep. Brandon Webb passed the challenge. While many people assume physical toughness is the secret to becoming one of the 10 to 15 percent who will graduate, he says, “What SEAL training really tests is your mental mettle. It is designed to push you mentally to the brink, over and over again, until you are hardened and able to take on any task with confidence, regardless of the odds— or until you break.” According to Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath, author of Seeing Around Corners, researchers have found two archetypes of behavior in those who attempt to pass SEAL training. First are called the “Taskers,” who look to complete each job assigned during this week of torture and then rest when they can. The other group are called “Optimizers,” those who imagine all the tasks lined up for them during the day and think about how much time and effort they should put into each. One group does better than the other.

• 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

  Those graceful, smoothly gliding ducks are paddling like mad—just as these students are manically pushing themselves, frantically trying to stay afloat. In work teams, many people who might seem to be doing fine are, in reality, in danger of going under. Just about every leader we meet is able to recount a story of a valued employee whose stress and anxiety became so problematic that they couldn’t cope any longer. One leader told Chester, with clear concern, “I watched as the smartest employee I ever had slowly melted down in front of me.” Ghosting has become alarmingly common. A USA Today poll of organizations found up to half of applicants and workers were exhibiting some type of ghosting behavior toward employers, such as blowing off interviews or not showing up for work. One manager shared with Adrian that in retrospect she had missed signs in the behavior of an employee who one day simply stopped showing up for work. He had displayed growing irritability with teammates, a drop-off in productivity, and an increase in sick days. The signs of anxiety can sometimes be so subtle that even family and those closest to a person may be unaware. That’s the case with Chris Rainey, cofounder and CEO of HR Leaders and host of a popular podcast. Rainey told us he has felt heightened levels of anxiety since childhood but hid it from everyone. “I was working in sales, in a high-pressure, Wolf of Wall Street type of culture. Anxiety would build up and there would be days, even weeks when I would not be able to leave my house. I’d try to walk out the door but would have an anxiety attack. I was worried: Are they going to pass me up on that promotion? Will they think I’m lying? Here’s this extrovert on the phone every day who has anxiety? Right.” Rainey had been married for more than a decade, and he hadn’t even been able to tell his wife. “If there was a party, I would make excuses for why I couldn’t go. I felt anxious and overwhelmed in large crowds. I worried about having a panic attack, which is a vicious circle. You have anxiety about your anxiety.” Finally, just a year ago, Rainey was interviewing a guest on his podcast. Tim Munden, the chief learning officer of Unilever, was talking about mental well-being and his own PTSD. “I felt like a hypocrite,” said Rainey. “Tim was very vulnerable, sharing his challenges. I decided to speak about it for the first time. It was terrifying. I knew my wife was going to hear, my employees, my cofounder, people I grew up with. But it was one of the most groundbreaking moments in my life. The weight lifted off my shoulders.

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

  And it may create more anxiety for high achievers, who often are eager to know their work is valued. Individual recognition and team celebrations serve unique but different roles in building a high-performing team. Method 4: Provide Gratitude to High-Flyers, Too As leaders spread gratitude around their teams, it’s common for them to realize that there’s great value in not only rewarding big wins, but regularly praising achievements that meet expectations. We believe Chloe, who we introduced in Chapter 1, needed this kind of reinforcement that her work was valued. Yet some managers take this socialism of gratitude to extremes and begin to worry that everyone is treated fairly and that no one gets hurt feelings. While giving everyone a chance to shine is important—and leaders need to ensure that all team members are acknowledged for their unique achievements on a regular basis—it’s also vital not to hold back with high achievers. Offering appreciation is not just about strengthening those that may lack confidence, it’s also about reinforcing the work of those who seem to have plenty of confidence, those who are constantly going above and beyond. In many cases, managers don’t want to be seen as playing favorites or fawning over their “stars.” The leader of an engineering design team told us he learned a lesson about this the hard way. Jennifer, he said, was “by far my most innovative and productive designer.” The problem was, he didn’t want to give Jennifer too much praise because she was always so good. “Frankly, Jeff worked right next to Jennifer, and I didn’t want him to feel bad.” The manager also knew Jennifer was confident in her abilities and decided she probably didn’t need that many pats on the back. But it turned out that she, like most people, wanted to know her work was truly appreciated. “Over time I think Jennifer felt undervalued,” the manager said, reporting that “she left for a competitor a while ago.” When we asked if Jeff was still there, the manager chuckled sadly. Of course. Jeff wasn’t going anywhere. The bottom line: Gratitude is an anxiety reliever; and it can serve as the oxygen in the room that fuels engagement for all team members—especially for high achievers who are often gratitude sponges. Method 5: Keep Gratitude Close to the Action To help quell anxious feelings, gratitude should occur soon after an achievement. When team members do something above and beyond and then hear nothing from their manager for days or weeks, they can start to worry. To be recognized later is of some consequence, but frankly, in 99 percent of cases, when managers put it off, they forget.

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

  McGrath had to explain to Bill that he would need to be specific and let operations know how many US states they needed to be ready to launch in. “But we don’t know yet,” Bill said. McGrath said that in his leadership role, Bill could more afford to be wrong than his lower-level operations contact. The project leader went back to Todd and said, “I expect you to be ready for fifteen states.” The conversation immediately changed for the better. Todd said his team could handle that, and even twenty states if they borrowed resources. While some degree of unknown about one’s work is inevitable, what this example illustrates is that managers may be able to fill gaps for their team members with clarity, even in volatile circumstances. In this chapter, we will introduce a series of six methods managers can use to help team members deal with uncertainty about big-picture issues, such as potential threats to the organization. First, however, we will discuss the most important issue leaders should communicate about to reduce uncertainty: individual performance and development. Communicating Frequently One-on-OneA good deal of employee anxiety is about their own performance and growth opportunities. In other words: How am I doing? and Do I have a future here? Managers create more ambiguity when they aren’t clear about such things. One executive we once reported to was wont to say to us as we handed him assignments, “This just isn’t it yet, but I’ll know it when I see it.” And then send us on our way. He thought he was giving his team “creative freedom” that would encourage our best work, but in reality he was ratcheting up anxiety to excruciating levels. Of course, we understand there are formal methods of giving employees feedback, e.g. the annual review, but research has shown infrequent check-ins like this are woefully inadequate at addressing the uncertainty that many feel about their jobs in the six or twelve months between these meetings. Many firms have decided to either alter performance reviews or abandon them entirely, replacing them with other processes for evaluating and developing employees that are more timely, frequent, and facilitated by the immediate supervisor. We call this process the continuous review , a way of supplying ongoing feedback and gauging employee performance with real-time metrics. Greg Piper, worldwide director of continuous improvement for Becton, Dickinson & Co., holds one-on-one performance and development sessions every other week for thirty minutes with each of his team members, who are all remote and spread around the globe. “‘What do you want to talk about?’ is always the first question I ask,” said Piper. Stephan Vincent, senior director of LifeGuides, a peer-to-peer support network, says he begins each day with the same question. “Every morning my first message to everyone on my team is, how are you feeling today ? Because today is probably different than yesterday.”

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

  I completed a master’s degree in bioethics and became a staff neurologist. During that time, I moved multiple times, said goodbye to many relationships, and missed key events in the lives of my friends and family because I was working.” She summed up: “Resilience—the very idea that you’re able to recover or bounce back from hardship—is required to become a clinician. The path itself selects individuals who can navigate and tolerate the challenges it produces.” Boissy is mystified why most of the approaches that businesses take to helping people cope with crushing workloads are aimed at “fixing” the person, such as offering meditation and yoga classes, or tips for getting good sleep, healthy eating, and getting organized. While those can be effective ways to reduce stress and alleviate anxiety, they ignore a core problem: Organizations are hiring fewer staff members to do the work and raising stress to unhealthy levels. The result: It’s impossible to keep up. Focusing on just the individual diverts attention from fixing underlying issues with the amount of work assigned and the ways in which employees are managed and are expected to do their jobs, not to mention the clear fact that there needs to be a more realistic accounting of how many people are actually needed to accomplish tasks. Stress as a ToolAnother misconception we commonly hear is that overload is good for productivity. In the short term, for crunch situations, that actually can be true. The human body responds to stress by burning fuel to release energy, and that can give us a burst of speed to respond to immediate threats. But crunch time has become the standard, causing excessive pressure on team members. And research shows chronic stress causes wear and tear to our bodies, increasing the risk of developing anxiety as well as age-related diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and dementia. Consider the experience of an executive coaching client of ours, Quan, who is a midlevel manager at a technology company. In our first session, he bemoaned his situation: “My team worked sixteen-hour days to update our SAP system. We took it as a source of pride to accomplish the upgrade faster than any team before.” A problem arose, however. After leaders saw that Quan’s team had met this incredibly accelerated schedule, it became the new standard. “Now,” he said, “the company expects the next upgrade in a 10 percent shorter timeframe, and that really is impossible. I made a mistake in pushing my team so hard on the last upgrade.” Leaders often fail to appreciate that constantly demanding more and more work in less and less time will inevitably lead to employee frustration and distrust, rising anger levels, and eventually, for countless employees, burnout.

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

  In fact, research shows as high as 60 percent of LGBTQ+ people deal with anxiety and depression at some point in their lives—a rate two and a half times higher than their heterosexual counterparts. Brad Brenner, PhD, a counseling psychologist, says: “If you’re LGBTQ, I’d wager a bet that you’re really good at reading a situation to determine how much you can safely be yourself. This skill comes at a cost because it was developed in response to being subjected to high levels of persistent prejudice and discrimination. Many people come to view themselves as deeply flawed, unlovable, unworthy, and hopeless.” Psychologists refer to this process of dealing as “minority stress,” and studies show it has powerful, lasting impacts on mental health and well-being— intensified for those struggling with anxiety. Stigma is a significant issue. If an employee can’t talk about who they are at their core, there’s a likelihood they will feel greater levels of anxiety and unease every day. In our interview with branding author Dorie Clark, who has written extensively on LGBTQ+ issues for the Harvard Business Review, she explained, “The stress around hiding can become extraordinarily distracting, leaving people less energy for their work. As anybody who’s ever been in junior high knows, when you have to focus too much on what people are thinking about you, it’s a surefire recipe for anxiety.” She added that managers can help dispel such worries. Putting antidiscrimination policies in place is fundamental, but beyond that team leaders can speak up for marginalized groups, initiate inclusion conversations with their teams, and treat all complaints as serious (even about seemingly minor issues) and investigate them immediately. “Humans are highly calibrated to pick up on signals from other humans. If you are concealing something, other people generally know it,” Clark added. “They might not know what it is, but they know you seem guarded. Saying you are gay—or whatever one’s identity is—is usually the most innocuous explanation because people might concoct a million bad things: This person’s a snob, or they think they are superior, or, worse, they are doing something wrong and don’t want us to know about it.” Hiding our true identities isn’t just an issue for those in the LGBTQ+ community. The Deloitte University Leadership Center reveals that 61 percent of all employees say they hide part of their identity in some way. For instance, a working mom might not talk about her kids to appear more “serious” about her career; a Muslim employee might have to find a hidden corner of the office to pray so no one will see him; or a gay man might not display pictures of his partner at work or even on social media.

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

  Has the employee considered what business objectives are at risk by not confronting the issue in a timely manner? Method 3: Stick to Facts Leaders 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 Words Amy 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.” And, she adds, it means leaders must ask essential questions. “Most people will respond to a genuine and direct question. If you ask me what I think, it’s mighty awkward not to open my mouth.” Method 5: Assume Positive Intent Team leaders can also teach their people that when debating or facing a tough issue with others in the group, it’s important to assume everyone brings positive intentions and wants to do what’s right for the organization as a whole—and they are just coming at things from a different perspective. In short, it’s okay to question someone’s facts or ideas, but not their motives. We’ll write about a Republican in Chapter 8, to be fair, but we thought a terrific example of this idea was shared by Democrat Joe Biden in his 2018 eulogy of Republican John McCain. Biden began his talk with these words: “I’m a Democrat, and I loved John McCain. . . .

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

  Method 4: Provide Frequent ValidationWhat else can a manager do to facilitate feelings of connection and avoid exclusion in their teams? We turn to a commencement address given at Harvard University by Oprah Winfrey: “I have to say that the single most important lesson I learned in twenty-five years talking every single day to people was that there’s a common denominator in our human experience: We want to be validated. We want to be understood. I’ve done over thirty-five thousand interviews in my career. And as soon as that camera shuts off, everyone turns to me and inevitably, in their own way, asks this question: ‘Was that okay?’ I heard it from President Bush. I heard it from President Obama. I’ve heard it from heroes and from housewives. I’ve heard it from victims and perpetrators of crimes. I even heard it from Beyoncé in all of her Beyoncéness. . . . [We] all want to know, ‘Did you hear me? Do you see me? Did what I say mean anything to you?’” What Winfrey speaks about is a leader noticing and appreciating a person’s inherent value. That’s part of gratitude, which we’ll dive into more in Chapter 9 . The point of gratitude isn’t just about thanking others for their accomplishments, it’s about helping people see their worth as a colleague and a human being. And it pays off for managers, too. In one Glassdoor survey, more than half of employees said feeling more appreciation from their boss would help them stay longer at their company. Method 5: Include RemotesA last suggestion in the process of fighting exclusion is to carefully include those who work remotely all or part of the time, which can certainly be anxiety-inducing in and of itself. One of the growing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is that more organizations have embraced the concept of working from home. Before the virus, most of our clients had a small percent of people who worked away from the office. Some were allowing their people to work a day a week remotely. Then the virus came and overnight everyone had to learn to work off-site. Some companies have realized this can have distinctive advantages. Commute time disappears, meetings grow shorter and can be more focused, they can access talent from anywhere in the world, and many have been able to downsize physical facilities. One of those companies is a telecom firm we share office space with. Leaders decided to permanently shutter an office and have their people work from home. We bumped into some of the IT professionals and they acted as if they’d been given a second Christmas. I don’t have to deal with people interrupting me anymore! In contrast, some of the bubbly client services folks acted as if the world was about to end considering that they would not be together in person day-to-day.

• 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

  Compare Cassell with another player, a six-time All-Star whose name we won’t mention (he’s a lot bigger than us). This player averaged about 20 points and 10 rebounds a game during the prime of his long career, and he shot free throws at about the NBA average of 75 percent. And yet in clutch situations his free-throw percentage dropped to just over 50 percent. The guy could flat-out play during regular games. But when uncertainty reigned, the chances of him sinking a free throw were no better than the flip of a coin. The point for leaders: It’s important to understand the effects of uncertainty on your people and assign the right team members to the right tasks. Those bosses who tell us their people need to “get comfortable with uncertainty” are out of touch with human psychology. Some employees may do quite well, and even thrive, in uncertain times and with assignments with a degree of ambiguity—developing a new business line with no established policies or procedures, as one example. But many people will never get comfortable or do their best work in those environments, yet they can do extremely well with tasks that have structure and known rules. It is common today for many workers to feel intense and rising worry about a myriad of uncertain issues, from big picture challenges like pandemics and how they will affect their companies, to smaller issues such as “What is my boss really looking for in this report?” or “Am I using the right procedure for this workflow?” The fact is, this rising generation is a much more anxious group as a whole. Some have termed them “generation paranoia.” Today’s young people tend to be obsessed with safety and, even before COVID-19, were troubled by a pervasive sense of threat. In the Atlantic , Ashley Fetters described a generation of young people who scan any room they enter for exit points and game out how they’d survive an active-shooter scenario. Can you imagine trying to work, let alone relax, in a world like that? Leaders must also be aware of the oft-consuming worries of their people about career choices, a lack of opportunity to progress in a job, not to mention the overwhelming fears of losing one’s position. One millennial summed it up for us in an interview: “The concept of not being worried about job security is entirely foreign to me.” He’s not alone. Four times as many millennials as Gen Xers list “fear of losing job” as one of their top concerns at work, according to Forbes . Uncertainty is intensified when managers at all levels don’t communicate clearly, precisely, and consistently about challenges facing their organizations—and how those issues may affect their people.

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

  In our interview with branding author Dorie Clark, who has written extensively on LGBTQ+ issues for the Harvard Business Review , she explained, “The stress around hiding can become extraordinarily distracting, leaving people less energy for their work. As anybody who’s ever been in junior high knows, when you have to focus too much on what people are thinking about you, it’s a surefire recipe for anxiety.” She added that managers can help dispel such worries. Putting antidiscrimination policies in place is fundamental, but beyond that team leaders can speak up for marginalized groups, initiate inclusion conversations with their teams, and treat all complaints as serious (even about seemingly minor issues) and investigate them immediately. “Humans are highly calibrated to pick up on signals from other humans. If you are concealing something, other people generally know it,” Clark added. “They might not know what it is, but they know you seem guarded. Saying you are gay—or whatever one’s identity is—is usually the most innocuous explanation because people might concoct a million bad things: This person’s a snob, or they think they are superior, or, worse, they are doing something wrong and don’t want us to know about it.” Hiding our true identities isn’t just an issue for those in the LGBTQ+ community. The Deloitte University Leadership Center reveals that 61 percent of all employees say they hide part of their identity in some way. For instance, a working mom might not talk about her kids to appear more “serious” about her career; a Muslim employee might have to find a hidden corner of the office to pray so no one will see him; or a gay man might not display pictures of his partner at work or even on social media. When managers create cultures where people feel comfortable being themselves, dramatic performance gains can be unlocked as everyone is able to focus all their attention on work. Whether or not they are part of a traditional minority group, team leaders should be able to share at least one story of identity-covering in their own behavior to display vulnerability. Please note that in all this, no one wants to be defined by a single dimension of their identity, e.g., “the Black guy” or “the gay teammate.” That also means managers should not ask individuals to give opinions representing their entire group. LGBTQ+, Muslim, or Black people are not a monolith. After all, no one would think to ask something like: “Jerry, you are White; what would White people think about this product?” Managers can help by recognizing that everyone has differences, and those parts of us represent only a fraction of who we are.

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

  Most younger workers will go online—to Google or YouTube—or will consult with their friends inside or outside the organization through crowdsourcing. It can be anxiety-inducing to wait for a manager to make time for you, and sometimes it creates anxiety to admit you don’t know something. Effective leaders embrace peer-to-peer learning. Dr. LaMesha Craft of National Intelligence University says peer learning can be “the most powerful tool in the workplace.” People are more likely to more candidly ask about things they don’t understand or are having trouble with when talking with peers. Also, so much of the expertise that makes businesses run well isn’t in the heads of leaders, or in a training manual or formal process, it’s learned from hands-on experience and kept in the collective know-how of employees. Team members can share a wealth of “learning by doing” knowledge with one another, and they are building a culture of continuous learning along the way. Organizations are encouraging peers to assist one another with their day-to- day work, and with networking and pursuing learning opportunities, in a myriad of creative ways. Many firms we work with have set up online marketplaces on their intranets to facilitate this, while others hold peer-learning workshops to connect employees who are willing to teach specific skills to their colleagues. Another great practice that can be less anxiety-producing for introverted employees than giving a presentation is asking them to create how-to videos on important processes, which are posted on the company’s internal network. Some might also be shown to new employees when they come on board. Generally, three to four minutes is the optimal length, and a wealth of free filmmaking services are available online, along with tutorials about best practices for recording and editing. In their book The Expertise Economy, Kelly Palmer and David Blake advocate formalizing peer-to-peer learning to build employee confidence. They point to a few characteristics that summarize best practices that can get a team learning more from each other and peers around the organization: 1. Appoint a facilitator. Assign a person who can organize peer-learning sessions and keep meetings on topic, whether in person or online. 2. Build a safe environment. Help participants feel safe to ask questions and share thoughts and experiences. Invite specialists to “parachute” in from other departments and pick their brains. 3. Focus on real-world situations. Team members are more likely to participate, and learn more effectively, if learning sessions address their current challenges. * * * While there are many uncertainties today, especially about the working world, we are certain that those leaders who will be successful in the future will give greater attention to people development.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  [image file=image_rsrc6KU.jpg] The letter that Luther sent to Archbishop Albrecht included a copy of these Ninety-five Theses. The letter and the theses were first sent to Magdeburg and forwarded to Albrecht. He did not even open the letter until November 17, and when he did open it, he was not in any mood to take its contents very well. The main reason for this was that he was in a great financial difficulty owing to the fact that Tetzel’s usual rain dance wasn’t bringing in nearly the amounts Albrecht had been counting on. A related reason for his pique was that his elector rival Frederick had declined to allow this indulgence to be preached in Saxony. That would have helped dramatically. And now this theological fussbudget from Frederick’s own university was writing to say that preaching indulgences was profoundly wrong and must be stopped as soon as possible. In fact, one reason the indulgences were not raising what had been predicted had to do with fatigue on the part of many of the faithful, who had been approached by other indulgence preachers not long before Tetzel. This was one of the reasons Frederick had given for not wishing to reintroduce indulgence preaching into his own territory at that time. Albrecht hardly knew what to do with the letter, but he knew that it required some sort of response. He certainly could not throw it away, because the monk who had written it was the head of the theological faculty at Wittenberg, not to mention the vicar-general of eleven monasteries. So two weeks after reading the letter, Albrecht handed it over to the theological faculty at his own university in Mainz, hoping they might make something of it and advise him how to proceed. Albrecht was not a nefarious man and was not entirely dismissive of what Luther had to say, but this was hardly the best time for him to deal with the problem of indulgences. The Mainz theologians who got the letter and theses were slow in responding to Albrecht. No doubt they too realized what thorny issues the letter raised. When they finally did respond, their response was perfectly mealymouthed: they said that professors in Wittenberg were within their rights to have academic disputations—who would have disputed that?—and they said that the questions raised in the letter were probably something the pope should decide. One thing seemed quite clear: for them to say anything one way or another could only get them in trouble, so they opted simply to pass the buck to Rome. And this is what Albrecht now did. And that is how the warehouse of fireworks was finally lit.

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

  The professor filmed adults behaving aggressively toward a Bobo doll, an inflatable clown that bounces back up after being pushed or punched. A test group of children later watched the videos and were placed in a room with the doll; other children watched no video. “If the children saw adults beating up the doll, they displayed much more physical aggression to the doll than the control group,” said Haslam. “This observational learning does not just happen with children. If you observe a leader practice gratitude to others in front of you, it teaches you to do it. It inspires employees with the emotion to go forward and follow that example.” How Gratitude Helps Us Handle Pressure Another bit of good news for managers: Gratitude helps people develop a greater capacity to handle stress. Studies by a team of scientists led by Rollin McCraty, psycho-physiologist and professor at Florida Atlantic University, show that those who give or receive gratitude have a marked reduction in their level of cortisol, the stress hormone. They also are more resilient to emotional setbacks and negative experiences. McCraty’s work suggests humans can rewire their brains to deal with tough circumstances with more awareness and broader perception, merely by acknowledging and appreciating the little steps forward in their lives. This is especially important because anxiety can make talented people feel like frauds, their external validation not matching up with what they feel internally. That’s called the imposter syndrome—waiting for the world to find out we aren’t all we are cracked up to be. In the ranks of celebrities, this is more common than we might imagine. Rock star Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography Born to Run outlines his lifelong battle with self-doubt and feeling like a “complete fake.” Comedian Steve Martin, in his autobiography Born Standing Up, details his two-decades- long struggle with bouts of anxiety and full-blown panic attacks. Lady Gaga, who appears to be the epitome of confidence with her assortment of outrageous outfits and amazing live performances, has openly discussed her anxiety. On an HBO special, she said, “I still sometimes feel like a loser kid in high school, and I just have to pick myself up and tell myself that I’m a superstar every morning so that I can get through this day and be for my fans what they need for me to be.” Eventually, without support and coping mechanisms, even talented people can burn out from stress and anxiety. UCLA neuroscientist Dr. Alex Korb explains that a person who worries over and over about unfavorable outcomes will wire his brain to focus on nothing but the negative. He argues that our minds cannot focus on positive and negative information simultaneously. By consciously practicing gratitude in a team, he says, we could help train our brains to selectively attend to positive emotions and thoughts.

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

  If you want to hear a medical professional curse, ask them how many hours they waste a year entering every detail imaginable into a patient’s electronic health record, or the forms they have to fill out to renew their medical licenses, hospital privileges, drug-prescribing authority, and so on. Even before the COVID-19 crisis, the risk of burnout in this profession was acute. We’ve found one of the best ways health-care organizations are helping their staff to gain control over exhaustion is to change the situation that is causing it—reducing digital demands. There are typically things all managers can do to reduce red tape, which can be remarkably empowering for their team members; for instance, conducting formal kaizen events with company approval to streamline processes in their team or assigning necessary paperwork to a person who likes doing it (which suggests the need to get to know what employees are motivated by). While Job One for a leader is doing whatever is possible to bring workloads into alignment with realistic expectations for productivity, we appreciate that in many cases making substantial changes to workload simply is not feasible. If by this point you are thinking that this just isn’t going to work in your firm, then we offer below a set of methods for helping your people better cope with workload expectations. Method 1: Create Clear Roadmaps One way to help reduce employee anxiety regarding overload is to decide upon clear, achievable goals for everyone on the team. Yet rather than this being a top-down doling out of assignments, we’ve found more leaders are doing this collaboratively with feedback from their people. It is rare for us to find team members working from good, understandable roadmaps that can be referred to again and again, providing clarity on what needs to get done in what timeframe (week/month/year). Yet in an interview with Mary Beth DeNooyer, chief human resources officer for Keurig Dr Pepper, she said their twenty thousand employees operate daily from personalized frameworks that provide clarity and help reduce anxiety. In addition to specific individual work goals and targets on these roadmaps, “they include our Vision: What are we trying to achieve from a macro perspective,” she said. “We also include Company Values, how our teams work together; and Competencies, which are how an individual succeeds.” DeNooyer said the frameworks are an anchor that employees can refer back to, helping them prioritize and avoid frustration. “People have them hanging on their bulletin board or as a screensaver,” she added. “And when the world seems to be on fire, they can lean back and say, ‘Okay, does this new thing fit?’