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

  Some workers become prone to coping mechanisms when things go bad—such as defensiveness and aversion to advice; withdrawal from participation; and, in extreme cases, ghosting. In fact, it’s a good rule of thumb to assume that an anxious employee may jump there very quickly. 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.’

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

  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 Is First, 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. The scales were surrounded by windshields to keep our breath off, and the reading on the scale could change if we leaned against the counter.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  And so Luther left, along with Staupitz and the others, and then Luther and Staupitz had lunch. Meanwhile, Cajetan was fumbling with this frustrating puzzle before him. How could he get this monk to give him what he wanted? Having failed to get the German estates to agree to pay the Turkish tax, he might at least have this smaller victory in hand when he slunk back to Rome. But how to get it? After lunch, Cajetan summoned Linck and Staupitz to meet with him. Surely they would be more reasonable than this smart aleck Luther. Serralonga was there too, and both Cajetan and Serralonga labored for many hours to persuade Staupitz and Linck to persuade Luther to recant. They even together helpfully drafted a possible recantation that he might sign. Cajetan was mostly focused on the issue of papal authority—on the issue of the keys—and he said that he would not insist on the other theological points. But Staupitz and Linck could not bring themselves to trust Cajetan, so in the end nothing came of this meeting. During this time, a rumor arose that the leaders of the Augustinian order would step in. After all, they were under the authority of Rome and could not have this lone wolf sullying their name across Christendom. Some even said the Augustinian leaders from Rome were on their way to Augsburg to seize both Linck and Staupitz. And presumably Luther too. It was at this point that Staupitz did something extraordinary: He summoned Luther and absolved him of his vow of obedience to him. This way they could now operate independently of each other. Luther therefore could no longer be guilty of disobeying Staupitz, and Staupitz could no longer be held responsible for Luther’s actions. It was a brilliant and genuinely dramatic solution. After he did this, Staupitz—and Linck with him—departed Augsburg with almost comical haste. It was odd that they did so, for Luther was now alone, unsure of what exactly was to follow. Days passed with Luther cooling his heels in the Carmelite monastery, wondering what would come next.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Cardinal Cajetan found himself buffaloed by Luther’s confidence. But Luther’s confidence was no act. He had little doubt there really was a God who should be feared and to whose authority he and everyone should submit. To that God—and to truth and plain reason—Luther would listen. But unless Cajetan and the rest of them pointed to that God through his Scriptures and plainly showed Luther his error, he was quite immovable. Along these lines between Luther’s position and the church’s lay the great fault in the tectonic plates beneath history, and every day the pressure between them increased, which would soon enough lead to the seismic cataclysm ahead. Luther understood why he could not give an inch, but why could the papal powers not see things as he did so that they could solve the situation? What had he missed in all of this? But they could not or would not, and so now, over and over, with an obstinacy that cannot be fathomed, they single-mindedly continued to insist on nothing from this well-meaning monk beyond a single Latin word. One little word from him would end all the trouble. One little word would quell them. And the word was revoco! The pressure on Frederick to turn over Luther was now increased, but for some reason he did not do so; rather he chose to protect him. Precisely why this is, we can never fully know. And of course we know that Frederick had himself invested much of his life and treasure in the idea of indulgences. But probably because of the advice of many Wittenberg theologians—and principally because of Spalatin, whom he trusted utterly—he chose to protect Luther from Rome. Still, Luther knew that by staying in Wittenberg, he was doing harm to Frederick’s reputation. The situation had become yet more political. Rome understood that it had a full-blown public relations disaster on its hands and it must do everything possible to stem this rising tide of questions and scandal, which was reducing the power and authority of the church by the day and would have dramatic consequences in every direction. Perhaps most disturbingly, it would affect the upcoming election of the new emperor. As we have said it was vital to Rome that the young Charles I of Spain—who was the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain—not be elected. His power if elected would be so considerable that Rome worried it would be overwhelmed. This was so important that Rome clearly put the politics of this situation above “truth” and theological clarity. There was an imperial election coming up, and that now must take precedence over all else, and did.

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

  After twenty years of helping define and refine corporate culture, we can offer up one warning: Most businesses took their corporate cultures for granted when all employees worked in the same building. When considering the world of remote work, we are entering the Wild West. Helping people—perhaps spread out over various time zones—feel like a part of a collective whole is an entirely different matter. To build culture in a remote world, and reduce anxiety in the process, managers must communicate more, not less, to help their people feel included and not be afraid to try to break out of the status quo. Kraft Heinz Company has done just that. Shirley Weinstein, head of Global Rewards, shared that her executive team has participated in live cooking showdowns in their home kitchens for employees to watch—incorporating their products from Philadelphia Cream Cheese to Oscar Mayer to Classico Pasta Sauce. The half-hour shows pit two executives against each other, cooking in their kitchens in front of their families. “Our global head of communications, Michael Mullen, is the engaging moderator, with a member of our culinary team to judge the creativity and use of our products,” she said. “The taste testers are their families, which is a great way to bring their children, their spouses, and even their dogs into the show.” She added that busy employees working remotely at first thought, “‘I don’t have time for this,’ but they joined in and appreciated the diversity that it brought to their workday. It was a time to reflect, to learn, to laugh, and to appreciate their leaders on a personal level.” As Kraft Heinz is attempting, building culture in a remote world also means clearly defining your mission and values and celebrating those who embody these grand ideals in interactions with customers or fellow team members. It also means using technology platforms and social media to provide ways that employees can connect and get to know each other, replicating the old water-cooler talk or sticking your head over the cubicle wall. Managers with remote teams also should spread leadership around to enhance ownership and engagement—asking certain folks on the team to run meetings about a subject they are passionate about or conduct training sessions on an area of their expertise. Bosses can also bring some fun into the mix by encouraging home workspace decorating contests or background competitions. Even little things can help build connection. For instance, if leaders bring in lunch for people who are in the office, they can make sure to send food to remote people as well. That’s a nice touch.

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

  But employees interviewed said they wanted to face the hurdles as a cohesive team, even if that meant that some might have to depart the company for it to survive. While Mayer tried to hide layoffs behind the euphemism “remixes,” one employee told the New York Post: “I don’t think people want to be mollified. They want to be respected and trusted with facts so they can plan their lives, and also help.” In just about any company, long before news reports emerge of product failures, layoffs, mergers, or downturns, most employees clue in that the firm is facing challenges. In uncertain times, anxiety (and often apathy) is amped up when managers don’t talk transparently about issues and what the company is doing about them. Take General Electric as another unfortunate case during the tenure of CEO Jeffrey Immelt. Employees began to understand the company was facing serious issues long before the public was aware of them. And yet a “success theater” masked challenges for years at the multinational. Sources on the inside told the Wall Street Journal their topmost leader didn’t want to hear any bad news, and executives continued to project an optimism that didn’t always match the reality of their operations or market. In May 2017, in front of a room of Wall Street analysts, Immelt said, “This is a strong, very strong company,” and then defended GE’s profit goals. “It’s not crap. It’s pretty good really. . . . Today, when I think about where the stock is compared to what the company is, it’s a mismatch.” It was. But not in the direction he was talking about. While GE shares were trading near $28 that day, less than two years later they would drop below $6. We have watched as new CEO Larry Culp has instilled a revitalized culture at GE where internal and external stakeholders clearly understand the strategy, and where employees can raise tough issues and know they will be addressed honestly and directly. Six months into the job, we were heartened to hear Culp explain, “What we’re going to try to do is to share with people, in as transparent a way as we possibly can, what the issues are and the plan that we have. But it will take time. And we don’t want to sugarcoat this.” Like Culp, other leaders around the world are trying to involve employees as partners in this process of working through uncertainty.

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

  Fischer had created ambiguity and was big enough to admit his mistake. He attempted to diffuse a potentially anxiety-charged situation by providing a business focus, gave honest but kind feedback, and helped Lisa see what customers needed instead of making her feel she had failed. He learned that by giving clear guidance about what’s expected up front, employees can start the race in a much more effective gear. Despite the advantages of clear, regular one-on-one communication, many managers still express frustration that their people want that kind of guidance. Instead, they hope their team members will act with more autonomy. It’s true that a degree of autonomy is not only vital for efficacy but for feelings of empowerment, and no one enjoys being micromanaged. But managers typically have a lot of know-how and valuable examples to share about ways they’ve tackled the work their people are doing. When they don’t take the time to share that wisdom, they can raise anxiety levels considerably. With the very specific ways in which firms operate today, and unique platforms for almost every team, getting things right is truly in the details. Providing the minutiae may seem tedious, but leaders should consider how they’d approach tasks as if it were for the first time. Many of the mundane details they might rush through may become the focal point of important conversations with their team members. Six Methods to Meet Uncertainty Head-On From our work coaching leaders, we have developed a set of methods that any manager can use to communicate with employees to help reduce uncertainty. These methods include ways to help team members feel needed and engaged by meeting regularly with them as a group to discuss and debate industry changes and how those might affect their team; incorporating active ways of listening to concerns and suggestions from employees one-on-one; and developing metrics to measure success at helping people feel informed about potential challenges the organization is facing and involved in seeking solutions. Method 1: Make It Okay to Not Have All the Answers When Lutz Ziob was general manager of Microsoft Learning, he led his team of four hundred employees through a significant transformation. For years, his externally focused learning organization had made their money inside client corporations, teaching workers how to use the Microsoft toolkit. The company had a multibillion-dollar operation based around this business model. With an eye to the horizon, the debate became whether to let go of this profitable way of doing things and instead start training people in Microsoft products much earlier, in university or high school. Ziob didn’t have the answers, so he turned to his people and introduced a structured way to debate. He asked team members to come to a series of discussions with evidence and a point of view. They were to defend their opinion vehemently, and then be willing to switch sides.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  In his first days there, Luther was desperate to receive letters from his friends and to hear news of what was happening in the wider world. He knew that much concerning him and his cause was going on, and it maddened him to be unable to know everything, much less to do anything about it. So in this first letter, he turned to the subject of something he had heard, perhaps from Berlepsch. It concerned some rioting that had happened in Erfurt just two days before Luther was taken to the Wartburg. The rioting was a result of an incident from a month earlier, after Luther had been grandly received by a number of monks as he passed through Erfurt on his way to the diet. The day after Luther had left, the dean of St. Severin decided to punish those clergy who had taken part in that fulsome reception welcoming this excommunicated heretic. When one of the clergy—a certain Johannes Drach, who was a canon—had refused to comply with the dean’s punishment, the dean humiliated him by physically grabbing him while he was in the chancel, dragging him out of the church, and peremptorily excommunicating him. The Erfurt students and other young people—who had also taken Luther’s side in the wider controversy—protested loudly and rioted against this action. That Erfurt artisans and others took part in this violent protest marks the first time that the Reformation movement had moved beyond its previous academic and ecclesiastical boundaries. This was a trend that would continue from this point on. But the pent-up frustration of the Erfurt citizenry exploded again on May 1 and 2, perhaps because they had word that Luther was then passing nearby on the road home from Worms. Nonetheless, the Erfurters now insisted that Drach be reinstated. Eventually, the dean complied with this demand and nullified the excommunication. Luther was amazed to hear all of this and was desperate for further details, which were slow in coming. Following his reinstatement, Drach nonetheless resigned his post in Erfurt and went to Wittenberg. This sort of thing would happen more and more in the years ahead as what had become the Reformation spread far beyond Luther’s control and unrest spread all across Germany and far beyond too. Wittenberg became the safe place for all who held Luther’s views, and like Drach many of them came there to stay. Luther wondered what effect his disappearance from the world and his present silence—when he had previously been anything but silent—would have on the wider and developing situation:

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  How, I asked Mother, had she come to this? Well, she said, he’ll be telling a story, and he’ll say, “The guy said to me, ‘Bill...’” And I’ll say, “But your name’s not Bill; it’s Ben.” At that time the sheriff in our town was a guy I used to steal watermelons with named Stooge. On the phone, Stooge didn’t sound overexercised. Ben Barker’s truck was registered legal in the name he’d given Mother. Stooge doubted the guy was some lost gangster. Lecia told me the guy seemed too well spoken, too well read, to be outright dangerous. (Which, I now think, fails to take Ted Bundy into account.) Another morning the phone rang early, and Mother whispered that Bill was in the shower, but she’d gotten his license out and his name wasn’t, in fact, Ben Barker. It was Wilbur Fred Bailey, she said. And his ID was from—let’s say—Kentucky. At this point Toby interrupts to comment on the poetic perfection of the guy’s actual name. Wilbur Fred Bailey, Toby repeats. It has a Faulkneresque ring. I notice the rest of the table has gone quiet. The agent has her hand on a glass of water. Toby’s editor is leaning forward. Fred’s the ideal middle name for the guy, Lux says, who’s heard the story before. Fred has that foreshortened, temporary feel to it. A real trailer-park name. So what’d your mother do? Toby asks. I briefly stall like an arid engine, for it’s different telling the story sober—and to these people. But Lux gives my elbow the slightest tap, and, since the current of the story has me in its grip, I start right up. The morning Mother found the license, I told her to run to the library and xerox it, then drop it by Stooge’s office. She did copy it but changed her mind about the sheriff, because—it turned out—Wilbur Fred was paying all her bills. Which pissed me off, since I was paying her gas bill and grocery bill. As was, it turned out, my sister. I made Lecia go down there and call me with Mother on the line, so we could confront this bookkeeping inconsistency. Mother elided it by saying, Oh, Ben doesn’t pay those. He helps me out all kinds of ways. Helps you out how? I wanted to know. How? Lecia said. Well, he cuts the grass, Mother said. I pay Sweet to cut the grass, I said, referring to an old pal of my dead daddy’s. I pay Sweet to cut the grass! Lecia said. The agent said, Hilarious. Triple-dipping. What a woman. Lecia said, Let’s you and me talk after this. Mother said, If Sweet lets the grass get too long, Ben cuts it. Plus he edges the walk real straight. He takes the tops off jars. He hooked up my VCR. He takes me out for Mexican food.... You could be in danger here, Mother, Lecia said. He’s good company, Mother said.

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

  We don’t know. What I can control is the day that I have, or the moment that I have, and that lessens my experience of stress. “If you have anxiety, every evening before you go to bed your mind is racing, so I force myself to think about what tomorrow could look like at its best. Realistic expectations: Perhaps I’ll get a call from an old friend or an inquiry to work with a client. You are engineering hope and optimism. You are saying to yourself, ‘Everything is going to be okay.’” Following up on Dr. Eurich’s comment, note that it’s more than appropriate for team leaders to, now and then, let their teams know that they are overwhelmed and might need a little help. This kind of vulnerability as the boss—admitting anxiety—will go a long way to helping your people open up when they need help themselves. Method 3: Ensure Everyone Knows Exactly What’s Expected of ThemThis may sound basic, but when employees don’t understand what is needed of them day-by-day, it’s like throwing fuel on the anxiety fire. Managers may respond to this suggestion by saying, “Of course my people know what they’re supposed to get done! They’ve got job descriptions, deliverables. They’ve got KPIs and targets to meet.” Each person should have a set of specific goals. Yet time and again, team members we visit with say they suffer from a lack of clarity about what’s really expected of them or how they are doing regarding their goals. From the workers we interviewed for this book, we can attest that much anxiety stems from details about their jobs that managers often assume to be insignificant. A rule: If an employee is asking questions about minutia, they’re unfamiliar with a process. Indeed, several of our young interviewees complained about the on-the-job trainings they’d received, which were more overviews and not tailored to how someone in their position would use the software or follow a procedure or implement a system. Said our millennial Anthony: “With some jobs I’ve had, I got thrown in the deep end and no one explained the details. There were a lot of times I’d think, ‘Oh no, I have to ask about this for the third time. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this.’ Eventually the details became second nature, which was maybe why they were never mentioned to me; but they were the hardest things for me to get.”

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  As we know, the main objectives for which Cajetan had come to Augsburg had eluded him, and the diet had officially ended. But now Cajetan must pivot to deal with Luther, the “weed in the Lord’s vineyard.” Frederick had succeeded in getting a private meeting between Luther and Cajetan, but he was afraid—and rightly so—that the emperor and Cajetan might conspire to seize Luther, put him in chains, and bundle him off to Rome. Therefore he did not agree to let Luther appear until the emperor promised “safe passage.” But no sooner was the diet over than the emperor slipped away to go hunting. So now he must be tracked down and his promise given. Cajetan too had to promise and was offended at having been asked. But in the end both men gave their word. The private meeting between Cajetan and Luther was to take place at Cajetan’s quarters, which were at the opulent Augsburg home of the fabulously wealthy Fuggers. Luther left Wittenberg on September 25 and walked for twelve days, but on October 7, with only three miles to go before he reached Augsburg, he was stricken with such intense stomach pains that he could walk no farther. The physical ailments that struck him throughout his life were doubtless related to the stresses he faced, and we cannot wonder that as he came within a few miles of the site of what might be his condemnation to death, he suffered these difficulties. As it happened, the wagon of his friend Wenceslas Linck approached at the precise instant of his internal distress. Luther knew Linck well from Wittenberg, where they had been faculty colleagues, and of course Linck offered to carry his ailing friend the rest of the way. When Luther arrived in Augsburg, he felt somewhat better. There was no Augustinian monastery in Augsburg at that time, so it was arranged that he would stay at the Carmelite cloister. Luther knew the prior, John Frosch, who had studied in Wittenberg. Spalatin had arranged things for Luther in advance of his arrival so that he was greeted and welcomed by a number of ecclesiastical luminaries, all of whom were interested in meeting this courageous monk who had dared to poke Rome in the eye with a sharp stick. As protocol demanded, Luther immediately informed Cardinal Cajetan that he had arrived in Augsburg, although the cardinal was not prepared to summon him quite yet. First Luther was asked to meet with Urban de Serralonga, who was an ambassador of the Margrave of Montferrat and a confidant of Cajetan’s. Cajetan thought that perhaps Serralonga could soften Luther up and prepare him for what was expected of him in the meeting with the cardinal. Serralonga put himself forward to Luther as a kindhearted mediator between Cajetan and him, but somehow Luther sniffed a cloying “Italian” odor in the whole affair. The son of Hans Ludher was not some uncouth bumpkin who would be so easily outfoxed by some unctuous ambassador.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  But he once showed up to arrange chairs with tinfoil over his head molded into a knight’s helmet with a kind of swan shape on top, convinced his girlfriend was beaming messages to him through the radio. It’s a tribute to the radical equality of the room that I never overheard anybody ever challenge the reasoning. We say our hellos, David inquiring after my son and Joan. Then everybody sits in unwieldy silence. I keep waiting for another passenger to ask where the hell the gin is, and when they don’t, I convince myself I don’t smell it. Paranoid—jeez. But then I look at the cigarette lighter lolling in the vast ashtray and wonder. Jack says, I have a Tab I’d like to open, but I don’t have enough to share around. We all tell him go ahead. About that time, a whoosh of damp air sweeps in as another trench-coated lawyer, Gerry, swings open the back door. He squeezes Jack in the middle with his knees up, and he’s holding the Tab like a bazooka he’s about to fire off. I strap on my seat belt. At intervals, streetlights flash across James, who squints at the road like a pilot trying to feel his plane toward a fogged runway, and to his credit, he drives slow enough. Ultimately, we halt alongside a whitewashed church. Stepping out, I see enough tilted motorcycles to ferry a whole clubhouse full of Hells Angels. The crowd out front is mostly ponytailed guys in leather jackets and vests and black chaps. Chains hang off their belt loops, and each foot is shod in a storm trooper’s boot. I spy nary a female. James heads for the bathroom, and I grab Gerry’s elbow to tell him—a total stranger, nicely as I can—his pal James is shitfaced. The rain’s stopped, and a few shy stars are trying to blink. You’re mistaken, Gerry says. I know him. We’ve made coffee together in Lexington for four years. Trust me. A drunk man. Extremely. If that’s true, Gerry says a little wearily, he can’t speak. I’ll take his keys away. But where is he, anyway? Through the church full of assembling bikers, I follow Gerry back to check the men’s room. We’re outside looking around in the few seconds before Gerry’s meant to start speaking when a guy with friz zled muttonchop sideburns says, You looking for the trench-coat dude? He’s under that big low-growing Christmas tree over yonder. Sure enough, James had crawled under the giant evergreen, curling around the trunk like a cut worm to pass out. We figured he was too clean for homeless, a guy with a shaved head edges up to say. James! Gerry hisses. He’s squatted down to peer under the branches. James! Y’all want us to pull him out? the guy with muttonchops asks. A nod from Gerry, and two fellows wiggle under the tree and drag James toward us. One of his wing tips is missing.

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

  They’re not being perfectionists in these times, they’re being responsible. Perfectionism isn’t about a rational quest to get things right when they have to be, it’s a corrosive impulse to appear perfect, and often to push others to perfection as well (while being averse to any criticism themselves). And, in a horrible irony, perfectionism can seriously undermine people’s performance and has become a warning sign for many employers. Consider the case of one of the greatest performers of all time, opera star Maria Callas. In the 1940s and ’50s, Callas became one of classical music’s bestselling vocalists, and today is still considered by many to be the greatest soprano of all time. She forever changed expectations of singers with an acting talent that had never been seen on the opera stage. And yet Callas’s career is an example of how striving for perfection can eat away at excellence. Pushed by an overbearing mother—who had her singing on the street for money as early as age five—as the Washington Post reported, she developed a “perfectionism that grew ever more fierce as her voice decayed.” Callas pushed herself to be flawless at the expense of her health and relationships at work and outside. On one occasion, before a rehearsal at La Scala, she was asked to wait until the eminent pianist Wilhelm Backhaus finished rehearsing a concerto in the space Callas was scheduled for. Callas refused adamantly, saying she didn’t care who it was: “I’m supposed to start my rehearsal at three o’clock. Tell him it’s over.” While rehearsing Medea , she rushed to a nearby café during a break from a rehearsal, where she was asked, “What are you holding?” She was still grasping the prop dagger, her mind unable to take a break from her role. While a one-in-a-lifetime talent, Callas’s expectations of perfection weighed so heavily that she eventually had a hard time performing. In recapping her career, she said, “I never lost my voice, but . . . I lost my courage.” Her singing days were over by age forty, where in contrast, Joan Sutherland, considered to be history’s second-best soprano after Callas, was able to sing into her midsixties. While aiming for excellence can lead to breakthroughs, perfectionism can lead to breakdowns. The Endless Report Card Perfectionists aren’t merely ambitious, diligent strivers. As Dr. Brian Swider of the University of Florida, who’s researched the differences between strivers and perfectionists, says, “Yes, perfectionists strive to produce flawless work, and have higher levels of motivation and conscientiousness than nonperfectionists. However, they are also more likely to set inflexible and excessively high standards, to evaluate their behavior overly critically, to hold an all-or-nothing mindset about their performance (‘my work is either faultless or a total failure’), and to believe their self-worth is contingent on performing perfectly. Studies have also found that perfectionists have higher levels of stress, burnout, and anxiety.”

• From Come As You Are (2015)

  Stress underlies worry, anxiety, fear, terror, all the variants of “Run away!” But it also underlies anger—irritation, annoyance, frustration, rage. And to a great extent it underlies the shutdown that characterizes depression. In the first section of this chapter, I’ll present a view of stress different from those you may have heard before: The key to managing stress (so that it doesn’t mess with your sex life) is not simply “relaxing” or “calming down.” It’s allowing the stress response cycle to complete. Allow it to discharge fully. Let your body move all the way from “I am at risk” to “I am safe.” In the second part of this chapter, I’ll discuss love. Love, for our purposes, is attachment, the innate biological mechanism that bonds humans together. It underlies passion, romance, and the joy of finding a partner you can connect with. But it also underlies grief, jealousy, and heartbreak. Sometimes it’s joyful, like when you’re falling in love. Sometimes it’s agonizing, like when you’re breaking up. But always attachment pushes us from “I am broken” to “I am whole.” And finally, in the third part of this chapter, I’ll talk about the place where stress and attachment and sex overlap—the place where we experience both the passionate, exuberant joy of intense love and also the agony of the worst interpersonal discord. When stress and attachment and sex all activate together in our emotional One Ring, they call, “I am lost,” to motivate us to search and search until we find ourselves in a new place: “I am home.” I’ll describe attachment distress–fueled sex as “sex that advances the plot,” and introduce ways that we can use this dynamic to our advantage. The goal is to help you recognize how the stress response cycle and the attachment mechanism are integrated in your sexual responsiveness, and to offer strategies for allowing them to enhance sexual pleasure, as well as to provide options when they’re impairing pleasure. We can understand women’s sexual wellbeing only if we take context into account—and most of that context has nothing to do with sex itself. Which means we can improve our sexual wellbeing and expand our sexual pleasure without directly changing anything about our sex lives! What I’ve included in this chapter and the next are the contextual factors that research has shown are consistently associated with changes in women’s sexual wellbeing. Improve your context, and your sexual pleasure will expand all on its own. the stress response cycle: fight, flight, and freezeLet’s first separate your stressors from your stress. Your stressors are the things that activate the stress response—bills, family, work, fretting about your sex life, all of that.

• From Come As You Are (2015)

  Get a hand mirror and look at your vulva, as I described earlier in the chapter. (Sometimes people use their cell phone with the camera in self-portrait mode. That works, too!) As you look, make note of all the things you like about what you see. Write them down. You’ll notice that your brain tries to list all the things you don’t like, but don’t include those. Do it again every week. Or twice a week. Or more. Each time, the things you like will become a little more salient and the noise will get a little quieter. Maybe even consider telling someone else about what you see and what you like. Better still, tell someone who also did the exercise! This activity gets labeled “cognitive dissonance” because it forces us to be aware of good things, when mostly we tend to be aware of the “negative” things. Try it. Ask your partner, if you have one, to have a close look. Turn on the light, take off your clothes, get on your back, and let them look. Ask them to tell you what they see, how they feel about what they see, what memories they have of your vulva. Let your partner know what you’ve felt worried about, and ask them to help you see what they see. Listen to what they say—listen with your heart, not with your fear. a better metaphorWe started this chapter thinking about the ways we metaphorize anatomy, creating meaning from random acts of biology in ways that end up making us feel uncomfortable with our bodies. To help undo all that, I like to use a different metaphor: a garden. It’s a metaphor I use a lot—remember the apple tree from the introduction?—because it offers a judgment-free way of thinking about how the sexual hardware we’re born with (our bodies and brains) and the families and culture we’re born into interact to give rise to the individual sexual self that emerges in adulthood. It goes like this: On the day you’re born, you’re given a little plot of rich and fertile soil, slightly different from everyone else’s. And right away, your family and your culture start to plant things and tend the garden for you, until you’re old enough to take over its care yourself. They plant language and attitudes and knowledge about love and safety and bodies and pleasure. And they teach you how to tend your garden, because as you transition through adolescence into adulthood, you’ll take on full responsibility for its care. And you didn’t choose any of that. You didn’t choose your plot of land, the seeds that were planted, or the way your garden was tended in the early years of your life.

• From Come As You Are (2015)

  And none of these indicates that now is a good time to get laid. Stress is about survival. And while sex serves a lot of purposes, personal survival is not one of them (except when it is—see the attachment section). So for most people, stress slams on the brakes, bottoming out sexual interest—except for the 10 to 20 percent or so of people like Olivia for whom stress activates the accelerator. (All the same parts, organized in different ways.) But even for those folks, stress blocks sexual pleasure (liking) even as it increases sexual interest (wanting). Stressed sex feels different from joyful sex—you know, because: context. To reduce the impact of stress on your sexual pleasure and interest, to have more joyful, pleasurable sex, manage your stress. Yeah, easier said than done. When Olivia was stressed, her interest in sex increased—and it was a source of conflict in her relationship with Patrick, since when he was stressed, his interest in sex went down. And worse, sometimes the stress-driven sexual interest made Olivia feel out of control. How can she manage that feeling? By practicing completing the cycle. My technical description of Olivia’s out-of-control experience is “maladaptive behavior to manage negative affect”—which just means trying to cope with uncomfortable emotions (stress, depression, anxiety, loneliness, rage) by doing things that carry a high risk of unwanted consequences. Compulsive sexual behavior is one example. Other examples include: using alcohol or other drugs in a risky way dysfunctional relationships—for instance, trying to deal with your own feelings by dealing with someone else’s escaping into distractions, like movie binge-watching when you have other things you need to be doing disordered eating—restricting, bingeing, or purging Of course, many of these can be done in a healthy way. It’s when we do them instead of dealing with our Feels—that is, instead of completing the cycle—that they bring the potential for unwanted consequences. Some of those consequences are fairly benign… and some are could-kill-you-tonight dangerous. And they’re all intended to do one thing: manage the underlying feelings. We might do these things when we don’t know how to complete the cycle or when the feelings just hurt too much. As a teenager, disordered eating was Olivia’s maladaptive coping strategy. She would binge-eat and then exercise, binge and exercise. As she recovered from her eating disorder, she came to realize that her behavior wasn’t really about the shape of her body—“I needed something to blame for my anxiety, and cultural brainwashing made my body seem like a good target,” she said. Instead, her compulsive behavior was an attempt to deal with feelings that felt too big for her to handle. She’s been symptom-free for several years. Still, she told me, “I sometimes walk through doors sideways because I think I’m too big to fit. When I catch myself doing it, I make myself go through straight, because what I learned is that it’s not my body that I’m worried is too big. It’s my anxiety.”

• From Come As You Are (2015)

  What if you have the opposite combination—sensitive brakes plus not-so-sensitive accelerator? This describes about 1 to 4 percent of women and is associated with problems with getting aroused, lack of interest or desire, and difficulty with orgasm. If you have sensitive brakes, you’re very responsive to all the reasons not to be aroused, and if you have a relatively insensitive accelerator, it takes a lot of concentration and deliberate attention to tune in to sex. Sensitive brakes, regardless of the accelerator, is the strongest predictor of sexual problems of all kinds. In a 2008 survey of 226 women age eighteen to eighty-one, low interest in sex, arousal difficulties, and orgasm difficulty were significantly correlated with inhibition factors, especially “arousal contingency” (“Unless things are ‘just right’ it is difficult for me to become sexually aroused”) and concerns about sexual function (“If I am worried about taking too long to become aroused or to orgasm, this can interfere with my arousal”).8 You can complete the Sexual Temperament Questionnaire that follows to get an idea of how sensitive your own brakes and accelerator are. Don’t mistake this for actual science! It’s a Cosmo quiz adaptation of the science, intended to guide you in your understanding of how your internal sexual response mechanism may influence your response to sexual stimulation, but it is just an approximation.9 Remember, especially, that there are actually two different brakes. Some people’s arousal is shut down more because of internal fears (e.g., taking too long to become aroused), and others are more affected by fears about external factors (e.g., getting an STI or getting caught having sex). Both can decrease your arousal, or prevent you from becoming aroused in the first place. Inhibitors Sometimes I have so many worries that I am unable to get aroused. 01234Not at all like meNot much like meSomewhat like meA lot like meExactly like meUnless things are “just right,” it is difficult for me to become sexually aroused. 01234Not at all like meNot much like meSomewhat like meA lot like meExactly like meIf I am uncertain how my partner feels about me, it is harder for me to get aroused. 01234Not at all like meNot much like meSomewhat like meA lot like meExactly like meIf I am worried about taking too long to become aroused or to orgasm, this can interfere with my arousal. 01234Not at all like meNot much like meSomewhat like meA lot like meExactly like meSometimes I feel so “shy” or self-conscious during sex that I cannot become fully aroused. 01234Not at all like meNot much like meSomewhat like meA lot like meExactly like meTotal (out of 20) ____ Excitors Seeing a partner doing something that shows their talent or intelligence, or watching them interacting well with others can make me very sexually aroused. 01234Not at all like meNot much like meSomewhat like meA lot like meExactly like meWhen I think about someone I find sexually attractive or fantasize about sex, I easily become sexually aroused.

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

  When it comes to innovation, she says, “It’s true that most mutations don’t work out, but the ones that break through do so in a big way.” The same is fundamentally true with employees learning to achieve the excellence perfectionists so strive for. We advise that managers coach their people that it’s better to get their work done on time, as well as they can, and put something out there for evaluation. This way, they can get input from other team members, leaders, even customers, and not be locked in a mental prison of anxious worry. Constantly moving forward like this is a great way of helping perfectionists, and all staff, cultivate a “growth mindset.” Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck introduced that term in her bestselling book Mindset , which we recommend to all managers. Her research revealed that people tend to have either a growth mindset, meaning they believe their intelligence and aptitude can be developed and are willing to try new strategies and seek help from others; or they have a fixed mindset, which leads them to believe that their intelligence is carved in stone, and their aptitudes for certain kinds of work won’t develop much over time, e.g., “I’m just not good with technology.” This causes them to shy away from new challenges. In addition, people with a growth mindset tend to perceive criticism about their work as constructive and as helping them improve. Developing a growth mindset helps people dive into whatever work they might find daunting and not suffer from anxiety about getting it done, or from self-punishment if they’ve got to make improvements. We talked with one senior executive who admitted he has perfectionist tendencies. He has benefited greatly from his own boss coaching him to view the work he and his team were doing through a growth-mindset perspective. Darcy Verhun, the president of FYidoctors, told us, “I tend to push myself and I am aware that can lead to a tendency for me to push others too hard.” He shared an example with us: “A few years ago we created a visual interpretation of our goals using a series of increasingly higher mountains. We had our goals bannered at the top of each mountain. We called it ‘Expedition.’ As we reached a goal, we would put a flag at the top of the mountain we had collectively ‘climbed.’ When we got to the end of the third quarter, I realized that I couldn’t put flags on all the mountains. I hate to fail, so I was sweating as I met with our founder and chairman. We only had hit about 60 percent of our stretch goals.

• 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.

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

  Communication is key in the process, Camaraza said to us. “In our team we listen and we explain. 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. SUMMARYLead through UncertaintyUncertainty 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. 3How to Turn Less into MoreHelp Team Members Deal with OverloadYou 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.