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

  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 Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  This section explores the contrasting effects of narrow and broad framing on decision-making in investment scenarios. Kahneman highlights an experiment where participants were instructed to approach decisions in isolation (narrow framing) versus as part of an aggregated portfolio (broad framing). The findings indicated that narrow framing heightened emotional responses to losses, while broad framing mitigated these emotional reactions and encouraged riskier decisions. The author argues that this emotional difference is vital for investors, suggesting that the broader context can lead to more rational and advantageous investment strategies. Ultimately, the section illustrates how framing impacts both emotional outcomes and willingness to take risks, culminating in a call for a shift towards broad framing in decision-making. In this section, Kahneman advocates for the establishment of risk policies as a means to mitigate the biases stemming from narrow framing. He posits that pre-defined policies can streamline decision-making processes, allowing investors to respond uniformly to recurring decisions rather than making emotionally charged choices each time. Examples of effective risk policies include opting for high deductibles on insurance or avoiding extended warranties. Kahneman connects this concept to the outside view, suggesting that both risk policies and the outside view help counter the biases of exaggerated optimism and loss aversion in financial contexts. This approach can enhance investment decision quality, reinforcing the importance of adopting structured frameworks for risk management. This section delves into the concept of mental accounting, where individuals categorize financial resources in ways that often conflict with rational decision-making. Kahneman discusses how people emotionally "keep score" of their investments, which influences their behavior in detrimental ways, such as the disposition effect—where investors are inclined to sell winning stocks while retaining losers. The author illustrates how emotional experiences linked to gains and losses can cloud investors' judgment, leading them to make decisions that prioritize emotional satisfaction over financial sense. This mental accounting often results in significant financial missteps, reinforcing the need for awareness and strategies to counteract these irrational tendencies. Kahneman examines the sunk-cost fallacy, emphasizing how past investments can unduly influence current decision-making. He describes how decision-makers often continue investing in failing projects due to a reluctance to incur losses, a decision bolstered by emotional attachments to prior expenditures. This bias leads to excessive commitment to failing endeavors, diverting resources away from more promising opportunities. He illustrates this with the example of companies over-investing in underperforming projects, prioritizing emotional considerations over logical assessments of future outcomes. Kahneman asserts that overcoming the sunk-cost fallacy is critical for effective decision-making in finance and beyond, advocating for more objective evaluations of ongoing investments.

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

  Rather than punishing them at that point, you should laud them in front of others and thank them for their honesty and for giving us the time to make the adjustments by the end of the year.” 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

  Method 6: Tailor Development to the IndividualHaving frequent and honest career-development conversations with employees allows managers to better discover the ways in which their people need to enhance their skills and are most interested in doing so. To reduce unnecessary anxiety, development should be tailored to individuals. This point was stressed to us by Dan Helfrich, CEO and Chairman of Deloitte Consulting. He’s a terrific practitioner of a tailored approach, and it’s won him the loyalty of his people, not to mention contributed to his promotion to a lofty position in his company. Helfrich starts career one-on-ones by asking his direct reports: “What do you want to get better at?” This is so much more engaging for employees than being coached to fill skill gaps they have absolutely no interest in. Helfrich says, “I want to know about a challenge they feel ready to take on but haven’t been given the chance. Then as the time goes along, wow, the alignment that comes from giving them small tasks or opportunities that comport with what they shared with you builds their confidence that what they say really matters.” He told us about a member of his team who was the hub of coordination in the office. “But,” he said, “she was starting to feel like a reporting mechanism and wasn’t being given a chance to think creatively or strategically. She had this skill set as a conductor that was highly regarded, but it felt limiting to her.” While some managers might encourage the employee to lean into this strength, Helfrich knew that if she wasn’t allowed to stretch and grow, he might lose her. He asked if the employee would like to take the lead on a new project, allowing her to guide the creative process, which, he says, “unlocked career growth that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.”

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

  This Week: Marissa Mayer’s Creepy Comment Kills Morale,” by James Covert and Claire Atkinson, January 18, 2016. Take General Electric as another unfortunate case : GE’s tough times were noted in the Wall Street Journal article “How Jeffrey Immelt’s ‘Success Theater’ Masked the Rot at GE,” by Thomas Gryta, Joann S. Lublin, and David Benoit, February 21, 2018. Six months into the job, we were heartened : Larry Culp was quoted from his appearance on Mad Money on CNBC in the CNBC article “GE Will Be Transparent about Challenges in Its Turnaround Plan, CEO Larry Culp says,” by Tyler Clifford, March 14, 2019. by 2013, executives at AT&T : The account of AT&T was chronicled from the Harvard Business Review article “AT&T’s Talent Overhaul,” by John Donovan and Cathy Benko, October 2016. Evidence on the value of frequent check-ins : The BetterWorks data was quoted from the Fast Company article “Why the Annual Performance Review Is Going Extinct,” by Kris Duggan, October 20, 2015. According to a Leadership IQ survey of thirty thousand people : The survey is quoted from the Forbes article “Fewer Than Half of Employees Know if They’re Doing a Good Job,” by Mark Murphy, September 4, 2016. When Lutz Ziob was general manager of Microsoft Learning : Lutz Ziob’s story was told to us by Liz Wiseman and confirmed by Ziob. more than half of workers say their managers become more closed-minded : That more than half of managers become more controlling during crisis is from the Harvard Business Review article “When Managers Break Down Under Pressure, So Do Their Teams,” by David Maxfield and Justin Hale, December 17, 2018. This is such an important concept that “Bias for Action” : Amazon’s principle of “Bias for Action” was found on aboutamazon.com under “Our Leadership Principles.” according to Forbes , nine out of ten managers : The statistic that managers shy away from giving feedback is from the Forbes article “Today’s Workers Are Hungry for Feedback; Here’s How to Give It to Them,” by G. Riley Mills, September 27, 2019. 65 percent of today’s workers feel shortchanged : The statistic that employees want more feedback is from the Forbes article “65% of Employees Want More Feedback (So Why Don’t They Get It?),” by Victor Lipman, August 8, 2016. A leader who was effective at this kind of upward communication : James Rogers’s story was taken from the Harvard Business Review article “Leadership Is a Conversation,” by Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind, June 2012. Chapter 3: How to Turn Less into More Brandon Webb passed the challenge : Webb is quoted, and information gleaned on the Navy SEALs, from the Observer.com article “Bulletproof Mind: 6 Secrets of Mental Toughness from the Navy SEALs,” by Charles Chu, November 25, 2016, and from interviews with Dr.

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

  Census Bureau, by May of 2020 more than 30 percent of all Americans of all ages were reporting symptoms of an anxiety disorder, including a remarkable 42 percent of people in their twenties. Lenny Mendonca is a prominent business owner and public official who in mid-2020 resigned from office after being hit by strains on his mental health. “I face a challenge one of every three people in America has: depression and anxiety,” he said. Mendonca had been chief economic and business advisor to California governor Gavin Newsom, and is owner of Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, which employs about four hundred people. He’s also a former senior executive of McKinsey & Company and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In other words, the guy is a mover and shaker. He explained that well-meaning friends discouraged him from sharing his diagnosis, suggesting it would end his career. “While I respect their counsel, I categorically reject it. I talk about my mountain biking injuries and the metal plate in my left leg as a badge of honor. Why should I hide a similar injury to the most important—and yet vulnerable and least understood—organ in my body, my brain? What does it say about me that I have a mental health issue? It says that I am human.” Mendonca shared his story because he believes there are too few in business and public life willing to “discuss mental health, destigmatize professional shame, and protect against the resulting economic impact it can have on people’s careers and our economy as a whole. The conversation is overdue and urgent,” he said. The Cover-UpMendonca admits, “I have executive seniority that reduces the potential professional harm of speaking out. The majority of people suffering do not have these privileges.” He’s right—despite its prevalence, employees just don’t talk openly about their anxiety at work. The biggest challenge—one that makes it tricky to help employees—is that many with anxiety must cover it up, which all too often ends badly. Consider the case of a promising young employee we met in 2019. Chloe is the kind of worker most companies are avidly recruiting: smart and personable, comfortable with technology, and an uber-fast learner. She had graduated from college with a near-perfect GPA but admitted that keeping up with the work was a challenge. She would wake up early to get in extra study time before class and most nights had trouble getting to sleep, usually managing only a few hours.

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

  Real Leadership Rosabeth Moss Kanter, professor at Harvard Business School, said, “It takes courage to speak up against complacency and injustice while others remain silent. But that’s what leadership is.” The sad truth is we expect people who are underrepresented to speak up for themselves about injustices. Often, colleagues and managers don’t believe them. Worse, they get combative. As leaders, we don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about how to address the microaggressions that happen every day in our workplaces that affect marginalized people deeply. As a definition, microaggressions are biases that reveal themselves in often subtle ways and leave people feeling uncomfortable or insulted. They may range from the offensive—a Black man notices a lone White woman flinch when he steps into the elevator, or a woman tries to speak up in a meeting but can’t get a word in with her male colleagues—to the bizarre—a gay man is told that he must love a certain musician, or a person in a wheelchair is jokily told to “slow down, speed racer.” We had a young friend explain that during her time as a teaching assistant at a local university, her professor would introduce her to the class with comments such as “I want you all to enjoy the lecture, so here’s a pretty face.” She knew it wasn’t meant to be harmful, but the comments ratcheted up her anxiety considerably and made her unsure of her abilities. She was, in fact, a qualified researcher and lecturer, but the professor’s comments framed her first as a thing to ogle. Instead, think of how engaged our friend would have been if the professor had bookended her lecture time with glowing comments about her research and educational accomplishments. This kind of death-by-a-thousand-cuts behavior is brushed off too frequently with those on the receiving end being termed “overly sensitive.” Yet research shows that microaggressions can take a real psychological toll on the mental health of recipients, may lead to anger and depression, and can lower work productivity and problem-solving abilities. One study at Marquette University provided strong evidence that microaggressions lead not only to elevated levels of depression and trauma, but thoughts of suicide in those affected. What follows are a few methods offered to us by powerful voices in marginalized communities and their allies to help those who feel on the outside become valued and included in any team. Method 1: Listen Up“If someone is brave and courageous enough to share their unique experience and perspective with you, honor it. Amplify it. Create space for it in your team meetings, in your business, and in your brand,” said HubSpot’s Burke. This means listening to those experiences.

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

  Method 4: Use a Skill Development FlowPart of reducing anxiety is teaching about potential growth upward, but we must also help employees understand that moving up isn’t the only way to grow in a career. Says Mary Beth DeNooyer, chief human resources officer for Keurig Dr Pepper, “For a long time we thought about career paths as a ladder. It was all about how you move up. The imagery we’re moving to is a rock wall, where a person can move up, sideways, a little up, and a little sideways. Everybody can have their own destination. “The only thing you can’t do on a rock wall is just hang there,” she added. “You can’t be content. You’ve got to move. But how you move and how fast and how high is up to you. That helps people think about what skills they are building. What they want to experience on their journey.” DeNooyer explains that a ladder implies one person climbs at a time; on a wall there can be many people who get to the same place without competing. In other words, success is not a zero-sum game. We’ve found this type of attitude can greatly enhance inclusion efforts and help alleviate the worries of some people who may feel threatened by diversity initiatives because they think spots are being taken away from them. Organizations that do this effectively create a culture where one person’s growth doesn’t have to come at the expense of someone else’s. When we coach leaders, we encourage them to follow a simple process to develop new skills in their team members. It follows our Skill Development Model. In using this method, leaders can help people trying to progress on the wall chart their own way. And, best of all, the process allows managers to align the company or team vision with the vision of their people, reducing anxiety that can arise if team members feel they aren’t getting the growth they need. First, either the employee suggests a skill to get better at, or the manager suggests it. If it’s something that might benefit the team or organization, and the employee is on board to try, the employee begins to learn. If the skill is suggested by the employee and it’s determined that it’s not needed by the organization at this time, then it might be something the worker would pursue on personal time.

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

  Sometimes seized with anxiety from the pressure of all she had to get through, she would slap a smile on her face and keep moving, because, as she said, “that’s what you’re supposed to do.” Secretly she had wondered why she had to try so hard to appear chipper when everyone else seemed to be that way naturally. All of Chloe’s hard work paid off when, after graduation, she landed a good job at an investment bank in Seattle. She moved there from her hometown across the country and quickly impressed her boss and colleagues. They considered her a surefire rising star. Outwardly, Chloe oozed confidence. But inside, she felt out of her element. She began to doubt herself. Her young peers at the bank seemed to have more experience. Most had gone to more prestigious schools. They talked about their amazing internships. They seemed to get more recognition. “Every morning, the company sent out this mass email about someone else’s accomplishments,” she recalls. “It was this nice thing from HR, but to me it felt like taunting. Everyone around me was so smart, doing such cool things. I wanted to be just as wonderful as they were.” What’s more, judging by social media posts, her friends back home seemed much happier than she was. They were going to parties and concerts, hanging with family, relaxing, and having fun. As for Chloe, she worked every day past dark, went back to her apartment, and crashed. She didn’t even have time for a cat. Chloe gathered her courage and mentioned to her manager that she was feeling a little overwhelmed. The manager’s response: “Ah, that’s what it’s like around here. You’re doing fine. Try not to stress.” She resigned herself to feeling this way because that was just how things were. But soon, every night, Chloe felt a looming dread about the next day. Sunday evenings were the absolute worst, when she would exhibit all the signs of a full-blown panic attack. Before long she could hardly get out of bed. At work, she began scrolling through the web pages of graduate schools. She daydreamed about travel. Maybe she’d take a year off and backpack through places like Nepal. Even though she’d put in a lot of work and had been doing well in her job, one day Chloe simply had too much. She “ghosted.” She didn’t show up at work and didn’t call in sick. When her boss sent a text to ask where she was, she ignored it. Chloe never went back, and she never even communicated with her manager or anyone else at the company again. A star in the making just blinked out. From her manager’s standpoint, we can imagine this was incredibly frustrating.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  The chapter begins with an examination of the planning fallacy, where people inaccurately predict the timelines and costs for projects based on overly optimistic assumptions. Kahneman references the work of Bent Flyvbjerg, who highlights the need for a more empirical approach to forecasting by using the “outside view.” This method involves identifying a relevant reference class (like similar infrastructure projects) and relying on historical data, rather than internal project-specific optimism. Flyvbjerg’s analysis underscores the need for decision-makers to have a realistic assessment of project costs and the inevitable overspending many similar initiatives face. He cautions that without this empirical grounding, project planners may significantly underestimate risks, ultimately leading to budget overruns and project failures. Kahneman then reflects on his own experiences that exemplify the planning fallacy, particularly an episode from thirty years prior. Even after realizing the statistical likelihoods of project overruns, he acknowledges a failure to act on this knowledge, ultimately leading to inadequate project management. This self-reflection illustrates the pervasive nature of cognitive biases in not just organizational behavior but also personal accountability, where emotional aversion to acknowledging potential failure can cloud judgment. He emphasizes the importance of allowing for unknown variables and the psychological barriers that prevent teams from reevaluating their strategies based on new information. The discussion transitions to the broader implications of optimistic bias in entrepreneurial ventures, where potential business owners often operate under the illusion that their success is guaranteed. Kahneman cites various studies, including one by Thomas Åstebro, showing that even after being advised on the poor prospects of their ventures, many entrepreneurs persist in their efforts, often doubling down on their initial investments. This phenomenon indicates not only an under-appreciation of risk but also a deep-seated belief in their control over outcomes. Kahneman further posits that while a degree of optimism can foster resilience and innovation, unchecked optimism can lead to significant economic consequences. In this section, Kahneman introduces the planning fallacy, a critical cognitive distortion that leads to overly optimistic project forecasts. Drawing from Bent Flyvbjerg's extensive research, he advocates for the use of the "outside view," whereby planners assess the likelihood of project overruns by referencing historical data from similar projects. This methodology counters the misleading internal perspective that often governs planning, where decision-makers focus solely on the specifics of their current project. Kahneman emphasizes that recognizing the common pitfalls of optimism can prevent the significant budget overruns typically associated with large public projects. He illustrates that without proper empirical grounding, decision-makers lack a realistic assessment of costs and risks, often resulting in self-fulfilling prophecies regarding budget reserves that may unwittingly invite excessive spending due to optimism-based miscalculations.

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

  Others don’t want to coddle their workers, especially during times of crisis when there are so many other demands on their time. A few leaders have shared the view that praising their people all the time for just doing their job will come across as condescending or fake. “Who am I,” they ask, “a praise-giving robot?” Well, first, it’s not nonstop praise that’s called for, it is gratitude expressed in the right way and at the right time. Managers need employees who are motivated to achieve. And one of the simplest and most effective ways to motivate people to achieve is by regularly expressing gratitude. Our research shows unequivocally that offering such positive reinforcement produces impressive boosts in team performance. Here’s some of that evidence: Research conducted for us by Willis Towers Watson found that when employee engagement is in the bottom quartile of national rankings, customer satisfaction is 20 percentage points lower than when employee engagement is in the top quartile. And of the people who report the highest level of engagement at work, a whopping 94 percent agree that their managers are effective at recognizing them when they go above and beyond. That shows an extremely strong link between gratitude and employee engagement, and engagement and customer satisfaction. All of this is made more startling when we add morale into the mix. Some 56 percent of employees who say they have low morale at work give their managers a failing grade on gratitude, while only 2 percent of people who have low morale say they have a boss who is great at appreciating their work. How Gratitude Affects AnxietyMore than two thousand years ago, Cicero called gratitude “not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” Yet gratitude receives little attention as an area of research in the business world. That is unfortunate. Expressions of gratitude, when done regularly, can produce profound effects. In a world filled with uncertainty, when managers frequently offer up their thanks for great work—and are specific in how an achievement has helped the team—they can significantly reduce anxiety levels. Such acts are like regular deposits in the Bank of Engagement. They build up reserves for when an employee’s work does have to be corrected. Workers who have a strong degree of confidence that their manager has faith in their abilities are better able to receive criticism and realize that the coaching is specific to a particular task or aspect of their work rather than a condemnation of their overall capabilities. Another plus: Whether leaders regularly thank team members for work well done, or if they receive thanks themselves, they are better able to bounce back from adversity with greater resilience, according to Dr.

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

  After all, don’t we debate things in every other area of our lives? We find that when team members are free to speak up and know their voices will be heard, it can increase engagement, enhance psychological safety, and over time bolster self-confidence and a sense of ownership. A vigorous exchange of competing perspectives has been shown to improve team performance on numerous fronts, especially in enhancing the development of exciting new ideas. The best leaders facilitate this by: Encouraging a good degree of healthy discussion in a safe environment.Setting ground rules for debate and encouraging all voices to be heard.De-escalating quarreling with a calming process that brings order and safety to participants.Asking team members to clarify their opinions with facts when working through tough issues.Creating clear plans and timelines for moving forward after debates conclude.For employees who are highly conflict-averse, however, when they see debate brewing it can be upsetting and cause them to flee or freeze. Dieken adds that some people will try to sugarcoat things to avoid any conflict: “They’d rather perjure themselves than have an uncomfortable discussion. These are often people-pleasers, perfectionists, the highly anxious. They sidestep so they don’t have to deliver unwelcome news, or they hold back for fear that people won’t like them or will blame them.” Others who have these tendencies retreat into passive-aggressive behaviors. Fearing to speak the truth in a group setting, they are more than happy to keep their opinions to themselves. To those who are conflict-averse, a handful of team members sharing their views aggressively, or with a great deal of assurance, can feel threatening. To help smooth over tensions among their colleagues, they may intensify their own anxiety by taking undo responsibility in an attempt to quash the debate. Because they so value harmony and relationships, they are usually willing to sacrifice much, including their own mental comfort, to ensure relationships stay intact. It’s possible some use this approach in their personal lives. Some friends may like them because they seem so kind, while others take advantage of the way they avoid conflict. I know she’s allergic to cats, but Jacqueline will take care of Felix while we are away. She’s great.

• 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

  For instance, according to Dr. Thomas Vance of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Black people are 20 percent more likely to experience serious mental health problems than other groups. Yet only 30 percent of Black adults with mental illness receive treatment annually, compared with the US average of 43 percent. According to Vance, the increased incidence of psychological difficulties in the Black community is related to a lack of access to proper resources for treatment; prejudice and racism in the daily environment; and issues related to economic insecurity, violence, and criminal injustice. Equally eye-opening are the mental health challenges of people of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, plus (LGBTQ+) orientations, which must also be considered by leaders. It was not until 2020 that the U.S. Supreme Court offered a minimum level of protection by ruling that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protected gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex. That’s one heck of a long time for anyone to wait for legal protection, let alone a group that makes up an estimated 5 percent of all working adults. “Stigma-related prejudice and discrimination experienced by LGBTQ people constitute chronically stressful events that can lead to negative health outcomes,” said Cathy Kelleher of the Technological University Dublin. Her research has found that bias-related stress has been linked to psychological distress among gay men and lesbian women. 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.

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

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

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  In this section, Kahneman introduces the concept of hindsight bias, emphasizing how it creates an illusion of knowledge regarding past events. He illustrates this through the example of the 2008 financial crisis, arguing that many individuals misremember their prior beliefs about the inevitability of the event due to retrospective certainty. By asserting that credible predictions lack evidence at the time of occurrence, Kahneman reveals the perilous nature of overstating our understanding of the past. This discrepancy in perception not only distorts individual memory but also shapes collective narratives around decision-making and accountability. The author stresses the need for clearer terminology when discussing past beliefs to mitigate the effects of this cognitive bias. Kahneman delves deeper into the societal implications of hindsight bias, explaining that our minds often adjust perceptions in response to unexpected events, thereby distorting our recollection of prior states of knowledge. He references studies demonstrating that people struggle to accurately remember their earlier beliefs after experiencing a significant outcome. This cognitive substitution skews self-assessments, leading to increased confidence in past predictions that were actually inaccurate. This section illustrates how the societal repercussions of hindsight bias contribute to unfair evaluations of decision-makers, emphasizing the tendency to judge the soundness of decisions based solely on their outcomes rather than the context and uncertainty that existed at the time they were made. Here, Kahneman highlights how hindsight bias adversely affects decision-makers who serve as agents for others, such as physicians, CEOs, and financial advisors. He elucidates through examples that these individuals frequently face blame for outcomes that are perceived as negative, leading to unrealistic expectations about foresight in high-stakes situations. The section illustrates the outcome bias whereby observers fail to account for the context in which decisions were made, often concluding that bad outcomes reflect poor decision quality. This creates an environment fraught with fear of accountability, pushing decision-makers toward conservative choices that may not serve the best interests of their clients or the public. In this section, Kahneman scrutinizes the myths surrounding business success, emphasizing how narratives shaped by hindsight bias tend to exaggerate the direct impact of leadership on firm performance. He critiques common assumptions in business literature about causality between leadership practices and outcomes, suggesting that apparent correlations often stem from sheer luck rather than competent leadership. By sharing relevant research that quantifies the influence of CEOs on corporate success, Kahneman asserts that the perceived clarity in such narratives is misleading and obscures the randomness inherent in organizational outcomes. This reflection prompts readers to consider the broader implications of idealizing business success stories that fail to acknowledge the role of chance.

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

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

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

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

  He had received the message late on a Friday and it read: Boss: Got your report. Employee: Is everything okay with it? Boss: Haven’t dug in too much yet. Enjoy the weekend . . . The young employee assumed something was wrong with his report and said he reread it several times that weekend, and even sent the boss a revised version Sunday night. We must admit this seemed like a pretty innocuous text exchange to us. Anthony had to translate for his Gen X and boomer coauthors. Anthony explained the young man’s response to the first message: “In texting, a period can mean bad news, and in this case came across as ‘end of discussion.’ But the biggest problem was he simply didn’t say ‘thank you’ or ‘good work getting it in on time.’ There was no feedback at all.” As to the boss’s second text, it was even worse: “What was that ominous ellipsis all about? What in the world was going to happen after the weekend?” asked Anthony. “Without any nonverbal context to frame the punctuation, an anxious reader can easily interpret ambiguous parts of a message as disapproval.” He continued, “Being reprimanded doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with volume. It’s feeling, ‘You’re talking at me, and not with me.’” We encouraged the young employee to have a conversation (in person) with his boss about the texts, and he reported back that his manager had seemed to sincerely appreciate the feedback and said that he had no idea his texts could be interpreted that way. Indeed, if anything he thought he was being encouraging to the young guy for hitting his deadline. The boss promised to update his texting awareness in the future. Linda Gravett, a Cincinnati-based psychologist, notes that “companies can best help millennials—and all staffers, for that matter—by treating generational issues such as this as a matter of workplace diversity. . . . Age, education, communication style” are dimensions of diversity, and we need to think about them in that way. Deb Muller, CEO of HR Acuity, notes that many young workers place a high value on harmony and want to work in a place that feels good. “Couple a lack of in-person communication with a high desire for harmony and you have an entire group of people who are largely, many believe, extremely conflict-averse.” She suggests leaders try to help their team members understand why conflict can be a necessary instigator of change for the better. “Any employee who verbally voices concerns or properly navigates conflict situations should be encouraged and applauded.”

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

  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 PressureAnother 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. This can reduce anxiety and feelings of apprehension. People tend to focus more on the challenges of life, because challenges demand action. And at work, isn’t it our job to overcome challenges? We tend to pay scant attention to the good things because we feel that we don’t have to do much to make them stick around. And yet gratitude helps people focus on the positives, fight negative thoughts with optimism, accept harsh realities, and let others know they are cared for and appreciated. One of the most effective ways leaders can combat anxiety is to foster an attitude of gratitude throughout their organizations—not just top-down, but peer-to-peer.