Anxiety

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

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

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

  In America, workplace anxiety is estimated to cost some $40 billion a year in lost productivity, errors, and health-care costs, while stress is estimated to cost more than $300 billion. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris offers an even more dour assessment of the effects in Europe, estimating the total costs of mental health problems at more than 600 billion euros annually, with anxiety being the most common issue. Though the problem is becoming more serious with older employees, it’s been particularly acute with millennials and Gen Z. According to a 2019 study published in the Harvard Business Review , more than half of millennials and 75 percent of Gen Z reported they had quit a job for mental health reasons. In our consulting work, we’ve found that one of the greatest concerns among managers today is how to motivate younger workers. One leadership workshop Adrian conducted with a group of executives had especially driven home the problem. In the Q&A session, every one of their questions was about their younger workers—specifically about how they were having a hard time handling the pressures of their deadline-oriented business. One leader summed up the general concern for all: “How do we get our young employees to cope better? I mean, we can’t stop delivering.” A big part of the problem is employee anxiety, which can present as an overestimation of workplace threats (from personal issues such as “Will I fit in?” to organizational issues that may affect the stability of the company) and an underestimation of one’s ability to cope. Yet sometimes anxiety is a general state of unease for no apparent reason. As Gen Z is now flooding into the workforce, a tidal wave of anxious young people are on their way to our businesses, says Michael Fenlon, chief people officer for PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the nation’s biggest employers of newly minted college grads. We’ve found most young people want to be able to discuss their anxiety at work. Said one twenty-something employee in an interview, “My generation talks about anxiety all the time to each other.” Rightly so, they believe that it’s impossible to fix something we are scared to talk about. And yet in a 2019 survey of one thousand employed adults with anxiety, 90 percent judged it would be a bad idea to confide their situation to their bosses. Sad. The profound realization from the pandemic is that our world is subject to destabilizing, long-lasting threats, which may arise seemingly out of nowhere and disrupt not only companies but the whole economy. That is affecting anxiety levels like nothing we’ve seen before. According to the U.S.

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

  Data we were about to present would show that levels of anxiety at work had been steadily rising well before this; and we predicted that things were about to get a lot worse. When we stepped onto the stage, at least half the audience members had their heads in their phones, yet by the end of our hour together, all of us were fully engaged in a discussion about the real issues that were happening right then to their people. These leaders grasped that they needed to be more informed about the nature of anxiety and how they could best help their team members cope. In the airport that night, after scrubbing our seats with the Clorox wipes we’d been lucky to score, we talked about the important role managers play in employees’ lives. We were gratified that many leaders had already shared with us keen insights about how they’d assisted anxiety-ridden employees in our research for this book. We noted that if anxiety levels had been rising before this pandemic, we could only imagine what was going to happen now. A Growing IssueFor some time, we have been concerned about the increasing problem of workplace anxiety and the need to provide managers realistic and useful guidance. We began researching and writing this book because in most companies we worked with, we were hearing mounting frustration and bewilderment of leaders about this issue. Research told us they had good reason to be concerned long before the pandemic. In a 2018 survey, 34 percent of workers of all ages reported feeling anxiety at least once in the previous month, and 18 percent had a diagnosed anxiety disorder. And yet very little about the problem was being talked about in their companies, despite a significant economic impact. Harvard Medical School research claimed on-the-job anxiety “imperils workers’ careers and company productivity.” Anxiety is leading to increased employee errors, growing burnout, workplace rage, more sick days, and poor employee health. Concerned? Us, too. Worry, stress, and resulting anxiety at work can cause employees to lose focus and withdraw, working at a reduced capacity and rebuffing attempts by fellow team members or managers to help. As a quick education, people sometimes use the terms “worry,” “stress,” and “anxiety” interchangeably. While they may travel together, they are different. Worry is a mental process—including repetitive, nagging thoughts—usually focused on a specific target like losing a job or wondering if you’ll get sick. Stress is a biological reaction when changes occur, to which the body responds physically, mentally, or emotionally. Anxiety involves the body and mind and can be serious enough to qualify as a mental disorder. Anxiety can combine stress, fear, and worry in ways that interfere with life. There are two ways to refer to anxiety: the first is as a symptom of stress and worry; the second is as a classifiable disorder. As you might imagine, the effects of a rising tide of worry, stress, and anxiety have been incredibly expensive for organizations.

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

  We value calculated risk taking.” Yet during uncertainty, too many people freeze and can’t decide on a course to take, worried they’ll be held accountable for a wrong call. Sewitch adds that leadership’s role is to first tell the truth so their people have all the available information (here’s what we know and what we don’t), and then to encourage and guide their tribe members to move. Leaders also set the example since people believe the behaviors they observe, not the words they hear, from their leaders. “It’s important to let people know where you are seeing improvement because they may not recognize it themselves. Then celebrate those wins. Finally, don’t punish people for making intelligent errors, or what we call learning moments.” Explaining this concept of the “learning moment,” WD-40 Company CEO Garry Ridge told us, “A learning moment is the positive or negative outcome of any decision, action, or event that is freely shared with all in order to advance the collective knowledge of our tribe.” He added, “It can be a period of frustration, a burst of inspiration, a breakthrough of collaboration in which people stumble upon a problem, unearth an opportunity, or fail at an initiative, and then communicate what they’ve learned without fear of reprisal. “We don’t expect perfection. Pursuit of perfection does not produce great results. It just stops people from taking action or risks. We expect people to be curious, to experiment, and to get comfortable with uncertainty of outcomes.” Ridge went on to explain his own epiphany about learning moments: “When I get introduced at events, our company’s reputation often precedes me. The emcee might say nice things about me, and then I say, ‘Let me tell you the truth. I’m the chairman and CEO of WD-40 Company. I’m consciously incompetent about a lot of things. I’m probably wrong and roughly right at most things.’” It’s clear that humility is a prerequisite in creating an organization that is not afraid to act, to learn, and to evolve. Method 6: Offer Constructive FeedbackThis is an adage that everyone commits to but few leaders practice. Offering constructive feedback builds on the process of one-on-one performance and development conversations but is so important that it merits its own method in reducing anxiety. The most effective leaders we’ve met are not afraid to deliver fair, tough coaching. And yet according to Forbes , nine out of ten managers say they avoid giving constructive feedback to their employees for fear of them reacting badly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Using a computerized speed test, researchers found only 20 percent of Asian American adult test-takers and only 30 percent of White adults participating did not exhibit any subconscious racial preference between White people and Asian people. When measuring preference between White people and Black people, only 27 percent of White adults and 26 percent of Black adults showed no implicit bias. In one version of this test, researchers took famous Asian Americans such as Connie Chung, Michael Chang, and Kristi Yamaguchi and White foreigners such as Hugh Grant, Katarina Witt, and Gerard Depardieu, and timed test-takers connecting them to American symbols and foreign symbols. They learned that people found it much easier to associate Hugh Grant with American symbols than Connie Chung. “That shows how deeply the category ‘American’ is White in many people’s minds,” Banaji said. Implicit biases developed from a human need to process information quickly to make split-second decisions; the brain is constantly using shortcuts to find connections between bits of data that come our way. If we are crossing the road, for instance, and we see a moving blur in the corner of our vision, our brains will very quickly connect that with an approaching car and we’ll jump. Life saved. Unfortunately, implicit biases can lead to harmful stereotypes when applied to people. As just one example, women are too often subconsciously perceived as less capable in traditionally male roles, say computer programming. A woman might pick up on her interviewer’s hesitancy and begin to feel less confident in herself, throwing the interview off course. Despite our best intentions, and without our awareness, stereotypes and assumptions can very easily creep into our minds and affect our actions, even when we are completely determined to be objective and fair. It is so prevalent that 20 percent of large US companies today provide implicit bias trainings to their employees, and half of US companies say they will offer it within the next few years. Starbucks recently closed all of its stores to have mandatory racial bias training for its employees. That’s a good start. When biases are not addressed, they can affect working relationships and trust, undercut diverse talent recruitment and inclusion efforts, and impact promotion and professional development opportunities. Derek Lundsten, president and CEO of LifeGuides, believes being different should be a good thing. “You don’t have to be a person of color or of a certain identity or a certain gender to feel on the outside.

• 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.

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

  Those who feel heightened anxiety generally require a steady flow of reassurance that their work is adding value, and when times are tough that need increases. Our research finds that in the best teams, highly engaged employees feel praised for their specific accomplishments on a regular basis—at least once a week. “In the most innovative companies, there is a significantly higher volume of thank-yous than in companies of low innovation,” says Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard. With our research, we’ve been thrilled to find higher levels of gratitude not only in the innovative workplaces we studied, but in cultures of great customer service, operational excellence, compassion, and ownership. In the best cultures, teammates have each other’s backs, and they spend much more time thanking each other peer-to-peer. These seemingly warm and fuzzy skills create tangible esprit de corps and a single-mindedness about living the right behaviors. It is through timely reinforcement that people grow to their full stature. To know they are on the right path, workers need frequent, specific gratitude. SUMMARYBuild Confidence with GratitudeOne of the simplest and most effective ways to motivate employees to achieve is by regularly expressing gratitude. Research shows offering positive reinforcement produces impressive boosts in team performance and significantly reduces anxiety levels in team members.Leaders don’t express gratitude to their people about work well done anywhere nearly as frequently or effectively as they should.High-performing employees are often gratitude sponges and perceive a lack of attention from a manager as a sign that things are not good; silence can cause worry to creep up on even the best of workers.Regular expressions of gratitude are like deposits in a Bank of Engagement. They build up reserves for when an employee’s work has to be corrected. Research shows gratitude also helps people develop a greater capacity to handle stress.Other practical methods to turn doubts into assurance include: 1) make gratitude clear, specific, and sincere, 2) match gratitude to magnitude, 3) preserve gratitude’s significance, 4) provide gratitude to high-flyers, too, and 5) keep gratitude close to the action. [image "image" file=Image00004.jpg] ConclusionThe Semicolon: Before and AfterThere are moments which mark your life . . . when you realize nothing will ever be the same and time is divided into two parts: before this, and after this. —Denzel Washington (as John Hobbes) While a first step in building a healthy work culture comes in the form of awareness—of acknowledging the frantic duck-paddling going on under the surface in your team—the second part, mitigation, comes when we begin to minimize anxiety, offer support for people to work through their feelings, and build resilience for challenges to come. Sometimes it’s as simple as being accepting.

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

  Method 7: Give and TakeLeaders must help their employees understand that compromise is inevitable in any debate, and the eventual winner must be the team, not an individual. Say Porter-O’Grady and Malloch, “Each party is looking for something, and unless this something is obtained or willingly given up for something else, the conflict will not end.” This means each side has to be able to clearly explain what they want, and each must leave the conflict feeling they obtained something of value and that the other party was given something that was acceptable. This does not mean that what everyone gets will be equal or exactly what they wanted, but it has to be enough to satisfy those involved and the outcome must feel like it’s the best for the organization as a whole. Method 8: Get Comfortable with the UncomfortableOf course, despite the best laid plans, any tough conversation can deteriorate into disagreement, hurt feelings, or defensiveness. Managers can help their people prepare for this worst-case by playing out a couple of possible scenarios so that they’re ready for whatever may occur. Says Amy Jen Su of Paravis Partners, “When the going gets tough, make sure you don’t backpedal, change your message in an attempt to diffuse the situation, or start talking too much to fill silences or plow through the conversation. You want to give the person adequate time to digest what you are saying.” So, if the other party starts to get defensive or emotional, leaders should coach the conflict-averse to acknowledge the tension and offer a break instead of demurring. Leaders may also help their team members by giving them language that can help when things get tricky in debates, such as: “Okay, thanks. I understand what you’re saying. That helps me know where you are coming from,” or “Can you give me more background on your approach so I can understand it better?” In this way, people truly listen with the goal of empathy, not to win but to gain understanding and reach the best outcome for the team. Bringing It All TogetherUsing these methods, managers can aid in the process of stirring healthy debate without forcing their team members to change who they are at their core. Part of this is in helping people understand that disagreeing does not necessarily mean two factions are at war, and the process of debate is not to prove who’s right and wrong. Debate is part of a healthy work culture, and it’s about standing up for what you feel is right while also being open to learning more about others’ perspective and intent (which is different from divisive arguments they may have watched on cable news or in heated family gatherings where no one wants to learn anything new, just ram home their point of view).

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

  Title : Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done Author: Gostick, Adrian,Elton, Chester ASIN : B08F7SKGQK [image file=Image00002.jpg] [image "image" file=Image00000.jpg] [image "image" file=Image00001.jpg] DedicationTo Anthony Gostick This book is dedicated to one of its authors by the other two. Without Anthony, this book would not exist. His research and writing were foundational, but it was his never-ending passion for positive mental health that inspired us to create something that we hope will make the world a better place. ContentsCover Title Page Dedication 1 The Duck Syndrome Creating a Healthy Place to Work 2 How Anxiety Fills the Gap Help Team Members Deal with Uncertainty 3 How to Turn Less into More Help Team Members Deal with Overload 4 Clear Paths Forward Help Team Members Chart Their Way 5 How “It’s Not Perfect” Can Become “It’s Good, I’ll Move On” Help Team Members Manage Perfectionism 6 From Conflict Avoidance to Healthy Debate Help Team Members Find Their Voice 7 Become an Ally Help Marginalized Team Members Feel Valued and Accepted 8 Transform Exclusion into Connection Help Team Members Build Social Bonds 9 Turn Doubts into Assurance How Gratitude Can Help Team Members Build Confidence Conclusion The Semicolon: Before and After Acknowledgments Notes About the Authors Praise Also by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton Copyright About the Publisher 1The Duck SyndromeCreating a Healthy Place to WorkIt is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, it is the one most adaptable to change. —Charles Darwin (paraphrased by Leon Megginson) In early 2020, we were in Scottsdale, Arizona, to give a speech to the leadership team of a manufacturing company. We’d originally been scheduled to address the group at the end of the day, but the organizers kept moving our start time up. They wanted to end the day early because of the flood of fast-breaking news about the spread of the coronavirus. Concentrating on the event proceedings was nearly impossible for the attendees with everyone constantly checking their phones for the latest news and texts from loved ones. Employees at the company’s factories were asking if they should go home. Within a few days, hand sanitizer and toilet paper would inexplicably disappear from shelves, and within weeks, tens of thousands of people would be sick. In the back of the ballroom we were huddled over our presentation, frantically changing it in real time. The material we’d been asked to share on culture and employee engagement didn’t seem nearly as relevant anymore. We decided we would instead unveil research we’d been compiling about the growing problem of workplace anxiety, which was going to be even more urgent heading into a period of great uncertainty. It was clear that many jobs would be lost in the fallout of COVID-19, and those who kept their positions would be under great pressure.

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

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

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

  Coming back to the director and her employee Greg: We’d given this team the Motivators Assessment, and Greg’s results showed that “Developing Others” and “Teamwork” were near the bottom of his list of twenty-three core drivers. That could be problematic. After all, if promoted, his new job would be about helping a department of a dozen people grow and “develop,” all while building a cohesive group with a strong sense of “teamwork.” We sat down and asked Greg to describe his worst days on the job, and he mentioned becoming frustrated when mentoring younger employees and/or helping one of his project teams work through sticky personnel issues and conflicts. When we asked Greg about his best days, he brightened up. He was usually off-site working with clients, solving their issues, and looking like a hero. About people management, he confided, “My team members have conflicts. There are folks here who don’t take feedback well. I have all these peers playing politics.” Then he paused and asked, “You’ve done this awhile. Is that what management is always like?” We nodded. “A lot of leading is just that. It’s about resolving people issues, but it’s also about enabling others to succeed.” We added that some folks loved what he loathed. Later we explained to Greg’s boss that while he might become a serviceable manager, there was a very good chance he would be miserable in the role, which might lead to anxiety and burnout. It also might be clear, pretty fast, to his team members that his heart wasn’t in the job. We wish everyone always took our brilliant advice (or that our advice was always brilliant). This story took a turn for the worse. Based on the director’s continued recommendation, after she was promoted to another role a few months later, Greg took over the team. He was smart, he’d figure it out, the company brass reasoned. That situation lasted for just about six months before the team revolted. Greg, they said, was slow to respond to their concerns, unsympathetic to their personal issues, and wrapped up in his own deliverables. The HR partner assigned to his team had tried to coach Greg during the months he was in the role; but as sharp as Greg was, he just couldn’t seem to change. Thankfully, the company didn’t fire him. The HR partner and Greg worked together to create a new role in which he would continue on the payroll as the team’s senior consultant. In the three years since, he has taken on other tasks (internal executive coaching for one), broadened his reach working as a liaison with other departments, and assumed more responsibility in product development. Greg is a bright guy who, to the benefit of everyone involved, is no longer managing anyone except himself. As this organization learned, putting people in the wrong positions can cause anxiety and undue stress, not only for the person in the wrong position, but also for the team they work with.

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

  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-OnFrom 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. Chris, for instance, would argue against the change from a sales perspective, and Lee Anne in the affirmative from a marketing perspective. Then Ziob would have the two switch sides and continue the discussion. Explained bestselling author Liz Wiseman, “In the end it was hard to know who won debates.

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

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

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

  While the phenomenon of career anxiety may seem a massive societal shift that managers might not have a lot of control over, in fact, there is a great deal they can do. We agree with J. Maureen Henderson of Forbes , who cautions leaders not to simply resign themselves to millennial “high turnover and short staff tenures rather than [focus] on retaining their existing employees.” Indeed, we have found that when leaders offer younger workers regular chances to learn and advance—and find ways to help secure their futures within an organization—many of those valuable employees prefer to stay. If leaders are seeking to retain the best young workers, and reduce unnecessary career anxiety in their people, then addressing concerns about job security, growth, and advancement are vital. This is a terrific way for leaders and their firms to stand out in a competitive job market. According to Corporate Executive Board research, only one in ten organizations have what can be defined as a learning culture: a workplace that supports organizational and independent quests for knowledge that will advance the company’s mission (not to mention make workers more skilled and add more value). We understand that for a busy manager—and is there any other kind?—the notion of closely shepherding each person’s career development may seem overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be burdensome. Following the methods we outline here will not only address your employees’ anxiety about where they’re heading, it will relieve the tension you feel about their worries and demands. Method 1: Create More Steps to Grow More than 75 percent of Gen Z workers say they believed they should be promoted within their first year on the job. If it’s possible to implement, one highly effective means of alleviating employee anxiety about advancing is simply to create more steps on the promotional ladder. This was done to great effect at the appropriately named Ladders, an online job search website. The company’s founder and CEO, Marc Cenedella, said of his tech-savvy young workers, when they “arrived at my company, they fussed over promotions, pay, and responsibilities. They demanded work far out of line with what their capabilities and experiences qualified them for.” At the time, Ladders had a program that enabled a new hire to be promoted to senior associate within two years. “To our Gen X way of thinking, this was way fairer than what the baby boomers put us through,” he said.