Anxiety

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

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

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

  Has the employee considered what business objectives are at risk by not confronting the issue in a timely manner? Method 3: Stick to Facts Leaders should teach employees to provide evidence around issues of concern when a conflict ensues. “By naming names, identifying events, describing situations, and illustrating behaviors, the leader seeks to get down to basics,” write Drs. Tim Porter-O’Grady and Kathy Malloch, authors of Quantum Leadership. A goal of conflict resolution is to ensure that all the tangible issues are laid on the table in clear enough terms that all the players can see them plainly. When the facts are fully presented, it’s remarkable how quickly many conflicts can be resolved. With that said, ensure your people have accurate and relevant sources to glean facts from. Also help them understand how you want them to research the issue they will discuss and debate, including what you consider a credible source (e.g., internal reports, industry journals) and what is not (e.g., Wikipedia, social media). Method 4: Use Your Words Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School told us managers must teach their people to have the courage to “use their words” to convey what they see, think, worry about, and need help with. She said, “Many leaders fail to recognize the implications of silence in moments when people could have spoken up. The surprise is how often the use of words is stymied by interpersonal anxiety.” That doesn’t mean meetings must get bogged down in endless clarification and discussions. Psychologically safe meetings don’t have to take longer. What it does mean is managers must show vulnerability and admit they don’t have all the answers. Otherwise people are sizing up the situation: “If I get the sense that you don’t think you’re a fallible human being, like the rest of us, I’m sure as heck not going to stick my neck out.” And, she adds, it means leaders must ask essential questions. “Most people will respond to a genuine and direct question. If you ask me what I think, it’s mighty awkward not to open my mouth.” Method 5: Assume Positive Intent Team leaders can also teach their people that when debating or facing a tough issue with others in the group, it’s important to assume everyone brings positive intentions and wants to do what’s right for the organization as a whole—and they are just coming at things from a different perspective. In short, it’s okay to question someone’s facts or ideas, but not their motives. We’ll write about a Republican in Chapter 8, to be fair, but we thought a terrific example of this idea was shared by Democrat Joe Biden in his 2018 eulogy of Republican John McCain. Biden began his talk with these words: “I’m a Democrat, and I loved John McCain. . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• From Martin Luther (2016)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The research bears it out. While 40 percent of boomers stayed with an employer for at least twenty years, and one in five stayed for thirty years or more, relatively content to climb the corporate ladder in the company’s own due time, 78 percent of Gen Zers and 43 percent of millennials surveyed in 2018 planned to leave their companies within two years to pursue greener pastures. Yet leaders must understand that all this job hopping is not just about a fear of missing out or a desire to get promoted, it’s also about wage stagnation. Entry-level jobs, especially in urban areas, do not pay salaries that enable young people to build lives. According to Brookings Institution data, 44 percent of all workers qualified as “low wage” earners in 2019. Their median hourly wages were $10.22 an hour, with annual earnings of about $18,000. In short, said Brookings, “there aren’t enough good jobs to go around,” and young people are well aware of it. The fact is, most of us measure ourselves by hitting life markers: graduating from high school, attending college/starting an apprenticeship, getting a decent job, marrying, buying a home, having children, and so on. Society tends to think of these milestones as events that “settle” people. But access to these markers has changed for the rising generations. The average age to get on the housing ladder now is well over thirty. Add bloated student loans, lower wages, and fewer high-paying opportunities, and many of the things that society considers part of “normal adult life” can feel a long way off, if not unattainable. Instead of midlife crises, we are now seeing what we call the “quarter-life crisis,” where those in their twenties are facing serious unrest about the quality and direction of their lives. One young worker spoke for her generation when she told us, “We no longer see companies as having our best interests in mind. We understand that shareholder value is king, and we can be replaced by cheaper labor.” This is why, according to a 2018 study by ManpowerGroup, 87 percent of millennials ranked job security as a top priority (more than likely to be even more important in the post-pandemic world). All this may also help explain why so many young workers are concerned with gaining new skills in their jobs. A Gallup poll of millennials found 87 percent “highly value” growth and development opportunities—almost 20 percent higher than Gen X and boomer workers. Sadly, the same poll found that only 39 percent of young employees felt that they had “learned something new on the job in the past month.” Helping people develop new skills can be a terrific opportunity for enlightened managers to keep and engage their workforce.

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

  She’s great. Since the conflict-averse find it hard to say no and don’t want to ruffle feathers, they can often feel misused. From Conflict to Collaboration It’s worth noting how a manager can spot the difference between someone playing a healthy role as a team builder and an employee plagued by conflict aversion. A few clues to help spot the conflict-averse: if they shy away from difficult conversations, even when such discussions are necessary; if they try to change the topic or flee the scene when things get tense; if they get uncomfortable during debates in staff meetings or brainstorming sessions; or if they resist expressing their feelings or thoughts during meetings—yet might display passive-aggressive tendencies afterward or be upset that their voice was not heard. When managers perceive that a conflict-avoidance issue may exist, they can do a great deal to address it by working with employees to stand up for themselves. They may also help them take time to consider their own opinions before agreeing to anything that might violate their values, and stick to their guns when challenged. Dieken suggests leaders help their employees understand that sugarcoating is actually a selfish act, and that “candor is a gift. While you may be trying to spare another person’s feelings, sugarcoating is a superficial attempt to seem more appealing. If you filter out bad news, you’re dooming others. You help people use better judgment when you arm them with accurate information, even if it’s not what they want to hear.” In some cases, we’ve found the culture of an entire team or organization can be conflict-avoidant, which can be an incredible frustration to those workers who want the group to break out of the status quo. When leading a culture like this, managers play a vital role in steering group discussions to be more inclusive. One leader who has begun to embrace this process is Darcy Verhun, president of FYidoctors. He told us, “We’re operating through a different lens now—Zoom meetings—and that means not everybody can or will be able to participate verbally in a conversation. The other day, during an important meeting, I had a powerful sense that we weren’t utilizing everybody’s full intellectual horsepower. So, as we were wrapping up, I stopped and asked each person on the Zoom call, ‘What are you thinking about this topic but haven’t said?’ It turned out to be a game-changing question. We’d already made a decision, but in ten short minutes what we learned from people’s responses to my question resulted in us tweaking our decision, making it better and a lot more thoughtful.” Verhun added, “After the call I received emails from the team saying that with that question I had demonstrated powerful leadership by intentionally including everyone while also being receptive to their views. It made me stop and realize that our entire leadership team needs to behave in a similar inclusive manner for all important decisions.

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

  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.” 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 Controlled Some 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.

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

  But bosses who fail to appreciate the effects of an excessive load on their team members are likely to worsen the situation and can be blind to the corrosive effects of overload on team performance. Offering only palliatives like relaxation methods—temporarily helpful though they may be—may actually make their employees more anxious and more ticked off. The effects of overload are causing companies a staggering amount of lost work time, turnover, and health-care expenses. Employees who report being burned out are 63 percent more likely to take sick time and 2.6 times as likely to leave their current employer, according to a Gallup survey. Meanwhile, the psychological and physical problems of burned-out employees account for up to $190 billion a year in health-care spending in the US alone, according to Bain & Company. Helping employees cope before they burn out, or shove off for another job, is therefore a great productivity booster. Hiding in Plain Sight A final misunderstanding to mention is that some managers tell us their employees won’t admit they are about to burn out. Team members try to cover up their growing anxiety, so how is a boss supposed to know if there’s a problem relating to individual overload? Well, that is the duck syndrome at work. But it’s all the more reason that managers need to be proactive in addressing the problem. Allowing overload to escalate into anxiety and burnout can have negative ricocheting effects on an entire work group. Harvard psychologist Harry Levinson listed as symptoms of burnout at work: chronic fatigue and self- criticism for putting up with the demands; anger at those putting the burdens on you; cynicism, negativity, and irritability; and a sense of being besieged. None of that is good for team spirit. Even one employee feeling this can bring down the morale of an entire work group in the time it takes to grumble, “You’ll never believe what they want me to do now.” The sad fact is that in too many companies, unrealistic amounts of work are assigned with unrealistic deadlines. Managers often tell us there isn’t much they can do about that; they aren’t the ones setting those big goals. And yet we find it is often possible to bring the work assigned to a team considerably more in line with what’s realistically manageable. Sometimes this can come when a manager makes a compelling case in negotiations with top leaders, or if that fails, by pitching to hire additional staff or short-term contractors. It can also come by reducing excessive red tape. We’ve seen this as a major issue in the overload of workers in health care.

• From A History of God (1993)

  It also showed that this zeal to worship God alone did not spring from a calm conviction but from the anxious denial that had caused the ancient Israelites to tear down the poles of Asherah and pour torrents of abuse upon their neighbors’ gods. Calvin is usually remembered for his belief in predestination, but in fact this was not central to his thought: it did not become crucial to “Calvinism” until after his death. The problem of reconciling God’s omnipotence and omniscience with human free will springs from an anthropomorphic conception of God. We have seen that Muslims had come up against this difficulty during the ninth century and had found no logical or rational way out of it; instead, they had stressed the mystery and inscrutability of God. The problem had never troubled the Greek Orthodox Christians, who enjoyed paradox and found it a source of light and inspiration, but it had been a bone of contention in the West, where a more personalistic view of God prevailed. People tried to talk about “God’s will” as though he were a human being, subject to the same constraints as us and literally governing the world, like an earthly ruler. Yet the Catholic Church had condemned the idea that God had predestined the damned to hell for all eternity. Augustine, for example, had applied the term “predestination” to God’s decision to save the elect but had denied that some lost souls were doomed to perdition, even though this was the logical corollary of his thought. Calvin gave very little space to the topic of predestination in the Institutes . When we looked about us, he admitted, it seemed that God did indeed favor some people more than others. Why did some respond to the Gospel while others remained indifferent? Was God acting in a way that was arbitrary or unfair? Calvin denied this: the apparent choice of some and the rejection of others was a sign of the mystery of God. 38 There was no rational solution to the problem, which seemed to imply that God’s love and his justice were irreconcilable. This did not trouble Calvin overmuch, since he was not very interested in dogma. After his death, however, when “Calviniste” needed to distinguish themselves from Lutherans on the one hand and Roman Catholics on the other, Theodoras Beza (1519–1605), who had been Calvin’s right-hand man in Geneva and took on the leadership after his death, made predestination the distinguishing mark of Calvinism. He ironed out the paradox with relentless logic. Since God was all-powerful, it followed that man could contribute nothing toward his own salvation. God was changeless and his decrees were just and eternal: thus he had decided from all eternity to save some but had predestined the rest to eternal damnation. Some Calvinists recoiled in horror from this obnoxious doctrine.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Under the Pear Tree, Aetatis 28Because Staupitz had heard so many of Luther’s confessions, he understood that Luther clung tightly to the Scriptures for spiritual succor and that in them he sought God and the answers that only God could provide. This was the sort of man he knew could ably replace him at Wittenberg, so one day in October 1512, Staupitz broached the subject as they sat together under a pear tree in the monastery’s courtyard. In the course of the conversation, Staupitz made himself clear: Luther must commence studies for the doctorate. Decades later, Luther would regale his students with the story of how Staupitz argued with him that day and would point to the old pear tree, saying that it was just there under that very same tree—before many of his students were born—that Luther and Staupitz had had their conversation. In that conversation, the young monk made it clear to his beloved and respected mentor that he was opposed to studying for his doctorate, and his reasons against it were several. For one thing, he didn’t think himself up to the significant physical and mental toll of teaching and preaching. In fact, he confided in Staupitz that he didn’t think he would live very long, which seems to have been an odd—and ultimately false—but sincere belief on Luther’s part. The six years he had already spent mortifying his flesh with fasting and other monastic hardships had likely taken their toll. Now, nearly twenty-nine, he was a far cry from the stout figure we see in Cranach’s later paintings. Though it may be hard for us to imagine Martin Luther as bony and frail, at this time in his life he was indisputably more ibex than ox. In fact, fully seven years after this conversation—at the 1519 Leipzig disputation—he was described by an observer as being so thin one could almost see his bones through his skin. So during this time with Staupitz, Luther was not imagining things when he described himself as someone whose health was less than robust. Still, whatever Luther meant by this, Staupitz knew Luther himself all too well. In their endless confessions, Staupitz had been parrying with the gloomy, dramatically self-effacing monk for years, and he was now ready with a jocose answer. “Even if you die soon,” he said, “God has need of clever advisors in heaven, too. In fact, I’m sure he needs more doctors!”1

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  But what would become of him if he returned to Wittenberg? Even if the emperor granted him safe-conduct, as he surely would have done, Luther’s return to Wittenberg would only have been until the emperor issued his edict declaring Luther an outlaw, which Luther himself surely knew, because Spalatin would have heard from Frederick what the emperor had written the morning after April 18. Frederick had determined that he wished to help Luther, but he would be wise to keep from appearing to have done so, so as not to incur the wrath of the emperor. It had been bruited about among Luther’s friends in Wittenberg since 1519 that should it come to that, they could hide him away someplace. Well, it had certainly come to that. We assume Frederick initiated this idea, but he made it clear that he himself mustn’t know any of the details. But where would Luther go? Somewhere. Luther’s friends Amsdorf, von Feilitzsch, and von Thun told him that he shouldn’t worry. All had been prepared, but no one must know the details. On Luther’s last night in Worms, he had a farewell dinner, likely provided by Frederick, who also gave him forty gulden for traveling expenses. Aleander throughout his accounts had painted a picture of Luther as a man of the flesh, wholly given over to the lusts of the body and addicted to the delicacies given him by the deluded nobles, such as Frederick. Somehow Aleander discovered the details of this last dinner and with typically pinched spite reported that the “reverend rascal” had gulped several glasses of the malmsey wine he so favored. It was a sharp parting kick. But at nine in the morning on April 26, Luther at last departed the city that would henceforth be known for what he had just done there. Where he was now going, however, he had no idea. The Outlaw LutherAfter Luther had departed, the emperor still wanted to get those at the diminishing diet to side with him against Luther. On May 6, he presented to those still at Worms his final draft of the edict Aleander had prepared. It was not written to spare anyone’s feelings. Part of it read thus:

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

  But she does this sparingly and only for true emergencies. Of course, Cochran’s strategy is not the only way of cutting down on interruptions. Some managers we’ve worked with have developed ticketing systems to manage workflow; others encourage their team members to clearly review the work they already have going with clients when they are approached with new jobs—to help create realistic expectations and avoid overload. Method 7: Encourage R&R Leading researchers have stressed the importance of quality downtime for workers. “People need to take time off to recharge. Not only do they need to have time when they’re not working, but they need to have time when they’re not thinking about work,” says Dr. David Ballard, head of the Psychologically Healthy Workplace Program at the American Psychological Association. Ryan Westwood, CEO of Simplus, told us leaders must be more thoughtful about when they message their team members. “I got an email from my boss once on a Sunday morning. And that’s a day when I like to be with my family and take a collective sigh of relief and do other things that aren’t work-related. It ruined my whole day; it created anxiety for me. “Most employees care what their boss cares about, and it will be on their minds even if they aren’t supposed to respond. It’s much easier to set the timer on your email to let it drop Monday morning at eight. We need to give our people time to spend doing things not work-related so that they’re ready for their workweek.” Managers should also encourage their people to use their vacation time and be an example themselves by taking time to unwind—and then telling stories about what they did away from the office. And they can realize that part of R&R may happen on work time. More than 70 percent of employees report increased productivity when they take short breaks during the day to exercise, socialize, or just grab a breath of fresh air. In this always-on world, and with many of us now living in our offices, it’s important for managers to help their people rest and get away as much as possible. * * * As the intensity of the COVID-19 pandemic became clear in 2020, a positive mantra was shared around the world: “We’re in this together!” In helping employees cope with overload, that is a message that bears repeating regularly.

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

  Ken Huey, CEO of Red Mountain Colorado residential treatment facility, told us of a new hire in his company who missed two important appointments her first week on the job. He said, “I was thinking, ‘Is this going to work out?’ 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. 2 How Anxiety Fills the Gap Help Team Members Deal with Uncertainty If 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.