Why stress is now more difficult for managers to manage

Currently, I'm overhauling some templates I developed several years ago to help managers assess and manage the risks posed by stress. I'll be publishing these updated resources in the next few weeks. I'll also be making some changes to training courses to take account of these developments.

The templates will include forms and tools that managers can use and accompanying guidance notes. These resources will hopefully make things clearer about what managers should do when they have a concern about a member of their team becoming vulnerable to stress problems.

On the face of it, it should be a relatively straightforward task. I've been in this business for 20 years, so you'd think I'd just need to tweak things a bit. I wish it was as simple as that. A number of fundamental issues have complicated things and I'm grappling with these as I work on the templates.

I'd like to highlight a couple of them here.

Firstly, there's the work v non-work stress issue. It's argued that in terms of management responsibility and legal obligations to conduct risk assessments, non-work stress is not the manager's responsibility. Managers should, the argument goes, focus their efforts on work-related stress only.

Here in the UK, the known risk factors for work-related stress are set out in something called the Management Standards along with guidance for organizations on the process they should follow to manage these risks.

In real life though, this rigid, work-stress-only approach to managing stress risks doesn't work, and certainly not at the level of the line manager. Why? Because life is messy. Bad stuff happens in people's personal lives which makes them more vulnerable to stress problems or even overwhelms them. I've seen non-work stress increase markedly in recent years (and discussed some of the trends that's led to this in a previous blog post). This stress almost inevitably has an impact at work, for example on work performance. Therefore, managers cannot and should not ignore non-work stress.

Then there is the issue of support for managers, which has also become more complex and difficult in the last 10 to 15 years. It used to be the case that there were clear support structures inside organizations that managers could turn to for advice around 'welfare matters'. There was Personnel of course, although this more recently morphed into Human Resources with perhaps a 'harder', more business-oriented focus. Many organizations also had welfare officers or counsellors on site. And for many managers, Occupational Health was still available where they worked. The internal support professionals involved often knew the managers personally. They also knew the employees who worked for them. And they were familiar with the contexts, the environments in which people worked.

Some lucky managers still have access to these valuable support structures internally but the majority do not. HR, if it still exists in some form, has largely been outsourced, and HR support is often provided via a call centre or even online only. The reality is that we now live in the age of predominantly external support structures like HR Consultancies, Employee Assistance Programmes and Occupational Health Providers.

Managers are much more on their own than they were, and they know it too. They're largely left to get on with it, including dealing with 'stress' issues. Some have the skills and competencies for this task, but many do not. Some aren't coping and are themselves experiencing high stress levels as a result.

It's great to see some organizations having a complete re-think about outsourcing, bringing support back in-house. But the trend is still, overwhelmingly, to outsource, especially in the public sector. Support has been seen as a 'cost' that can be cut, and not a 'core activity'. That's how it is just now and I accept it. But I hope the percentage of organizations who 'get' the return-on-investment argument will increase, particularly around support for managers.

In the meantime, I'll get back to the task in hand, trying to produce some meaningful stress risk assessment tools and resources that take account of these challenges. I hope they will help and make a difference to today's managers.

There's always something you can do about stress (3): Change the meaning

Overall, I'm not a great believer in relaxation techniques as a 'real-life' approach to stress management. Life gets difficult, pressurized, especially at work, and bad stuff happens. It's not as if you can say: "Stop there a moment while I do some diaphragmatic breathing".

That's why I'm a great believer in prevention and if-then planning, two stress management strategies I discussed in previous posts that can really work well.

A third approach I like and one I frequently use myself is more 'cognitive' in nature and involves re-interpreting or changing the meaning you attach to what happens. This approach is particularly effective if you tend to be pessimistic in outlook.

Let's look at what could on the face of it appear to a trivial example of bad stuff happening.

You send someone an email and they don't respond. In fact after three weeks, they still haven't responded.

Yes, this might seem 'trivial' but your interpretation of this event, the meaning you attach it, has the potential of ruining your day, week or even year...

"He never responds...It's always the same with him...He's totally incompetent...Why do I bother sending emails, the whole thing is pointless...Email is just a waste of time anyway...It's me, he can't stand me, he never could...He's doing this deliberately to wind me up... Maybe I came across as rude, I wish I'd never sent the thing... He'll never talk to me now, let alone do business with me...This organization stinks...This job is hopeless, it always was...I was stupid to think I could make it here...I'm just useless...Who'd want to hire me..."

There are some characteristically negative explanatory styles here such as: permanence (always, never), pervasiveness (generalizing, all, everything), personalizng (blaming, it's me, my fault), and 'catastrophizing' (it's a complete disaster).

You think these things and you end up feeling bad, maybe very bad. You feel stressed, upset, worried, disappointed. Negative emotions like anger, frustration, bitterness well up. You might start blaming yourself and feel depressed.

But why do you end up feeling so awful? You can't simply blame the bad stuff. (As they say, 'shit happens'.) Rather, it might be how you interpreted the bad stuff that led to you feeling so bad.

So what can you do? CBT argues that what you have to do is challenge the negative interpretations and meanings you come up with when bad stuff happens. There are four basic strategies.

Firstly, you can challenge yourself on the evidence. It is really true they never respond? A quick look back through emails should suffice. 'Evidence' is a good word to have at the back of your mind for quick challenges. It forces you to be more objective, to see things as they really are rather than jump to negative conclusions or make assumptions.

Secondly, you can see if there are alternative explanations. Maybe our non-responder's been ill or on holiday, or maybe he's moved department. Or perhaps the email's got delayed by some tech glitch. Maybe one of those alternative explanations might also be more likely?

Thirdly, you can look fully at the implications of your negative interpretation. So, he hasn't responded and maybe he never will. Maybe there is some truth in your negative assumptions. Assuming there is, what then? What should you do now..? This strategy is really about dragging what's lurking in the shadows out into the open and looking it square in the face. If you do that, things can become clearer, less scary. Also, if  you do this you tend to automatically go into a more constructive, if-then planning mode... OK so the culture here really does stink and the job is hopeless with no prospects - what should you do now...? "I'll create a new CV and update my LinkedIn profile...I'll make some decisions and start giving myself some options!" When you do face up to your fears in this way and start planning, you feel less stuck, more empowered. You start to feel more in control again. A lot better.

The fourth and final strategy is to ask yourself whether the way you're currently interpreting things is ultimately useful to you or not. If not it might literally be time for a re-think.

These four cognitive strategies (evidence, alternatives implications, usefulness) work and work well. I grew up surrounded by pessimism and it has definitely rubbed off on me to an extent. I therefore have to challenge my own negative thinking regularly. The kind of situations where I find this approach particularly helpful are ones where things can go wrong and where you have little control, such as business travel and on the golf course!

There are a couple of qualifications I definitely need to cover though.

Firstly, some bad stuff is not in any way trivial, like losing a child or your partner becoming seriously ill. Such life events can be highly stressful, traumatic even. They're very difficult for anyone to cope with and can take a lot of time to adjust to. I don't want to give the impression that 'challenging negative interpretations' is the best approach to dealing with really bad stuff. There isn't one way. Time helps. So does support, including professional support if needed.

From experience with really bad stuff, I'd say the biggest risk is becoming isolated. So talk to people (don't worry alone). See friends. Do stuff, especially outside in natural environments. Being active mentally and physically definitely helps. Being alone with your thoughts for too long often doesn't.

Secondly, I don't want to give the impression that pessimism is always bad. In some circumstances, seeing the negative scenario and then worrying about it is highly appropriate and adaptive. It might lead to you taking prompt remedial action that saves a lot of stress later on. A good example is money worries, where a negative interpretation could motivate you to act decisively 'now' so that the worst case scenario can never occur. It doesn't mean you shouldn't challenge negative thinking, but sometimes a negative interpretation is entirely valid in the circumstances.

Is happiness about managing your expectations?

Me and my friend, Karl - DEFINITELY happy - could it be the ale?

I've seen various formulae for happiness over the years, some more evidence-based than others. Today another one was presented and I'll get to that in a wee while.

One I regularly speak about featured in Martin Seligman's book, Authentic Happiness. Published a dozen years ago now, it reflected happiness research at that time. The formula was:

H = S + C + V

.. where H is Happiness, S is Set range, C is Circumstances and; V represents factors under our Voluntary Control.

Seligman discribed V as the most important issue in Positive Psychology because these were things influencing our happiness that we could genuinely do something about. Of course, perceived control is a huge issue in stress management and resilience.

Focus your attention and effort on what you can control and you'll be less stressed and more resilient. It's good stress management advice.

A bit of background on the other two factors though because they're important. The S (Set range) aspect comes from evidence suggesting we all have a 'set range' for happiness. We're all on what's been described as an 'hedonic treadmill'.

When something good or bad happens (and it can be very good or very bad), over time our happiness reverts back to where it generally is. So, we're thinking about buying a new car. The anticipation brings us pleasure. And when we buy it, we're really happy and showing it off to our friends and learning about all its gizmos that we'll never use and driving for the sake of it. And we may even go through a spell of actually washing it! But sadly and quite quickly our new car happiness fades. Soon enough it's just a car like any other car and meantime our insurance has gone up...

No surprise too that our circumstances (C) should influence happiness and this is where the lines between psychology, philosophy and economics can become blurred. There are some big factors or 'circumstances' linked to happiness like money, marriage, age, health and religion. There's some fascinating research related to each of these circumstances. Recently governments too have become more engaged in this area of research, realizing that it isn't simply about people's wealth (which arguably is in decline now anyway) but more about promoting 'wellbeing'. What we can probably say is that your circumstances will influence happiness and wellbeing in some important ways (especially if they are, or have been, very bad).

Back though to today's happiness formula, from a recently published paper. This formula is mainly about momentary happiness, how you feel 'now' and what influences that. For what it's worth, here's the formula...

No, I couldn't work it out either, but that doesn't matter.

This research, using a gambling game methodology to test their model, predicted that happiness at a specific time is related to / predicted by certain rewards (CR), expected values / expectations (EV), and the difference between experienced and predicted rewards (RPE).

Here's the gist - our expectations are more important to our current happiness than many of us realize. How happy we are at a moment in time has less to do with how things are going at that time than whether they are going better (or worse) than expected.

So the implications (my interpretation) on the face of it could be: "If you want to be happier you have to manage your expectations."

I can hear the pessimists (me included) shouting that they were right all along. Expect the worst, then anything else is a bonus! (Certainly, that works for me on the golf course.) But it's clear from this research that things aren't as straightforward as that. For example, before the outcome (of the gamble), people with more positive expectations are happier.

And in real life, with it's much longer-term outcomes, marriage for example, you just don't know what the outcome is going to be do you? Therefore, the model predicts that it's probably better for your happiness 'now' to have higher expectations about the 'outcome' of your marriage.

This is very interesting and suggests two very different ways of thinking about 'how to be happy' depending on whether you're thinking about shorter-term, day-to-day, living or longer-term, important, life outcomes.

Marriage is a bit heavy. So back to golf...

So...

 I'm standing on the 6th tee with a 30 mile-an-hour. left-to-right cross wind. Trouble (large shrubbery) on the left. Thick, impenetrable rough (known locally as 'bundi') on the right. No point whatsoever in thinking I'm going to hit this to the middle of the green because when it leaks to the right into said bundi, I'm going to be very disappointed and may indeed say bad words. Better to have no expectations and accept this is a difficult shot on a terrible day. If by some miracle it subsequently lands on the green (positive outcome!), expectations are surpassed by a large margin - happiness ensues.

But...

Thinking about my overall golf game (a.k.a marriage)... In this situation, better to have optimism (hope, faith?) that my game can indeed improve and it's worth therefore putting in the effort to improve swing, eliminate catastrophic slice etc. This positive expectation makes me happier.

And indeed I am thinking.. why on earth I am sitting here blogging when I could be out there on this sunny, Scottish Summer's day, hitting the perfect shot to the 6th and holing the putt for a birdie (oops, getting ahead of myself again; unhappiness and disappointment is round the corner - better get back to work!)

Short-term realism, long-term hope - a possible recipe for a happier life?

Stress: let's call it what it is!

Let's call it what it is. Stress. Not resilience. Not wellbeing. Stress.

I hear on a regular basis, that "Stress doesn't exist"... Or... "We don't use the word in this organization, we prefer to call it resilience"... Or... "It comes under our positive wellbeing policy"... Or some other corporate-speak like that. Apparently, talking about (or offering services related to) stress management is not the thing to do any more. It's become unfashionable, it's too negative.

Mostly this view seems to be held by people in HR or 'Organizational Development'. This is not to say that all HR or OD people share this outlook. Far from it. It's just that this 'corporate wellbeing world view' is more prevalent in this group.

In my opinion, where this view prevails, it can totally undermine the credibility of HR, leading to suspicion, cynicism and a lack of trust amongst the workforce. It just doesn't reflect the reality of people's experience at work. The rest of us KNOW stress levels are higher now than they've been. And this is overwhelmingly borne out by the evidence.

I've come across similar views from service providers. The received marketing wisdom (with which I profoundly disagree) is that we need to call it wellbeing because clients are looking for a more, positive 'holistic' approach and therefore (the argument goes) we should be framing our offering in a more positive light. If we call it stress, they won't buy our services. Again this appears to be because service providers are working predominantly with, or through, HR/OD.

I haven't found this to be the case at all. I've never been busier. Maybe it's because I work a lot with Occupational Health and Health & Safety professionals and they have a different focus and remit. I don't work solely with HR/OD (although I find that many HR folk are still very concerned about stress).

With my business hat on too, my experience strongly indicates that stress remains a hot topic, and with good reason. It's bad and has got much worse, especially since the last recession. And it's costing organizations a fortune. (I've included a great resource related to the costs of stress towards the end of this blog post.). Maybe you could sum up my business take on this as...

Big problem + Huge Cost + Available Solutions = Obvious Marketing Opportunity???

Why have stress levels increased so much? I think some of the reasons are work-related and some aren't.

Organizations are doing more with less and people are working harder and longer than ever. And this trend has accelerated since the credit crunch in 2008. In previous recessions, we saw big increases in unemployment as organizations cut costs by shedding staff. The last recession was different. Having found how expensive it was previously first to lose, then recruit and retrain skilled staff, organizations opted this time to retain staff but make efficiencies and cuts in other areas. As a result, employees are now under more pressure with less control and fewer resources.

And it's not simply what's happened at work. A whole series of trends have increased stress levels. I'm going to explore some of these in future blog posts, but here are some headings:

• The polarized and frankly bizarre property market where in some parts of the country people can't afford to live anywhere near where they work, while in others prices have collapsed meaning people are stuck in negative equity and cannot move.
• Partly related to the above, the increased pressure in middle age from the trends towards adult children never leaving combined with increased caring responsibilities for elderly parents, known endearingly as the 'sandwich generation'.
• Again related to the above, increased commuting pressures with longer commutes on overcrowded, excessively expensive trains.
• The rapidly ageing working population combined with the collapse in the value of pensions. We're having to work longer at an age when we inevitably experience more chronic illness.
• The huge and growing proportion of us that has very little or no pension provision in any case (and many of us are very concerned about this!).
• The high inflation that has affected basics and essentials, like food, electricity and gas, meaning that those with low or middle incomes have become disproportionately poorer in recent years. Increased financial stress in other words.
• Reduced physical activity leading to 'vastly' increased levels of obesity and associated chronic illness, especially diabetes
• An increasing lack of social support at work and at home and more isolation, leading to high levels of loneliness and depression.
• Increases in the use of technology, especially smartphones and tablets, meaning that we are always available (and our own bad habits in this regard - sleeping with them, always checking them - make this worse).
• Reductions in the quantity and quality of sleep, related to many of the factors above.
• Huge increases in stress-related illness (which is not an accident), including mental illness and physical illness, one notable example being the increase in autoimmune diseases due to chronic inflammation.
• Increases in self-medication (stress management using alcohol), fuelled by heavily discounted supermarket booze. Alcohol, unlike food and electricity, has never been cheaper in real terms. So we're drinking much more, usually at home. It's an 'invisible problem' with major health effects.
• Increasingly flexible working patterns with more lone and remote working. Our working environments are also becoming more 'lean', with more open-plan and more hot-desking.
• Less secure employment, more short- and part-time contracts and more zero-hours contracts. More pressure to work longer, to be seen to be there, even if we're feeling bad. 'Presenteeism' in other words.

These trends are well-researched and understood, Just google any of them as I did and you'll find a mountain of research evidence and reports. I'll highlight some of these in future posts.

There are other stress-increasing trends, but I hope I've made my point.

I'll finish this blog post with one great resource. It's a report called: Calculating the cost of work-related stress and psychosocial risks. In my view, it should be essential reading. It comes from the European Agency for safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) and highlights both what the costs of stress are (not just in Europle, but also in the USA, Australia and Canada) and how such costs can easily be calculated.

You can download the report from the costs of stress page on my website, where you'll also find some additional tools and resources related to the organizational costs and the benefits of taking action. As the report says in its conlusion: "Studies indicate that there is a strong ‘business case’ for preventing stress and psychosocial risks at work".

So you can call it what you like. I'll call it stress because that's what it is.

There's always something you can do about stress (2) If-then Planning

In an earlier post I talked about the best thing you can do with stress and that's prevent it. Most of us are pretty awful at dealing with stress. Prevention is definitely the way to go!

If you get stressed it's already too late. That unconscious, automatic response has already kicked in; stress hormones are flooding your body and the emotional brain has been aroused. You're in full, reactive mode. It's very difficult if not impossible to make good (calm, rational) decisions in such circumstances. More stress usually follows. (...like why you should never send an email whey you're annoyed!)
 
In this post, I'll talk about a strategy that isn't completely based around prevention but does still look ahead.

It's called if-then planning and it's highly effective. The posh psychology term for this is forming what's called an 'implementation intention'.

If-then plans always have the same (written-down) format...

IF [Scenario/Situation] THEN [Plan]!

What you need to think about and identify first is a scenario or situation that causes you stress. This could be a work-based or personal situation that crops up now and again that you're concerned about. It may well be the kind of situation you dread. Looking ahead, it could also be that nightmare situation or worst-case scenario that's keeping you awake at night.

Whatever it is, you need to write it down. Be as clear as possible what the situation is. What's happening? Who is involved? How is it affecting you? If you can easily picture it in your mind, all the better as that will help as you'll see later,

Secondly, you need to come up with and write down a plan. This is what you'll do to prevent or reduce stress if and when that situation occurs. This could include practical steps like who you'll contact to get support and making sure you have access to the resources you need. It could also include psychological steps like what you (and your team) will do to remain calm or avoid panic in the situation.

Once you've done these two things you can put them into your written if-then plan. The scenario goes after the IF, the plan goes after the THEN (apologies for stating the obvious). You finish it off with an exclamation mark (!), which seems to make the whole approach more powerful. An exclamation is definite, an indication of commitment - "yes, I'll do this!"

That's not the end of the story though. If you really want to make it effective, you need to mentally rehearse the plan. Think it through, play it through in your mind. See yourself in the situation, dealing with things, calmly and rationally, without getting panicky. If you use this at work in a team situation, make sure you also talk it through with them.

Why does if-then planning help with stress? A couple of big reasons. Firstly it reduces anxiety. The fact you've come up with a plan stops you worrying or ruminating about the situation as much. "Yes, it might happen, but I know what I'm going to do when it does". Call it mental de-cluttering if you like.

Secondly, thinking through and planning what you're going to do boosts your sense of control. You may not be happy about the situation and it may still cause some stress. But simply knowing there's something you can (and will) do helps massively.

There's always something you do. OK maybe not about the situation, but certainly about how you respond.

New Stress Management LinkedIn Group launched

Today I've launched a 'new' LinkedIn group, the Stress Management Business Group. It's aimed at people with a business interested in stress or related topics.

The group was previously a closed group and had a narrower focus around stress management competencies. I hope people will join and use the group to share tools, information and resources.

There's always something you can do about stress (1) Stress Prevention

The most depressing thought or assumption you can have is: "Nothing I can do will make any difference". It's often associated with a lack of a sense of control and a feeling of hopelessness.

But with stress management, there's always something you can do (certainly if you include thinking in doing). There are three broad kinds of approach you could try and in this post I'll focus on number 1, prevention.

Before I get onto that though, there's a kind of pre- (stress management) stage that's often missed.

You need first to be clear exactly what it is that's causing the stress (and when it occurs). I recommend writing this down in some structured way. (I've developed a tool for this called the Pressurised Situation Profiling Tool.)  This writing it down is helpful in itself. It clarifies what you're dealing with. Dealing with what you can see is always less stressful than the vague dread of what's lurking in the shadows.

Once you're clear about what's causing the stress, the first thing to try or think about is prevention. This is about being proactive and dealing with what's causing the stress, the 'source', directly. This source might for example be a stressful situation at work.

I've found over the years, especially with work-related stress, that much more can be done around prevention than first appears to be the case. It does require however that you take some time for this and it usually involves talking face-to-face with colleagues to explore issues and generate solutions (team meetings and one-to-ones are great for this). That's because most work scenarios are inter-dependent. The level of your stress may well be partly dependent on what other people do and when they do it, and vice versa. Often then, some planning and communication 'now' can save a lot of grief and stress later on.

I want to be crystal clear about this. To prevent stress, you have to stop what you're doing, think, plan and communicate. If you're always reacting to things, it's far more likely that you'll become stressed! And because of the lack of control, the stress is also far more likely to affect your health.

I've found a preventive approach works particularly well with teams. Given the chance, teams will come up with genuinely innovative and pragmatic solutions to what seem, at first glance, to be intractable problems. Teams of people doing a job are the internal experts on what happens in their area. They quickly therefore get to the nub of the problem and identify solutions that often cost nothing to implement.

If you're a leader or manager, this requires that you acknowledge the specialist expertise within your teams. You're in the perfect position to facilitate discussions and actively engage your teams in generating solutions to prevent stress. I've found the return-on-investment (or savings) from this type of  team working to be enormous!

PS 1: Don't forget to implement any action plans and solutions generated (it's no good just talking about it) and make sure you take a bit of time later on to evaluate and review what you've done.

PS 2: One thing you need to be careful about if you're facilitating discussions is not to allow them to get too bogged down around the problems. Yes, you do need to identify what they are and when they occur, and it's also helpful to prioritize them in order of importance (which issues are having the greatest impact on people?). But you need fairly quickly to get onto discussing solutions and developing plans. This makes sure the focus is mainly positive, on 'what we can do' rather than descending into a moaning shop. It's worth considering therefore whether it could help to have someone with independent expertise facilitate such discussions.