Reading the title above, how many of you just had your heart start beating faster with rising anxiety? Just the mere mention of stress can set people off with guilt and anxiety. But stress is not all bad, I have found recently out. A recent article in the February 2021 McKinsey Quarterly (read it here) provides some very practical advice around managing stress so that it can be harnessed for good rather than being destructive. Stress, whilst being a constant companion, has not been my friend over the years, so I was most interested to see how I might be able to negotiate peace terms with my ever-present escort and develop a more wholesome relationship.
The article is very current and addresses not just the typical stressors we face in work, but also those associated with the pandemic. The essence of the article is to not seek to eliminate stress, but through getting to understand it, to use the upside while minimizing the downside. Understanding begins with realising there is a state of recovery and rest hat follows the heightened state of stress, and that this enables recuperation and opportunity to process what has happened and to learn from it. Failure to create the space for the calming process leads to chronic stress, where all the bad stuff happens.
To understand our stress more effectively the article refers to a series of questions we can ask ourselves that helps to paint a picture of what triggers stress for us, when we feel most calm, and how to best harness our stress responses. Once we have this self-awareness, we can then create the space we need for engagement and focus by doing things like blocking time for “deep work”, reducing distractions, and learning to take a break form screens. Thankfully, there are numerous practical tips on how we can tackle these things.
The next step is to then create conditions for our rest and recovery. Again, there are several very good ideas on how to do this (for example, getting serious about sleep, deep breathing, and more), all of which are accompanied by practical tips that give us tangible ways to make it happen.
Finally, there is the state of being able to alternate between engagement and recovery, so we do not accumulate chronic stress, and instead have transitions between the two states that become tools for us to draw on rather than circumstances we respond to. As previously, there are exercises that can help us achieve this.
What I particularly like in this article is that it concludes with some constructive ways that we can help others manager their stress as well. There is the suggestion to help others create conditions for focus and recovery, and to be observant, vigilant, and caring. As leaders, we have a responsibility to help our teams both by example and through resourcing them.
My journey with stress is taking a different route because of this article, one that I hope leads to a productive and sustainable time together.