E081: The ABC’s of Resilience

This is the world of work podcast with James and Jane. Hi

everyone. Just before we get cracking into this week's episode, I wanted to jump on and mention our new sport page. So as some of you may know, we're on a bit of a mission to increase accessibility to good quality management and career training. And if you'd like to support us in this, you can go to www.worldwork.io forward, slash support to learn more. Hello. This is James, and this is Jane, and

here we are again with another episode of a world of work podcast. What are we speaking about today? Jane,

so today's conversation is all about stress and resilience. We're going to talk a little bit about what some of the sources of stress, what stress is, what some of the sources of stress are in the workplace, commonly, why it matters, why we need to talk about this. We're also going to go through the practical ABC of which is a really practical tool to think about how you can improve your ability to cope with stress. And we're going to talk a little bit as well about some of the practical ways organizations can help people at a sort of organizational level as well. Cool, it sounds

like we've got lots of good stuff in there before we get into all of that, though. Just a quick reminder, don't forget. You can get in touch with us at Twitter. We're at the WoW podcast, and we've got around Twitter accounts as well, which we like to engage through. And you can check out our website, www dot, World of work.io. There's lots of great stuff on there, articles, old, podcasts, videos, all kinds of good stuff. And you can get in touch with us through that as well. Yeah,

we really love it when people get involved and engage with us online, because we get loads of ideas. So for example, we have a summer seminar, spring seminar series starting, and we're delivering a load of online seminars. And that's all come about from feedback from listeners and some of the topics they want to talk about. So we're really looking forward to hearing what you think of what we've got to say today. So James, how do we approach it?

Okay, so we're going to be using our usual approach ones just for two of us. It's been a while since we've done some of those, but it's a tried and tested method that we like. So we start out with some definitions, just to kind of set the framework for what we exploring. Then we dive into a research round out where we bring some depth to the topics. Then we're going to share a list of a week that brings a little bit more roundness to what we're looking at. We'll then share a couple of stories from a keyboard, which are, I guess, some of our live experiences in relation to the topic, and then a couple of final thoughts. And then we'll just check out and say goodbye. That sounds great. Let's get going. Cool. So, Jane, do you want to share some definitions for today? Yeah, so

I picked out a couple of definitions that I think are useful, and useful. What the first I want to talk about is really long one, and it's psychosocial, social work related hazards, most complex phrase ever. But effectively, these are the aspects of work design and the organization, management of work and their social and organizational context, which have the present potential for causing psychological, social or physical harm, right? So when we think about work, it's the elements of the way we organize and manage our work and the way that we relate to other people and the organization, and sometimes they can create either psychological, social or even physical in some cases, harm. And these are what are known as so psychosocial work related hazards of which stress and the inability to COVID stress can be one. The second definition I'd like to share is resilience. So loads of people will have heard of resilience as bounce back ability, like the idea that you reclaim your shape like a sort of an engineering term,

I always think. I always think about as, do you remember like, those old like, like, clown shaped punching bags with a sand in the bottom, and you hit them and they rolled back, and then they pop back up to where they were? Did you ever have those when

you were little? Yeah, or the stress balls in your hand? Yeah, absolutely. But actually, I think there's a really useful definition that comes out of a paper by two academics called pool and Cohen in 2010 which is it's the potential to exhibit resourcefulness by using available internal and external resources in response to different contextual and developmental challenges. So in other words, when you're faced with a challenge, can you be resourceful and use what you've got? Right? And I think that is a really great explanation of what resilience is. That's

good, yeah, yeah. And it's a bit less of a mouthful than the psychosocial work related hazard, which is helpful, but, but I like that definition

of Yeah. I guess the reason i You're right, and it is a mouthful, I guess the reason is it's taken a very long time for the workplace to understand that psychosocial and psychological harm is properly a hazard, right? So health and safety were brilliant at biological and chemical and, you know, accidents and stuff like that. And actually, it took me a while to understand that a lot of what an organ. Does or can do to cause harm, can be psychological, social, yeah, absolutely. So that gives you kind of an understanding of some of the terms that are relevant. James, why are we even talking about all this stuff? Yeah,

that's a good question. I mean, I think a lot of us kind of innately know that stress is is difficult and has some negative impacts, but it's worth exploring those in a bit more detail, to get a bit more of a framing around it. So we actually think about it in a couple different ways. So we think that stress affects individuals, and we think that through them, stress actually affects organizations as well. So if we look at it from an individual perspective, living under stress has significant negative impacts on people. So stress can lead to all kinds of different things. It can lead to psychological ill health, or it can damage your sense of psychological health and well being. Stress can actually damage your physical health as well, partly through damaging your psychological health, but in other ways as well, it can affect your physical health. Stress leads people to increase their risky behaviors that they take so, you know, under stress, some people might drive too fast, drink too much, take up smoking. They might, you know, do all kinds of things like that that are that are detrimental to their life in the longer term, that they wouldn't do otherwise. And ultimately, stress can cause death in people, it leads to increase in coronary risk and things like heart attacks and all kinds of other things, directly and indirectly. So at an individual level, stress is a really, really negative contributor to things like life expectancy and quality of life and well being. Then at an organizational level, stress has all kinds of effects at organization level as well. So obviously, stress is bad for individuals, and when that translates to organizations, it can result in things like increases in absenteeism or presenteeism, which is potentially worse, if not just as bad, it can lead to increases in staff turnover, so people will be leaving because of a stress fair under morale or engagement will deteriorate as well because people are under stress, and it can also lead to things like increased customer complaints. So if you've got stressed people working on the frontline, engaging with customers, that can be negative, negative repercussion to that. And it's worth noting that stress is actually fairly contagious as well. So if somebody exhibits high levels of stress within a team through their behaviors, others will be stressed as well. So stress can start in one location and kind of seep through an organization, leading to these reductions in engagement and increases in turnover and absenteeism and negative impacts on internal and external customers. So I guess that's a lot of why we're talking about it. Jen, okay,

and do you, from your experience, is it something you've had a lot of experience with, like in your workplace experience? Is it, is it important topic? Do you think for people,

I think it's hugely important. I mean, I've it's played a huge role in a lot of organizations that I've been part of, and recent role, something like 25% of the people in the broader team that I was in were off on long term stress related absence. And you can really see the material impact it has on individuals lives, which I think is fundamentally important in itself. It's, you know, it's for, really the moral case for why we should do this. But there's clearly a business case as well, which is that when, when parts of an organization are absent through stress, it increases workload on others. It lowers engagement. It lowers morale. It starts rumors going, you know, people are just unhappy, and Discretionary Effort declines and well being declines, turnover increases. People wish to leave. So I've seen it have material impacts, and I've seen it have those impacts at a wide range of levels within organizations, ranging from junior through to more senior, and different people exhibit different signs when they're under stress, and they respond to different levels of stress in different ways. It's not a one size fits all thing, and in my experience, where I've seen organizations try and support individuals through stress, but the quality of that support and the approach and response that organizations take actually varies as well. So I think it's a hugely important thing. Days lost to stress related absence at a at a national level, is huge, and that only goes to blur the negative individual impacts that we can relate to, which are hugely important as well. So very important in my mind. Yeah, it's

interesting, isn't it? I had a manager once that I was surprised in my very, very early days. I was kind of surprised how generous and what I perceived at the time to be generous and calm and thoughtful. He was to a member of staff who was experiencing severe, you know, experiencing challenges around stress and was taking some time off. And he said, you know, if someone had a different likelihood of developing cancer, you wouldn't judge them for it. So why would we judge them if someone can deal with different levels of stress at different times in their lives? And I was like, Well, okay, that's made me really think about the world differently. Yeah. So I thought that was really helpful, although statement it is, and also brilliantly lovely way to teach someone who's very junior and hasn't been around much, the importance of thinking about people's individual context. It was lovely. Yeah, okay, so we're really clear it's important. So the most helpful thing we thought would be to talk through an ABC model of three practical different ways in which to think about what you can do when you're experiencing stress or when you're likely to experience stress. And they are awareness, being aware of where stress may come from, and how to spot it in yourself. B for Being Well, how to make sure that you're in your best place possible, so that when stress comes, you are able to deal with it and cope. C for coping. So what happens when you do go through stressful times, and what can you do about it? So I think the best thing to do is if maybe I talk a little bit about some of the sort common sources of stress, and then James will maybe talk you through how you are most likely to be able to spot it in yourself. Is that right with you, James, it sounds excellent. I can't wait. Okay,

so I'm going to talk through six common groups of sources of stress. The first and the most common that people talk about is the job content. So what are you actually doing? And that's the where we hear the most common discussions around sources of stress. So you might see in that things like lack of meaning or purpose, so people don't feel motivated by their work, but also that they have undo underused skills. But also it may be about an excessive workload, which is the most one that most commonly people first present with change is the second group, so where there is either a massive increase in your workload or whether there is a consistent request to change the way you work, and that can become very stressful, the level of support, or the type of support you're getting, so whether you're being given the right tools to do your job, or whether you gave them the right direction or leadership relationships, is the fourth. So this is where you would see things like conflict, even bullying, but also isolation, which I suspect, given that we're currently in a lockdown period, is huge. The fifth is control, and that is that people who experience a lot feeling a lack of control over their own work or the way they do their work, so lack of flexibility and where they work, or lack of control over the workload they have, can create increasing levels of stress. And then finally, the other group tends to be other demands, so things that are demanding of your time or energy or attention that are not directly related to your job. So for example, that could be your environment and equipment, so having to spend an hour setting up your it in the morning because it's not up to scratch, or it could be about things like your homework, about home life boundaries, work life boundaries. So if you constantly have to rush to pick up children because they've recently, I've no change school, and they've got different pickup times, and they don't no longer fit with your role that can or managing how you have time for both your work and your personal life. So those can also be difficult. So those are where the source is coming from. But how do they show up? James,

well, that is a very good question. And I guess the thing is that different sources of stress show up in different ways for different people, but there are some some common themes. For those that have listened to us before, they know that we like to use a framework, which is, think, feel, BE, DO for a lot of the things that we do, we use it as a framework for personal development. And really, we think it's just a useful framework to think about the world has on us and the way that we can sort of manage and control ourselves through different circumstances. So that's the framework, but we used to think about how the sources of stress materialize. So from a thinking perspective, when we're under stress, we can sometimes think in different ways, and some of the thinking that we'll start to exhibit when we're under stress can be negative, and it can be unhelpful, and it can escalate. It can become a sort of a negative cycle that grows. So some of the thoughts that we might have when we're under stress are things like, I'm useless if we're, you know, focusing some of that negativity on ourselves, or it could be very useless if we start to be stressed and focus on negativity externally. We can have a sort of, I don't want to this sort of avoidance language, you know, I don't want to do this and to think along those lines. Or we can say, I have to do this and bring in some of that obligatory language that's not always helpful. We can also start to catastrophize and predict negative futures for ourselves. So we can assume that a little thing is going to grow and grow and grow and turn into a giant disaster. Or we can just assume that the future is going to be negative. And as well as those from a thinking perspective, we can start to have loss of concentration, inability to prioritize, inability to make decisions, even a loss of memory. And certainly, one of the things that happens to me sometimes is what I describe as analysis paralysis, where I just can't move forward. I just need. Like crunch numbers and think and analyze, and it's just because I'm stressed, I don't need to do that stuff. It's just a product of my stress. So that's thinking. If we go on to feeling in terms of indicators or impacts of stress, we can start to have, again, a variety of negative emotions. So we can start to feel depressed and sad. Sometimes we can feel anger. Maybe we're afraid or fearful. We can be irritable, we can feel guilty. We can start to experience mood swings and intolerance. We might even feel that we're like over stimulated as a way of feeling, you know, just overwhelmed by all these things. And that can lead to things like hyper focus and and all that kind of stuff that's that's unhelpful for us from the being perspective. We can start to think a little bit about our physical being here, and we can start to have headaches, stomach aches, heartaches, I guess, sweating you can you can have like, you know, elevated heart rates, bits of palpitation, insomnia, inability to fall asleep, inability to stay asleep, nausea, migraines, fatigue, blood pressure, and ultimately, things like heart attacks. And then, from a doing perspective, this is you know, what are the things that you do when you're under stress? Well, you can maybe shout at people. You can eat loads, or you can stop eating altogether. You might fidget you might bite your nails. You might start many things, not finish them. You might get in your car and drive too fast. You might just totally avoid and not look at your emails, or not open your your mail. You might drink more than you usually do. You might unaccountably burst into tears. You might just jump onto your work and just work compulsively until you burn out and feel miserable. Or you might just withdraw and sit in a corner because it's all too much, right? So there's a whole different range of things. But the point is that stress leads us as individuals to take on a variety of these things, so it'll affect the way that we think, the ways that we feel, the way that we are physically, and the things that we do. And that's really the message, and it's just being worth it's just worth knowing for yourself what some of these impacts are, as well as for those in your team, how's that for indicators? Is that helpful for you? Jane, yeah, I was just sitting there going, Oh, I

think I've been doing all of them. Are you playing bingo?

I think for me, the awareness of where what might be stressful to me and then how it shows up has been probably the most transformative for my ability to manage my own behavior. So I particularly like talking about this step of awareness, because I think it's really important and really helpful. Yeah,

yeah. And it's good to share it with others as well. Right? When you're looking to build relationships or build within a team, it's good to understand that different people are different, and you can start to see and if you can let other people know your signs of stress, it can be helpful if you've got a sufficient level of trust in your relationship to do that,

yeah, it's a very powerful thing when done, right? Because it helps someone give you a little gentle nod when you do trust them to say, Hey, you're right over there. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So that takes us to the B of ABC, which is being well, and I'm gonna briefly run you through the seven kind of core domains that we think help reduce stress. And then maybe, James, you can share a little of your thoughts on a couple of the key ones that I know you're really passionate.

Oh yes. Well, I'm basically, I'm passionate on all seven of them, but I'll pick out one or two however. Well,

yeah, there is that. There is okay, yes, you are that is true. So the seven domains that we talk about are diet. So what you put in your body exercise, how you use your body sleep, which is how you recharge your body, then relaxation, and then the final three are more around, sort of, what do you what activities do, or who you spending time with? So activities that recharge. So, as we always talk about, if you're an introvert that might be about taking some time for yourself and doing some gardening, is it is in my house, versus if you're an extrovert that might be taking a walk with a mate and having a long chat. So do what's right for you that recharges you support so identifying people or networks around you that can be supportive. And then my favorite, my personal favorite, which is helping others, which is just true, right? If you're really struggling, go find a way to make someone else happy for the morning, because it absolutely helps you, if nothing else, it takes you away a little bit from from how you're feeling about things. So I think it's really useful. So James, what do you think of those seven, and which are your favorites?

All right? So I think those seven are great. I think there's another one but we sometimes lump under activities for recharge but maybe merit to turn space, I'm not entirely sure, and that's about being outside. So there's something about being in nature and green spaces and all that fresh air that's that's reviving and supports our well being. And I consider about an activity that recharges, but it's worth calling it out separately. My guess. Is that the one that you were alluding to when you were saying the one that I like the most is probably sleep, because I really like sleep. That's not what I meant, right? Okay, well, I like exercise as well. Maybe they go as a pair, but sleep and exercise are certainly two that really stand out for me. And I think it's worth saying that just has. You know, stress has different impacts on all of us. I think that these different, I guess, domains of Being Well, help different people in different levels. So I think for me, as I said, sleep is really important, and exercise is and I think something that's important with all of these is the fact that when we turn these things into habits, we can use them on a on a more long term basis, to manage our sense of well being in a more protracted way. That's helpful, but but that's when things become a habit. So with all of these, we can take small actions that help improve our sense of well being in the shorter term. So even eating healthily for a day or two will help you feel better. Likewise, you know, if you're under stress, making time to relax or do an activity that'll help you recharge, will help you feel better in the moment in that period of time, and it'll help you recover and be in a better place to face the challenges that you're that you're facing into. But on a longer term basis, if you can start to turn these into habits, then you can start to sort of preempt, uh, future levels of stress and recharge yourself and create capacity to to remain at a better state more often. So from a sleep perspective, I'd hugely recommend trying to get, you, know, at least, an opportunity for eight to nine hours of sleep a night. And that's kind of time where you you potentially could be sleeping so you basically in bed and exercising. I'd recommend exercising three or four times a week, which could be anything from the gardening we spoke about earlier to a long walk to go on for a run or a bike ride. It's really whatever it is for you. But these things are hugely powerful. So those are the main ones for me. Have you got one that stands out for you? Jane,

I think what's interesting for me is they have all been really important at different stages of my life. And I think the balance, I think the challenge is that ideally, all of those things would be in place all the time, but that's just not realistic sometimes. So it's about instead picking off enough of them that you feel like you are being well, in sort of broader sense, because I think so it needs to beat yourself up on your diet or your exercise. And instead, if you're actually saying, Okay, well, that's a struggle right now, but I can get the sleep I need and I can spend time doing activities and recharge me, then that's what you should

do. Yeah. And they're building blocks, right? So, so each one of those that you do a little bit more will help you move on to another one, if you so wish, they all help you in that virtuous cycle. So whichever one works for you can help you move on to others. If you so wish,

exactly, I think that's true. They like dominoes, right?

Okay, so that is the B, the being well, and then the C of the ABC is about coping. So this is about when you're experiencing unwanted stress in your life, and what can you do about it. And so we're just going to very briefly run you through three ways that you can address coping with stress in your life, and the first is challenging stressors. So I think this is really important. It's about considering each of the individual stresses. So go back to the A Do you understand where your stresses are coming from? How are they showing up as well in your life? So consider each of those stressors that you've identified. Think about how they're impacting you, and then say to yourself five questions. One, can you drop any self created stressors? So are you creating artificial deadlines for yourself, or are you setting quality standards that no one else cares about that you could drop? Two, can dates be moved so we all know we like to meet a deadline. Life, life's better when you do but when you're under periods of stress, the power of going to someone is saying, do you really need it right now? Because actually, if I could knock this back two weeks, then everything would change for me. Number three, can quality requirements be reduced? So as I mentioned, it's about, you know, you might have your own self grade stresses, but you also might have external ones. So is there actually have you? Have you really checked what is expected of you? So one of the classic examples I would given that is, I'm doing a masters at the moment, and in our last module, we experienced lockdown during the Coronavirus pandemic. And I got an email from my lecturer who said, Do you know what sometimes good enough is good enough. And, I mean, that wasn't the only sentence, that was a paragraph, but it was a really helpful, meaningful thing to come from someone who is, you know, ultimately, my lecturer, to say, You know what, it's pandemic. It's okay. Let's just go with getting you all through. Number four, can you challenge other demands? So can you rearrange other parts of your life? So generally, I consider myself to be a really good friend and sister, but I will quite often drop a text to my family group and say, Do you know what I'm going to be off radar a couple of weeks. Don't worry about me. But also I'm probably not around if people need bits and bobs doing, and that's a way of me saying, Look, you know, still come and see me if it's important, but just give me some space. And this is kind of a tough one, but important. Can you speak to someone who is a stressor, so where the stress is coming from a relationship or a management problem, or coming from something in your life where it involves another person fronting up to that conversation can be really scary, but it can be really, really helpful as well. So you can talk to them about the impact they may not even realize that they're having. So I used to have a manager who's super enthusiastic, and he'd get all excited about lots of things, but then quite often, that would have a knock on effect on the team, because they would suddenly be like, Oh my God, we got all this stuff to do. So having an honest conversation. Say, I know you're really excited about this, but can we do less of it right now? Can be really powerful. So that's challenging. James, do you want to talk us through self management?

Yeah, very happy to so self management, then, is another way to cope, and it's saying that, you know, if a stressor appears, if we're feeling it, how can we manage ourselves through that moment? So where we spoke earlier about some of the ways to be well, helping you build your reserves and help you through some of this, this is more in the moment type of stuff. And again, there are five things we can touch on here. So number one is about trying to challenge or reframe negative thoughts and negative, unhelpful mind talk when it happens in the moment. So if something stresses you and you start to go on this negative thought pattern, it's starting to recognize, oh, I'm having negative thoughts. Oh, I'm catastrophizing. Oh, I am predicting negative outcomes, whatever it happens to be, identify negative thought patterns that you're having and then try and challenge them. So either challenge their validity and say, well, actually, this isn't the case, or challenge their extremity and say, Well, I'm just exaggerating here, and try and replace these negative thoughts with helpful truths. So for example, instead of saying, Gosh, I've never been in this situation before, it's bound to end dreadfully, you know that's unhelpful, you might say, well, you know what? Actually the truth is, I've been in loads of situations that have been new to me in the past, and each time I've been in a new and unusual situation, I've overcome it and come out the other side, well in the long run. So that's a helpful truth, and trying to reframe or replace negative thinking patterns more helpful truth based thoughts can can be a really good way to manage yourself through moments of stress. Another thing is that you can try and focus on positivity and adopt a positive mindset. So things, even like positive affirmations, are really helpful. And trying to think about how you can have gratitude focus on the positives, how you can frame everything around you based on the positives, will help you get through a situation in a more effective way. You might choose in the long run, not to adopt that type of strategy, but in the short run, focusing on those positives will help improve your your ability to cope in a moment, and reduce your levels of stress. Another thing that's really important is to do with visualization. And this is something that's often used in sports and many, many different arenas, and this is really about visualizing two things. It's about one, under stress, visualizing your ability to succeed and what that really looks like. So for example, if you're stressed because you need to give a large presentation, maybe speak to an auditorium, or something like that, actually spend time visualizing, kind of daydreaming, what that's going to be like, how that's going to be successful, what you'll do, and actually put yourself in that situation as much as you can in advance through that visualization. But also at the same time, it can be helpful to visualize some challenges that you'll face and how you'll overcome them. And this is just, you know, a different way to prepare. It's a way to mindfully Think of yourself in the situation and prepare. Point four is around building some confidence by reflecting on prior successes and achievements. So it's worth under stress just stepping back and thinking about all the things that you've succeeded on in the past and positive achievements that you've had. And again, like focusing on positivity that we mentioned earlier this, focus on success in the past can reduce stress and leave you in a better position to face into your current challenges. And then one of the ones we call up that we particularly like is about doing a planned contingency action, right? So if you learn who you are and learn to recognize when you're under stress, you can have sort of pre planned contingency measures that you'll put into place when you are stressed. So some people might say, You know what, I'm clearly stressed. I'm going to count to 10, and somebody will say, I can tell, but I'm really stressed. This is quite a serious thing. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to have a little break. I'm going to go and count to 100 and that'll help me calm down and be in a better place. Somebody else might say, You know what? I'm going to go for a run. I'm just going to put in a little break and go for a run for 20 minutes, and that'll help clear my system and leave me a good. Place. Somebody else might meditate, somebody else might go for a nap, somebody else might have lunch, somebody else might phone a friend, whatever it is. These are planned contingency measures that you can do that will help you overcome stress in a moment, but you need to think about these in advance and plan them, and that's the second of a coping mechanism. So we've spoken about challenging stressors, we've spoken about self management, and there's one more, Jane, do you want to run through

that? Yeah, absolutely. So the final thing we would talk about is gaining support from others. And this can be really powerful, but also can feel like a lot of what we've talked about a bit scary when you're stressed. And again, there are five practical steps. So one is to ask help from your team or from your colleague or boss, and that can be really powerful if there's trust there. And it's important if there is trust, but if there is trust there, that can be a really helpful thing. So that might be helping in terms of talking about it, it might be helping in terms of actually getting them to shoulder some of your work and help you out, to release some of the sources of stress. Or it might be helping, just to give you a pointer, when maybe you're exhibiting behaviors that appear to come from stress. Number two is seek expert advice and support with specific challenges. There is some fantastic support if you're in the UK. There's fantastic support from the Mental Health Foundation or from mind, which is a leading mental health charity. I would check out both of those. And a lot of organizations have employee assistance programs, which include some free counseling or advice. I would definitely consider sharing your concerns with a really confident person, like a family member. Might be someone in the organization, but quite often it's also someone outside, like a peer who's a bit more trusted and that you feel will keep your counsel and will respect your privacy while you try and work through what the best way to do that these things are, speak to a coach or mentor, would be number four. So I think in this particular space, particularly if the symptoms aren't serious at the stage, but you're just beginning to be aware that things are getting a bit much. It can be really helpful to speak to someone who's in a more distant relationship, but in a sort of semi formal relationship, like a mentor in one and then the fifth is reach out to your wider network for advice and ideas. So I did this the other day. Funnily enough, I was feeling a bit I was struggling, not struggling, but I was just feeling a bit blue, and I was a bit flat. So I posted something on LinkedIn just to say, you know, didn't say I was feeling flat. I just said, Hey, how are you guys all dealing with the kind of challenges of lockdown at the moment? What would you suggest if you had one thing, and I got about 40 people who clearly read between the lines and went, Oh, she's having a bad day. And made loads of lovely suggestions about things they were doing, everything from journaling to making music to having a dance while they, you know, do the washing up all sorts of things. And, you know, there was also some more practical stuff in there as well. So I would recommend that too. So those are three ways of thinking about coping. One is about challenging stresses. The second James just talked us through is about how you manage yourself. And the third is about seeking support from others, which completes our ABC model of awareness being well and coping in order to manage stress. And I think that brings us to the end of our research. Round up, James, what do you think? I think

there's some great stuff in there. I really like the simplicity of thinking about it as ABCs. And I think a theme for a lot of the things we do is to start with awareness, and that's important. And you know, being well hugely important, and then coping in a moment is as well. So overall, I'm pretty pleased with it. What about

you? Yeah, I just, I think there's so much good sense in there. That's the only way I can describe it. Really, I just feel like there's a lot of sense. And I think when you're going through periods of stress, it's really easy to feel overwhelmed or so, okay, let me rephrase. I often feel overwhelmed. That's how my stress tends to show up. And so having like, a list of 25 different ways of thinking about it. Like, what is it? Is it? Is it? There's a sort of stress. Is it that I'm not looking after myself as much? Is there something I can do about it? Do I actually need to be thinking about coping? You know, it all of that gives me some level of structure which is helpful. Cool.

All right, well, let's move on to list of a week. And we focused a lot so far on individuals, and, you know, kind of managing stress as an individual, and understanding your sources of stress as an individual, and all that kind of stuff. But we said at the beginning that one of the things we're kind of interested in is the role of organizations, and being part of an organization can have, you know, the role that that can have on the stress of individuals and some of the impacts. And one of the things that we know is that organizations can be contributors to stress. So there are things that organizations do that increase stress within their teams and individuals, but there are also some things that organizations can do or ways of working that they can bring in that actually help to reduce the, I guess, the level of stress that individuals feel that they have, or maybe more specific. We can help give them a sense of sort of resources and things that help them face into and reduce the stress that they feel because of the things that they have. And I think Jane is going to talk through those now as our little list of the week. Can I hand over to you now? Jane, yep,

so I'm going to talk us through four of the themes that can when they're improved for someone, can help them cope with stress better, and also a little bit about what organizations can do. So the first is autonomy or control. So when people feel they have more autonomy or control over their work, they are more able to cope with the challenges of stress. Okay, and so practically, what does that mean? Well, organizations can give people more flexibility about where they work, how they work, or they could give people more control over which pieces of work they do. At its simplest level, the second is support. So one of the ways in which people are more likely to be able to cope with stress, and we've talked about this loads already, is if they have a better sense of support, that might be a network of support, that might be support from the organization, that might be that their boss advocates for them, but ultimately, where people feel supported, they are more able to cope. So as an organization, you can make sure that people have an opportunity to talk to each other about this stuff. Make sure that managers have space to advocate for their teams, etc. The third is information and feedback. So people tend to be able to better cope with challenges and with stress when they have more information to go on about how they can change things. So when we talk about feedback, we're not just talking about like, you know, your end of year review. We're talking about little bits of information. So for example, if I am to set up a database and people are letting me know that there is an extra field they need, then I can adjust to that, and then I don't get as many sort of questions about it. But also I feel less stressed, right? Because I'm getting less I feel more proactive about it, and I'm more able to adjust. That's the same as if I am getting data or information from the organization. So it's really the best thing organizations can do is free up as much of the data and information as they can for people, the most common, one of the most common stresses around information feedback is not knowing details of the direction of the organization or the strategy or how your work fits in. So that can be a really simple thing for organizations to fix. And then a fourth super common theme is lack of work engagement. So where people have work engagement, they tend to be much more able to cope and to be resilient to stress. And so there's lots of ways that organizations can think about how people are engaged with their work. And one of the best I've ever seen is was in a nonprofit. But it's not relevant only to them, where they used to have half a day a year where you were allowed to go out and meet a beneficiary. So for profit company, this might be a customer, and you would spend time to see their product or their service in use. And so even if you were in the accounts department, you've got to see the equipment being used in a school. And that was really powerful for people feeling right. Okay, I'm actually, I'm doing something that's part of the bigger picture here. So there's a whistle stop list of four ways in which you can people can find that if the situation is improved, they will be able to cope with more. And in each of those, there is an organ way that the organization can play a role. James, what do you think? I think

that's a lovely list, and one of the things that I really like about that is that, you know, these aren't like financially driven, expensive things for organizations to do. This comes back to an understanding, to some extent, of group dynamics and how individuals work, and how you can just manage or lead in a more effective way to create a better working environment for your people. So So I think those are great things, and, you know, they will all reduce stress, but I think they'll do more than that. I think they they contribute to, you know, pride and discretionary input and satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment. So I think they're a great list good.

So how about, do you have any stories from the keyboard you'd like to share?

Well, I've got a couple things on my mind. So just as you were speaking, I've got one as a total throwaway comment because it made me laugh, and another as a bit more of a reflection. So you were saying there about, you know, when you were speaking about work engagement, about going out and, you know, meeting your customers and all that kind of stuff. And when I was in working in a bank, I occasionally I would do that, but the way it worked is I'd need to arrange to go via a branch, to go and spend time, pardon me, in a branch. And actually, you know, be involved in that side of things. And I did it a couple times, but both times I went out. This is probably a reflection of something. To do with where I was. I go out, and everyone in the branch kind of thought I was there as a spy. So it was really a bit difficult and unfortunate. So instead of, you know, getting an insight into customer experience, I got defensiveness from some people, and I got other people kind of confiding in me and telling me all the things that were a bit wrong or could be better, and all this kind of stuff. So it was a really strange, strange experience. So even though I told him why I was there just to learn, nobody really believed that, which, anyway, that was just a little bit of a throwaway comment that popped into my mind in terms of something that might actually be more helpful in terms of real life things, one of the things I've seen is this kind of confluence between what we speak about, what we're speaking about here, under these these resource themes and themes organizations can do about provision of information, and the thing that we spoke about earlier under the awareness of stress on our thinking, and something I've seen a lot when I've worked with teams or with individuals, from a sort of team coaching perspective, is that individuals quite often lack information. So So somebody's not providing information, not from any, you know, malicious or negative intention, just inadvertently not keeping people in the loop, right? So there's this dearth of information and feedback, and what happens is the individuals really get triggered into a negative thinking way of thinking because they don't have the feedback. So somebody will start to assume, well, somebody's not giving me information. That means it must be a bad thing. And not only must there be a bad thing coming, but the fact that they haven't told me that there's a bad thing coming means that they probably don't like me, and because they probably don't like me, it means I'm not doing any good work. And all work, and all my colleagues are doing better work for me, and everyone likes for more than me, and they're going to be performing much better. And really, I should probably like not bother working anymore, and maybe I should think about drafting a resignation, and maybe I should get a new job. And that combination of negative thinking combined with lack of information and feedback can be can be quite detrimental, and it's inadvertent on both sides, and part of it stems from that lack of self awareness amongst leaders. From the lack of self awareness of it, they would provide more information and feedback, and from the individual perspective in that they're not aware of the negativity in their thinking and how they can overcome some of that. So there we go. So you asked me a simple question, and I rabbit it on at you for a minute.

So I know it's podcast, and therefore no one can see me smiling. But the reason I'm smiling is because listening to that sounded like me. What goes on in my head, and what I thought was really interesting is that for a long time, I thought I was a praise junkie.

I thought I was like desperate to have praise constantly, and what I realized is I worked in an organization that had very little information available to me about how I was doing or how the things that I was doing were executed, and whether they were successful, and therefore praise was a replacement. And actually, I don't really care about praise, is what I discovered, but what I do care about is being able to see if what I'm doing is working. And therefore, I made it a rule that forevermore, I would work in an organization that could give me decent data about the success of anything I executed.

It sounds like a good thing to aspire to. I guess it's hard, but it's definitely a great way to try and do it.

Yeah, and I think let me rephrase organizations that had ambitions to and understood the importance of it rather than cool. What about you? Any any lessons you'd like to share? I think for me,

the biggest lesson that I learned is that saying it out loud you mentioned bursting into tears is like one of the signposts, right? That's not my, my, my, that's not particularly a signifier of me being stressed. It's usually a signifier of me having fronted up to that stress. So quite often, I'll get the words out, and then I'll be feel so relieved that I don't only own those words about feeling stressed about something that I'll have a little cry. Sorry, but I feel better now and and I think, I think the power of just saying it out loud, even in a private room, and practicing it a couple of times before you say to someone, if you're a bit nervous about saying it is really, really important. And it is, it catches me out every time. Cool. So have you got any, maybe final thoughts we want to share before we wrap up today.

So my final thought would be, you're not alone. Google it and go and find some websites that have helpful advice if you're feeling stressed, like mind and Mental Health Foundation, because the start to improving the situation is to acknowledge there is a situation and that you are experiencing

it. Yeah, I think that's that's powerful, yeah. I just build on that and say, you know, just the last thing is that if, if you are looking to manage things yourself, and it gets difficult. Get some help, right? I mean, all the things that we're speaking about here are things that you can do when, when the waters of your life are generally fairly calm, if life gets really difficult, do get some help and support from somebody who's a professional because, because that's just the right thing to do. I mean, it's, it's something that a lot of people do in the course of their life, and it's exactly what you should do. And likewise, if you're in an organization, and do you think somebody needs some help, then supporting them with that would be good as well. So that's, I guess, the last bit for me. Great. Cool. All right. Well, let us just check out. So that's the end of our episode this week on stress and resilience, and we'll be back again next week with another episode. In the meantime, you can get in touch with us. How can I do that? Jen, how can people

get in touch with us? So as always, we love to get involved on social media. So we both have individual process profiles on LinkedIn. The world of work project also has a page on LinkedIn, but you will probably most commonly find me on Twitter, at Jamie underscore s or at the wild podcast, where you will occasionally find James too. And we have a website where you can sign up to our mailing www.worldwork.io, and you can also find details of all of our online seminars and other services as well. So take a look.