4 Critical Stress management Skills For Organizations

This article will focus on 4 critical stress management skills that will show how to think about stress and what practical steps to take.

Stress is everywhere. It cannot be eradicated but it can be managed, instead of it managing us.

Especially, as the world is trying to rebound from the Covid impacts and tries to find a path to some semblance of normalcy. Training for stress management skills is crucial to find this path.

The focus needs to shift to how to manage stress effectively and finding proactive ways that are put to practice repetitively.

These new ways must become a set of stress management skills that are used regularly as part of “doing business”. Just like spreadsheets, marketing, and the like.

So, the new focus is not how to eradicate stress but rather how to manage it in a way that doesn’t take people away from being effective in what they do, while regaining confidence after a very challenging period.

The fact is that without stress management skills people underperform in every possible parameter because they can’t think or be truly conscious to who they are and what they do!

in other words, stress causes mental blindness.

Treating Stress Like a Virus

If we learned anything from the Coronavirus it was that viruses need confinement. Which means limiting its possibility to spread grow and affect many people.

In a way, we are preventing stress from getting its food, which is people’s emotions.

Stress management is firstly about understanding what causes stress, and only then methodically limiting its “roaming” freedom by gaining basic stress management skills and applying them.

The first of the stress management skills is learning to “quarantine” it.

Skill 1: Quarantine

What this means is basically recognizing the face of stress and how it appears in the workplace, while limiting its expression by applying stress management skills.

Quarantine of the virus before it spreads is stress prevention, which relies on anticipation, early recognition, and monitoring of human response in the workplace or within the organization.

It needs to be traced to its cause and then measures need to be taken to neutralize its tendency to affect all.

Stress management in this case is not giving food to what causes stress by keeping things hidden, and informing all concerned with that intention.

Learning to say a firm “NO” to control people by keeping them in the dark, which is one of the main stress-feeding mechanisms is essential!

Stress does not survive well in the light but grows in the dark.

So, obviously, a key to stress management skills is to limit its domain of expansion by informing all concerned of the nature of stress, what causes it and how it shows up between people.

Being proactive and anticipating stress that accompanies change and new decisions is smart strategic thinking that leaders can do well with, as part of their stress management tool kit.

When you anticipate, you catch things quick and it expedites your ability to quarantine the stress virus before it wreaks havoc in your organization.

That’s what the powers that be DID NOT DO WITH THE CORONA, which exactly highlights the point that these are for the most part absent skills from the 21st-century leadership tool kit.

Skill 2: Communication

People are very worried about how any change will affect them and addressing it is a key to stress management skills. They get to know that you know and that you take the time to inform them.

This aspect works wonders in stress management. This is where communication as an all important skill comes into the stress management tool kit.

Communication is a word that has been cheapened by its commonality of usage. However, communication as a stress management skill is extremely underrated.

The kind of communication written here talks of informative, factual, and feeling-oriented communication that uses the main 3 aspects of Words, Tone of Voice, and Body Language, effectively.

Healthy communication casts light, and as was written in the previous paragraph, stress shrinks in the light.

In my stress management seminars, I focus on the communication of a new kind that is truly an eye-opener as part of a new toolkit of stress management skills.

When people are spoken to as human beings, not as robots it does wonders to relieve stress and aggravation in ways that make them open up and able to deal with difficulties in a greatly enhanced manner.

I write this because this stress management skill is mostly absent in leadership who tend to focus on hard skills and don’t seem to understand that the answer is in soft skills.

Many leaders seem to ignore its vital importance because it “exposes” their humanity which they regard as weakness.

The opposite is true.

It is a strength to communicate to people in a way that relieves stress, which may include a smile, a tap on the shoulder, and even a hug. Yes, from leadership, as a natural part of stress management skills.

Skill 3: Emotional Intelligence

Another one of the critical stress management skills that are ignored in favor of marketing, spreadsheets, and the like is emotional intelligence.

Human emotions have been made weak & fragile because of over usage in wrong territories. That is where emotional intelligence as part of stress management skills needs to be expressed.

Note: if people don’t show emotions it doesn’t mean they are strong. The opposite is true!

Understanding emotional intelligence in the context of stress management skills is fragile and much can be done to neutralize stress when the right kind of “emotional buttons” are pressed.

Empathy goes a long way to relieve stress and aggravation as it shows a person that they are seen. Not being acknowledged “lonelinizes” people and causes their stress levels to increase.

People do well when acknowledgment & togetherness are present.

It’s a wise person who uses it as one of the critical stress management skills.

It increases tolerances, solves problems, and bridges mental and emotional gaps between people.

It is to do with coupling with the positive and denying the negative which are crucial to having stress management skills.

Emotional intelligence skill as part of stress management skills has a sensitivity to other people’s difficulties and their struggles. It lends a “genuine” ear even if does not necessarily agree with them.

Skill 4: Building Cohesive Teams

Much can be written about this aspect as it is central to stress management skills, but unfortunately has not been understood as such.

Team building at its core is an important part of creating healthy organizations. Organizations where people don’t have to face a toxic workplace every day they come to work.

Why team building is a crucial part of stress management skills is because of the influence of the YELLOW INFLUENCE OF TOGETHERNESS.

What that influence does to people’s minds, well-being, and health  is nothing short of miraculous!

We have seen what happened to people during the coronavirus spread when they couldn’t be together.

Well, this is a great hint to those who have eyes to see about the importance of building cohesive teams at work as a critical aspect of stress management skills.

Cohesive teams breed health and when I conduct stress management skills courses this aspect gets a lot of attention.

Finally

Managing Stress – or – Being Managed by Stress?

As has been written, stress can’t be eradicated and it won’t go away.

Stress is a fact of life, it is here to stay, we all know it, and the best thing is to learn to deal with it practically by acquiring stress management skills that will help you to manage stress rather than being managed by it!

When stress manages the person, they are no longer themselves, their aptitude is severely diminished and they diminish from being natural.

Therefore, it becomes critical to seek professional development resources, to train the leadership and management in how to manage stress in the workplace by acquiring a set of stress management skills as this article indicates.

It requires a strategic plan template that the whole organization can follow.

Stress affects leadership in many adverse ways, and only powerful leadership skills will help reduce stress in the workplace, in particular, a stress management skill of “absorb and redirect”.

With stress management skills training, the organization is knowledgeable and knows what stress is about. It is ready and trained before it gets consumed by it.

There should be no fear of stress, for FEAR IS A LOUSY MANAGER.

Instead, there should be ongoing training with a firm set of stress management skills, which will amount to BEING PREPARED AND READY for this silent destroyer.

 

As a proven professional, I have demonstrated over 30 years that when you deal with stress management skills you got to go to the core of the problem and not merely be satisfied with quick, soon-to-evaporate symptomatic solutions.

Stress management skills are long-term solutions that need to be maintained and developed and organizations will do good by their resources to invest in such training.

For cutting-edge corporate stress management skills training seminars, which will be the best ROI course for your organization, bar none Contact me!

Eli Harari

The Life Coach for Professionals™

 

Image source: Pexels