Conversely, you need to know who, if anyone, does not care about you or your needs, so that you can minimise any damage that they might do. Working relationships need to include trust, supportiveness, respect for each other, willingness to listen to each other and a willingness to use joint problem solving skills to help either of you as necessary.

If you find that your relationships consistently fall short of the above, then remember:

The only change you can bring about is to yourself.

Don’t waste time trying to change the other person. You will only add to your stress! You may be able to get them to agree that their behaviour needs to change, but it is not the role of the manager to try to change someone’s personality. It is important when giving feedback, for example, to make it clear that you are addressing their behaviour, not them as individuals.

The Manager

Major stress management issues can occur when the problem relationship is with your manager. One of the things I have noticed as a consultant, is that everyone seems to have a ‘bad boss’. Clerical staff complain, supervisors complain, first level managers complain, middle managers complain and senior managers complain. By the law of statistics, since everyone in an organisation other than the CEO has a manager, some of those complaining must themselves be bad bosses! So think about yourself as well as about your manager as you read on. One of the ‘bad bosses’ may be you!

The effects of bad bosses can be seen in many workplaces: people’s ‘get up and go’ has got up and gone, there’s no drive, no creativity, high absenteeism, fear of taking initiative etc.

Stress Management Exercise

How many of these behaviours, these symptoms, are common in your organisation?

Stress Management and Handling Conflict

If you need to confront someone, and s(he) is one who often behaves in the ways described on the previous page, plan the encounter. The following may help you:

1. Try to think of something that the other person values, considers to be important.
2. Describe what (s)he has done, or what you need from her/him, in terms of the thing they value.
3. If necessary, describe the effect on you of not being able to deliver what they value, and if appropriate, how you feel about this effect.

Use language that is calm, that is non-judgemental. Don’t be seen to be criticising, rather be seen to be concerned. The aim is to avoid putting the other person on the defensive.

This concludes the three part series of articles. If you want to discuss stress management any further, please do not hesitate to contact LDI Limited

Type A Behaviours

• Hurried Speech
• Constant, rapid movement/eating
• Thinking and doing several things at once
• Vague guilty feelings during periods of relaxation, when doing nothing
• No compassion for other Type A’s
• Open impatience with the rate at which things occur and how others operate; chronic sense of time urgency

• An active attempt to dominate the conversation, to determine the topics and to remain preoccupied with one’s own thoughts when others are talking

• Over concern with getting things worth having – no time to become the things worth being

• Characteristic nervous gestures – tics, clench fist and jaw, pound on table, grind teeth

• Hate queuing, having to wait in line, having to wait generally.

• Always in a hurry

Type B Behaviours

• Complete freedom from Type A traits
• No sense of time urgency
• No free floating time hostility
• No felt need to display or discuss one’s achievements and accomplishments unless the situation demands it

• A belief that play exists for fun and relaxation not to exhibit superiority

• An ability to relax without guilt and to work without agitation

Where things become a little more complicated is when you are trying to work out whether someone is genuinely a Type B personality or whether they are naturally a Type A but have learned to modify their behaviour as part of their stress management strategy. A clue can sometimes be found in the way they manage relationships, next week’s topic in the final part of this trilogy on stress management.

Type A Characteristics, Stress and Heart Disease

In the late 50’s two cardiologists Meyer Freedman and Ray Rosenham noticed that amongst their patients with coronary heart disease there were many who shared a common behaviour pattern. They called these people Type A’s. Type A’s were considered to be aggressive, competitive, impatient and in a hurry. They tend to speak rapidly and loudly, interrupted others, were poor listeners and were easily irritated. People without these types of behaviour were labelled Type B’s. They are people with few of the above characteristics and were calmer, more relaxed and patient in their approach to life.

In a major study, Freedman and Rosenham showed that Type A’s were twice as likely to have heart attacks than Type B’s, even when risk factors such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels were taken into account.

 Organisations Reward Type A Behaviours

Subsequent research has shown that despite the health risk they run, Type A’s are more likely to hold senior positions in organisations and are likely to be successful at work. This is not matched in their social and domestic lives however. They are less likely to have happy marriages, will have fewer friends and outside interests, and in work are less likely to devote time to being with people. This is partly because they devote the bulk of their time to work itself.

Recent Research Into Stress

Recent research has shown the following:

a.    Type A’s who feel in control of their environment are likely to be healthier than those who feel very little control over their circumstances. In other words, when a person’s competitive spirit is balanced by a sense of mastery, through good social skills, personal organisation and high self esteem, they may be much less susceptible to heart disease. Type A’s who lack social skills, and feel repressed and hostile, are less likely to feel mastery and may actually feel the victims of circumstances which they try to fight against.

b.    All aspects of a work environment which reduce the sense of control may cause problems for Type A’s. For example over promotion, too much responsibility, work overload and low participation in decision making.

c.     Type A’s increase their risk of heart disease by ignoring the warning signs their body gives them. For example, fatigue and chest pains.

d.     Other risk factors, such as smoking, obesity, raised blood pressure and raised cholesterol levels, compound with Type A characteristics to increase risk.

There is evidence that modifying Type A characteristics works and helps in stress management. Use of relaxation exercises, time management and social support have been shown to lower cholesterol levels and blood pressure. Learning when it is inappropriate to be competitive and OK to relax helps, as does learning to slow down and take a more realistic view of time.

The important thing is to modify Type A behaviours in a way that improves health and allows the person to maintain and even enhance their ability to success at a high level. In the next article we’ll look at the characteristic behaviour patterns of Type A and Type B personalities and how such information can help in stress management.

• 7% of meaning is in the words that are spoken.
• 38% of meaning is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said).
• 55% of meaning is in the body language.

If the trainer/author knows the origin of these figures, they will attribute them to Albert Mehrabian. However, even a brief search via Google will quickly reveal that whilst this information is widespread, it is in fact a myth.

All Mehrabian’s research showed was that in situations where there is an incongruence between words and expression, and where the message has an emotional content and context, then in his study, people tended to believe the expression they saw, not the words spoken.

Their interpretation was as follows:
• 7% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes was in the words that are spoken.
• 38% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes was paralinguistic (the way that the words are said).
• 55% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes was in facial expression.

Interestingly, with regards to the 55% of the message, it was not even whole body language. The research subjects were shown a head shot photo of the speaker.

What is more, as Mehrabian points out when reviewing the study in his book (1), there are other more significant factors, such as the relationship between the communicator and the receiver that will affect how meaning is deduced, and that these factors can easily override the 7/38/55 split.

There are also problems with the study itself; it is based on the response of only 37 female, University of California, psychology undergraduates, hardly a representative sample in either number or background! And the 7/38/55 formula that people quote is not even derived from a single uniform study looking at the three types of responses; rather it is derived from combining the results of two studies – one that compared single words to vocal tone, the other that compared facial cues to vocal tone. No study was carried out to complete the triangle, comparing single words with facial expressions.

What I find surprising is that many writers (eg http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/12/12-1332.html, and http://resourcemagazine.co.uk/acatalog/lapakko.pdf) have tried to debunk this myth with little success – why is it so persistent?

Leaving the final word with Mehrabian himself: “My findings are often misquoted. Please remember that all my findings on inconsistent or redundant communication deal with communications of feelings and attitudes. This is the realm within which they are applicable. Clearly it is absurd to imply or suggest that the verbal portion of all communication constitutes only 7% of the message. Suppose I wanted to tell you that the eraser you are looking for is in the second right-hand drawer of the desk in my third floor office. How could anyone contend that the verbal part of this message is only 7% of the message? Instead and more accurately, the verbal part is nearly 100% of the message. Again, anytime we communicate abstract relationships, clearly 100% of the entire communication is verbal.”

(1) Mehrabian A, “Silent Messages” — A Primer of Nonverbal Communication (Body Language) for the General Audience, 1981, Wadsworth Publishing Co

Using a coach to help you to make your life better is not something that you should be ashamed of. For some reason, business people tend to see asking for help as a sign of weakness. This is crazy – no sports person would ever take that approach!

Before approaching anyone, make a list of the things that you want to achieve from the coaching. Are you looking for executive coaching, coaching to deal with a specific issue, or what has become known as “life-coaching”?

Three Types of Coach

Having made that decision, beware that the coaching world is highly ambiguous.  There are at least three different type of coach:

Some coaches will bombard you with their qualifications yet they have little if an experience that is relevant to you.

The next group is made up of those who have coaching qualifications from a sporting background and are using those skills in the business arena.  Before dismissing these, bear in mind that the GROW model came out of just such a consultancy. And because sporting bodies insist on a rigorous syllabus, these coaches are usually highly trained.

The third group may have limited if any in the way of formal qualifications yet have a lot of experience to impart.

Although the latter may be tempting to use, the problem is that without education in coaching processes, they may end up advising you to do as they did, without exploring all available options.

Ideally, you should ask for testimonials – however, this can be problematic as many coaching clients wish to remain anonymous. Another approach is to interview the coach quite rigorously and ask for examples of how they would approach specific situations.

Once you have found your preferred coach, constantly monitor progress. Some progress should be evident from the start. If you find after a couple that you are making no progress, then you must take the initiative to make things go your way and to be more successful in life.

Record Progress

Keep a journal. Make a list of the good things that happen for you and what you are gaining from them.  Take the time to write down anything that is not working for you so that you can make the necessary changes.

If you are not making progress in an area that is a major one for you, discuss it with your coach sooner rather than later. It is important that you do not stick with a coaching strategy if it is not working for you.  There are so many different techniques that can be used. Above all, be quick to end a relationship with any coach who suggests that there is only one way to deal with a particular situation. There is always more than one way!

Caution

One word of warning – do not expect your coach to make the changes for you. Far too many clients just sit back and expect change to happen. The coach’s role is to act as a facilitator, a resource for you to use to make the changes you want. There is nothing in life that you cannot achieve if you work hard at it and do whatever is necessary to be in control of things but you have to do it. If you are serious about making changes and being more successful with every possible part of your life then you need to apply yourself and be ready for any challenge that comes your way.

1. Leaders come in different flavors.

There are different types of leaders and you will probably encounter more than one type in your lifetime. Formal leaders are those we elect into positions or offices such as the senators, congressmen, and presidents of the local clubs. Informal leaders or those we look up to by virtue of their wisdom and experience such as in the case of the elders of a tribe, or our grandparents; or by virtue of their expertise and contribution on a given field such as Albert Einstein in the field of Theoretical Physics and Leonardo da Vinci in the field of the Arts. Both formal and informal leaders practice a combination of leadership styles.

·     Lewin’s three basic leadership styles – authoritative, participative, and delegative

·     Likert’s four leadership styles – exploitive authoritative, benevolent authoritative, consultative, and participative

·     Goleman’s six emotional leadership styles – visionary, coaching, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and commanding.

2. Leadership is a process of becoming.

Although certain people seem to be born with innate leadership qualities, without the right environment and exposure, they may fail to develop their full potential. So like learning how to ride a bicycle, you can also learn how to become a leader and hone your leadership abilities. Knowledge on leadership theories and skills may be formally gained by enrolling in leadership seminars, workshops, and conferences. Daily interactions with people provide the opportunity to observe and practice leadership theories. Together, formal and informal learning will help you gain leadership attitudes, gain leadership insights, and thus furthering the cycle of learning. You do not become a leader in one day and just stop. Life-long learning is important in becoming a good leader for each day brings new experiences that put your knowledge, skills, and attitude to a test.

3. Leadership starts with you.

The best way to develop leadership qualities is to apply it to your own life. As an adage goes “action speaks louder than words.” Leaders are always in the limelight. Keep in mind that your credibility as a leader depends much on your actions: your interaction with your family, friends, and co-workers; your way of managing your personal and organizational responsibilities; and even the way you talk with the newspaper vendor across the street. Repeated actions become habits. Habits in turn form a person’s character. Steven Covey’s book entitled 7 Habits of Highly Effective People provides good insights on how you can achieve personal leadership.

4. Leadership is shared

Leadership is not the sole responsibility of one person, but rather a shared responsibility among members of an emerging team. A leader belongs to a group. Each member has responsibilities to fulfill. Formal leadership positions are merely added responsibilities aside from their responsibilities as members of the team. Effective leadership requires members to do their share of work. Starting as a mere group of individuals, members and leaders work towards the formation of an effective team. In this light, social interaction plays a major role in leadership. To learn how to work together requires a great deal of trust between and among leaders and members of an emerging team. Trust is built upon actions and not merely on words. When mutual respect exists, trust is fostered and confidence is built.

5. Leadership styles depend on the situation.

How come dictatorship works for Singapore but not in the United States of America? Aside from culture, beliefs, value system, and form of government, the current situation of a nation also affects the leadership styles used by its formal leaders. There is no rule that only one style can be used. Most of the time, leaders employ a combination of leadership styles depending on the situation. In emergency situations such as periods of war and calamity, decision-making is a matter of life and death. Thus, a nation’s leader cannot afford to consult with all departments to arrive at crucial decisions.

The case is of course different in times of peace and order—different sectors and other branches of government can freely interact and participate in governance. Another case in point is in leading organizations. When the staffs are highly motivated and competent, a combination of high delegative and moderate participative styles of leadership is most appropriate. But if the staffs have low competence and low commitment, a combination of high coaching, high supporting, and high directing behavior from organizational leaders is required.

Now that you are reminded of these things, keep in mind that there are always ideas that we think we already know; concepts we take for granted, but are actually the most useful insights on leadership.

Things are changing again – one of the key challenge now is for businesses to stop focusing on the technology and to focus onthe business benefits you can achieve with the technology.

This has to happen if businesses are to put the customer back into customer service. ( For the sake of this article I understand customer care to be a subset of customer service). At a macro level, organisations need to examine every point in their day-to-day operation where interaction takes place with the customer. They need to ask themselves whether their channels of communication and their processes are self-serving or customer focused. Hiding terms and conditions in the small print is unacceptable; transparency is the “new” buzzword.

I say “new” because I remember running customer service workshops in the mid-90s and saying the same thing! The current challenge is to make sure that our enthusiasm for the opportunities offered by social media technology doesn’t get in the way of our ability to deliver high standards of customer service.

At a micro level, staff need to understand that a heart motivated by self-interest views the world in terms of ‘give a little, take a lot’. They will be more focused on their job security, their pay, their next break rather than on the customer.

Senior management need to understand that that unless they treat their staff in the way they want staff to treat customers, high standards of customer service won’t happen! It’s a challenge but the organisations that get this right will be the ones that thrive in the next decade.

Our own experience adds another reason; we use a cultural survey that allows people in an organisation to identify where the culture is now and where they want it to be. Whilst there is often agreement throughout the organisation about the destination, there is often a completely differing interpretation of the current culture. Directors and senior management often have a rose tinted view of the current reality. What hope is there for a change project if people are starting from different places?

Finally, just as psychology and science are having to re-invent themselves to take into account human consciousness, so consultants specialising in organisational transformation are having to move away from processes that focus on performance and start paying more attention to the human dimension.

To take just one example, think about the organisations that championed business process re-engineering (BPR). In the words of Michael Hammer, who was one of the leaders in the field, BPR was “the radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed.”

Inevitably, in such a culture, personal fulfilment, creativity and output decline.

The irony is that it creates a vicious cycle; the most able people refused to accept the stress associated with working in such a culture and left to work in a more pleasant environment,leaving their original organisation even more denuded of motivated, capable people. As Arie de Geus writes in The Living Company, (HBS Press, 1997,) “Organizations die….. because their managers…….forget that their organization’s true nature is that of a community of humans.”

What to do about it? The starting point, before embarking on any change project is to ask, and discuss fully with everyone involved, 3 simple questions:

1. What to Change?
2. What to Change to?
3. How to Change.

And our advice is, on’t proceed until you have clear answers to all three./

1.   Do you conceive of a company as being:

a.   A system designed to perform functions and tasks in an efficient way. People are hired to perform these functions with the help of machines and other equipment. They are paid for the tasks they perform.

b.   A group of people working together. They have social relations with other people and with the organization. The functioning is dependent on these relations.

% of nationalities who favoured ‘a’:

2.   Which is more important?

a.   That individuals have as much personal freedom as possible.

b.   That individuals take care of each other, even if it restricts individual freedom.

% of nationalities who favoured ‘a’:

3.   Which is more appropriate?

a.   That people work as individuals, making their own decisions.

b.   People work together, making decisions collectively.

% of nationalities who favoured ‘a’:

4.   When a fault has been detected is it the responsibility of:

a.   The person causing the fault.

b.   The team in which the individual worked

% of nationalities who favoured ‘a’:

5.   Would you express your feelings openly at work if something at work had upset you?

% of nationalities who said ‘no’::

6.   It is correct to act as it suits you, even if nothing is achieved:

% of nationalities who disagreed

7.   The respect that you are accorded depends on your family background.

% of nationalities who disagreed

8.   Do you believe that what happens to you is your own doing?

% of nationalities who agreed

Recognising the different time orientations

Practical tips for doing business in past-, present- or future oriented cultures

These are:

1.      Raising its charges/fees

2.      Increasing sales volume/utilisation of its people

3.      Reducing costs

4.      Selling a more profitable mix of services

5.      Reducing the capital employed in the organisation

But how well trained are your senior team to deal with the consequences of these decisions?

1.     RAISING CHARGES/FEES

In practice raising fees may produce a reaction from clients and customers – ‘you’re uncompetitive!’  The effect on profit will depend upon the price elasticity of demand, i.e. whether a relatively small change in fee will bring about a large change in turnover. The key to challenging client reaction based solely on fee rate is to explore the ‘value’ driven message. Can the senior team really get the ‘value’ message through to both customers and staff? What REALLY differentiates us from the competition? How confident are we to sell that to our staff and customers?

2.     INCREASED SALES VOLUME/UTILISATION OF YOUR PEOPLE

Obviously if an increased sales volume of a given mix of services can be achieved without affecting fees or costs this will produce an increase in profits and profitability.

However in practice increased sales volume is often achieved at the expense of profitability as charges/fees are cut to encourage the market to buy more or costs rise as business is drawn from a wider area.  Thus the inter-relationships of volume/fees/costs are critical in assessing the merits of chasing an increased volume of sales turnover.

Senior leaders are often guilty of giving out a message SOLELY about increasing the utilisation of our assets and people. This often leads to us becoming busy fools. Utilisation increases alone are not the key factor to long term sustainable business success. Making cost effective service provision or profitable products part of your organisation’s brand is what is important.

3.     REDUCING COSTS

‘You can always reduce costs by 10%’ Maybe. But we know some industries where that mantra is wearing very, very thin! Sometimes the cost reduction response is a knee jerk reaction intended only to punish ourselves for being incapable of delivering good value in the market. The ensuing self flagellation of cost reduction merely sets us back even further as our infrastructure base crumbles – our kit is not renewed, the client relationships go untended, our capabilities are left to fester.

4.     CHANGING THE PRODUCT/SERVICE SALES MIX

In the short term the capacity of an organisation to meet an unlimited demand is constrained by its limiting factor, e.g. labour, machine or process capacity, space, sales firepower etc.

The mix of sales that the organisation is able to achieve during a given period may therefore have a profound effect on overall organisation profitability.

Is our senior team capable of making the right decision at the right time? To move away from the traditional, safe business area into the one which nobody yet really knows will take off?

5.     REDUCING THE CAPITAL EMPLOYED IN THE ORGANISATION

Courtesy of our Japanese colleagues this has been an area of senior leadership focus for the last 25 years in the UK (maybe more).

But in some ways it is the least practical way of improving profitability unless the organisation is already in a situation of being overstocked or having money tied up in an excessive levels of working capital. To what extent do our senior leaders really exhibit ‘joined up’ thinking? How does our working capital policy really impact on the customers and the effectiveness of the workforce? Would you go to a restaurant that had to send out for a bottle of wine every time you ordered one? Would your staff want to offer wine to customers knowing that situation arose everytime? Working capital indicators look great but how are your wine sales doing?