Thursday, August 28, 2014
SPEED - Solving Problems Efficiently, Effectively & Decisively
Problem solving has, in this new generation found a more positive approach in that more focus is provided to the solution than the problem itself. This is a good shift away from the old problem-based orientation as it provides a variety of methods to apply. Thus, instead of focusing on passive 'problem-solving', it is the more active 'solving problems'.
In the EnSync methodology of solving problems called SPEED, there are several levels of focus: 1 principle which outlines the approach, 2 strategies that provide high-level orientations, 4 pillars of values and 4 types of problem types.
SPEED Principle
The principle of SPEED is "Menarik rambut dalam tepung. Rambut tidak putus, tepung tidak berselerak". The Melayu proverb speaks of making small but significant changes that minimise disruption yet achieves the objectives of the changes.
SPEED Strategies
The 2 core strategies of SPEED are:
1. "Help others sincerely in solving THEIR problems and Allah will make YOUR problems easier to resolve" - This is accepting that man was created to serve Allah, thus play a role in creating peace on Earth as His vicegerents. As such, His blessings are available for anyone who truly assist others to save them from difficulty. Even if you do not know how, Allah will show you the way. Just want to help, and help will come.
2. "Ask for help" - Keeping a problem to oneself will only stretch the limit of human capacity. By sharing his challenges and goals, one widens his capacity to receive assistance by other people or communities. Asking for help from Allah and His creation is not a sign of weakness. It is, in fact, a sign of humility.
SPEED PillarsSPEED is built upon 4 pillars, meaning when you inculcate these as your lifelong values, they will support your solving efforts. They are:
1. Acceptance - this is redha. Accept the reality of the situation and quickly move to resolve it.
2. Confidence - this is yaqin. Every disease has its cure. Every problem has a resolution, whether it resolves in your favour or otherwise. Therefore, become involved in the problem and solve it in your favour rather than stand back and do nothing.
3. Determination - this is doing everything with stamina and passion to find a solution, even if you don't see it yet. Have faith. "Dalam segala apa yang kita lakukan, lakukanlah bersungguh-sungguh".
4. Improvement - this is muhasabah. When you are once burned, why get a credit card again? After the tsunami, Malaysia is now better prepared. After our personal tsunamis, we want to be better prepared too.
Risk or Issue?
A problem is identified first as a Risk or an Issue. A risk is a potential problem and an issue is a present problem. Most people solve issues yet forget that risks, when left unprepared for, can develop exponentially into issues.
In a car, a neglecting to change a RM300 timing belt can easily escalate to becoming a RM3000 engine overhaul. A habit of not wearing the seatbelt can easily cause sudden and painful orphanhood.
Pay as much attention to identifying risks and nipping them in the bud as you do solving issues. "Sediakan payung sebelum hujan".
Problem Types
SPEED recognises that analysing problems is the first step to understanding its complexity since most problems have many moving parts. It is because of this that solvers sometimes oversimplify a problem and aren't able to resolve the cause-and-effects of complex 'problem'.
To see clearer, SPEED categorises all problems into only 4 types, represented by the acronym PDRM:
1. Process - resolving bottlenecks, blockages, lack of resources, delays, etc to maintain a controllable and desirable flow of value
2. Decisions - weighing between two or more similar options and choosing between them based on merit and being able to defend the decision.
3. Relationships - communicating clearly and persuading other people with as minimal emotional turmoil as possible.
4. Motivation - individual drive.
Most problems come as a mix of two or all four of the above, which, as previously mentioned, makes solving them challenging. Some people categorise health problems as a process issue. All they need is the money for an operation. Once they have it, they believe the problem is solved.
There is also the possibility that one's health problem affects one's motivation to live thus contributes them to die in the operating room or to take too long to heal.
This strains familial relationships. Thus, in this case, the 'health' problem comes bundled 3 disguised as 1.
Therefore, analyse the problems separately and solve them at the same time rather than sequentially.
Final SolutionAs human beings, we must accept that our ability to process problems are very limited, even when work together en masse. Thus, the realisation that Allah is the Ultimate Solver leads us to use that final and most powerful of tools in our toolbox, and that is supplication (du'a). For solving problems certainly feels like going to war, and Du'a is the weapon of the mu'minun.
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Nadzrin is a Professional Learning Facilitator and is currently a Learning Coach and Master Trainer at Accenture Learning's Kuala Lumpur Centre of Excellence. He is also the founder of the EnSync Workplace Performance Skills methodology based on his experience in Silat Melayu and corporate learning.
Mohd Nadzrin Wahab
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Why Customer Retention Is More Important Than Acquisition
Image: Mashable Composite, Getty Creative, Robert Churchill
"To be or not to be?" asks Shakespeare's Hamlet.
For years digital marketers faced the same conundrum: "to buy or not to buy?" in reference to purchasing leads and prospects — also known as spamming (although hopefully you're in the "not to buy" camp).
Knowing how to spend your marketing budget with confidence is always a challenge. Where do I allocate the money so it makes the most impact? How do I allocate the money in a way that I can show tangible results? These are the typical questions marketers ask themselves.
Of all the questions, the most critical to answer is: Do we invest good money in acquiring new customers, or do we focus on retaining the customers we have already acquired and personalize their experience? "To retain or acquire?" — this is the question.
And before I let you know the answer, let's look at what marketers are currently doing.
Image: Clickz
Image: Clickz
If you're a regular reader of my columns, you'd be expecting me to start talking about increasing allocation of budgets to retention. And you would be right, this is exactly what I am going to do...
Here is an example to start illustrating my thinking:
Joe is an online shoe retailer who became really successful with his business. He uses Google and Facebook to advertise the branded shoes he has on offer. In a hyper-competitive branded-shoe industry, the customers are only looking at the prices they can easily compare with a simple search. So Joe needs to invest a lot of money to generate sales. Ninety-eight percent of his business is first-time buyers. With only 2% repeat buyers, his product costs are most likely to look like this:
Acquisition: $20.00
G&A: $10.00
Shipping: $5.00
Product cost: $50.00
Profit margin: $15.00
Total: $100.00
With higher advertising costs and lower loyalty, he is seeing his acquisition costs spiking. With this example, and provided that advertising costs remains the same, he will need to sell 6,600 pairs of shoes for a profit of $100,000.
To prove my point, let's assume that 98% of his business will be focused on selling to clients he has already acquired: His profit margin grows to $35, as he is dropping his acquisition costs. In order to reach a $100,000 profit, he will now need to sell only 2,800 pairs of shoes (i.e. 58% less). This in turn will probably further help to decrease the G&A costs, and Joe will be able to pass on some of these savings to his customers.
I've recently argued that the role of the digital marketer is to sell, and here is a good example of a real impact on the company performance and margins that is directly attributed to the efforts of the marketer.
Continuing with this train of thought, it becomes clear that if you focus your efforts mostly on acquisition, you're actually working for your competitor who provides their client with a more individual customer experience, and making sure that their customers stay loyal.
And the winner is: retention!
If your startup days are behind you and your business is established, chances are that growing your business will be cheaper and faster if you retain and sell to your existing client base. This is not to suggest that you need to abandon acquisition efforts completely, but you need to shift the focus to your existing clients.
If you are a startup, then naturally your initial objectives should be to focus on new business acquisition, and then as the customer base increases, start shifting the focus to retention.
But before I finish, a quick word of caution regarding ERFM: If you intend to use ERFM analysis on your database, be careful if you are focusing too heavily on acquisitions. You will find that most customers will be skewed to the right hand side of the life cycle (inactive or churning clients), with much fewer customers in the center (loyal) and in the initial stages (first-time buyers).
Innovating at Scale: Building Trust
In the military, trust
is forced upon you. If you’re a soldier at a rendezvous point being
picked up by a helicopter, you have no choice but to place your life in
someone else’s hands. In business, trust has always been a bit harder to
come by. There is a natural desire to control the process and leave as
little to chance as possible.
Today’s networked economy is changing that. More and more organizations now operate in networked situations where ultimate success comes from the collective work of all. Now, as in the military, trust plays a critical role in the success of any organization.
For leaders looking to build trust, there are two key components to focus on: competence and benevolence.
Competence is the idea that every individual in an organization is committed to being a master of his or her craft. As we become more dependent on the work of others, people want to know that everyone is being held to the same high standard as they are. As a leader, it’s your job to instill confidence in your teams that everyone across the org is there because they know what they are doing.
The second piece is benevolence – which is the idea that other team members will solve problems for your best interests in addition to their own. In other words, people want to know their co-workers have their back. For leaders, this means making the ultimate metric for success not individual accomplishment, but instead solving for the greatest good.
Establishing this mindset is key to building trust. Now, instead of top-heavy teams weighed down with reps from every department looking out for their interests, leaders can put together fast and nimble small teams that have the faith of the entire org.
Of all the concepts I’ve discussed, trust is perhaps the hardest to pull off. Yet it is crucial because it underpins all the other concepts we have explored. Once trust is established at an organization, then you can truly have nimble teams moving fast with common purpose, shared consciousness, and with empowered execution – and build innovation at scale across an organization.
Posted by:
HARI SHEKHAAWAT
Today’s networked economy is changing that. More and more organizations now operate in networked situations where ultimate success comes from the collective work of all. Now, as in the military, trust plays a critical role in the success of any organization.
For leaders looking to build trust, there are two key components to focus on: competence and benevolence.
Competence is the idea that every individual in an organization is committed to being a master of his or her craft. As we become more dependent on the work of others, people want to know that everyone is being held to the same high standard as they are. As a leader, it’s your job to instill confidence in your teams that everyone across the org is there because they know what they are doing.
The second piece is benevolence – which is the idea that other team members will solve problems for your best interests in addition to their own. In other words, people want to know their co-workers have their back. For leaders, this means making the ultimate metric for success not individual accomplishment, but instead solving for the greatest good.
Establishing this mindset is key to building trust. Now, instead of top-heavy teams weighed down with reps from every department looking out for their interests, leaders can put together fast and nimble small teams that have the faith of the entire org.
Of all the concepts I’ve discussed, trust is perhaps the hardest to pull off. Yet it is crucial because it underpins all the other concepts we have explored. Once trust is established at an organization, then you can truly have nimble teams moving fast with common purpose, shared consciousness, and with empowered execution – and build innovation at scale across an organization.
Posted by:
HARI SHEKHAAWATTuesday, August 19, 2014
The Problem With Managing Millennials...(Is Not What You Think)
If I sit around and look through my LinkedIn feed or Facebook,
Twitter, Zite...whatever, I am bound to see something about the
millennials and their "narcissism" or their "poor work ethic" or what
have you. And, the point of this post isn't to say if these things are
true or they are not.
The point is that the problem with managing
millennials isn't them...its you. (I'll pause while you fire off a
hateful email to me...)
But here is the thing, no matter what person you are dealing with, no matter the generation, no matter the position...you, as the manager, are ultimately responsible for the performance of your team.
So I have found in working with my clients that a lot of the challenge of dealing with millennials stems from a poor grasp of setting clear goals and expectations for your teams. Which means that even if millennials have short attention spans, need praise, or anything else that is being said, as the manager, you need to set your expectations and goals in a clear and understandable way.
Here are a few tips to help:
1. Focus Your Goals On The Output: Too much of our time is spent on just doing tasks that don't move us towards our goals. Millennials are sometimes called lazy because they talk about "balance" between work and life. I think by focusing your goals on the outputs you are trying to achieve you accomplish a few key things...you give your team the flexibility to attempt to solve problems with creativity; you don't get bogged down on assigning tasks; and, if you are lucky, your team works hard to solve the challenge in an effective and efficient manner which will lead to more "balance" by allowing them to complete mission critical tasks and knowing what they need to accomplish to get out of the office.
2. Open Clear Lines Of Communication: No matter what you do, where you are in your career, people love to have information. The void of communication will always be filled and if you aren't careful it will be filled by bad or false information. So as a manager, help everyone by setting clear expectations for your communications with staff...including updates, status reports, and feedback. Its going to help tremendously.
3. Listen: Another big one I hear about millennials is that they want to be heard. And, somewhere along the line we seem to have forgotten the fact that as managers and leaders, we are only as good as the information we have at hand. So it only makes sense that you take a little time to talk with your team and listen. Sure listening takes time and building relationships with your staff is tough, but the first time you save a huge hunk of time and money by paying attention to something your team tells you, the investment will have paid off...and the added benefit is that you might not really be so willing to lump a whole group of people in generational stereotypes. And, that's something I guarantee will make you a better leader.
Posted by:
Dave Wakeman
But here is the thing, no matter what person you are dealing with, no matter the generation, no matter the position...you, as the manager, are ultimately responsible for the performance of your team.
So I have found in working with my clients that a lot of the challenge of dealing with millennials stems from a poor grasp of setting clear goals and expectations for your teams. Which means that even if millennials have short attention spans, need praise, or anything else that is being said, as the manager, you need to set your expectations and goals in a clear and understandable way.
Here are a few tips to help:
1. Focus Your Goals On The Output: Too much of our time is spent on just doing tasks that don't move us towards our goals. Millennials are sometimes called lazy because they talk about "balance" between work and life. I think by focusing your goals on the outputs you are trying to achieve you accomplish a few key things...you give your team the flexibility to attempt to solve problems with creativity; you don't get bogged down on assigning tasks; and, if you are lucky, your team works hard to solve the challenge in an effective and efficient manner which will lead to more "balance" by allowing them to complete mission critical tasks and knowing what they need to accomplish to get out of the office.
2. Open Clear Lines Of Communication: No matter what you do, where you are in your career, people love to have information. The void of communication will always be filled and if you aren't careful it will be filled by bad or false information. So as a manager, help everyone by setting clear expectations for your communications with staff...including updates, status reports, and feedback. Its going to help tremendously.
3. Listen: Another big one I hear about millennials is that they want to be heard. And, somewhere along the line we seem to have forgotten the fact that as managers and leaders, we are only as good as the information we have at hand. So it only makes sense that you take a little time to talk with your team and listen. Sure listening takes time and building relationships with your staff is tough, but the first time you save a huge hunk of time and money by paying attention to something your team tells you, the investment will have paid off...and the added benefit is that you might not really be so willing to lump a whole group of people in generational stereotypes. And, that's something I guarantee will make you a better leader.
Posted by:
Dave WakemanFour Pillars of Good Leadership
In my work I get the privilege of being exposed to some of the best leadership methods and seeing them tested on a regular basis. Sometimes I see outstanding leaders, sometimes I see marginal leaders, and sometimes I get the rare opportunity to see absolutely abysmal leaders. Lucky me. This has allowed me to come up with four basic pillars that are present in all leaders, but the balance of which divides the good from the bad.
Intelligence
The first of these four pillars is intelligence. The ability to meet challenges with reason and logic is of utmost importance to a leader. With intelligence comes imagination and thoughtfulness that prevents many rash decisions from being made. Intelligence also serves to eliminate wasteful practices and pointless exercises, benefitting the overall organization as well as that leader's subordinates. An intelligent leader knows the craft. They are aware of the ins and outs of their organization and are capable of seeing where and how to improve it.
Passion
While intelligence is important, idle contemplation is a bane to any endeavor. At some point a leader must act, and the force that turns thought into action is passion. Passion is what inspires action, and fuels thought. A passionate leader is able to move mountains when necessary, and revels in the thrill of hard work. Passion is contagious, too. When a leader is passionate about their job it infects those around them and multiplies the efforts of the organization exponentially.
Focus
Unbridled passion, however, can result in a great deal of expended effort with very little result. Focus is needed to ensure that passion and intelligence are being poured into the right venues. This is the one that I struggle with the most as a young leader in my own organization. When everything is a priority then nothing is a priority, and it's rare to actually accomplish much. The ability to focus on a task to completion is a trademark of a high level of leadership in the fast-paced world of the workplace. Multi-tasking is great, but when it results in not accomplishing much at the end of the day it tends to be counter-productive.
Adaptability
The danger of focus is that a leader can become myopic and miss opportunities and challenges that they would have otherwise seen. As such, adaptability is the final pillar of good leadership. Adaptability is the one trait that is cherished above all others in the world of survivability, both of organisms and organizations. "Survival of the fittest" is too short-sighted. "Survival of the most adaptable" is more suited to the creature who wants to make it in a constantly changing world.
As pillars supporting any structure, they must be in balance for the structure to stand. If one of these is too far dominant then it throws the leader out of balance and creates a disparity. There are many intelligent leaders who are slow to act, passionate leaders who fail to think, focused leaders who fail to see critical issues and many highly adaptable leaders who never get anything done because they're chasing the next shiny object. A good leader is one who keeps these four pillars in balance and self-assesses to ensure they are being as effective as possible. At least, that's what I'm trying to do.
Posted by:
Gabriel ThornThursday, August 7, 2014
13 CEOs Share Their Favorite Job Interview Questions
Interview questions: Everyone has them.
And everyone wishes they had better ones.
So I asked smart people from a variety of fields for their favorite interview question and what it tells them about the candidate.
1. Why have you had X number of jobs in Y years?
This question helps me get a full picture of the candidate's work history. What keeps them motivated? Why, if they have, did they jump from job to job? And what is the key factor when they leave?
The answer shows me their loyalty and their reasoning process. Do they believe someone always keeps them down (managers, bosses, etc.)? Do they get bored easily?
There is nothing inherently wrong with moving from job to job -- the reasons why are what matters.
-- Shama Kabani, The Marketing Zen Group founder and CEO
2. If we're sitting here a year from now celebrating what a great twelve months it's been for you in this role, what did we achieve together?
For me, the most important thing about interviews is that the interviewee interviews us. I need to know they've done their homework, truly understand our company and the role... and really want it.
The candidate should have enough strategic vision to not only talk about how good the year has been but to answer with an eye towards that bigger-picture understanding of the company -- and why they want to be here.
-- Randy Garutti, Shake Shack CEO
3. When have you been most satisfied in your life?
Except with entry-level candidates, I presume reasonable job skill and intellect. Plus I believe smart people with relevant experience adapt quickly and excel in new environments where the culture fits and inspires them. So, I concentrate on character and how well theirs matches that of my organization.
This question opens the door for a different kind of conversation where I push to see the match between life in my company and what this person needs to be their best and better in my company than he or she could be anywhere else.
-- Dick Cross, Cross Partnership founder and CEO
4. If you got hired, loved everything about this job, and are paid the salary you asked for, what kind of offer from another company would you consider?
I like to find out how much the candidate is driven by money versus working at a place they love.
Can they be bought?
You'd be surprised by some of the answers.
-- Ilya Pozin, Ciplex founder
5. Who is your role model, and why?
The question can reveal how introspective the candidate is about their own personal and professional development, which is a quality I have found to be highly correlated with success and ambition.
Plus it can show what attributes and behaviors the candidate aspires to.
-- Clara Shih, Hearsay Social co-founder and CEO
6. What things do you not like to do?
We tend to assume people who have held a role enjoy all aspects of that role, but I've found that is seldom the case.
Getting an honest answer to the question requires persistence, though. I usually have to ask it a few times in different ways, but the answers are always worth the effort. For instance, I interviewed a sales candidate who said she didn't enjoy meeting new people.
My favorite was the finance candidate who told me he hated dealing with mundane details and checking his work. Next!
-- Art Papas, Bullhorn founder and CEO
7. Tell me about a project or accomplishment that you consider to be the most significant in your career.
I find that this question opens the door to further questions and enables someone to highlight themselves in a specific, non-generic way.
Plus additional questions can easily follow: What position did you hold when you achieved this accomplishment? How did it impact your growth at the company? Who else was involved and how did the accomplishment impact your team?
Discussing a single accomplishment is an easy way to open doors to additional information and insight about the person, their work habits, and how they work with others.
-- Deborah Sweeney, MyCorporation CEO
8. What's your superpower... or spirit animal?
During her interview I asked my current executive assistant what was her favorite animal. She told me it was a duck, because ducks are calm on the surface and hustling like crazy getting things done under the surface.
I think this was an amazing response and a perfect description for the role of an EA. For the record, she's been working with us for over a year now and is amazing at her job.
-- Ryan Holmes, HootSuite CEO
9. We're constantly making things better, faster, smarter or less expensive. We leverage technology or improve processes. In other words, we strive to do more--with less. Tell me about a recent project or problem that you made better, faster, smarter, more efficient, or less expensive.
Good candidates will have lots of answers to this question. Great candidates will get excited as they share their answers.
In 13 years we've only passed along one price increase to our customers. That's not because our costs have decreased--quite the contrary. We've been able to maintain our prices because we've gotten better at what we do. Our team, at every level, has their ears to the ground looking for problems to solve.
Every new employee needs to do that, too.
-- Edward Wimmer, RoadID co-founder
10. Discuss a specific accomplishment you've achieved in a previous position that indicates you will thrive in this position.
Past performance is usually the best indicator of future success.
If the candidate can't point to a prior accomplishment, they are unlikely to be able to accomplish much at our organization--or yours.
-- Dave Lavinsky, Growthink co-founder and president
11. So, what's your story?
This inane question immediately puts an interviewee on the defensive because there is no right answer or wrong answer. But there is an answer.
It's a question that asks for a creative response. It's an invitation to the candidate to play the game and see where it goes without worrying about the right answer. By playing along, it tells me a lot about the character, imagination, and inventiveness of the person.
The question, as obtuse as it might sound to the interviewee, is the beginning of a story and in today's world of selling oneself, or one's company, it's the ability to tell a story and create a feeling that sells the brand--whether it's a product or a person.
The way they look at me when the question is asked also tells me something about their likeability. If they act defensive, look uncomfortable, and pause longer than a few seconds, it tells me they probably take things too literally and are not broad thinkers. In our business we need broad thinkers.
-- Richard Funess, Finn Partners managing partner
12. What questions do you have for me?
I love asking this question really early in the interview--it shows me whether the candidate can think quickly on their feet, and also reveals their level of preparation and strategic thinking.
I often find you can learn more about a person based on the questions they ask versus the answers they give.
-- Scott Dorsey, ExactTarget co-founder and CEO
13. Tell us about a time when things didn't go the way you wanted -- like a promotion you wanted and didn't get, or a project that didn't turn out how you had hoped.
It's a simple question that says so much. Candidates may say they understand the importance of working as a team but that doesn't mean they actually know how to work as a team. We need self-starters that will view their position as a partnership.
Answers tend to fall into three basic categories: 1) blame 2) self-deprecation, or 3) opportunity for growth.
Our company requires focused employees willing to wear many hats and sometimes go above and beyond the job description, so I want team players with the right attitude and approach. If the candidate points fingers, blames, goes negative on former employers, communicates with a sense of entitlement, or speaks in terms of their role as an individual as opposed to their position as a partnership, he or she won't do well here.
But if they take responsibility and are eager to put what they have learned to work, they will thrive in our meritocracy.
-- Tony Knopp, Spotlight Ticket Management co-founder and CEO
Posted by:
Jeff HadenTuesday, August 5, 2014
How Successful People Stay Calm
The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure
has a direct link to your performance. TalentSmart has conducted
research with more than a million people, and we’ve found that 90% of
top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress
in order to remain calm and in control.
If you follow our newsletter, you’ve read some startling research summaries that explore the havoc stress can wreak on one’s physical and mental health (such as the Yale study, which found that prolonged stress causes degeneration in the area of the brain responsible for self-control). The tricky thing about stress (and the anxiety that comes with it) is that it’s an absolutely necessary emotion. Our brains are wired such that it’s difficult to take action until we feel at least some level of this emotional state. In fact, performance peaks under the heightened activation that comes with moderate levels of stress. As long as the stress isn’t prolonged, it’s harmless.
Research
from the University of California, Berkeley, reveals an upside to
experiencing moderate levels of stress. But it also reinforces how
important it is to keep stress under control. The study, led by
post-doctoral fellow Elizabeth Kirby, found that the onset of stress
entices the brain into growing new cells responsible for improved
memory. However, this effect is only seen when stress is intermittent.
As soon as the stress continues beyond a few moments into a prolonged
state, it suppresses the brain’s ability to develop new cells.
“I think intermittent stressful events are probably what keeps the brain more alert, and you perform better when you are alert,” Kirby says. For animals, intermittent stress is the bulk of what they experience, in the form of physical threats in their immediate environment. Long ago, this was also the case for humans. As the human brain evolved and increased in complexity, we’ve developed the ability to worry and perseverate on events, which creates frequent experiences of prolonged stress.
Besides increasing your risk of heart disease, depression, and obesity, stress decreases your cognitive performance. Fortunately, though, unless a lion is chasing you, the bulk of your stress is subjective and under your control. Top performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ under stressful circumstances. This lowers their stress levels regardless of what’s happening in their environment, ensuring that the stress they experience is intermittent and not prolonged.
While I’ve run across numerous effective strategies that successful people employ when faced with stress, what follows are ten of the best. Some of these strategies may seem obvious, but the real challenge lies in recognizing when you need to use them and having the wherewithal to actually do so in spite of your stress.
They Appreciate What They Have
Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the “right” thing to do. It also improves your mood, because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Research conducted at the University of California, Davis found that people who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy, and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol played a major role in this.
They Avoid Asking “What If?”
“What if?” statements throw fuel on the fire of stress and worry. Things can go in a million different directions, and the more time you spend worrying about the possibilities, the less time you’ll spend focusing on taking action that will calm you down and keep your stress under control. Calm people know that asking “what if? will only take them to a place they don’t want—or need—to go.
They Stay Positive
Positive thoughts help make stress intermittent by focusing your brain’s attention onto something that is completely stress-free. You have to give your wandering brain a little help by consciously selecting something positive to think about. Any positive thought will do to refocus your attention. When things are going well, and your mood is good, this is relatively easy. When things are going poorly, and your mind is flooded with negative thoughts, this can be a challenge. In these moments, think about your day and identify one positive thing that happened, no matter how small. If you can't think of something from the current day, reflect on the previous day or even the previous week. Or perhaps you’re looking forward to an exciting event that you can focus your attention on. The point here is that you must have something positive that you're ready to shift your attention to when your thoughts turn negative.
They Disconnect
Given the importance of keeping stress intermittent, it’s easy to see how taking regular time off the grid can help keep your stress under control. When you make yourself available to your work 24/7, you expose yourself to a constant barrage of stressors. Forcing yourself offline and even—gulp!—turning off your phone gives your body a break from a constant source of stress. Studies have shown that something as simple as an email break can lower stress levels.
Technology enables constant communication and the expectation that you should be available 24/7. It is extremely difficult to enjoy a stress-free moment outside of work when an email that will change your train of thought and get you thinking (read: stressing) about work can drop onto your phone at any moment. If detaching yourself from work-related communication on weekday evenings is too big a challenge, then how about the weekend? Choose blocks of time where you cut the cord and go offline. You’ll be amazed at how refreshing these breaks are and how they reduce stress by putting a mental recharge into your weekly schedule. If you’re worried about the negative repercussions of taking this step, first try doing it at times when you’re unlikely to be contacted—maybe Sunday morning. As you grow more comfortable with it, and as your coworkers begin to accept the time you spend offline, gradually expand the amount of time you spend away from technology.
They Limit Their Caffeine Intake
Drinking caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email. When caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyperaroused state of stress, your emotions overrun your behavior. The stress that caffeine creates is far from intermittent, as its long half-life ensures that it takes its sweet time working its way out of your body.
They Sleep
I’ve beaten this one to death over the years and can’t say enough about the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present. Stressful projects often make you feel as if you have no time to sleep, but taking the time to get a decent night’s sleep is often the one thing keeping you from getting things under control.
They Squash Negative Self-Talk
A big step in managing stress involves stopping negative self-talk in its tracks. The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. When you find yourself believing the negative and pessimistic things, your inner voice says, “It's time to stop and write them down.” Literally stop what you're doing and write down what you're thinking. Once you've taken a moment to slow down the negative momentum of your thoughts, you will be more rational and clear-headed in evaluating their veracity.
You can bet that your statements aren’t true any time you use words like “never,” “worst,” “ever,” etc. If your statements still look like facts once they’re on paper, take them to a friend or colleague you trust and see if he or she agrees with you. Then the truth will surely come out. When it feels like something always or never happens, this is just your brain’s natural threat tendency inflating the perceived frequency or severity of an event. Identifying and labeling your thoughts as thoughts by separating them from the facts will help you escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive new outlook.
They Reframe Their Perspective
Stress and worry are fueled by our own skewed perception of events. It’s easy to think that unrealistic deadlines, unforgiving bosses, and out-of-control traffic are the reasons we’re so stressed all the time. You can’t control your circumstances, but you can control how you respond to them. So before you spend too much time dwelling on something, take a minute to put the situation in perspective. If you aren’t sure when you need to do this, try looking for clues that your anxiety may not be proportional to the stressor. If you’re thinking in broad, sweeping statements such as “Everything is going wrong” or “Nothing will work out,” then you need to reframe the situation. A great way to correct this unproductive thought pattern is to list the specific things that actually are going wrong or not working out. Most likely you will come up with just some things—not everything—and the scope of these stressors will look much more limited than it initially appeared.
They Breathe
The easiest way to make stress intermittent lies in something that you have to do everyday anyway: breathing. The practice of being in the moment with your breathing will begin to train your brain to focus solely on the task at hand and get the stress monkey off your back. When you’re feeling stressed, take a couple of minutes to focus on your breathing. Close the door, put away all other distractions, and just sit in a chair and breathe. The goal is to spend the entire time focused only on your breathing, which will prevent your mind from wandering. Think about how it feels to breathe in and out. This sounds simple, but it’s hard to do for more than a minute or two. It’s all right if you get sidetracked by another thought; this is sure to happen at the beginning, and you just need to bring your focus back to your breathing. If staying focused on your breathing proves to be a real struggle, try counting each breath in and out until you get to 20, and then start again from 1. Don’t worry if you lose count; you can always just start over.
This task may seem too easy or even a little silly, but you’ll be surprised by how calm you feel afterward and how much easier it is to let go of distracting thoughts that otherwise seem to have lodged permanently inside your brain.
They Use Their Support System
It’s tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself. To be calm and productive, you need to recognize your weaknesses and ask for help when you need it. This means tapping into your support system when a situation is challenging enough for you to feel overwhelmed. Everyone has someone at work and/or outside work who is on their team, rooting for them, and ready to help them get the best from a difficult situation. Identify these individuals in your life and make an effort to seek their insight and assistance when you need it. Something as simple as talking about your worries will provide an outlet for your anxiety and stress and supply you with a new perspective on the situation. Most of the time, other people can see a solution that you can’t because they are not as emotionally invested in the situation. Asking for help will mitigate your stress and strengthen your relationships with those you rely upon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
If you follow our newsletter, you’ve read some startling research summaries that explore the havoc stress can wreak on one’s physical and mental health (such as the Yale study, which found that prolonged stress causes degeneration in the area of the brain responsible for self-control). The tricky thing about stress (and the anxiety that comes with it) is that it’s an absolutely necessary emotion. Our brains are wired such that it’s difficult to take action until we feel at least some level of this emotional state. In fact, performance peaks under the heightened activation that comes with moderate levels of stress. As long as the stress isn’t prolonged, it’s harmless.
“I think intermittent stressful events are probably what keeps the brain more alert, and you perform better when you are alert,” Kirby says. For animals, intermittent stress is the bulk of what they experience, in the form of physical threats in their immediate environment. Long ago, this was also the case for humans. As the human brain evolved and increased in complexity, we’ve developed the ability to worry and perseverate on events, which creates frequent experiences of prolonged stress.
Besides increasing your risk of heart disease, depression, and obesity, stress decreases your cognitive performance. Fortunately, though, unless a lion is chasing you, the bulk of your stress is subjective and under your control. Top performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ under stressful circumstances. This lowers their stress levels regardless of what’s happening in their environment, ensuring that the stress they experience is intermittent and not prolonged.
While I’ve run across numerous effective strategies that successful people employ when faced with stress, what follows are ten of the best. Some of these strategies may seem obvious, but the real challenge lies in recognizing when you need to use them and having the wherewithal to actually do so in spite of your stress.
They Appreciate What They Have
Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the “right” thing to do. It also improves your mood, because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Research conducted at the University of California, Davis found that people who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy, and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol played a major role in this.
They Avoid Asking “What If?”
“What if?” statements throw fuel on the fire of stress and worry. Things can go in a million different directions, and the more time you spend worrying about the possibilities, the less time you’ll spend focusing on taking action that will calm you down and keep your stress under control. Calm people know that asking “what if? will only take them to a place they don’t want—or need—to go.
They Stay Positive
Positive thoughts help make stress intermittent by focusing your brain’s attention onto something that is completely stress-free. You have to give your wandering brain a little help by consciously selecting something positive to think about. Any positive thought will do to refocus your attention. When things are going well, and your mood is good, this is relatively easy. When things are going poorly, and your mind is flooded with negative thoughts, this can be a challenge. In these moments, think about your day and identify one positive thing that happened, no matter how small. If you can't think of something from the current day, reflect on the previous day or even the previous week. Or perhaps you’re looking forward to an exciting event that you can focus your attention on. The point here is that you must have something positive that you're ready to shift your attention to when your thoughts turn negative.
They Disconnect
Given the importance of keeping stress intermittent, it’s easy to see how taking regular time off the grid can help keep your stress under control. When you make yourself available to your work 24/7, you expose yourself to a constant barrage of stressors. Forcing yourself offline and even—gulp!—turning off your phone gives your body a break from a constant source of stress. Studies have shown that something as simple as an email break can lower stress levels.
Technology enables constant communication and the expectation that you should be available 24/7. It is extremely difficult to enjoy a stress-free moment outside of work when an email that will change your train of thought and get you thinking (read: stressing) about work can drop onto your phone at any moment. If detaching yourself from work-related communication on weekday evenings is too big a challenge, then how about the weekend? Choose blocks of time where you cut the cord and go offline. You’ll be amazed at how refreshing these breaks are and how they reduce stress by putting a mental recharge into your weekly schedule. If you’re worried about the negative repercussions of taking this step, first try doing it at times when you’re unlikely to be contacted—maybe Sunday morning. As you grow more comfortable with it, and as your coworkers begin to accept the time you spend offline, gradually expand the amount of time you spend away from technology.
They Limit Their Caffeine Intake
Drinking caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email. When caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyperaroused state of stress, your emotions overrun your behavior. The stress that caffeine creates is far from intermittent, as its long half-life ensures that it takes its sweet time working its way out of your body.
They Sleep
I’ve beaten this one to death over the years and can’t say enough about the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present. Stressful projects often make you feel as if you have no time to sleep, but taking the time to get a decent night’s sleep is often the one thing keeping you from getting things under control.
They Squash Negative Self-Talk
A big step in managing stress involves stopping negative self-talk in its tracks. The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. When you find yourself believing the negative and pessimistic things, your inner voice says, “It's time to stop and write them down.” Literally stop what you're doing and write down what you're thinking. Once you've taken a moment to slow down the negative momentum of your thoughts, you will be more rational and clear-headed in evaluating their veracity.
You can bet that your statements aren’t true any time you use words like “never,” “worst,” “ever,” etc. If your statements still look like facts once they’re on paper, take them to a friend or colleague you trust and see if he or she agrees with you. Then the truth will surely come out. When it feels like something always or never happens, this is just your brain’s natural threat tendency inflating the perceived frequency or severity of an event. Identifying and labeling your thoughts as thoughts by separating them from the facts will help you escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive new outlook.
They Reframe Their Perspective
Stress and worry are fueled by our own skewed perception of events. It’s easy to think that unrealistic deadlines, unforgiving bosses, and out-of-control traffic are the reasons we’re so stressed all the time. You can’t control your circumstances, but you can control how you respond to them. So before you spend too much time dwelling on something, take a minute to put the situation in perspective. If you aren’t sure when you need to do this, try looking for clues that your anxiety may not be proportional to the stressor. If you’re thinking in broad, sweeping statements such as “Everything is going wrong” or “Nothing will work out,” then you need to reframe the situation. A great way to correct this unproductive thought pattern is to list the specific things that actually are going wrong or not working out. Most likely you will come up with just some things—not everything—and the scope of these stressors will look much more limited than it initially appeared.
They Breathe
The easiest way to make stress intermittent lies in something that you have to do everyday anyway: breathing. The practice of being in the moment with your breathing will begin to train your brain to focus solely on the task at hand and get the stress monkey off your back. When you’re feeling stressed, take a couple of minutes to focus on your breathing. Close the door, put away all other distractions, and just sit in a chair and breathe. The goal is to spend the entire time focused only on your breathing, which will prevent your mind from wandering. Think about how it feels to breathe in and out. This sounds simple, but it’s hard to do for more than a minute or two. It’s all right if you get sidetracked by another thought; this is sure to happen at the beginning, and you just need to bring your focus back to your breathing. If staying focused on your breathing proves to be a real struggle, try counting each breath in and out until you get to 20, and then start again from 1. Don’t worry if you lose count; you can always just start over.
This task may seem too easy or even a little silly, but you’ll be surprised by how calm you feel afterward and how much easier it is to let go of distracting thoughts that otherwise seem to have lodged permanently inside your brain.
They Use Their Support System
It’s tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself. To be calm and productive, you need to recognize your weaknesses and ask for help when you need it. This means tapping into your support system when a situation is challenging enough for you to feel overwhelmed. Everyone has someone at work and/or outside work who is on their team, rooting for them, and ready to help them get the best from a difficult situation. Identify these individuals in your life and make an effort to seek their insight and assistance when you need it. Something as simple as talking about your worries will provide an outlet for your anxiety and stress and supply you with a new perspective on the situation. Most of the time, other people can see a solution that you can’t because they are not as emotionally invested in the situation. Asking for help will mitigate your stress and strengthen your relationships with those you rely upon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Travis Bradberry, Ph.D.
Dr. Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the #1 bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the cofounder of TalentSmart, the world's leading provider of emotional intelligence tests, emotional intelligence training, and emotional intelligence certification,
serving more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies. His bestselling books
have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than
150 countries. Dr. Bradberry has written for, or been covered by, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.
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Travis Bradberry
Travis Bradberry
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