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Baulked by a slow-starter at a traffic light, the driver of the cross-country
vehicle rams the errant driver's car.
When the latter climbs out to remonstrate with him, the aggressive offender
fatally runs him over! Traffic linked urban violence,
christened
‘road rage' by the Press, has risen
dramatically in
Delhi over the last six years, the steep graph matching
the rising urban stress-factors.
While life expectancy in the U.K. is likely
to cross 83 years in the coming century, stress-related
illnesses accounted for financial losses of over
Pounds Sterling 3000 a year, causing long-term
debility and early death. Some of the highest are:
Miner (highest quoted) 8.3
Police………7.7 Dentists… 7.3
What causes stress? When we are exposed to an
alarming or potentially life-threatening situation, our bodies produce a hormone
called adrenalin, which is also known as
the ‘emergency hormone'. This hormone causes a massive jump in rate
of heartbeat and release of glucose to power our muscles
into adopting an aggressive stance (turn-and-fight reaction),
or go into ‘escape mode'…ready for
instant flight.
But the Smilodons
(Sabre-Toothed Tigers) and Cave Bears which our forebears fought
so well, and to combat whom Nature evolved adrenalin, have vanished, replaced, in
most cases, by indoor situations provoking the same responses. Since we cannot flee, the irreversible adrenalin reaction due to unused
emergency capability, brings us out in a sweat and tensed
muscles, heart beating away madly in vain! We are under a reaction to
stress….and it's a killer.
People thrive on pressure,
but individual capacities to tolerate stress vary from person to person, this
being the individual's ‘threshold of pressure'. Less than this can
cause boredom, listlessness and a vacant feeling; more than this can
cause irritation and blood pressure. Both can give rise to physiological and
psychological problems.
Those of us operating well at high-pressure jobs have a high
threshold, while those with low pressure-thresholds operate well in low-pressure jobs. A mismatch here could have serious consequences, e.g. a person
with a low threshold of stress working in the police or in advertising. More
than 70% of Delhi's Policemen have severe psychological problems, mostly related
to stress.
We
all have an optimum pressure tolerance, and
you, as boss, or the person himself, must manage to contain stress to optimum
levels.
Outside factors, too numerous to mention here, also play a significant role. The
symptoms can vary from irritability, fear, withdrawal, depression, and
irrational rage, to over/ under-eating, accidents, mood-swings, and absenteeism,
lack of balance and loss of humor.
A boss's role
is to control stress is start by asking himself whether he is causing stress to subordinates, some of the
situations they may be facing being: -
- Too heavy a workload
- Insufficient authority
to fulfill assignment properly
- Unclear job objectives
- Lack of encouragement
from superiors
- Not hitting it off with
the boss
- No feedback on
performance
But you can do something about it, perhaps by:
- Watch out for early
symptoms of stress in your men
- Pin-point management
style causing stress
- Manage time better
- Arrange regular medical
check-ups
- 5 minute relaxation
routine when stressed-out; encourage regular exercise
- Avoid argument with
anyone who is very angry
- Offer counseling to
staff who may need it
- Ensure best possible
person-job match
- Insist on
lunch/tea-breaks / holidays/ vacations being availed of by staff
Be
alert…work can be done without always invoking high stress. Aim at a
person's optimum level of stress, but determine it first!
QUESTION:
1.
What is meant by the term ‘under stress'? How do managers combat stress (their own as well as their
men's), and why?
2.
What has stress got to do with people in the workplace? Bring out all the ramifications of
placing people willy-nilly in jobs without taking stress factors into account.
