Employee Stress
and Performance
By David Lee
Originally published in
Training Scene
Creating a high
performance organization is a popular theme in the training and development field.
To survive in these competitive times, companies can't afford anything less.
Creating a high performance organization requires understanding what factors
influence performance. One of the most significant factors is stress.
Historically, stress has been viewed as an
inevitable consequence of work life; or at most, a health care issue. Neither
view begins to capture just how costly this problem is to employers. Research
shows that stress interferes with human intellectual, emotional, and interpersonal
functioning. In fact, nearly every popular training and organizational
development initiative is directly compromised by the intellectual, emotional,
and interpersonal consequences of stress.
Initiatives like The Learning
Organization, Process Re-engineering, Diversity Training, Collaborative Team
Work, and The High Performance Organization are all impacted by the way people
are affected by stress. In this article, we will highlight some of the research
findings and discuss their implications for today's organization.
Stress, Threat, and "Numbing Out"
When animals, including human beings, are
exposed to potentially life threatening situations; their bodies release
endorphins, which are nature's pain-killer. This makes sense from a survival
perspective. If you are being attacked by a predator and are injured, you don't
want to be focusing your attention on how much you hurt.
This response doesn't just happen in
response to tangible, visible threat; it is also triggered by potential threat.
Thus, if we feel threatened or fearful, our body releases endorphins. This sets
the stage for serious intellectual and interpersonal consequences; because
endorphins dull both our ability to think and our ability to feel. Effective
decision-making and interpersonal skills require both.
Implications for the Workplace
In workplaces where people are constantly
afraid and insecure, employees are at risk of "numbing out" to
protect themselves. We see it in the blank faces of
clerks, the lack of enthusiasm by front line workers, and in the remarkably
insensitive ways managers and employees treat each other. The very mechanism
which allows a person to survive an emotionally painful environment also makes
it difficult for them to respond sensitively and empathetically to others. The
organizational conflict and customer service consequences of this are obviously
very costly.
This numbing process affects far more than
the interpersonal realm of organizational performance. It affects all aspects
of decision-making, innovation, and safety. With their thinking impaired,
people are at greater risk of causing serious mistakes and accidents. They are
also obviously less likely to make wise decisions and create process
improvements.
Stress and the Loss of Creativity
Creative and innovative thought are is at
the heart of the learning organization. An organization's ability to innovate
is perhaps the most important source of competitive advantage. Organizations
who know how to stimulate and leverage innovative thought are able to respond
more rapidly and resourcefully to market changes and customer requirements than
their slower, less innovative competitors. Despite the tremendous contribution
innovative thought makes to organizational survival, most organizations don't
realize how they prevent such thought from being exercised in their
organization. The typical high stress workplace the physiological and
psychological affects of stress on the human brain and mind compromises such
creativity and innovation.
Studies show that when people are under
stress, their thought processes narrow. This narrowing of attention, by
definition, prevents divergent thinking, which is the foundation of creativity.
Divergent thinking is the ability to see connections between very distantly related
ideas and context. It is an important component of "thinking outside the
box." When people are stressed, they are able to perceive obvious
connections and associations between ideas. When people are
in a positive emotional state, their ability to make more distant, novel
connections and associations increases. Thus, stress compromises, at the
most fundamental neurological level, one of the foundational skills of
creativity and innovation.
Uncontrollable Stress and the Dumbing
Down Process
Research by Dr. James Pennebaker
of Southern Methodist University has demonstrated a very serious consequence of
uncontrollable stress on thought processes. In an experiment performed by Dr. Pennebaker, subjects wrote about whatever was going on in
their mind - their "stream of consciousness." One group was subjected
to a loud noise in the middle of the exercise and told there was nothing they
could do about it; they had to "grin and bear it." The other group
was subjected to the same loud noise in the middle of the exercise, but they
were told they could have the noise stopped if they chose. The results were
both fascinating and disturbing in their implications for organizational
performance.
The group that had no control demonstrated
a significant deterioration in their thought process during and after the
noise. Their thinking became unemotional, unimaginative, and dull. It was as if
they became temporarily dumb in order to endure the stressful situation. Even
more interesting was the other group's response. "although
they were told they could stop the noise if they needed to, not one person
chose to do so. Therefore, they experienced the same amount of unpleasant noise
as the group which wasn't given that option.
Despite being subjected to the same amount
of noxious noise, their thought process remained unaffected. They engaged in
deep, reflective, creative thought. Thus, it wasn't the negative external
situation, but the perceived lack of control, which resulted in a diminished
thinking capacity. The operative term here is perceived. This study and others
like it show that even if a person's perception is wrong - if in fact they
really don't have control, the effect is the same as if they truly had control.
It's the perception, the belief, that matters.
Closely linked to this sense of perceived
control is predictability. "s long as a person
(or lab rat for that matter) knows when the next painful situation will occur,
they do not suffer the same kind of psychological and physiological harm as
those who don't know "when the other shoe will drop." Simply knowing
creates a feeling, even if ill-founded, of control.
Implications For The Workplace
One obvious implication of this research
is that employee intellectual functioning can be very powerfully influenced by
their environment. In workplaces where employees feel helpless and disempowered, they are less likely to think in intelligent,
creative ways. Another important implication, and this is born out by other
research, is that perceived control plays a major role in whether a person is
affected by a potentially stressful workplace. Workers in jobs with similar
demands, but different levels of control, exhibit very different psychological
and physiological responses. With the same demand level, workers in low control
workplaces are significantly more affected by their work.
Thus, when workers have little control
over their work and feel powerless in general, they are more likely to suffer
from the kind of "dumbing down" that Pennebaker's work demonstrated; and which we see in
organizations throughout
In thinking about organizational
implications, we need to realize that the word "perceived" in the
term "perceived control" is important. It is important because in
reality, there is no way we can create a workplace in which a person has total
control over their work and over their destiny. No organization can guarantee
lifelong employment, no one can foresee market changes
or economic downturns. But, as long as people have open lines of communication
and know that they can get the information they need - even if it's "we
don't know yet," they experience a sense of control. Thus, organizations
which enable open, honest communication create a context in which people are
less likely to be stressed out, and because of that, more likely to utilize
their capabilities.
Summary
To create a high performance organization,
an organization which brings out the best in its people, we need to understand
how stress affects people's intellectual, emotional, and interpersonal functioning.
By drawing on the wealth of research available, we can make recommendations
which increase the probability that people will not be compromised by stress,
but instead, perform at optimal levels.
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About the
Author: David Lee is a consultant, speaker, and executive coach.
The founder of HumanNature@Work, he has worked with
organizations and presented at conferences throughout
For More Information:
David Lee, President
HumanNature@Work
P.O. Box 430
Bar Mills, Maine 04004
Tel: 207-929-3344
E-mail: info@HumanNatureAtWork.com