TREAT IT (& BUDGET FOR IT) AS YOU WOULD ANY OTHER PERFORMANCE ISSUE
I read an interesting article recently which backed my own personal belief that stress is not a well-being issue, it’s a performance issue. Written by a leading stress-researcher and scientist, it highlighted how measurable and real the debilitating effects of stress are and the impact they have on our personal ability to perform. This researcher and this article are not the only ones highlighting what I consider to be one of the most serious oversights and miscalculations of modern organisations – the impact stress is having on their organisational performance.
Organisations talk a good game. They say they want high-performing teams, strategic leadership, and to be incredibly lean and efficient well-oiled machines, delivering top quality products, with the least amount of cost and waste. You’d expect that type of talk in the private sector, they do after all want to maximise profits and the return for their investors. But the reality is that ALL sectors (and I can say this with some confidence as Meta works in all three sectors) have been following the example of the corporate sector and have been ‘streamlining’ and ‘finding efficiencies’ in every part of their organisations. Be you in a council or government agency, a housing association or a charity, a small, medium or global corporate business, the likelihood is that you’ve been through re-structure after re-structure, and each time you’re probably asked to do more, with LESS.
Apparently the leaner you are, the more efficient you are, the higher performing you are. But that just isn’t true. It’s an organisational MYTH.
There’s a point at which you are TOO lean, which create IN-efficiencies. If you don’t adapt your working practices to the leaner, flatter structures, and significantly invest in upskilling your leaders and equipping your people with the tools they will need, your organisation quickly becomes less, not more efficient. Productivity, creativity and quality suffer.
Why? Because you can have the most brilliantly engineered, streamlined processes, the most up to date efficient systems, the leanest and best (on paper) structure to your organisation, but all of these things are reliant on one MAJOR factor, the most important part of any organisation – YOUR PEOPLE.
The reality is that most of your people right now are EXHAUSTED. Not just tired, not just run-out, but way beyond the place where they can perform at a high level. They are stressed out and near burnout.
Research shows that there is a ‘sweet spot’ where people generally perform at their best. Give them too little to do and they get bored and disengage but give them a bit more and give them encouragement – what is scientifically known as ‘the stretch zone’ – and they can raise their performance. However, overload them and give them too much and they go into the ‘panic zone’ – that’s where you are stressed most of the time, and it significantly affects performance (as well as being very bad for the mental and physical health of your employees!)
Be clear – unless you are VERY LUCKY and are doing amazing things in your organisations for your people, the likelihood is that most people in your organisation are in the PANIC ZONE.
I have found, since the financial crash of 2008, there has been a gradual rise in the amount of stress in people and, as a result, organisations. Yet organisations are STILL not taking the issue seriously enough. Why? Because it’s NOT seen as a performance issue. Its seen as a well-being issue.
But be clear, it IS a PERFORMANCE ISSUE.
Every organisation has a large budget for anything that improves the performance of their company, and there are many big consultancies out there who will happily help you spend those budgets promising a great ‘return on your investment’ and ‘measurable efficiency savings’ if you do.
Compare that budget to your budget for training and developing your people, and you’ll find the latter is a significantly smaller budget. I would never expect your OD and L&D budget to be anywhere near the budget of the other things I have mentioned. However, my point is that it’s time to see your people as your next organisational improvement project.
Now, it is RIGHT to invest significant money into improving your organisational structures, processes, systems, and technology. It WILL create the efficiencies you seek – up to a point. But it needs to be combined with making sure that your leaders and your people are equipped with the personal and professional tools required to maximise those improvements.
We need to pay more attention to the people who make the systems, processes and structures (and the technology) work.
Are they (your leaders and people) fit for purpose in the fast-paced world of work we inhabit? (And I’m deliberately talking in organisational speak now.) Are we giving them the same time and investment to help them to improve, be more efficient and perform at a higher level? If we could get them working efficiently too, wouldn’t that make sound business sense?
Surely everything and anything that will give your organisation a significant performance return on your investment should be looked at, evaluated and, if found to beneficial, implemented, right?
The answer is that sadly most organisations have woefully under-invested in their people. The result is that most are feeling under-appreciated, over-worked, stressed and overwhelmed. They feel they are stuck in a reactive-work cycle that is very hard to break.
Leaders at all levels report to me just how hard it is to find to do anything other than the ‘urgent’, ‘important’ and that which must be delivered in the short term to hit operational targets. They have far too many meetings, receive and send far too many emails and have very little time (if any) to do the leadership things that they know would make a difference longer term.
So, what can be done about this? Well put simply, it’s time to pull the one remaining performance improvement lever there is in your organisation. Your people.
Now just as with any other investment you need to be shrewd and maximise your return on that investment. It starts at the top, invest in your leaders because they will give the biggest return.
But what with?
Well, first of all you need to concentrate on helping them back from the brink, back from the ‘panic zone’ and into the ‘stretch zone, with tools to help them to maximise their performance.
It starts with sleep. Sleep is your biggest performance improvement factor of all- period. Getting a good night’s sleep significantly elevates your performance (and right now 75% of people are not getting enough sleep)
Then it focusses on the biggest issue – stress. Stress is much easier to deal with when you understand what it is, how to minimise its impact, and have tools to bring you back from the brink. Stress is causing your organisation more damage than you are aware of. I would argue it is one of the greatest risks to your business right now.
Why?
Because when people are under the effects of stress it inhibits their ability to: make good decisions, problem-solve, be creative, take risks, think strategically, communicate effectively, build relationships, think longer term, prioritise, pay attention, concentrate, absorb and process information, have difficult conversations, learn new things, reason things through, think broadly on something. I could go on but essentially it’s everything you’d want your leaders and your people to be doing right??
In a nutshell you cannot perform at your best, you cannot be a ‘high performer’ if you are under considerable stress. It is quite literally a significant performance inhibitor.
OK so we’ve given your leaders the tools to get a good night’s sleep, we’ve got practical ways of dealing with the stresses that will inevitably come their way.
Then what?
Well, It’s about equipping your people with the right tools to create a true smarter working culture in your organisation. You have the right structure, amazing technology, great processes and systems but how do you work in a smarter way together to maximise the benefits of them? In the hybrid world of work, we need to be working in a smarter way to maximise our performance and productivity.
Through this simple three-step process you can then identify what needs to change at an organisational level to get the most from the learnings that have come from the Journey. What stops your leaders and your people performing at their best? What stops your organisation being full of high-performing teams?
By giving your leaders (as a minimum) the tools that enable them to get a good night’s sleep, deal with the stress, and to be able to analyse how to create a smarter working culture that maximises performance in your organisation, you are ensuring a recipe for success. Oh, and as a bonus you’ll also get an engaged, empowered, motivated and passionate leadership team (and workforce) that will help you to thrive as a business.
It’s time to reflect on what you’re doing to improve the performance of your leaders and your people. Stress is probably one performance issue you’ve probably not spent serious time looking at and investing in – so as we come into that budgetary time of year, why not see what you can do to unlock the high-performing potential in your leadership team, your people and your organisation in 2026 and beyond.
It’s not a big investment, 4-5 days – that’s all it takes to start a performance-improvement journey with Meta. So why not talk to us about it? We’d love to help you anyway we can.
I do hope that today’s article has made you think. And I hope that you’ll make that investment – it’s an investment that will give significant returns in so many different positive ways.
Have a wonderful summer!
In peace and with love
Jo x
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