There is no doubt that, right now, the world of work is a challenging one. The mantra at the moment in organisations seems to be DO MORE WITH LESS. I cannot see how this is a recipe for success, and I don’t see how that model is sustainable, all it leads to is higher levels of stress for everyone and a greater likelihood of mistakes, failure and burnout.
So today I’d like to make a plea to all of you reading this to be more KIND and UNDERSTANDING of those who you work with and those who work for you. We are living through incredibly stressful times. The stress and anxiety scores, as measured by the office of national statistics, have not gone down much at all since the end of the pandemic. They are remaining stubbornly high and that is absolutely born out in the stress levels I am seeing in leaders and teams I have been working with this year.
Organisations have been consistently making cutbacks and ‘efficiency savings’ for over ten years now. Think about it, when was the last time the organisational ‘management of change’ or ‘re-structure’ ever led to MORE people in your directorate or team? You might be one of the very few who has received more resources, but when you think about it, was the ‘more resources’ because it had been so cut back previously that it was impossible to deliver without significantly affecting performance? Likelihood is that it was.
Now, some of you reading this will quite accurately highlight that part of this will be due to automation and technological advances. This is true, but this general reduction in workforce is across all sectors and almost all organisational sizes (apart from start-ups of course), and it is leading to many feeling under-resourced and overwhelmed.
This is compounded by the flatter structures now established within organisations, with lower headcounts, and removal of management levels. This means there is a higher stress level at a lower hierarchical level within organisations.
I have been studying the effects of stress in organisations for over ten years now, and it’s safe to say that the levels now are higher than I have ever seen them. I ask a simple question in our ‘working smarter not harder’ workshops, it is this:
Hands up if you feel you have both the time and capacity to get everything that you need to get done, done at the right level and at the right quality? In your normal working hours? (i.e. your contracted hours)
Not one leader has put their hand up in over ten years and, recently, people have looked at me as if I was crazy to even ask the question!
I have had to add in extra workshop days around resilience and stress, and even ‘how to get a good night’s sleep’ into our team and leadership development programmes because, right now, the leaders and teams I work with truly need them.
When you research into stress (specifically its side-effects) it helps you understand a lot of what is going on within organisations. Have a quick check in with the list below – are you seeing any of these signs of stress in your leaders, your leadership team, in your team, amongst your fellow team members, in you?
Bad decision making? Being reactive? Inability to think straight? Lack of creativity or innovation? Lack of strategic thinking? Being snappy? Emotional reactions? Being irritable? Blurting things out without thought? Feeling over-emotional? Being exhausted? Lacking motivation? Short temper? Feeling lethargic? Making impulsive decisions? Being grumpy for no reason? Over-thinking things? Isolating yourself? Being hard on yourself?
All of these things can be directly linked to the bio-chemical symptoms of stress. They are all related to having stress-hormones in your system – yes even the ‘lack of creativity or innovation’ one!
The truth is that we are not taking the effects of stress seriously enough within our organisations. We need to take action NOW to bring ourselves back from the brink of complete burnout.
We have let ourselves tolerate stress for too long, and we now tolerate behaviours that before we would never had tolerated. It is time to call out unacceptable behaviour and leaders who are not living to the values of the organisation, and it is time as leaders to remember that now, more than ever, we need to be KIND and UNDERSTANDING.
Much of what is happening in organisations is as a direct result of what I call the ‘unholy trinity’ – lack of sleep, working longer hours to get everything done, and the inevitable stress that comes as a result. SLEEP, WORKING HARDER, STRESS – when we’re caught in that vicious cycle it only ever spirals downwards and many of you reading this will recognise it in yourselves.
Now of course the most important thing is to actively equip yourself (and your team/your staff) with the tools to enable you to get a better night’s sleep, to work smarter not harder and to reduce the impact of stress in your lives. That is precisely what our ‘RESILIENCE TOOLKIT’ programme was created to help with. (If you want help defeating the unholy trinity for yourself, your team or your organisation, then just get in touch!)
However, it’s also important to remember that everyone right now is facing significant workload pressures and, as a result, will be under elevated levels of stress. So, you know what? They might not be PERFECT, they might be upset or emotional, they might get reactive or snappy and they might occasionally exhibit behaviours that, with a little reflection, they would not be proud of.
NOONE wants to be what I call a NEGATIVE RIPPLE. They don’t wake up in the morning and say:
“You know what? Today I want to really be horrible to everyone I meet, I want to annoy and frustrate others, and be snappy, irritable and rude.”
NOONE wants to be that.
So, this is a reminder that we all need to be MORE KIND and MORE UNDERSTANDING of our team, our staff and yes, even our leaders – it’s stressful times out there and that means we’re not going to be at our best all of the time – so a little kindness and understanding is what is required.
Now I am not justifying bad behaviour here, nothing gets me angrier than bullying behaviour or use of power to undermine or denigrate our people. Be very clear, we all need to stand up to such behaviours and not tolerate them. And, by the way, by that I literally mean ‘stand up’ and ‘walk out’ if you are in a room with someone exhibiting bullying behaviours, call it out if it is not directed at you, or leave the meeting if you are on Teams. More people need to be active bystanders and call out unacceptable and abusive behaviours.
What I AM encouraging is that, in your teams, it’s incredibly important to be kind to each other. Now more than ever. If someone is struggling to hit that deadline be a little understanding, give them help and support if you can. If someone has got a little emotional, check in with them, offer support and show them you care. If you’re interacting with a service part of the organisation, your IT or HR or Finance Teams for example, let them know that you APPRECIATE their help, don’t just go in bullishly demanding to have whatever it is sorted. Remember they are there to help you – and help them help you by being kind and by being understanding.
As a leader, showing that you care is not a sign of weakness – it is a sign of strength. As we approach the end of the year it’s a perfect time to say thank you, to give appreciation to your team, your people, for all they have done for you this year. As leaders you will have your own stresses, your own pressures to deliver, but do take time to reflect on your own impact, your own behaviours. If you were snappy or accidentally berated one of your staff in a meeting (even if for good reason), just make sure that you check in and make it right afterwards.
Look, it’s inevitable that from time to time you will lose it, you will let your frustrations or emotions get the better of you and THAT’S OK – you are human after all and right now you are facing tremendous stresses in your work-lives, all of you. And there is no better time than right now to CHOOSE BEING KIND AND UNDERSTANDING above all other things.
Let’s show that we CARE, let’s give a little GRACE, and be a MORE POSITIVE RIPPLE in our teams and in our organisations. A little kindness goes a heck of a long way, and I promise you it will make the world of difference to you as well as those who you dare to be kind to.
If you’d like to tackle stress and rebuild resilience within your organisation, if you’d like to help your people to have the tools in their toolkits to beat the unholy trinity and work smarter not harder in 2025, for the benefit of all, then why not drop me a line and we can talk about how Meta can support you to make 2025 a year where you all thrive, rather than just survive.
As this is the last article I will be writing this year, let me finish by saying I think that you are all amazing. You’ve worked incredibly hard this year, and you know what? You have earned your time off. Enjoy your festive period, make sure you all re-fill your fuel tanks to over-flowing, so that you can start 2025 with a full fuel tank and a re-charged resilience battery.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
I hope that 2025 is kind and generous to you!
In peace and with love
Jo, CEO of Meta
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