Stress resilience and mental health: Making stress healthy and productive

As the rate of change and complexity grows, mental health at work is in decline. We need to build stress resilience into our working practices

This is the introductory article to our series on stress resilience and mental health

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Accelerating the causes of stress

In the West, workplace stress now accounts for over half of all lost time.

Amounting to 12.8 million days annually in the UK alone. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Before people’s mental health drops to a level where they are too ill to work, stress manifests itself in massive inefficiency: An environment of conflict, poor decisions, waste, lack of motivation, and delays. And that is in addition to the massive human cost for those affected.

Furthermore, every time someone goes sick, the effect is to increase workloads, stress, and these negative effects on the people around them. Mental health issues create further mental health issues.

Stress is killing your people and your productivity – but it doesn’t have to

Not only is the general trend getting worse, but the causes of stress and poor mental health are also increasing. Faster change, greater competition, more complexity, longer exposure, increased uncertainty.
Technology and globalisation are powering ever accelerating disruption, and there is nothing we can do to avoid it.

Building stress resilience

We cannot avoid change. But we can do something about the stress resilience of our people and organisations to engage positively with it.

And to do that we have to do something about our own engagement with change. Click here to Read More

Current data on stress

Mental Health - Causes of Workplace Stress

So what are the causes of stress for your organisation?

The HSE report into work related stress, anxiety and depression identifies the main precipitating events as follows:

42% are down to factors intrinsic to the job and its expectations
26% are due to interpersonal relationship issues
17% are caused by change and expectations of personal development

These figures are not dissimilar to mental-health figures reported in the US by the American Institute of Stress (46% workload, 28% people Issues).

Stress strikes at the core of who we are

Unsurprisingly, these events are connected with fundamental human needs for security, affection and control. Three things that are echoed in Maslow’s hierachy of needs.

This explains why they are so devastating for people.

It also ties in with what we need to be successful as we cope with the demands and opportunities of our work. The things we need to rebuild our mental health:

The opportunity to deliver something of value,
A support network of people to do the bits we cannot,
And the learning and insight to do our own bit well.

To expand on this, and how it relates to culture and meetings, click here

Mental health and the working environment

Within each of these areas, there are a number of factors which enable these things. And there are cultural influences which connect them together and maintain a sort of equilibrium.

In a healthy environment, stress can energise these things. This creates a situation where each part positively supports and reinforces the parts around it and delivers an efficient outcome. People can experience this virtuous circle as a sense of ‘flow’ which can be deeply fulfilling and reinforces positive mental health.

Diagram of Positive flows of stress in the work environment

Optimum stress creates a sense of ‘flow’

However, if stress builds beyond that healthy level, other influences begin to take over. People become more closed in their interactions, and struggle to find the time to do things properly. As a result, they suboptimise, and the culture suffers from toxic behaviours and attitudes. These actually make the job more difficult and unpleasant, increasing the already high levels of stress in a vicious circle. People tend to experience this as frustration and politics. And this can lead to depression, anxiety and other mental health issues.

Diagram of negative flows of stress in the work environment

Excessive stress creates frustration and politics

It should be obvious from the diagrams that these influences are negative not only for the people concerned. They are also negative in terms of business efficiency and effectiveness.

Stress and our inner condition

Stress may be largely introduced by external factors. But our internal mindsets are also a big factor in the stress we ourselves experience. It also affects how our responses to our own stress impact those around us, and the stress they experience.

Diagram of mental health - starting with the internal space

What happens in this ‘internal space’ holds the key to how people handle stress. It also determines the extent to which that has repercussions for the mental health of their colleagues and the overall system.

It is within this space that people win or lose the fight for their own mental health. And, it is also within this space that we do the key work to shift the balance from vicious to virtuous circles. It is from here that we launch our campaign to ensure stress remains healthy and productive. Both for the organisation and for the individuals concerned.

Some basic truths about stress

Before we get into how, I would like to flag up a few observations. I believe these are key to thinking through the next steps.

The first is that the reality of how stress affects your organisation is not binary as the red and green diagram might indicate. These are just the extremes of a scale wherein most organisations will be reflected somewhere in the middle. In fact, it is rare to encounter an organisation which is wholly red or wholly green in this. That said, given the relative business and people benefit of the green descriptions over the red ones, there is always merit in actively seeking to become more green.

stress most commonly begins around meetings
The factors, behaviours and attitudes identified, both good and bad, are most evidenced and affected by meetings. Meetings large, small and one-to one; physical or virtual; formal or informal. These are the business activities which are most influential in creating positive or negative flows. And for generating good or bad outcomes within these stress maps.

we are not well served by data in this area
Do people know the extent to which meetings within their organisation have a positive or negative influence on the factors in this stress map? Most executives would not have any data on the proportion of meetings which fell into each category. Or whether there was any meaningful patterns within that. This, in itself, is part of the problem.

people’s roles will be inherently about change
All extrapolations of how work will change over the coming decade highlight the extent to which routine will be automated, and people’s roles will be inherently about change. As a result, levels of collaboration will continue to increase. And continuous learning will become the key business skill for those who will thrive in this emerging future of work.

Resilience through change will be the key skill

For many people, “who I am” and “how meetings take place” are relatively fixed concepts. We don’t do a lot of analysis of meeting design. Nor do we spend a lot of time questioning how we think. We tend to take both largely for granted, assumed, not really thought about.

And yet, in a world where change is the only constant, these things become the key differentiator between success and failure. Their active, self-directed, development becomes THE key strategy in designing a competitive response to change. And the best levers we have in managing stress, developing stress resilience, and building mental health.

Working with “who I am” and “how meetings take place” will be key to our success. They are the things that will most impact the stress resilience of our people and organisations. Thereby enabling them to cope with the levels of change that the future will bring.

Strategies to build stress resilience

Over the next few weeks, we will take a look at a number of strategies that organisations can adopt to take greater control of these things:

Structural influences on mental health

Provide clarity of purpose and context. Use structured frameworks to enable people to see what is required, and how it fits in with everything else. These help to resolve complexity to a manageable level. Read our article: Structure complexity – using Design Thinking to help navigate complexity
Establish practices to identify and utilise creative solutions. These help resolve the tensions and stress that arise as a result of increasing levels of change and competition. Read our article: Encourage creativity solutions to stress
Ensure your meetings equip people with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and support they need to tackle the challenges they are facing. Use this to help people feel more calm and confident in their role. Read our article: Inspirational meetings are a journey of empowerment

Leadership influences on mental health

Adopt facilitative practices that ensure more supportive and fulfilling dialogue between people. Help foster supportive relationships which make success more likely. And reduce the stress of conflict and criticism. Read our article: Facilitate healthy environments
Use Practice Zone thinking to develop skills and insights in people ahead of when they are needed. In this way, help build competence and confidence ahead of taking on new roles and challenges. Read our article how to set up Practice Zone thinking
Build a culture which has a positive attitude to risk and failure. Enable people to learn from, rather than conceal, issues. Through this, build a healthy open approach to feedback that helps people grow. Read our article: Embrace failure, feedback and a learning culture
Help people to adopt approaches that better engage more of their ‘spirit’ in engaging with the challenges they face. Help them build their stress resilience to avoid anxiety and depression and better develop their mental health. Take a look at our article on spiritual potential.

Each of these things not only reduces the negative consequences of stress that people experience. Each of them also make the organisation more effective, and dramatically reduce waste and inefficiency of time, effort, ideas and resources.

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Acknowledgements: The four quadrants which evolved as this platform for understanding stress at work was inspired by the structure of a powerful self-reflective workshop created by Dr Sue Howard

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