When work gets toxic: Stress management (Proceedings)

Recognizing and Managing Toxic Work

• The Toxic Workplace

• Just How Toxic is Your Work?

• Dancing with Dinosaurs and Dragons

The Toxic Workplace

The syndrome of toxic work overtakes you when what's happening at work causes protracted bouts of distress, culminating in emotional suffering or physical symptoms and heightened by the perceived inability to stop the pain and move on to find or create a reward situation.

Choices in the Toxic Workplace

"There is the risk you can afford to take and there is the risk you cannot afford to take."

- Peter Drucker

o Balance or Overload

o Autonomy or Self Doubt

o Engagement or Alienation

Balance vs. Overload

• Are you having a no- life crisis?

• Personal issues must take as central of a role as business objectives; they cannot be relegated to the margins without negative repercussions for both the employee or employers.

• Karoshi - A Japanese word for sudden death by overwork.

• Americans are even more "productive" than Japanese.

• Americans hold the value that Type A, relationship-deprived personalities are winners.

Autonomy vs. Self Doubt

Do You Really Have Control?

"The most stressful workplaces are those where demanding pace is coupled with virtually no individual discretion." - Juliet Schor

o Work becomes toxic when we feel out of control.

o The worst thing that can happen is to have high demands with little control over how to meet those demands.

Do You Really Have Control?

• Employability: Employers can no longer promise job security, but instead can offer opportunities to develop skills that will keep you employable.

• If employees feel hemmed in, they get frustrated and angry.

• If they stay too long in situations where they're denied respect and have limited opportunity to grow, they lose confidence.

Engagement vs. Alienation

• "When you feel connected to something, that connection gives you a purpose for living."

- Jon Kabat-Zinn

o It is healthier to be active rather than passive in difficult times

o When betrayal occurs, reengaging is the way back

• Three qualities allow employees to stay healthy during a difficult time

o Challenge

o Control

o Commitment

Is There Hope?

"If a human being is not allowed to grow in his cultural environment then he will have no choice but to grow against it."

- George Lockland

Permanent Realities

• More pressure and more demands and fewer people to do it

• Cost cutting will be the official sport of almost any organization; budgets in veterinary medicine run close to the wire

• Uncertainty will prevail. The only thing you can count on is to land on your feet when you are knocked down

• Increasingly, work will be done in teams. Prepare for collaboration

• Constant learning (particularly in technology) will be required. Get over it.

• YOU need to take responsibility for choreographing your career

The Test

• Allows you to see areas that you need help, not feel like there is just one big mess

• Each of the six factors have been proven to correlate with major health problems

How Toxic is Your Work?

1 = Almost Never

2 = Sometimes

3 = Often

4 = Almost always

Anxiety

• I am afraid I won't have enough money

• I am worried I won't find another job if I lose this one

• I am worried about having to learn so many new things

• I want things to stay the way they have always been

• I have trouble sleeping; I wake up thinking about what is happening at work

Anger

• I find myself irritable and angry at work

• I am irritable and angry away from work

• I am angry about increased demands at work

• I get impatient with other people's mistakes

• I blame particular people for what is happening at work and think about getting even with them

• I find myself speeding impatiently from one task to another

Lack of Control

• I feel I don't have enough say in how I get my work done

• It does not seem that my opinion is valued at work

• I know I am ready for more challenge and responsibility - it's not there

• I have so much work that it is impossible to do it all well

• It is unnerving that the people in charge do not know what is happening

Lack of Confidence

• I wonder whether I am really doing a good job

• I wonder what others think of me

• I'm afraid that other people will discover my shortcomings

• I am worried that I won't be able to keep up with what is expected of me as the demands increase

• I am afraid that my reputation at work will keep me from getting the assignments I want

• I am afraid I am not really capable of doing a great job

Shut-Down Feelings

• I have trouble knowing what I am really feeling

• It does not seem safe to express what I am feeling at work

• It seems that nobody at work wants to know what I am feeling

• I hold my feelings in until they erupt in some way

• Nobody really understands how I feel about things

• I don't really trust feelings

Diminished Relationships

• I spend a lot of time alone

• It is hard to make enough time for family and friends

• People close to me complain that I am not available enough

• I argue with people more than I would like

• I am too worn out to give time to relationships

Dinosaurs and Dragons

"If fate throws a knife at you, there are two ways of catching it - by the blade or by the handle."

- Ancient Chinese Proverb

Top 13 Signals from Your Body

• Fatigue that does not go away with two good nights sleep

• Insomnia

• Dizziness, light headaches

• Nausea

• Allergies and breathing difficulties

• Skin problems

• Recurrent colds/flu/infections

• Muscle aches and stiffness

• Digestive tract problems

• Back pain

• Increased menstrual difficulties

• Swollen glands

What if you are the Dragon?

• Swiss Psychologist Ellen Miller has done revealing work on our compulsion to control.

• Everyone has experienced some degree of neglect, disappointment, unkindness or pain as a child.

• In our adult life we have "two" choices; pull it up to our conscious awareness or repress it

• Most choose repression because awareness is an upsetting process.

• Most people (particularly those in positions of power) keep themselves from knowing about their pain by identifying with the oppressor.

• Identification COMPELS them to adhere to rigid standards at work an in their personal lives

Super Controller Survey

1 = very little

2 = somewhat

3 = quite a bit

4 = a very great deal

The Survey

• How much does it bother you when people seem to get away with not doing a job right?

• How much would you do to force co-workers or subordinates to maintain the highest standards at all times?

• How much do you long for the way things used to be and get irritated at the new freedoms in the workplace?

• How much do you wither tune out or get angry when people complain about what is wrong?

• How much does disorder of any sort bother you?

• How much do you find yourself getting impatient or angry easily?

• How often do people tell you you're too much of a perfectionist?

• How much do you want things your way?

• How much do you think it is right for people to learn lessons the hard way?

Score

If you scored 25 or more on these ten questions, then you are likely a dragon at work - a source of stress!

Strategies for Preserving Choice

• Control the intensity

• Go around, not through

• Remember what your body needs

• Clarify

• Guard against giveaways (time, money, power, piece of mind, right to your opinion, life balance)

• Don't forget support

• 3 daily doses of pleasure

Making Major Changes

• How About a Prison Break?

• Revitalizing Your Career

• Does Your Work Still Fit?

• Getting a Whole Life - Finally!

Prison Break

"Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.

- Chinese Proverb

"The leap to new places is never made in comfort."

- Marvin Weisbord

BREAK AWAY FROM NEGATIVITY

Learned Optimism

• Habitual Pessimistic Thoughts

o Learned in childhood

o Grab our attention for life

o Primitive and biological

• According to Martin Siegelman, we choose three pairs of qualities to explain situations that happen to us:

o Is this a permanent or temporary problem?

o Is this a universal or specific situation?

o Did I cause this, or did someone do it to me?

Silence the Internal Negative Chatter

• Siegelman suggest disputation:

o Adversity

o Belief

o Consequences

o Disputation

o Energization

RCAS

• Recurrent Career Adversity Syndrome

o Making the same irrational interpretations of workplace situations (INSANE)

• Takes 5 forms:

o The Generalizer: Everything is wrong now

o The Externalizer: Nothing is my fault

o The Internalizer: Everything is my fault

o The Personalizer: Why does this happen to me

o The Catastrophizer: The problem is too big to fix

Fix It

• Get some distance from the negativity:

o Bibliotherapy

• self assessment

• Career information

• Job search

• Career management

o Back to school days

o Talk, talk, talk

o Escapee interviews

o Mental Pictures

o Writing

o Brainwalking

o Go professional

7 Ways to Revitalize Your Career

• Swap Shops

• Teaming

• New Digs

• New Hours/Flexibility

• Mentoring

• Strategic Support Groups

• More Supervision