CD CULTURE DISRUPTOR
BENONI TAGOE: THE ART OF CREATIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
ISSUE 04
COPING WITH STRESS AT WORK
6
COPING WITH STRESS AT WORK Effects of Uncontrolled Stress Everyone who has ever held a job has, at some point, felt the pressure of work-related stress. Any job can have stressful elements, even if you love what you do. In the shortterm, you may experience pressure to meet a deadline or to fulfill a challenging obligation. But when work stress becomes chronic, it can be overwhelming — and harmful to both physical and emotional health. Unfortunately such long-term stress is all too common. In 2012, 65 percent of Americans cited work as a top source of stress, according to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) annual Stress in America Survey. Only 37 percent of Americans surveyed said they were doing an excellent or very good job managing stress. A 2013 survey by APA’s Center for Organizational Excellence also found that job-related stress is a serious issue. More than one-third of working Americans reported experiencing chronic work stress and just 36 percent said their organizations provide sufficient resources to help them manage that stress. You can’t always avoid the tensions that occur on the job. Yet you can take steps to manage work-related stress.
Common Sources of Work Stress Certain factors tend to go hand-in-hand with work-related stress. Some common workplace stressors are: • Low salaries. • Excessive workloads. • Few opportunities for growth or advancement. • Work that isn’t engaging or challenging. • Lack of social support. • Not having enough control over job-related decisions. • Conflicting demands or unclear performance expectations.
Unfortunately, work-related stress doesn’t just disappear when you head home for the day. When stress persists, it can take a toll on your health and well-being. In the short term, a stressful work environment can contribute to problems such as headache, stomachache, sleep disturbances, short temper and difficulty concentrating. Chronic stress can result in anxiety, insomnia, high blood pressure and a weakened immune system. It can also contribute to health conditions such as depression, obesity and heart disease. Compounding the problem, people who experience excessive stress often deal with it in unhealthy ways such as overeating, eating unhealthy foods, smoking cigarettes or abusing drugs and alcohol.
Taking Steps to Manage Stress Track your stressors. Keep a journal for a week or two to identify which situations create the most stress and how you respond to them. Record your thoughts, feelings and information about the environment, including the people and circumstances involved, the physical setting and how you reacted. Did you raise your voice? Get a snack from the vending machine? Go for a walk? Taking notes can help you find patterns among your stressors and your reactions to them. Develop healthy responses. Instead of attempting to fight stress with fast food or alcohol, do your best to make healthy choices when you feel the tension rise. Exercise is a great stress-buster. Yoga can be an excellent choice, but any form of physical activity is beneficial. Also make time for hobbies and favorite activities. Whether it’s reading a novel, going to concerts or playing games with your family, make sure to set aside time for the things that bring you pleasure. Getting enough good-quality sleep is also important for effective stress management. Build healthy sleep habits by limiting your caffeine intake late in the day and minimizing stimulating activities, such as computer and television use, at night.
7
CD: What do you wish you had known when you first began your career? BT: When I first started, I would have paid more attention to how to properly relationship build. Everyone is taught that you’re supposed to network, but there’s a right and wrong way to do it. If I could take a step back, I would look at my networking prowess and do a better job at relationship building. I realized that, especially in entertainment, it’s not really good enough to just show up and do the work. There’s a lot of schmoozing and true relationship and human bonding that has to happen. I always approached it as like, look, I show up at work on time, I do what I’m supposed to do, after that don’t bother me. I learned quickly that that’s not good enough. CD: Building relationships is so important. A lot of times, you want to reach out to people or you need certain resources and if you don’t have the network it makes things that much more difficult.
BT: It makes it extremely more difficult. It’s a tremendous thing when you can just pick up the phone and call or email someone and things happen immediately. But, you have to put the time in to be able to have that type of relationship. CD: What do you hope to accomplish within the next 5 years? BT: The BIZZ Plan is a huge focus, it’s really about building that up from a couple of different perspectives. One is helping my clients reach their full potential and bringing on more clients. Outside of that, it’s creating more consumer-facing content. Right now, The BIZZ Plan is primarily behind the scenes, we’re standing behind the clients and the client is the star. But, I want to get back to my roots and be able to teach and help lead entrepreneurs in a more scalable fashion. There will be courses and other forms of The BIZZ Plan that will allow you as an entrepreneur to learn from and to ultimately engage with the brand.
12
WHAT TRAITS AFFECT JOB PERFORMANCE
Mom always said that personality and smarts go farther than good looks. And now even psychologists are on her side. For years, psychologists turned to cognitive ability, brainpower, as a predictor of job performance. Smarter people were considered more likely to succeed on the job. But intelligence is only part of the story. Other important factors in job performance - creativity, leadership, integrity, attendance and cooperation — are related to personality, not intelligence.
Psychologists say that what they call ‘contextual performance’ also leads to good job performance. Contextual performance means doing things beyond the simple job performance, such as volunteering, putting in extra effort, cooperating, following rules and procedures, and endorsing the goals of the organization. If you’re looking to see if you’ll do well at a job, you need to see if you have the personality that fits the job, not just the smarts to do the job.
When psychologists are trying to determine what kind of personality someone has, they look at the “Big Five”: whether someone is an extravert; whether they are agreeable; whether they are conscientious; whether they’re emotionally stable; and whether they’re open to experience. Beyond that, though, psychologists disagree. One research camp argues that conscientiousness — being responsible, dependable, organized and persistent — is generic to success. But using conscientiousness as a standard of job performance won’t work for all jobs. For some jobs, particularly creative ones, conscientiousness may be a liability, rather than an asset. Some research shows that while conscientiousness predicts performance in realistic and conventional jobs, it impedes success in investigative, artistic and social jobs that require innovation, creativity and spontaneity. Interpersonal skills are another predictor of job performance. As the workplace moves toward teamwork and service-oriented jobs, evaluating interpersonal skills becomes increasingly important.
13