Team Building – Chris Winfield-Blum

Tips for effectively managing stress

Chris Winfield-Blum — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 12:22:08 +0000

I was recently talking to one of my team members about his role and he was discussing the current levels of stress he's feeling on a new project and asked me how I deal with stress myself. I thought it would make a good article, but I should say that I do not consider myself an expert on all things stress, but I have successfully managed to reduce my levels of stress over the years through my choices, my work habits and ability to reflect and move on from stressful situations.

Stress really affects people in different ways, and we all have differing "stress profiles" based on our personality, experience, training and everything else going on around us at that moment.

Stress is a factor in many health-related issues and should be taken seriously, an article at webmd.com lists; heart disease, worsening asthma, obesity, and diabetes among their 10 serious stress-related health problems. Ultimately, you need to take personal responsibility for making decisions to reduce or remove stressful situations from your day-to-day life. Sometimes those decisions can be the hardest types but will lead to a more harmonious and fulfilled life for you and your family.

"Categorise your stress sources"

To start with, it is important to internally categorise your stress sources;

Is it a result of the role you're in?
Is it a result of a toxic environment?
Is it a result of a toxic friend, associate or family member?
Is it a result of your own ego, attitude, insecurities or lack of action?

Being able to reflect on your where your stress is coming from will then steer your course of action to relieving or removing that stress. It also gives you an opportunity to find methods and approaches to ensure that stress is "left at the door", whichever "door" that happens to be. Meaning, if the stress is because of the office you can consciously leave it in the office and focus your energies on positive aspects of your life outside of that space.

So now that we are effectively categorising our stress sources we can look at specific approaches to dealing with stress for each.

"This role is super stressful"

It is really important that you understand what is "normal" levels of stress for a role and then take the appropriate action to either resolve the causes of stress or remove yourself from that situation. Often the cause of stress in a role is a lack of knowledge or experience in aspects of the role that you working on.

Some basic approaches for reducing role or task-based stress by increasing knowledge and experience could be;

Retrain in areas you're struggling, hopefully, facilitated by a team member that you know has the knowledge you need. Ensure that this training isn't just a presentation or "handover" - but a deep dive into as many aspects as you need to feel confident with your tasks going forwards.
Shadow a more experienced team member while they do the tasks that are causing you the most stress. Watch, take notes and ask questions about why they made specific decisions along the way. The more background you have in relation to those decisions the more confident you will be when you go back and perform the tasks yourself again.
Take the time to specialise and excel on tasks that you have higher levels of competencies so that you are the "go-to" team member for those, rather than the tasks that you are not as strong with.

"This toxic environment is driving me crazy"

A toxic environment is something that is more challenging to address as your ability to influence change is dependant on your own position within the environment as well as where the toxicity is coming from. If you're a leader and the toxicity is coming from your subordinates than I suggest working on your culture through team development and workshops; while also agreeing on what are the acceptable norms for the environment, your core values.

If, however, you are not a leader (by position) in this environment your ability to influence the toxicity is limited. You should reflect on what you are doing, if anything, to improve the situation. Further, if you have tried to improve things and nothing has changed, you may need to decide to remove yourself from that environment and find yourself somewhere that is more aligned with your own values and expectations.

From experience, toxic cultures are really hard to shift without full support from leadership so keep that in mind.

"This (friend, associate or family member) stresses me out"

Friends and associates are easy, any relationship like this should be two-directional, but we've probably all had friends who are "takers" over the years. You should both get "something" out of your relationship and if not, then I would be putting your energy into somebody that is more worthy of that energy. Again, that's easier said than done but consider this; a social study found that we form an average of 396 personal relationships but only 33, one in 12, will stand the test of time.

Now, family, that's a harder one because as the saying goes "we can't choose our family" - I do not have a lot of stress in my family life fortunately but I can only suggest that you identify areas of your family life that you can avoid or learn to ignore if it is stressing you out.

"Who do they think I am?", "I'm not an idiot!", "Why did they get the promotion over me?", "Why don't they appreciate me?"

Being self-aware enough to identify when you are creating your own stress is a challenge but you should reflect on how you are responded to external information. Ego is probably one of the biggest, self-inflicted, stress sources I have witnessed over the years; whether it is being unhappy with the way that somebody is talking down to you, or getting upset about the type of tasks that you're being assigned, your own ego becomes a factor. Additionally, your own attitude, work habits and an inability to separate one stress source from another can all lead to, what I consider to be completely avoidable stress.

Taking time to reflect on those areas that cause you the most stress could support the development of strategies and adjustments that would decrease that stress over time.

So by this stage, we have identified a handful of potential stress sources and have discussed methods or approaches to improving the relevant situations and hopefully decreasing your overall levels of stress.

Now I would like to talk about a handful of other approaches or considerations that you may find useful!

"Don't stress what you can't change!"

While I understand that this is often easier said than done, a lot of the time, at least for me, the stress levels I feel are directly related to the amount of energy that I am putting into correcting the situation. This is why it is important to identify what you can and can not change in a given situation; further, the factors that are outside of your influence should be left for somebody who is better placed to make a positive change.

A practical application of this situation is stressing and worrying about what is happening currently with COVID-19. While we should be paying attention to the aspects of this situation that we can control and influence, such as wearing a mask, social distancing etc, I try not to stress about vaccines and lockdowns, they are not things that I can influence in any way.

"Do not dwell on the past"

You would have heard this a lot, but I'm a firm believer in never dwelling on the past (it can't be changed!), instead, I reflect on the outcomes of my actions and note how I could have done things better and apply that to future situations that are similar.

Look, I get that people have regrets; people make bad decisions and it can have very serious consequences, because, well we're people. I just find our energy is best spent on things that can effect positive change in the present and future. That's not to say we can't have remorse for those we've hurt, and guilt for things that were a result of our poor decisions.

"Find your happy place"

We all need a place where we are at our most "chilled", where we are relaxed and able to be happy. It could be at home reading a book, at the beach, at a coffee shop reflecting on your week or with your kids. Whatever it is, you need to ensure that you find a balance in your life that will allow you to have those moments.

"Take responsibility for yourself"

I touched on this earlier, but it's so important I will say it again, it is your responsibility to ensure that you are not consistently under high levels of stress. If it is your job causing it, do what you can to improve the situation but if that fails, move on. If it is your relationship, again do what you can to make it a healthy relationship, but if that is not successful then you are both likely to be happier apart from each other. You can not, and should not rely on anybody else to improve your situation for you, that is simply not fair on them, nor yourself.

I hope this article will be useful to anybody who finds themselves in stressful situations regularly and I would love to hear from anybody the strategies they have utilised to improve their stress levels over the years.

Reflection is the power tool to personal & professional growth

Chris Winfield-Blum — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 00:16:01 +0000

One of the most effective forms of personal and professional development is through experience, but unfortunately this is often not leveraged to full effect. Most people assume that simply by experiencing different situations, they naturally learn from it.

This is an unfortunate symptom of our busy lives and a lack of understanding or appreciation for how we actually develop our skills, whether they be leadership, management, coding, writing or any other interest we hold for that matter.

To truly get the most out of our experiences we need to ensure that appropriate time is invested (I use this word purposely, because it is an investment) in observation and reflection.

Action-Observation-Reflection Model

Some of you may have heard about the AOR model, but for those who haven’t I would like to introduce it now. The principle is called “the action-observation-reflection model” which we can all use across various aspects of our lives to develop and grow in a natural way.

The below diagram is the visual representation of the AOR Model, aptly named the “spiral of experience”;

Within this model we can see that our experience grows naturally as we act, observe the results and impacts and then reflect on the outcomes. When you visualise it this way it is kind of common sense right?

In sports this can take form in video review sessions or even analysis of movement through high res replay technologies.

In projects, product or software development we use sprint and projects retrospectives where we ask reflective questions such as;

What did we do well?
What could/should we have done better?
What actions should we take to improve

This model is probably not blowing your mind at this point; it seems obvious when presented in such a simple diagram but often we fail to invest the time to see the spiral through its natural cycle, effectively stunting the potential experience gained.

Some easy to apply reflection tools or habits you should work to develop

Don’t book back-to-back-to-back meetings

This is a big one, we’re all human and we tend to live in the moment. This is an evolutionary hangover, as those not focused on the now, and therefore survival, often didn’t contribute back in the gene-pool.

For those involved in strategically significant projects, ensure that you block out a small window of time after to reflect and take your own notes.

Reflect on the good as well as the bad

We tend to only reflect on the bad things (or dwell on them) but there is a lot to gain by also critically reflecting on yourself and those around us in positive outcomes too.

There’s a book called Strength Finder, which is worth a read, but the premise of the book is that the value we can gain through working on our strengths far outweighs the value to be gained by “fixing weaknesses”. I have found this to be very true from my experiences as well but in the context of reflection this suggests that we should also reflect on the good as well as the bad and ugly.

Reflection is time critical

The benefits of reflection are affected by the time in which it is conducted. There is little point reflecting on something that occurred a month ago, or a year ago; in fact, I would argue that this is dwelling, not reflecting.

The simple truth is the closer to the “action” you conduct your reflection the more you will get out of it.

How to set your team up for success

Chris Winfield-Blum — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 00:20:00 +0000

It is amazing how many business leaders or team managers talk about their teams’ failures without reflecting on the possibility that their failures are in fact more of a reflection on them than the team or teams they are leading. In fact, if there is a culture of team failure, and they have worked their way through a number of team compositions then they are most likely one of the few common denominators in the situation.

When I talk about team compositions, you must recognise that any significant change to a team changes that teams composition and the dynamics. That includes, for example;

Adding a new team member
Removing a team member
Promoting a team member
Demoting a team member
Other factors that may shift the balance of power

These factors can reset the stages of team or group development as described by Tuckman.

So if you’re ready to reflect on your own leadership and team management now, here are a handful of factors to consider!

Set clear expectations

This sounds like an obvious thing to say, but from my experience, many leaders expect a high level of “common sense” – but as you have probably heard before; common sense, is unfortunately not particularly common.

I am in no way suggesting you outline every possible scenario or situation, you need to have trust your teams talent, experience and knowledge while having a level of assertiveness to ask questions when it is needed, however, you need to ensure that they understand various aspects of your organisation and the task they are performing.

Organisational values – how to behave

Organisational values provide your team(s) a baseline and focus on making the appropriate decisions in scenarios that they find themselves in.

Policies and procedures – how to work

Policies and procedures give your team a framework from which to work from and refer to at times when organisational values are not enough.

Further, you should put emphasis on self-documentation of common scenarios and processes so that there is consistency across your organisation and team members.

Task detail – how to deliver

Getting into the specifics of the task details, such as understanding stakeholders, timeline expectations, expected quality, challenges and risks are important. Often, however, the most critical aspect often neglected is context. What does this task, you are asking them to deliver, affect your customers and your business?

The first two are relatively self-explanatory but task detail is one aspect I would like to talk about in more detail, especially the context.

If your team understands the importance of their work in relation to your customers and your business, they are more likely to make better decisions. This context that I speak of could and should include answering the below questions for your team members;

How will it improve or change your customer’s experience with you and their satisfaction in their job?
How much revenue is this task likely to generate or money is it like to save?
What is the impact and cost of missing the agreed timeline?

A team member who has been provided with the above information is going to; have the appropriate mindset and values to make effective, appropriate decisions, and the context for why this task is important and what it means to all stakeholders for it to be delivered on time, on budget and to expected standards and quality. That is a great start to set your team member up for success.

A simple to understand example of this is where delivery of work that will add a monthly amount of revenue to your organisation. Delays in delivery not only has an affect on revenue and cashflow, but there is an opportunity loss, where your resources could have been working on other paid work.

Give your team the tools to succeed

Tools can be considered a broad definition within the context of setting your team up for success. The above-mentioned values and knowledge could be considered the first “tools” for your team members. However, we should expand on this to include a number of other “tools” including;

Critical knowledge and training – for hard-skills this is common of course, you wouldn’t ask a plumber to fly and plane and you wouldn’t ask a pilot to perform surgery. I strongly suggest you do not neglect soft-skills too when considering your professional development toolkit. Think about soft-skills such as productivity & leadership as examples of education/training that could have a significant impact on your teams’ success.
Visibility and relevant data – give your team visibility to the highest level of business data possible, including where appropriate financials. Allow them to easily see how a project’s progress and momentum and how their tasks will impact on that.
Actual tools – consider if your team have the right tools or software to work effectively to meet your expectations. Do they have a way to manage their tasks and collaborate with their fellow team members?

Support your team throughout

Again, I am not suggesting and micro-management or hand-holding here, but you as a leader should be on the lookout for both internal and external factors that may be impacting your team members and either be actively shielding them from them or resetting your expectations based on these unexpected influences.

A great example of this within the context of a software development team is when there is an active project ongoing and there is a critical issue that pulls resources off the project temporarily. You, as their leader, need to understand that this impact will affect delivery. If you can deflect those interruptions to other resources without impacting the customers’ experience then you absolutely should do so. If that is not an option, why not take the initiative to communicate your understanding that this interruption may impact on the project.

If you haven’t already introduced effective feedback loops into your teams, you should absolutely do this. This is a great way to express your support and encourages you to implement changes to your teams work life, many of which cost little and have huge impacts on job satisfaction and productivity!

Ask them regularly how they are going (I prefer to do this via monthly coffee chats) and ask if there is anything that they need your help with whether it be related to the expectations and tools we mentioned above, or anything else.

Take this opportunity to also restate or set additional expectations for your group and team members, so that they are always clear and fresh for everybody involved.

Let me know what you think below in the comments!