“Using Anxiety To Fuel Performance With Emotional Intelligence”

By Dr. Travis Bradberry

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who believe they can make things happen, and those who believe things happen to them. The first group is convinced that the outcome of their lives and careers is more or less in their own hands, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. The second group takes more of a Forrest Gump approach—they sit around and wait for the bus to take them somewhere.

University of Florida psychologist Tim Judge and his colleagues have shown overwhelmingly that people who feel like they control the events in their lives more than the events control them and are confident in their abilities end up doing better on nearly every important measure of work performance. In Judge’s studies, these individuals—we’ll call them “the Empowered”—were found to:

1. Sell more than other employees do
2. Give better customer service
3. Adjust better to foreign assignments
4. Take home an average of 50 to 150 percent more annual income than people who feel less control over the fate of their careers

SELF-MANAGING IN GOOD TIMES AND BAD

Of course, when good times are rolling, nearly all of us believe we have the world by the tail. What makes the Empowered people in Tim Judge’s studies special—whether they work the shop floor or in the C-suite—is that they don’t grow consumed by self-pity when the going gets tough. Just like you, the Empowered feel anxiety when hard times strike, but they use this anxiety differently. Since the Empowered believe that they have control over the outcomes in their lives, their anxiety fuels passion instead of pity, drive in lieu of despair, and tenacity over trepidation. Whether the Empowered find themselves presiding over a division with tanking revenues, on the receiving end of a scathing performance review, or staring yet another job-hunting rejection in the face, they refuse to wave the white flag. They redouble their efforts.

The good news is that we can all get better at managing the anxiety we inevitably feel when facing difficult and uncertain situations. The key thing to understand is that you are in fact facing uncertainty—the outcome of your future has not been decided. It’s up to you to develop the beliefs and mental toughness that will make you one of the Empowered.

Here’s how you can empower yourself and turn anxiety into action:

1. Expect and prepare for change. People change and businesses go through ebbs and flows. It’s a fact that even the Empowered people from Judge’s study cannot control. They’ve found themselves out of work. Their companies have gone through recessions. The difference is that they believe they are fully capable of dealing with changes and making something positive happen. In other words, they are mentally prepared for change—and you can be too. If you don’t anticipate change naturally, you need to set aside some time regularly—either every week or every other week—to create a list of important changes that you think could possibly happen. The purpose of this task is not to predict every change you’ll face. Rather, it will open your mind to change and sharpen your ability to spot and respond to impending changes. Even if the events from your lists never happen, the practice of anticipating and preparing for change will give you a greater sense of command over your future and prepare you for steps two and three.
2. Focus on your freedoms, not on your limitations. We’ve all had the old mantra Life isn’t fair beaten into our brains since we were young. This mantra is a voice of despair and passive inaction. While it’s true that we sometimes have limited ability to stop negative events from occurring, we are always free to choose our response. On your list of possible changes from step one, jot down all of the positive ways in which you can take action and respond to each change. You’ll surprise yourself with how much control you can wield over seemingly uncontrollable circumstances.
3. Re-write your script. Step three is going to be the hardest because it requires you to change the mode of thinking that you’ve grown accustomed to. Over time, we all develop mental scripts that run through our heads and influence how we feel about our circumstances and what we do in response to them. These scripts go so far as to tell us what to say and act in different situations. In order to be empowered, you’ll need to rewrite your script and change how you approach change. To do this, recall a tough time you went through recently. What was it you believed about your circumstances that prevented you from making the most of your situation or responding more effectively? Write this script down and label it as your hard-luck script. Since hindsight is 20/20, go ahead and write a more effective and empowered mental script next to it that you wish you would’ve followed. This is the perseverance script you will use to replace yourhard-luck script. File this away so that you can pull it out and study it whenever you are anticipating or facing changes. When you do pull your scripts out, compare your present thinking to your hard-luck andempowered scripts. This will keep you honest and enable you to adjust your thinking so that you’re operating from an empowered script. These periodic reminders will eventually rewrite your script completely, enabling you to operate from a place of empowerment.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Travis Bradberry, Ph.D.
Dr. Travis Bradberry is an award-winning author and the cofounder of TalentSmart^®

People underestimate the impact of their career on their overall wellbeing

This doesn’t mean that getting fired will harm your wellbeing forever. The same study also found that being laid off from a job in the last year did not result in any significant long-term changes. The key is to avoid sustained periods of unemployment (more than a year) when you are actively looking for a job but unable to find one. In addition to the obvious loss of income from prolonged unemployment, the lack of regular social contact and the daily boredom might be even more detrimental to your wellbeing.

You don’t need to earn a paycheck to have thriving Career Wellbeing. But you do need to find something that you enjoy doing — and have an opportunity to do it every day. Whether that means working in an office, volunteering, raising your children, or starting your own business, what matters most is being engaged in the career or occupation you choose.

Waiting for the bell to ring

Think back to when you were in school sitting through a class in which you had very little interest. Perhaps your eyes were fixed on the clock or you were staring blankly into space. You probably remember the anticipation of waiting for the bell to ring so you could get up from your desk and move on to whatever was next. More than two-thirds of workers around the world experience a similar feeling by the end of a typical workday.

To explore why so many people are disengaged at work, we recruited 168 employees and studied their engagement, heart rate, stress levels, and various emotions throughout the day. Before the study began, we collected data about each employee’s level of engagement. We examined the differences between employees who were generally engaged in their jobs and those who were not. As part of the experiment, the participants carried a handheld device that alerted them at various points in the day when we would ask them what they were doing, who they were with, and several other questions about their mood.

We also asked each participant to wear a small heart rate monitor. At the end of each day, these monitors, which were smaller than a quarter and attached to the chest like a sticker, were connected to a computer to download data. This allowed us to study the relationship between fluctuations in heart rate and various events throughout the day.

Saliva samples were also collected to gauge stress levels throughout the day (via the stress hormone, cortisol). Whenever the handheld device beeped and requested an entry in the electronic journal, participants were asked to spit into a small tube. The cortisol levels in the saliva provided us with a direct physiological measure of stress levels at various points each day.

After reviewing all of these data, it was clear that when people who are engaged in their jobs show up for work, they have an entirely different experience than those who are disengaged. For those who were engaged, happiness and interest throughout the day were significantly higher. Conversely, stress levels were substantially higher for those who were disengaged. Perhaps most strikingly, disengaged workers’ stress levels decreased and their happiness increased toward the end of the workday. People with low engagement and low Career Wellbeing are simply waiting for the workday to end.

The Five Essential Elements of Wellbeing

For more than 50 years, Gallup scientists have been exploring the demands of a life well-lived. More recently, in partnership with leading economists, psychologists, and other acclaimed scientists, Gallup has uncovered the common elements of wellbeing that transcend countries and cultures. This research revealed the universal elements of wellbeing that differentiate a thriving life from one spent suffering. They represent five broad categories that are essential to most people:

• Career Wellbeing: how you occupy your time — or simply liking what you do every day
• Social Wellbeing: having strong relationships and love in your life
• Financial Wellbeing: effectively managing your economic life
• Physical Wellbeing: having good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis
• Community Wellbeing: the sense of engagement you have with the area where you live

• 11 months ago



Best Answer – Chosen by Asker

Source(s):

Self Awareness is the foundation upon which SUCCESS is built!

We want a “Quick Fix” to things that are keeping us from achieving out goals and objectives.
In reality there is no “easy answer” or “quick fix”  – real change requires focus on where you are and where you want to go.   Most of us have no idea of where we are.
Consider the following steps toward Authentic Success.

Steps to Focus and Authentic Success:

1.  ACQUIRE Self Awareness

Have an accurate,  authentic understanding of who you are that you can articulate.    This includes knowing your INTERESTS,  STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, NEEDS and MOTIVATORS.  Know what excites you and what turns you off.   Know the kind of work environments you relate to and those you don’t. (Am I team oriented or do I prefer to work independently?   Do I like a boss who directly supervises or one who just tells me what needs to be done and lets me do it?)

2.  DEVELOP Self Management

You will never find the “perfect” job or life situation.    With self awareness, you know what you are looking for.   Self management enables you to adapt to situations and circumstances that may not be that perfect fit.   Many times your personal success is dependent on you ability to adapt to changing conditions.

3.  LEARN to Better Communicate and  Manage Your Impact on Others

Knowing  yourself and adapting to changes will enable you to adjust your approach to people.   Everything in our society is about relationships.  Your personal and professional success are dependent upon how you manage your relationships with others.

4.  MAKE THINGS HAPPEN!

Now that you know who you are, know your STRENGTHS, know the value you bring to the marketplace and how to relate to others, you are ready to make good things happen!    All of the knowledge in the world is useless unless you do something with it!   SET GOALS!    ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS!   STRETCH FARTHER!

There is no “easy answer” – real change requires real effort. The “quick fix” is seldom a “meaningful fix”. Distractions  are going to happen.  Improving your skills is like attempting to get in shape.  It won’t solve all of your problems.   This is tough!   Successful people are not afraid of challenging goals. In fact, clear, specific goals that produce a lot of challenge  tend to produce the best results!

It’s Time to Take The Challenge……..   GO FOR IT!

Personality assessment is  the fastest way to gain healthy self awareness.  The Birkman Method provides the most comprehensive  insights into your core interests,  strengths, your problem solving approach, your communication style and how you relate to others.   You may wish to consider taking the Birkman and obtaining the “Career Report” as an overview.   More comprehensive Birkman analysis and consultant facilitated feedback options are available from FocusFinder.

by Gill Corkindale
(Gill Corkindale is an executive coach and writer based in London, focusing on global management and leadership. She was formerly management editor of the Financial Times.)

A few months ago I was lucky enough to work with someone who really understood resilience. Atef was one of a small group of international leaders I was coaching in London. On the first day, by way of introductions, I had asked them to describe their roles, their current business issues and a little about their backgrounds.

Atef spoke last. A senior vice-president in an American bank, he described the challenges he was facing with his team and in his business. The story of relentless pressure, change projects, long hours and difficult people was a familiar one. But after a few minutes, the story took a different and unusual direction.

With little emotion, he described his early life growing up in the West Bank. A Palestinian, he had no proper education, health service or even a nation-state. At 15, his father had died, leaving him — the eldest son — to support his family. He took whatever work he could find, on building sites, as a waiter and driving taxis. Somehow, he managed to scrape together enough money to educate himself and, at the age of 20, won a scholarship to an American school. After graduating, he took a lowly job in a bank and worked his way up into increasingly senior roles. His hard work was rewarded with promotion and, at the age of 35, the bank sponsored his MBA at an elite business school.

We all listened attentively as he recounted story after story of how he had coped with danger and deprivation and how he had ultimately survived and prospered with very little support. He described how the lessons of his early life left him stronger, more vigilant and determined to make a success of his life, whatever the threat or disruptive change. He was balanced, assured and disciplined, with a great energy and passion for life.

I have no doubt that Atef will survive whatever life throws at him. The financial crisis may force his bank to restructure – he may even lose his job and have to start all over again. But I am certain that he will cope – and he may well prosper. Why? Because the lessons he learned early in life taught him how to be resilient.

Resilience is emerging as the seminal skill for leaders as more economies slide towards recession. The American Psychological Association, which has studied resilience closely since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, defines it as the ability to adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, and from sources of stress such as work pressures, health, family or relationship problems.

A resilient person is not only able to handle such experiences in the moment, but also to bounce back afterward. The good news is that leaders can develop resilience by managing their thoughts, behaviours and actions. The Road to Resilience, the APA’s guide to developing individual resilience, sets out 10 steps which every leader should take time to study:

Develop supportive and caring relationships at home, among friends and colleagues. Accept help and support and help others when they need it.
Remember that some crises are beyond your control. You can’t change events but you can change the way you interpret and react to them. Try to accept this and look ahead.
Accept that change is part of life and that you will have to adapt to changing circumstances. Set some realistic goals and take regular small steps towards achieving them. Ask yourself, “What’s the one thing I can accomplish today?” rather than focusing on the overarching goal.  Be decisive. Do as much as you can rather than avoiding problems and hoping they will go away.
Try to understand your own experiences of dealing with loss, hardship or emotional problems. Appreciate what you have learned from these events.
Develop a positive view about yourself and be confident in your strengths and abilities. Try to take a longer-term perspective and don’t blow the significance of the event out of proportion. Stay hopeful and optimistic. Visualize what you want, rather than worrying about what you fear.  Look after yourself – your health, fitness and need for relaxation and peace. This will give you the strength and balance to deal with difficult situations.
Another useful port of call is The Hardiness Institute, which offers leaders an easy online hardiness test to assess their levels of resilience. The institute is based on the work of Dr Salvatore R. Maddi of the University of Chicago who carried out a landmark study of Illinois Bell Telephone (IBT) in the 1970s-80s. Dr Maddi wanted to find out why some people stayed well even during the stress of a major downsizing programme. They discovered that the most resilient people held three key beliefs, known as the three C’s:

Commitment: they strived to be involved in events rather than feeling isolated.
Control: they tried to control outcomes, rather than lapse into passivity and powerlessness.
Challenge: they viewed stressful changes (whether positive or negative) as opportunities for new learning.
Positive psychology is a powerful tool to develop resilience. Authors Andrew Shatte and Karen Reivich used research from a 15-year study for their book, The Resilience Factor, which details seven key steps to building resilience based on positive thinking.

Here in the UK, we are beginning to build the skills of resilience early in life by using positive thinking. This month, the University of Bath began an 18-month trial on positive thinking for 7000 teenagers in British schools. Teenagers will be taught to acknowledge their personal strengths, identify negative thought processes and develop problem-solving skills. Perhaps these ideas will soon be brought into the business world where they are equally useful, especially for many younger employees who have no experience or understanding of the challenges of recession.

Source: Harvard Business Review Blog

http://blogs.hbr.org/corkindale/2009/01/resilience_how_to_build_a_pers.html

Birkman International® presents solutions for the greatest
organizational development needs of 2007

Abstract
Assessment use is increasing among U.S.-based corporations. Corporations have
embedded psychometric personality assessments in relevant business processes,
such as hiring decisions, leadership development, team building and executive
coaching. These same corporations are poised for organizational development
success because assessments can discern personalities and propel leadership
development and executive training.

It is likely that psychometric personality assessments will become increasingly
important in hiring decisions, team building, leadership development and
executive coaching in 2007.

Pre-employment Assessments
Data collected from surveys of Birkman corporate customers and consultants
indicated that both corporate customers and consultants consider advice
concerning hiring decisions a very important part of their job. The Birkman
corporate customer and consultant surveys revealed that 28 percent of corporate
customers believe their organizations are very effective at making hiring decisions,
while only 12 percent of consultants share the same evaluation of their client
base. These surveys also revealed that 28 percent of corporate customers and 40
percent of consultants currently use the Birkman Method for hiring-decision
purposes.

Personality assessments are one aspect of the pre-employment screening process,
and their use is increasing because of their low cost and time savings. Personality
assessments may be better than skill tests for matching a candidate’s strengths
with the job’s responsibilities.(5) Further, it has been stated that companies who
use personality assessments in pre-employment screenings are three to five times
more likely to hire the right person for the job the first time.(6) This finding is
evidence of the growing amount of research that substantiates the effectiveness of
personality assessments.

The jobs for which these types of assessments are used spans all levels of the
organization, but the numbers are highest for lower- and middle-level
management. Assessing personal styles at all levels within a company is becoming
best practice, replacing the old trend of assessing only upper-level employees.(7)
This supports the assertion that there will be an increased utilization of
personality assessments throughout organizations of all sizes and at all levels
during 2007.

Ref 5
According to Roberta Neault, president of Life Strategies Ltd. recently quoted in “Job Seekers Face Personality Tests”, The
StarPhoenix, December 23, 2006.
Ref 6
According to HR consultant Dinah Bailey, principal at HR ByDESIGN, recently quoted in “Pre-Employment Assessments”,
The Brampton News, December 12, 2006.
Ref 7
According to Roberta Neault, president of Life Strategies Ltd., recently quoted in “Job Seekers Face Personality Tests”,
The StarPhoenix, December 23, 2006.

Copyright 2007 – Birkman International

Avoiding Costly Hiring Mistakes……

Deciding who to hire as an employee is one of the most important decisions any business makes.  Hiring a good or great candidate can make a huge positive impact on business success.On the other hand, the cost of hiring a wrong or unsuitable candidate can be very high.   There is a direct financial cost, there is the cost of lost time or opportunity and there may be a psychological impact such as loss of morale or increased stress.   Smaller businesses have relatively few employees, it is all the more important that each employee meet the expectations of the business.

A well structured  interview gives a unique opportunity to determine how a candidate accomplishes results, not just what they accomplish.   This insight allows you and the candidate to assess whether or not the proposed position is a good fit for this candidate.   You can assess whether the potential new hire will contribute in a way that aligns with your organization”s values and behaves in a way that is consistent with your values or competitive advantage — or whether the candidate”s behavior will collide with your organization”s goals.  Poor fit is one of the most likely causes of employee turnover and manager/owner stress.  Research suggests that fit, not skill or education, is the most common reason people fail.  Proper fit reduces stress, improves employee engagement with the business and reduces turnover due to job dissatisfaction.

Personality Testing

Use of personality tests in the hiring process is one of the fastest growing trends in the field of human resources. A personality test functions as a highly structured interview. A number of personality tests have been developed for business applications, and are an excellent tool for predicting the success of applicants for a wide range of jobs.
An appropriate  personality test can identify people who will be highly satisfied with important aspects of a job.  Hiring such people will significantly reduce turnover. For example, if a large part of the job requires the daily performance of a series of highly routine tasks, then it makes sense to hire people who can not only perform the tasks, but will be very satisfied performing the tasks over an extended period of time. The personality test can provide just that type of information. Organizations interested in hiring  quality employees and reducing turnover can achieve greater success in both areas by employing a well-developed personality test in the hiring process.

Recommendation:

Begin with a clear evaluation of the target job(s) for which the organization is hiring.  Use a well-developed personality test as an initial screening tool. The flexibility of a personality test allows an organization to screen candidates for quality and the likelihood that they will stick with the job.

Candidates who are successful on the personality test move on to an employment interview structured around key job requirements.  Candidates successfully completing both the personality test and interview are considered viable candidates for a job.   Contingencies such as a successful background check, drug screen, etc. may also apply.  Finally, consider  having metrics or a process that monitors hiring patterns to ensure positive movement toward employee quality and turnover reduction goals.