For the Smart Money Cookie

These suggestions came from a survey conducted regarding what has been useful for various businesses and organizations. Pick ones that you would use for your organization and use them. If you require coaching or training for the implementation, contact us for professional support.

1. Focus groups…discussion of issues and solutions

2. Survey employees regarding issues and possible solutions

3. Divide issues into ones where there is control and ones where is NO control

a. Acceptance of no control

b. Possible solutions or enhanced practices (Tackle the difficult situations and not just talk but solid follow-through…with accountability)

4. Invite input and participation from every sector and all personnel

5. Educate or at least update all personnel regularly and have supervisors explain the roles and expectations that will accompany any changes/transitions (help create “buy-in” for each of your “key” personnel.)

6. Get support networks developed and working

7. Create recognition for positive organization stress management suggestions (reward positive participation, celebrate the best suggestions…follow through)

8. Get leadership to role model stress management- positive re-enforcement for individuals or groups that demonstrate improvement.

9. Educate all personnel on how and when to use EAPs

10. Reduce stigma of admitting effects of stress by training/educating personnel on why we are more stressed now than ever before in history (reduces sense of weakness)

11. Gather statistics on retention (costs) and sick time (or even stress related workers compensation claims) so you can determine if the stress management program is working (to improve negative stats.)

12. Teach managers to really listen!

13. Reduce availability of stressors: noise, crowding, caffeine, noxious odors (or people.)

14. Create time and space for stress management practices (for individuals or possibly groups/teams)

15. Create organizational play/fun

16. Teach meeting management, for less wasted time… and less stressful meetings

17. Get people physically active as a stress management tool (Exercise and empowerment)

18. Allow for balance of work/family…. (Family leave time, honored)

19. Celebrate diversity/differences of style-behavior, values, attitudes (know that variations create balance and solid organizations.) Enhanced communication workshops…

These tips, when implemented, can assist your organization by reducing organizational stress, improving the quality of life, and may even prove useful to enhance productivity. Give these tips a chance to work for your organization.

L. John Mason, Ph.D. is the author of the best selling “Guide to Stress Reduction.” Since 1977, he has offered Executive Coaching and Training.

Please visit the Stress Education Center’s website at http://www.dstress.com for articles, free ezine signup, and learn about the new telecourses that are available. If you would like information or a targeted proposal for training or coaching, please contact us at (707) 795-2228.

If you are looking to promote your training or coaching career, please investigate the Professional Stress Management Training and Certification Program for a secondary source of income or as career path.

Leaders envision the future; they inspire organization members and chart the course of the organization. Leaders must instill values - whether they are a concern for quality, honesty, calculated risk taking, or respect for employees and customers.

Every group of people that performs near its total capacity has some person as its head who is skilled in the art of leadership. This skill seems to be a compound of various ingredients: the ability to use power effectively and in a responsible manner; the ability to comprehend that human beings have different motivation forces at different times and in different situations; the ability to inspire; and the ability to act in a manner that will develop a climate conducive to responding to and arousing motivations.

An important ingredient of leadership is a fundamental understanding of people. As in all practices, it is one thing to know motivation theory, kinds of motivating forces and the nature of a system of motivation but another thing to be able to apply this knowledge to people and situations.

A leader who at least knows the present state of motivation theory and who understands the elements of motivation is more aware of the nature and strength of human needs and is more able to define and design ways of satisfying them and to administer so as to get the desired responses.

Another vital ingredient of leadership is the rare ability to inspire followers to apply their full capabilities to a project. While the use of motivator seems to center on subordinates and their needs, inspiration also comes from group heads. They may have qualities of charm and appeal that give rise to loyalty, devotion and a strong desire on the part of followers to promote what leaders want. This is not a matter of need satisfaction; it is, rather, a matter of people giving unselfish support to a chosen champion.

Leadership provides detailed information on Leadership, Leadership Training, Leadership Development, Leadership Styles and more. Leadership is affiliated with Corporate Leadership Training.