In a world of tight deadlines,
it’s no wonder that some of your stress might seep out and affect your
colleagues. But — because they’re under pressures of their own — you risk
perpetuating a vicious circle, where you mirror and magnify each other’s frenzy.
You can’t control their behavior, but you can take charge of your own.
There are obvious ways to tamp down the stress you inflict on others, such as
refraining from yelling or making sarcastic comments. But those are only the
most visible ways one risks alienating one’s coworkers; to truly stop the
office pathology, you have to look deeper. Here are three subtle but powerful
strategies to ratchet down the pressure and ensure you’re not subjecting your
colleagues to undue stress and frustration.
First, stop being vague.
If someone doesn’t know the full context of a situation, vague messages — which
might be quite harmless — are often read like a Rorschach test, with fears and
interpretations piled on. If you send a late-night email to a coworker that
says, “We need to talk,” without further explanation, that can trigger an
unhelpful cascade: Is there a problem? What did I
do? Is she going to reprimand me?
I received a text message from a colleague this morning with exactly that
framing. “Dorie,” it read. “Are you available today to talk via phone? Let me
know when you are available…” Those ellipses seemed downright ominous. What did
she need from me, so urgently? To share podcast referrals, it turned out.
Some people leave vague messages because they’re in a rush — tapping
out a quick text or leaving a voicemail en route to the airport — and don’t
realize the impact they have. Other people deliberately leverage vague
messages as a power play, knowing they’ll make others wonder and worry.
Either way, it inflicts an inexcusable psychic toll. If you want to be a
better colleague, stop doing it.
Second, triage your responses. We all know email can be
overwhelming — the average professional sends or receives 122 messages per day, according to one study — and in order to make progress on important
projects, I’ll often go days without responding to emails. Usually, this isn’t
a problem; most missives are informational and non-urgent. But there’s one
glaring exception: messages that contain specific, time-sensitive inquiries. Can you come to the meeting Friday at 4pm? Do you approve the
new draft of the presentation for tomorrow? Should we extend the job offer to
Anika or Marco?
When you delay responding to these specific, targeted messages, it’s not
you being “focused on what’s most important” (if we’re spinning it nicely) or
even “slightly distracted.” It’s being obstructionist, which creates negative
ripple effects throughout the organization. Even if you’re heads down and have
sworn off email for days or weeks to accomplish a priority mission, spend at
least 15 minutes a day tagging the most important, time-sensitive messages that
have come in, so that you can respond appropriately. That marks you as a team
player and makes everyone’s life easier — including your own, since you’ll earn
the gratitude of your colleagues and they won’t keep pinging you relentlessly
to badger you for the answers they need.
Finally, stop watching the kettle boil.
Just as it’s damaging to neglect communication, as above, and let your
colleagues languish without your necessary input, it’s just as bad to monitor
them relentlessly. If you’re a perfectionist, or feel a keen sense of
responsibility about a given project, you might feel tempted to watch their
every move to ensure they’re performing, on time and on budget. That’s a
laudable impulse, but the net result is that your colleagues will feel hounded,
mistrusted, and micromanaged. In fact, scrutinizing them too closely is likely
to make them perform worse, as demonstrated via research into
the phenomenon of “choking under pressure.”
Monitor your own tendencies, instead. Recognize that responsible
professionals thrive when they’re given autonomy, and work with them to
establish a timeline and agreed-upon metrics of progress. That way, you can
check in at appropriate intervals and they won’t feel blindsided. That takes
the pressure off and allows them to do their best work.
When we’re stressed out, that feeling often
spreads. It’s inevitable in a fast-paced workplace that some stress
will be shared. But in order to create a better work environment, we need to
take steps to contain this contagion as much as possible. By limiting
vague messages, responding to specific requests in a timely fashion, and giving
your colleagues a bit more leeway, you can do your part to stop the contagion
of workplace stress — because we each already have enough of our own.
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