The Find: In an empathetic post one blogger offers employees looking to get through the crisis four ways to focus on helping their stressed out managers rather than obsessing about their own worries.- The Source: Anita Bruzzese writing on Cube Rules.
The Takeaway: Actors suffering from self-consciousness are sometimes told to focus on their co-stars to take their attention off their nerves and boost their performance. This week author Bruzzese offers some similar advice for workers who are stressing about getting out of this recession with their jobs: it’s not all about you.
It’s empathetic advice, but not totally selfless. As Bruzzese points out, “stress can often roll downhill and land directly on employees.” All efforts to ease the pressure on your manager are likely to benefit her, you and the company. So how can you support your stressed out supervisor? Bruzzese has four suggestions:
- Work smarter. I know, I know, you think you already have the workload of 12 people, but I’ll bet if you took a hard look at what you do you could come up with some better ways to get things done. Just because you took over someone else’s tasks doesn’t mean they make sense now, or can’t be streamlined in some way. Becoming efficient and more productive – and letting the boss know – will help reduce his worry about remaining competitive.
- Understand his bottom line. Ask the boss about his key objectives and then figure out how to help him meet those objectives.
- Realize that no offer is too small. Even taking a minor task off the boss’s plate gives a real lift to the spirits. Can you do some initial research? Make some phone calls?
- Ask how he’s doing. During these tough times, many managers are feeling a lot of personal anguish about what’s happening, and they need an encouraging word as well. Going out to lunch, sharing a funny story or just taking a minute to really listen can go a long way in reducing tension for the boss.
In my days as a teacher I found nothing did more for taking your mind off stress than focusing on helping others. Perhaps this approach would do some good in the hard-charging and often self-involved world of business as well.
(Image of man in need of some help by alancleaver_2000, CC 2.0)
