Achieved Strategies

A manager from one of our clients contacted me recently to discuss a concern she had.  In separate interactions, numerous employees had shared with her how stressed out they were.  Understandably she was concerned.  She contacted me to bounce around some ideas for a team building exercise to reduce stress.

First, let’s recognize the manager for paying close attention to this trend.  More importantly, let’s praise the manager for caring about her team’s well being and wanting to do something about it.

I suggested to the manager that she didn’t need a team building exercise.  She needed to publicly share her concern.  And she simply needed to encourage a group conversation about the trend and let the team tackle the concern.

What’s the value in this for all of us?

• Remove the “drama” around topics like stress by encouraging the group to discuss it.  By discussing the topic (short of bitching about it) it becomes somewhat cathartic.  The group begins to (re)connect around the topic.

As the manager, your job is to ask a question to help the group articulate what they learned from the conversation: “What is your take-away from this conversation?” “What can we learn from our conversation?”  “What do we do next?”

• You know the employees had been sharing their frustrations with each other. These conversations usually exacerbate the problem.  By pushing the group to talk about their concerns in a constructive forum removes the drama or negativity.  It can help the work environment.

• Fancy team building exercises can be complicated solutions. And they can easily miss the mark and not achieve the desired outcome. Don’t underestimate the power of a good, some what facilitated conversation.

In a follow-up conversation with the manager, she shared that the group had a positive discussion and identified some next steps to manage their stress levels. Did the stress go away? No. But the group is now finding ways to help each other manage work-stress.

Share with us below the value you see in good ol’ conversation?