News came on July 16 that inflation has jumped more than one percent in a month, the fastest single month increase in decades. Gasoline is selling at four dollars per gallon. The home mortgage market crisis continues to play out. Airlines and automakers are reporting steep losses. 400,000 jobs have been lost so far this year. Credit is tightening.
None of these developments are going to destroy the United States or its economy. As a matter of fact, there is plenty more bad news to worry about: massive floods this spring, the state of California is on fire, the corn crop will be late and less than anticipated. Also, as Mark Twain might say, a president will get elected and so will Congress come November.
Stress management assumes that there will be events and situations to which people react with anxiety. Anxiety is made up of both a cognitive component (worry) and a visceral component (blood pressure goes up, adrenalin flows, emotions run strong). The manager andthe business leader must resist the urge to panic, to become overly pessimistic, to behave as though he or she were helpless, or to wait for someone else to do something. Leaders don't get paid for doing nothing. They earn their keep when the chips are down. Right now the chips are down.
Flexibility can make the difference. Just clinging to the way things have always been done amounts to striking a helpless stance in the face of the problems affecting you and your workers.
Flexibility is not to be confused with imagination. All flexibility means is a willingness to consider a different approach. Imagination will take care of itself, just listen to the people you lead. They will make suggestions that would help them with the problems they face. They will only do so if they perceive that you, as their leader or manager, are flexible enough to listen and to consider what they say.
Some categories of suggestions that you might hear include the following:
- changes in the manner of compensation to allow more expense money and less taxable revenue
- changes in the work schedule to allow less travel, more work at home, more car pooling or use of public transportation
- flex hours
- selective technical assistance such as help with procuring credit, references for part time extra jobs, help with finding needed health insurance or other types of insurance, reconfiguring of the benefits package offered by your company
- surprises. The longer a leader listens the more likely it becomes that somebody will make a suggestion that is truly surprising and almost always excellent.
Flexibility includes acceptance of the reality that there is no one size that fits all when it comes to employee assistance and employee suggestions about changes that would help with their problems. Flexibility also embraces the principle that if I keep doing what isn't working I will keep getting the same results.
Necessity is the mother of change but change can only happen when there is an atmosphere of flexibility. Take change by the hand before it grabs you by the throat.
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