March 2010

Productive Tactics for Managing Stress

According to a 2009 study by the American Psychological Association, more than half of all American adults report at least moderate stress in their lives. How you deal with stress is important not only to your individual health, but to the health of your business.

When you let stress affect your attitude, it can set off a negative chain reaction among everyone with whom you have a business relationship. Employees and co-workers often try to avoid stressed-out bosses, hesitating to seek advice when they most need it. In turn, this can lead to production errors, missed details and blown deadlines. If customers pick up on your stressed-to-the-max attitude, they may cut short or cancel important meetings or even withhold business.

While stress is a part of life, there are several tactics you can employ to help reduce stress and minimize its impact in the workplace. Here are a few to keep in mind:

Identify and avoid your main stressors
Everyone has different causes of stress in their business lives, just as we have different physical and emotional reactions to that stress. One way to reduce stress is to identify and avoid your specific stressors as much as possible. If you can't stand Monday-morning meetings, for example, you may want to arrive an hour early to prepare. If commuting traffic has you seeing red, perhaps you can move your workday up or back a few hours to compensate.

An apple a day...
Keeps the stress away. You can greatly reduce stress by simply taking care of your physical well-being. No matter how harried your work day, try to make time for regular exercise and proper nutrition. Have a salad for lunch instead of fast food, and, if possible, make time for a fifteen minute walk to break up the work day.

Adjust your management style
For many managers, the small events that cause stress are, in total, indicative of a stress-inducing management style. Managers who insist on micromanaging all aspects of production or employee tasks often find themselves worrying about minor events at the expense of bigger-picture decisions.

Altering your management style is a comprehensive task that won’t happen overnight. But it may be the surest way to minimize stress if you find that all of your key stressors stem from your work habits.

What Can Grow Sales, Inc. Do For You?
Stress out about filling your prospect pipeline? Grow Sales, Inc., has been helping printing and other graphic arts companies with all aspects of outbound marketing, sales support and strategic growth initiatives since 1996. Call us to see what we can do for your organization.

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