Dealing with Stress
In this entry, I’ll share with you the tips Pierre Moorkens also gave us on how to pull someone out from stress.
Stress is a transfer of information processing from the pre-frontal and limbic regions of the brain to the older, primitive reptilian brain. This region processes life-or-death situations, where you must Flee or Fight. There is also another form of stress, in which you inhibit yourself and seek assistance (Abandon).
Fleeing individual – recognized by his scratching himself, saying yes to everything, wanting to end the conversation. You want to position yourself as an accomplice.
Fighting individual – recognized by his eyes, fixed on you. Anger, confrontational. You want to acknowledge his grief.
Your colleague Jeff is angered by his coworker: his know-it-all attitude, his laid back attitude, everything. It’s impossible to work with the coworker. Your best shot at getting Jeff back on track is to agree with him: the acknowledge the coworker is laid back, not easy to work with, and self important. That should get Jeff calmed down, and you can take it from there.
Inhibiting individual – recognized by his eyes, looking downwards. You want to comfort him.
Eric has been missing deadlines, so you ask him what’s up. He looks down and says not much, work as usual. You talk to him about the deadlines, and he says that you should ask someone else to do the job, he isn’t fit for it. Jeff would be better. Project is too difficult, too complex. In this case, you should agree with him that the project is indeed hard, tricky, and complex. You should comfort him until you pull him out of the stress.
Disclaimer: I did some research and there does not seem to be any consensus on this. Take with a grain of salt.