Mastering the stress of change: Control and Predictability

It is often said that there is nothing that moves beyond the speed of light. This notion may be getting challenged, by the speed in which the modern world is changing; the work place, consumer behaviour, digital adoption, information consumption, automation, demand for value led workplaces – the list goes on.

As companies try to adapt, tension and turbulence is created akin to a large tanker at full speed having to suddenly fully lock to the left in order to avoid the oncoming iceberg – the bigger and more complex the business, the more tension this phase will create on the business, including its employees.

There is a lot of talk about the change happening within retail and other sectors, but ultimately these changes are affecting the employees – the very people that will, if handled well, drive the change needed within the business.

It is important that managers and business leaders understand that the friction which will be inevitable during this turbulent period will not only impact the working environment of their colleagues but also their personal and home life –  it has to be handled correctly.

So, how do we support people through change? Well, outside of developing a compelling vision, allowing outlets for frustration, supporting their mastering of the skills within said environment and building resilience, developing a sense of control and predictability are the key buzz phrases you will hear across the Operations, HR and people development functions.

If people have a sense of control and an element of predictability during a tough test, they are generally better placed to get through it without breaking.  However, too many people see these as blanket strategies to get through change, without truly understanding the qualifiers and limitations of each.

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It is vital that we do not see change management as simply giving control or predictability, that to minimise psychological stressors the solution is always to have more control or predictability. These principles of stress management only work in certain circumstances and only for certain types of challenges.

CONTROL – THE DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD

Of all the variables relating to managing change, control is the one most likely to be a double-edged sword – too much of a sense of control can be crippling, ask anybody in their first leadership role.

Perception plays a big role in the psychology of control. If during crisis you think ‘wow, that was bad, but it could have been much worse if I hadn’t have been in charge’, then a sense of control works. However, if you think ‘that was a disaster, and its all my fault’, a sense of control is not going to make you feel great. Essentially, the more disastrous the outcome of a challenge the worse it is to believe you had some control of the outcome.

HAVING A SENSE OF CONTROL

Interestingly, if you give a rat a series of static shocks you can train it to press a leaver to avoid the shocks – take this leaver away and the rat then has a massive stress response. However, keep the leaver there but disconnect it so it no longer works and incredibly the rat has a lower stress response, due to the sense of control – if the frequency of shocks is at least marginally less than prior to pressing the leaver. Believe it or not but this situation also works with humans in a room of horrible loud noises.

QUALIFIERS OF CONTROL

The realm of stress management is mostly techniques that help deal with challenges that are far from disastrous and within this realm they are effective, but not for the homeless, cancer patients and other major life impacting situations.

SOME SUBTELTIES OF CONTROL

When moving through a turbulent time many leaders and managers often encourage their teams to become the ‘agents of change’, ‘the power is in your hands, ‘it’s all on you’, ‘if we don’t get through this test, its because of you’ – Gulp!

As much as a sense of control can really help take control of a situation, an inappropriate sense of control in the face of something awful can be devastating.  Think back to some of those personal experiences where somebody is facing a tragedy and your route to compassion is through your kind words ‘it’s not your fault’ – turn the tables to the more heartless side of society and their attempt to shift blame and personal control on to somebody for events they may have had little to no control over, ‘it is because of their parenting style’, ‘she was asking for it’ – perceiving your true sense of control in a given stressor can literally make or break you. Context is essential.

The effects of control on your stress levels are highly dependant on context. If the stressor is the sort where you can easily imagine how much worse it could have been, then inserting an artificial sense of control helps. However, if the stressor is truly awful, an artificial sense of control can be destructive – you do not want to feel like you could have controlled the outcome when the outcome is awful.

The key to navigating the complexity of control lies in how effectively you can switch your locus of control. People with a strong internal locus of control think they are the masters of their own destiny, that what goes on around them 100% reflects their actions. Those with an external locus of control believe events in life are a result of outside factors which cannot be influenced, or that chance or fate played the key role. When confronted with something that is truly uncontrollable – those with an internal locus of control have a far greater stress response but the key to true stress management is finding the ability to shift between the two.

Clearly, a sense of control works best for milder perceived stressors, rather than actual stressors. Thus, in those milder moments the exercise of control is not the critical element, it is the belief that you have it – like those who have no anxieties around being in a car but are petrified of flying (of which I can speak from experience). 

PREDICATBILITY - JUMP ON MY COMMAND!

The study of predictability and the management of stress owes a lot to Jay Weiss – what he discovered was that if you give a rat the same pattern of electric shocks, but then introduce a warning bell – the predictability of the bell makes it a less stressful experience. The reason for this is, firstly the rat learns when something dreadful is about to happen and secondly, the rest of the time something dreadful is not about to happen – it can relax!

It is not just rats that have been studied with regards to the variable of predictability and stress – humans are impacted equally.

In an example, first introduced to me by Jonathan Brown (Author of Stress and Success), a classic study of Norwegian Paratrooper trainees monitored the stress response by measuring salivary cortisol concentrations when being pushed off a tower. During the first day of intense training jumps the trainees stress levels were off the scale – pre / during and post jumps, by day two the cortisol levels were greatly diminished and by day 5 the anticipatory stress was almost absent.

Remember I said context was important with regards to control – it is also the case for predictability. These soldiers learned that they were not going to die or become injured – The stimulus was the same, they were all pushed off the same tower. The context, however, had changed.

Organisms (including us) will eventually habituate to a stressor if applied over and over. It may disrupt our physiological allostasis equally the tenth time, but the stressors familiarity or predictability will result in a smaller anticipatory stress response. Although that doesn’t mean we want to stay in this space, where we deem a stressor as negative, but it may just give us enough capacity to act and change our environment. 

Even in the absence of a true stressor, lack of predictability can create stress where there is none. A rat going from one block of cheese, to the same amount but over a 60-minute period will have a larger stress response. A human version of this – during the blitz, the ulcer rates reported by local surgeries within areas that experienced bombings less frequently but also with less predictability  went through the roof compared to those areas experiencing bombings at a high frequency but at predictable times  – but true to form, just as the Norwegian Paratrooper study mentioned previously, ulcer rates levelled out after 3 months in line with other areas of the country as the people habituated to the stressor.

Predictive information is important because it lets us decide what internal coping strategy is likely to work best during a stressor. What mental strategies? Well, anything from closing your eyes and counting to 10, deciding on the story you will spin at your next interview or the response you will choose in the face of a confrontation.  

SOME SUBTLTIES OF PREDICTABILITY

Experimental literature on predictability and stress is dense, and what it shows is that predictability doesn’t always help – if the stressor is inevitable (or perceived to be) then a warning won’t change the stress response. 

Timing plays a big part in a person’s ability to manage stress through predictability. A warning is less effective for either rare or very frequent stressors. To be given 5 seconds of warning that an asteroid was going to hit your car whilst you are in it would not allow you the time to gain psychological benefit from the information, just as getting the information 2 months prior would not alleviate the psychological anticipation. In fact, some types of predictive information can actually increase anticipatory stress – tomorrow your arms will be broken. Ouch!

Predictability will not always protect people from stress – studies suggest it only works for mid-range of frequency and intensity stressors.  

A PERCEPTION OF THINGS WORSENING OR IMPROVING - THE THIRD PILLAR OF STRESS MANAGEMENT

With both control and predictability, it is clear that context and personal perspective is important in the quest to navigate a stressor. Having the perception that things are worsening or improving is another critical psychological variable.

Given the same degree of disruption of allostasis, a perception that things will improve or get better helps tremendously. Take pain for example, it can be stressful but if you perceive that the drugs are working (the bone is healing etc) there is generally a smaller stress response. Take a child and the instant turnaround following a mild scrape when mummy or daddy get the Disney plaster out. It is not just the eternal reality but the meaning you attach to it.

The variables of stress management sometimes conflict and it becomes a question as to which is more powerful – control, predictability or a perception of things getting worse or better. If a lottery win is big enough I am sure most people’s psyche can handle some unpredictability. Stress management cannot consist of the simple-minded solution to control these three variables – it is considerably more complicated. Some lack of control and predictability can be a good thing – think roller coasters, horror movies, lottery wins, random acts of kindness – and sometimes an overabundance can be a disaster, think boredom on the job.

The key is finding that balance of loss of control and predictability, that’s what we call stimulation – this can make us happy rather than stressed.

IM STRESSED, SUM IT UP FOR ME

Know when to deny control: In the face of terrible news that is beyond control, prevention or healing such as a terrible illness or job redundancy, those who can deny control of the event tend to cope best. Denial of your influence of control may be your only means of sanity. Who wants to believe they brought on a terminal illness or were the sole contributor as to why they can no longer pay their mortgage or feed their family.  

Hold on to hope but don’t deny reality:  During low to mid-range stressors, hope and find rational ways to view the situation as holding promise but do not deny the possibility that things will not improve. Let hope dominate your emotions, but plan for the worst.

Control todays controllable: Those who tend to cope best with stress are those that seek control in the face of present stressors but do not try to control things that have passed. They do not try to control future events that are uncontrollable and do not try to fix things that are not broken or that are broken beyond repair.

The balance of information: In the face of any stressor it is helpful to seek predictable and accurate information.  However, be mindful whether the information is not useful, if it comes too soon or too late, if it is unnecessary, or if there is so much information that it is stressful in and of itself.

Other great snippets to manage stress, which we haven’t covered here, seem like common sense, but as we all know, common sense in a stressful environment can be elusive - Find outlets for your frustration and make your stress benign to those around you – don’t give other people ulcers as a way for you to avoid getting ulcers.  Seek social support and affiliation – feel part of something bigger than yourself. Finally, as your grandma would have said ‘Just be happy’ – change the way even a rat perceives the world and you dramatically alter the likelihood of it getting a stress related disease – these are powerful and potentially liberating forces to be harnessed – especially when we manage teams of people going through absolute chaos!

In a world becoming more and more chaotic we will need to understand how to manage our own stress if we want to make it through, and for those people leading teams of people through change we must start to truly understand the subtleties of how to support them through change – because change management is rapidly moving from a buzz word industry to something that truly matters – too much is riding on it.

 Regards

Mark O'Hara