Workplace Stress vs. Individual Stress vs. Group Stress

It’s quite simple: workplace stress can be the bag of nails inhibiting top performance in enterprises like yours. But the concept of “workplace stress” can be hard for many to wrap their heads around.?

“Workplace stress,” in EWING parlance, refers to a specific type of environment (clearly diagnosable with our tools and technologies) in which specific stressors are high or escalating, and employees can feel the pressure. But the pressure they feel isn’t a good pressure—like the excitement of launching a game-changing new product or technology, or the thrill of finally defeating a competitor after months, or even years, of decisive action to reclaim leadership; rather, it’s the kind of pressure that fuels powerful human emotions like anger, worry, fear, disappointment, shame, and more.?

Left unchecked, environments that contain these stressors are the perfect petri dish to cultivate unsavory human behaviors that, at best, stymie open communications, trust, teamwork, innovation, agility, and results. At worst, when thrust on others in the organization, the behaviors can lead to bad outcomes, including enduring, irreparable damage to the lives of employees sitting at the other side of the tsunami that is unnecessarily elevated, unrestrained human stress and anxiety. ??

Let’s pause for a moment and be clear about why companies—your company—exist: to fulfill a specific purpose and to satisfy a specific need. We could argue ad nauseum about what the specific purpose and need are but, bottom line, we do know two things: (1) the organization’s purpose or need is never achieved, or fulfilled, in an organization of thousands or hundreds of thousands of employees who are not seeing the end goal and are not working toward it together; and (2) the organization’s purpose is never related to doing harm to humans.?

So, when workplace stress is out of whack, it throws a wrench in your business and results, it clouds the aspirational vision for the future, and it blocks any chance of achieving that future. What else does an out of whack environment have the potential to do? It has the potential to shatter human lives.?

Individual vs. Group Stress - They're Different

We know otherwise good humans sometimes engage in not-so-lovely behaviors when emotions are high and/or they’re feeling the force of negative pressures in the environments in which they work, live, or play. We’re lying to ourselves if we deny we’ve never been rude or disrespectful toward a colleague or client; took an action or made a statement that undermined team motivation or a business goal; or resisted change or criticism.?

In real life, no one is Pollyanna.

Not me.

Not you.?

Every individual employee’s negative “ding” against your healthy workplace environment does damage, like a moth to a patchwork quilt. If not stopped, the hungry moth overtakes the entire fabric, consuming and marring segments, bit by bit, until the beauty of the hand-crafted quilt is ruined over time.?

It’s no different with workplace stress and its impact on your organizational environment. And there’s something even more dangerous that arises in environments where specific stress drivers are high: group stress. We tend to think of stress and anxiety as an individual phenomenon. Group stress is also a very real—but underrecognized—phenomenon. With group stress comes herd behaviors: individuals acting collectively as part of a?group and often making decisions as a?group?that they would not make as an individual. In other words, herd behavior?is about decision-making based in part on the?behavior and choices of others.

There’s just no way around it: Ugly work cultures lead to ugly individual and group behaviors. A group behavior common today is colleagues or teammates engaging in various aggressive or bullying behaviors against a fellow coworker. Other group behaviors present in our enterprises today, according to EWING’s latest Workplace Stress Study, include minimizing problems (especially when only one person is hurt); intending to change a (bad) situation but then taking no action; and minimizing an issue because the only other option is making a big deal out of it (which no one really wants to do.) There are myriad other (unhealthy) types of group behaviors that go unrecognized or, if recognized, go unchecked because they’re not yet on our collective radar screen. ???

Think these types of group behaviors don’t or can’t happen at your company? Wait until the next round of layoffs is announced and your people are fighting for their lives and livelihood—for the health and safety of their families and children. Or the introduction of the next new tech that makes age-old industries and jobs obsolete. We don’t even have to wait for the next one—let’s take generative AI, for example.?

If you’ve ever spoken to me or read any of my materials on LinkedIn or elsewhere, you know I love humans and fundamentally believe in our goodness and greatness. That’s why I’m all about solving the workplace stress problem. After 30 years of operating at the intersection of workplace stress + innovation + performance, EWING is finally releasing our proprietary tools, and soon, technologies.??

Your enterprise’s high-performing, kick-ass, results-delivering future doesn’t happen when your people are eating one another. It happens when they are eating the competition.

Let’s solve for workplace stress. And harness our collective energy to win with our customers and consumers. ?

Kristen Heimerl | EWING Innovation | [email protected].