Engines for Positive Stress/ 1

Engines for Positive Stress/ 1

Executives: Engines for Positive Stress

James Campbell Quick and David Mack

Center for Research on Organizational and Managerial Excellence

The University of Texas at Arlington

Phones: (817) 272-3869/3085 Fax: -3122 E-mails: /

Joanne H. Gavin

MaristCollege

Phone: (845) 575-3000 x2908 Fax: -3640 E-mail:

Cary L. Cooper

The University of ManchesterInstitute of Science and Technology (UMIST)

Phone: (44) 161-200-3440 Fax: -3518 E-mail:

Jonathan D. Quick

World Health Organization

Phone: (41) 22-791-4443 Fax: -4167 E-mail:

RUNNING HEAD: Engines for Positive Stress

Forthcoming in: P. L. Perrewé and D. C. Ganster (Eds.), Research in Occupational Stress and Well Being, Volume 3

ABSTRACT

The occupational stress and well-being literature often focuses on specific causes of stress as health risk factors to be managed, on attributes of work environments that are stressful and/or risky, or on prevention and intervention strategies for managing these causes of stress as well as individual stress responses at work (Quick & Tetrick, 2003). The occupational stress literature has not focused on how executives and organizations can cause positive stress for people at work. In this chapter, we explore a principle-based framework for executive action to create positive, constructive stress for people at work.

The first major section of the chapter discusses seven contextual factors within which the principle-based framework is nested. The second major section of the chapter develops nine principles for executive action. The third and concluding section of the chapter turns the focus to a set of guidelines for executive action in managing their personal experience of stress.

As leaders at work, executives are expected to produce and oversee the creation of useful work (Zaleznik, 1990). As such, they have a central responsibility to lead and influence other organizational members. As the leadership literature has shown, this can be done in either positive, constructive ways or in negative, destructive ways (Pfeffer, 1977). McGregor (1960) was very clear that management’s first responsibility was to manage the enterprise, and that there were two broad sets of alternative assumptions about individuals that managers might make. These have become best known as Theory X and Theory Y. This chapter investigates and analyzes how executives manage occupational stress, and utilizes this critical analysis to discuss how executives can most positively and humanely lead people at work. We aim to link research and theory to practice, going beyond any straightjacket of normal science (Daft & Lewin, 1990).

Our premise is that executives in today’s organizations have the responsibility to create and manage positive, constructive stress at work so as to create compassionate and humane work environments for organizational members. The failure to create and manage stress is a failure of responsibility, and the research evidence is clear that not all stress is bad (See for example the Nelson & Simmons contribution to this volume.). According to Selye (1976), stress is both the spice of life and the kiss of death. With this in mind, Levi (2000) explored how the European Commission might set strategies for the art and science of humane work through Guidance on work-related stress. The Yerkes-Dodson Law suggested that there is an optimum stress and arousal level that leads to higher performance than either very low or very high levels of stress (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). More importantly, our current stereotypic perspective on the word ‘stress’ too often globalizes the usage to only the distressful and negative outcomes of stressful events.

The core of our thinking is reflected in Figure 1, which suggests that stress is a positive, linear function of pressure and work demands generated by executives. There is an optimal range (illustrated on Figure 1 between points A and B) where performance is maximized. Much of the occupational stress literature has focused on the upper end of the continuum presented in the figure, working to identify high stress factors and situations that pose a health risk to individuals and managers at work (Quick & Tetrick, 2003). However, as Figure 1 suggests, more stress is not necessarily better and there is a point (B) beyond which increasing stress, resulting from increasing pressure and work demands, is associated with declining performance. Whereas this is suggested by nearly a century of stress science, identifying points A and B, for both individuals and groups, is the challenge of management and is best left in the hands of the skilled executive.

INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE

Therefore, we counter any pejorative view of stress and offer a more positive perspective on the notion of stress and its role in human growth, development, and performance. To achieve this, we organized the chapter into three major sections. The first section offers a contextual framework for our thinking about executive stress, health, and well-being in humane work. The second major section is the heart of our model for executives, and provides a set of nine principle-based guidelines for executives in the creation of positive stress in the workplace. These guidelines are anchored in the research on stress management. The third and final section offers a set of personal guidelines for executives in terms of managing their own stresses and strains.

CONTEXTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR HUMANE WORK

Most research and scholarship on stress in organizations aims to identify its causes, detail its adverse consequences, and/or test prevention or intervention strategies for stress management. We take a distinctly different tack in this chapter on executive stress and we suggest that executives have a responsibility to be a source of positive stress for people at work. The hidden implication in much of the research literature is that less stress is better. This often unstated implication proceeds from the medical evidence that stress is directly or indirectly implicated as a causal or contributing factor in seven of the ten leading causes of death in the industrialized world (Cooper & Quick, 2003; Quick, Quick, Nelson, & Hurrell, 1997). Hence, Selye’s notion that stress can be the kiss of death (Selye, 1976 as cited in Levi, 2000).

However, there is another side to the stress story. We believe that there is a fallacy in the logic underlying any leap from this medical evidence to the conclusion that less stress is better. Therefore, we want to confront this fallacy and set forth a case for executives to draw on the positive force of stress-induced energy in the workplace.

To begin with, in this opening framework, we set out seven a priori points and caveats for our case. These seven contextual assertions and caveats are:

1. Executives do and should cause stress for people at work.
2. Human behavior is the greatest source of variance in organizations.
3. Healthy human development demands task mastery and positive social support.
4. Causing stress and pressure for people is not the same as abuse.
5. Management is an art; we learn from experience.
6. Cooperation leads to the alignment of individual and organizational effort.
7. Open communication is the basis for ‘working together.’

Executives as a Source of Stress

Our a priori premise that executives do and should cause stress for people at work is based in the leadership literature on power and influence in organizations (Bass, 1990). There is parallel research on healthy power and influence in the literature on families as well (Curran, 1985). As organizational leaders, executives have a responsibility to exercise power and influence in constructive ways to achieve positive organizational outcomes and the failure to do so is a failure of leadership. Inherent in the exercise of power and influence is the notion of pressure and stress. At the heart of this influence dynamic is the social exchange between the leader and follower(s). Hirschhorn (1990) argued for a very active, dynamic exchange through this relationship in which the leader is open and vulnerable while accepting his or her responsibility, and the follower is assertive and challenging while being respectful of the authority of the leader.

The stress caused by executives for other organizational members comes through a dynamic influence process (Mack, Nelson, & Quick, 1998). Executives should create pressure and influence behavior, enhance growth and performance, and generate mutually beneficial outcomes for themselves, for other organizational members, and for the organization as an independent entity. If executives are not doing this and are not creating stress at work, then they are abdicating their responsibility for the ultimate performance and results of the organization. The distinguishing feature of executives in organizations goes to the primary responsibility identified by McGregor (1960) nearly 50 years ago. That responsibility is to manage the organization. In all organizations, the health of the enterprise is intertwined with the health of the individual members and it is neither easy to separate these interests nor to prioritize them.

In a parallel role to that of a commanding general, who has the responsibility of an entire army or air force, an executive has the responsibility for the whole organization. This entails guiding and shaping individual behavior into unity of action for the common good (Aristotle, 1998) through the exertion of pressure, influence, and direction. There is undoubtedly a level of stress that is associated with these actions.

Variance in Human Behavior

Schein (1996a, 1996b) has made a careful study of organizational cultures, and in particular the executive culture with its inherent assumptions. Herein lies a core dilemma for executives who are responsible for people at work, yet often feel their employees are somewhat of a necessary evil. This is a conundrum for the executive. Because they have primary responsibility for the organization, executives have a tendency to depersonalize the management process and work to reduce the variance in a whole range of system functions. They believe that controlling the variance and the processes within the system will allow them to control the outcomes, results, and returns from the system. One of the great masters of this form of systemic control and variance management was Alfred P. Sloan Jr. (Farber, 2002). Whereas this might work very effectively when dealing with a wide variety of organizational resources in the material and financial domains, it does not work well when it comes to leading people.

The broad scope of nomothetic research in the behavioral sciences tends to produce relatively small R-squares in terms of the amount of variance in human behavior that any one or one set of variables is able to explain. This suggests that there is a significant amount of unexplained variance in human behavior in organizations (Daft & Lewin, 1990). Even within the normal and healthy ranges of human behaviors at work, predictive powers are limited. When it comes to dysfunctional behavior at work, either violent or nonviolent, the story can become more complex (Griffin, O’Leary-Kelly, & Collins, 1998).

This suggests that the greatest variance in many organizations may be in the people and in human behavior at work. Part of this is because individuals are autonomous and independent in much of their functioning, not mindlessly complying with the pressures and influence attempts that executives direct at them (Levinson, 1990). There are two ways to approach this source of variance in human behavior at work. One is through control and the other is through insight and understanding.

If executives approach human behavior as something to be controlled at work, then the logical extension of this approach is to reduce or eliminate the variance in behavior. To do this puts executives in a continuing struggle with people at work, much like the pitched battle Frederick Taylor (1912) described to the U. S. Congress committee collecting information on scientific management. Taylor detailed for the committee his several years as a gang boss at Midvale Steel Company in which he was constantly pressuring the men for more production only to encounter strong resistance, and even hostility, anger, and violence. This is clearly not a form of positive stress as we have alluded to above. In fact, it is just the reverse and leads to distressful, inhumane work.

Alternatively, if executives approach human behavior as something to be understood and influenced, then the logical extension of this approach is to use a clinical and diagnostic (dia = through, gnosis = knowledge of) approach to people at work (Kets de Vries & van de Loo, 2000). This is the approach used by successful, clinical executive coaches like Karol Wasylyshyn, who work developmentally with senior executives (Foxhall, 2002). There is still a place for the executive to be assertive, or even confrontational, within this clinical approach to people at work and indeed this approach is at the heart of what we mean by the “art” of crafting a humane work organization through management and leadership.

When we refer to management as an art, we do not mean to imply that management is soft or in any way casual. Although there is a science to management, it does not have the precision of the natural sciences, nor one with rules that apply in all situations or with all individuals, because of the amount of variance in human behavior (Buckingham, 1999). Successful managers understand this and understand that they must often learn their craft as they go along, and be willing to adjust to ever-changing challenges. It is this aspect of management that we refer to as an art.

Task Mastery and Positive Social Support

In making our case for executives to create and manage positive stress in the workplace, we use a developmental perspective for individuals based on Ainsworth and Bowlby’s (1991) ethological approach to personality. Specifically, we accept as primary in human nature two instinctual drives, which are manifest in exploratory behavior aimed at mastering the world and attachment behavior aimed at achieving a sense of felt security when faced with stress, threat, and danger (Staw, Sandelands, & Dutton, 1981). Although Ainsworth and Bowlby (1991) evolved their approach based on extensive research in children, our own subsequent research with executives, managers, basic military trainees, military officer candidates, and students has indicated that these drives, especially attachment behavior, extend into the adulthood years (Joplin, Nelson, & Quick, 1999; Quick, Joplin, Nelson, Mangelsdorff, & Fiedler, 1996; Quick, Nelson, & Quick, 1990).

These two instinctual drives, although somewhat intractable, are both essential for healthy, balanced human development. In the adulthood years, these drives lead to the desire for task mastery and competence, and are complimented by the desire for positive, supportive interpersonal relationships. These drives are also at the root of Freud’s description of the healthy life as one characterized by the capacity to work and to love.

For executives, this translates into an expectation that individuals at work become competent in the performance of their duties while in turn expecting positive, supportive affirmation for their accomplishments.

Whereas Ainsworth and Bowlby’s (1991) ethological approach to personality is the basis for healthy human development during the childhood years, it also serves as a positive framework for adulthood learning and growth. Executive demands for task mastery, skill development, and performance cause reasonable and necessary stress for individuals at work, but this stress and pressure can cause them to exhibit threat-rigidity responses, as described by Staw and his associates (1981). When pressure and demands are accompanied by affirmation and positive interpersonal support, however, they lead to a growth opportunity and not to mean-spiritedness.

Positive Stress versus Abuse

The notion of ‘causing’ stress for another person can carry with it a connotation of abuse and mistreatment. Certainly bullying behavior, sexual harassment, workplace violence, and anger outbursts directed at employees by executives fall into the category of abusive behaviors, which are stressful and distressing (Bell, Quick, & Cycyota, 2002). Abusive behaviors and the mistreatment of people at work cause significant emotional pain, as Frost and Robinson (1999) eloquently pointed out, and should be distinguished from the creation of positive stress, healthy demands, and challenging opportunities through which employees grow, produce, and are valued in the workplace.

The distinction between abuse and challenge lies at the center of human learning. Differences in learning styles and personality preferences are important factors contributing to the large human variance in organizations (Hough & Furnham, 2003) and executives can benefit from an understanding of these individual differences. When executives approach individuals and groups within their framework, or even their language, they go a long way in building relationship and creating the opportunity for positive influence. For example, when a group of Hispanic managers had some complaints in their work environment, a senior Anglo executive began his meeting with them by speaking in Spanish, demonstrating his desire to interact with them at their level. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is one example of a commonly used personality assessment measure that provides information about individual preferences for sources of energy and information, for decision making strategies, and for orientation to the external world (Nelson & Quick, 2003). Executives can, and should, make use of such tools to learn more about the employees that they manage.