It breaks our momentum and mental focus. It causes us frustration. And it tests our resolve when it comes to sticking to something more important.

Here are some solutions to this never-ending concern that you face every day.

Interruptions from others:

• Explain you’re busy and set a time to meet later
• Accept the interruption and state the time you have available now. At the end of that time period, tell them you really do have to get on
• Don’t have chairs right next to your desk. If you have room, put two or three chairs in another area of your office. This means people can’t just drop in. They have to interrupt your flow and get you to move away physically form your desk. If it really isn’t that important now, people will wait until it is convenient for you
• Set open and closed-door times, and make them known
• Meet in someone else’s office, so you can control your exit time
• If it’s really important for you to work without interruptions, consider working from home, a conference room or a spare office where it’s obvious you are there for a specific purpose and can’t be interrupted.

Email or instant messaging:

• Don’t keep compulsively checking email. Turn off the audio signal that tells you an email has come through. Allocate times in the day where you deal with email, timed so YOU control it.
• Go offline if you have to. If you’re uninterruptable, prove it.

Information Requests:

• Give people who work for you enough authority and information to deal with these matters for you. Don’t be a hoarder of information so that people have to come to you and only you
• Let your team know you are incommunicado for a time period
• If you make promises, keep them. Then people won’t have to chase you up when you don’t want them to

Phone:

• If you’re in the middle of something, don’t take unscheduled calls. Have set times when people can reach you
• Make a list of calls you are going to make and bunch them together, so you control the time it takes
• Call people at lunch time or before closing time, so conversations are short and to the point
• Ask people who call you what specifically you can do for them, and say ‘I only have ten minutes. Can we get this done in that time?’
• Leave your phone off in the evenings. Interruptions while you’re away from work should be seen as interfering with the rest of your life with people who deserve better. If it’s that important, they will leave a message and you can get back to them when you are free. That way, you control your time

Interruptions are a natural part of your working day, but using these ideas should minimise the effects and help build your productivity.

Thanks again

Sean

Here are some ideas on maintaining control and building mental strength under pressure:

1) Be aware of how you are feeling and commit to keeping cool under that pressure. Your emotional brain will run away from itself if you’re not careful, and the amygdala (the part of our brain that helps control temper) could be bypassed if we allow ourselves to ‘lose it’ for any reason.

2) Stop yourself from jumping to conclusions in any situations before you have understood exactly what has occurred.

3) Determine to get to the root cause of any situation before allowing yourself to make conclusions.

4) Remember that most disagreements are caused by a rules breakdown, that is, you may have guidelines and rules as to how things should be done and everyone else’s rules are different to yours. So don’t jump to hasty conclusions before investigating.

5) Bring any stressful situations to the notice of the people involved so everyone has the opportunity to deal with them openly and honestly.

6) Practice stress-management techniques that have worked for you in the past. Things like a quick walk outside, physical workouts and meditation have proved workable solutions to stressful situations, simply because the emotional connection with the scenario has been disassociated, and the solutions from the logical part of the thinking brain are clearer to see.

7) Discuss various ways of dealing with stress with your team members, so everyone can become pro-active in discussing the way forward if these situations ever occur again.

If you are able to maintain a steady response to stress, you give yourself and your team the chance to deal with problems in a way that can be solution-focused and not problematical.

Thanks again

Sean
Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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One of the biggest challenges managers face is getting jobs done on time. This can lead to poor performance, stagnation, loss of customers and worse. Good organisational skills starts with analysing what jobs need to be done and working to a schedule to complete them.

One of the most effective things you can do is prioritising your priorities. Everything that seems to cross your path doesn’t have to be a priority. Identify what really is vital to be completed today and what isn’t. Set the priorities so that you have a clear view of what needs to be done. Having to deal with overwhelm won’t help you achieve much.

Calculating how much time each piece of work requires takes practice but will be well worth it. If you work better with small chunks of work, then do so. There is no perfect way to approach a big project, but most people seem to feel better if it’s divided up into chunks. Don’t make it appear bigger than it really is. Be aware of how you personally approach tasks, and let them fit into your style, not the other way round.

Learning organisational skills at work is the step towards reaching the pre-determined goal. Mastering organisational skills at work, gives you an opportunity to be more effective and increase your productivity. It gives an edge over the other in your professional life as your manager recognises the potential in you. Organisational skills save you from stress in the workplace and undue pressures of life. Organisational skills are priceless as they show you the value of time and the importance of using it wisely. If you master this specific skill, it will open the way to other areas of development within your company.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

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Regardless of the cause, depression in any form is an illness, whether short term or long term. If your employees become depressed they may begin calling out of work, putting out work that is not the same high quality you are used to, or simply stop getting as much done. In the end, depression in the workforce causes organisations money.

People are people. It’s important to think about your employees rather than your bottom line. If you begin to notice the signs of depression in your employees you’ll need to take action. Here are a few things to consider:

• Make sure you educate your team about depression (preferrably before you notice it). Make sure your team members know that they will not be reprimanded or punished if they are diagnosed with a depressive disorder.
• Give your employees access to help. Your organisation may have an in-house physician that can help, or you may want to refer your employee to his own physician. Either way, let him know you’ll work with him (reasonably) while he obtains assistance.
• Know the difference between “burn out” and depression. While burn out may cause depression, it may not be the reason for your employee’s troubles.

With your help, your team members can recover and return to their previously productive selves. Be compassionate and show you care. They’ll always remember the helping hand you gave.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Course

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

As you approach the New Year, take the following 5 points into consideration and see if you can begin to make tiny changes, one at a time. Eliminating some of the stress you’re putting on yourself might make your job just a bit easier to accomplish!

5. Stop Expecting Perfection

You are not perfect, nor are the people who work for or with you. If you stop expecting perfection you won’t be disappointed when you don’t achieve it and you’ll be better able to take a strong, objective look at the great results you did achieve after working on a project instead of the minute percentage you think you didn’t.

4. Keep Your Opinions to Yourself

Do you have a tendancy towards giving people your unsolicited opinions or advice? Stop. If people want your help they will ask for it. If you’re working with someone who doesn’t know you well, ask them if you can offer your opinion or advice so that they can get ideas from another vantage point. If you stop forcing your ideas on others they’ll be more willing to work with you.

3. Forget the Past

So you’ve made a few mistakes in the past. Stop letting them eat at you, stressing you out even more. Put them aside and move on. You can’t change the past but you can control what you are doing now and in the future.

2. Analyse Less

Sometimes, when we are given new tasks, we feel like we have to learn as much as possible about the background or procedures before we get started. We end up adding stress and wasting time when we realistically could have just jumped right into the project. Try to spend less time analysing projects – just do them instead.

1. Stop Caring about Who Likes You

The truth is very simple. Not everyone you meet in your life is going to like you. Their reasons may or may not be valid. You don’t need to stress yourself out or care about who likes you and who does not. It doesn’t matter and, to be honest, you can work professionally with people who do not like you as long as you are all respectful.

Ready to reduce the stress in your life? Start by taking a look at yourself and your habits. Once you can do that you’ll be half way home and your relationships with your team members will instantly begin to improve!

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Leadership

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

Your job will be to help find ways in which your organisation can help your employees deal with their situations. It is incredibly important for you to recognize that a person who returns to work after only a few days, even weeks, is not fully recovered and will not be able to give you 100% of his attention. This is normal and is something you’ll have to learn to work with.

So what are some things you can do to help support a grieving employee?

• Learn about the stages of grief so that you can understand exactly what your employee is going through at any given time.
• Have your entire team sign a sympathy card to show their support.
• Personally communicate with your employee as often as possible to ensure he’s really ready to come back to work.
• Consider modifying your employee’s job duties, work hours, or method of communication (telecommuting instead of coming into the office) as necessary until he is ready to make a full reentry.
• Monitor him closely to make sure he stays on track as much as possible.
• Encourage the use of your organisation’s counseling services.

You can’t take back whatever tragedy your employee is suffering from but you can show a generous amount of compassion and support – and your employees will appreciate you for it and remember that support for a long time.

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Leadership Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

It’s true that some people get “the blues” from time to time but most of them are able to shake their blues off in a day or so. Those who are truly depressed can’t just “shake it off” the way other can. They can’t control the aches in their bodies, the way they are thinking, or the way they act. Before you know it, depression is affecting your employee’s judgement, productivity, and ability to socialize with other team members or clients.

The first thing you need to do is learn to recognize and identify the symptoms of depression. Some of the most common include:

• Sad moods that seem to be persistent
• A decreased energy level or overwhelming sense of fatigue
• Sudden changes in eating habits
• Excessively crying throughout the day
• Trouble concentrating or making clear decisions
• An irritated attitude
• Complaints about lack of sleep
• A sudden change in morale
• Sudden absenteeism
• Increased accidents in the workplace

As a manager, you have to take some sort of action if you identify an employee as becoming depressed. Here are a few things you must remember:

• You aren’t a doctor and you can’t diagnose depression.
• Objectively let your employee know you’ve noticed change and let him know that your organisation has resources available if he needs help
• Learn about depression so you can understand how it impacts life and the workplace
• Hold frequent coaching sessions to try to keep your employee’s performance goals on track

These are just a few of the things you can do if you begin to notice depression in the workplace. First and foremost is the need to make sure your employee gets the help he deserves. In the end, he’ll be glad you reached out to help.

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Development

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

The first and most important thing to remember is that depression shouldn’t always be viewed as an illness that must absolutely be treated with medications. In many cases, a person who is depressed is responding physically to something in his environment. So the real key is to find out what is causing your (or your employee’s) depression and find out exactly what those triggers are trying to tell you.

Last week I talked about Matthew Campling and his Age/Work Arc Theory. Campling also spent some time studying the affects of depression in the workplace and concluded that all of us have a space in which our emotions or emotional reactions occur. Those who are overworked may not have time to allow their natural human reactions, such as feeling anger or worry, to occur.

Because they never work through their natural responses they begin to feel as though a dark cloud is filling the space around them. In short, a feeling of depression is usually a cover for some sort of issue or emotion that has not been addressed. Uncovering those emotions and working through them may help to solve the problem.

As a manager, it is your job to make sure that your employee’s tasks aren’t the cause of his dark cloud. If so, try to find out what you can do to make things a bit easier or to help your employee work through whatever issue he is experiencing within the workplace. Just remember that no matter how genuine your desire to help, not all cases of depression are simple to solve. If you can’t help your employee, refer him to someone with more professional psychological experience.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

Use Humour

There’s no harm in taking a few minutes out of your day for a bit of humour. Tell a few jokes, forward a funny email, or sing a silly song. Do anything that will take your mind off of the things causing stress, even for just a few moments. Sometimes laughter helps to clear the head and make productive thinking easier.

Take a Quick Walk

Sometimes stress is caused by a lack of movement. If you feel incredibly stressed, put on your coat and take a quick walk around the outside of your work building. Use a quick pace and, as silly as it sounds, talk to yourself while you are walking. The physical activity will get your blood pumping and help to reenergize you while talking to yourself (even to reiterate “xyz is taking a walk” will help you to put yourself in the “now” and forget about the things on your desk.

Drink Water

Dehydration is one of the hugest health concerns in the world- anywhere. Most people don’t understand how important water is to the body and if you become dehydrated you will begin to have trouble functioning, both physically and mentally. Most people reach for coffee, cola, or energy drinks when they should, in reality, drink water. Stick to 4-8 glasses of water per day and you’ll find your levels of stress significantly lowering themselves.

Take a Nap

Alright – taking a nap while working may not be easy but it IS possible. If you have a stressful morning then go to your car during your lunch break, turn on the radio, and take a quick catnap. If you’re a heavy sleeper and are afraid you’ll fall asleep and not wake up in time, tell a coworker where you are going so they can come and get you a few minutes before you’re scheduled to return. No matter how you pull it off, know that a good 15-30 minute catnap is great for relieving stress.

Cry

Yup. I said it. Have yourself a good cry. Crying is, in many cases, a natural response to a rising level of adrenaline in the body (often caused by stress) and is nothing to be ashamed of. Focusing your energies on holding back the tears isn’t productive so go to a quiet place, hidden from others, and let the tears flow. You’ll probably feel a lot better when you’re finished!

Stress management in the workplace is incredibly important not only to your mental healh but to the overall productivity of your team. Take care of yourself and those around you and you’ll soon find yourself surrounded by a happier, more productive group.

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Course

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

Task management means being able to complete projects effectively and efficiently. Someone feeling completely stressed out and overworked may not feel as though those things are possible, but they are.

Start by prioritizing your tasks for the day. Decide which ones are more important and put them at the top of the list. If there is a task you dread, put that at the top of the list as well. It’s better to get it out of the way early than to let it linger over your head all day.

Look at your larger projects and decide whether or not it is possible to break them down into smaller subprojects. Work on one subproject at a time until the entire task is complete.

Here it is again, folks – delegation. You are not responsible for completing every single project you encounter on your own. Use your authority as a manger to delegate some of your responsibilities to the appropriate members of your team. That’s why they were hired, isn’t it?

Properly handling the tasks you must tackle daily will also make a huge difference in the way you are able to handle stress at work. You may want to be a superman but it’s really not necessary!

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”