Why Project Stress Can Be Positive

 

Have a stressful project work environment? Worried that the stress is putting the team in conflict, making the team  less productive? Do you see friction among the team members or individuals suffering stress?
Do you know how to respond as a project manager?

Stress can lead to team failure, but it does not have to do so. At least not according to  a happiness researcher.

Now you are probably thinking:  Happiness, you say? What does project management have to do with happiness? Doesn't being in a project mean constantly feeling the walls closing in from your "aggressive" schedule, tight budget, changing requirements and scarce resources?

You could not be blamed for thinking that way.

By the way happiness research is a thing. Check out this TED talk by Shawn Achor, the Harvard (!) happiness researcher whose work is behind this post. We should all probably be spending more time thinking about it than we do. Maybe this is a good place to start.

Achor studied NFL teams and elite military units, looking at situations where some teams perform at a high-level in high-pressure situations and other teams fail. A key success factor was the way teams handled stress. That sounds like something that project managers need to understand then, doesn't it?

There are two parts to being successful here. First, you have to understand that successful teams need a common purpose. This has been established and reported in this blog previously. Achor clarified the second part: that successful teams use their common purpose to better manage stress.

In an article, Achor describes one CEO who changes stressful situations (for example significant barriers and constraints) into meaningful group challenge. NFL winning teams were able to overcome tremendous competition by overcoming the challenges together. Elite military units trained by stamping out a feeling of individual stress, redirecting that feeling to the team for solution.

Managed in this way, stress actually helped bond team members to their organizations. For readers of Eye on the Workforce, you should recognize this as employee engagement, the powerful cultural factor that creates a workforce that is committed and driven.

There has never been a time with more constraints for project managers and their teams. The best project managers will know how to

• select the best people who will be able to deal with stress
• manage the team to create a better way to deal with stress and
• close out a project so that everyone will understand that they have succeeded.

In this way, you will build a reputation for being an effective leader and have more successful projects.

In my next post, I'll continue with this concept, listing specific tactics useful for project managers. In the meantime, check out the links and post your own ideas and thoughts....and be happy.