So the pressure. Stress, external circumstances, the characteristics of people and nonhumans, which we cannot influence, all this affects us. It will not work to avoid everything, so I want to understand how to work with pressure correctly so that it does not drop efficiency and does not enter into a stupor. And, of course, remove the negative psychological consequences for yourself.
There can be a lot of reasons for our unsuccessful actions: the customer, deadlines, colleagues, external teams to interact with, circumstances, development environment, unattained results, dissatisfaction with ourselves, our mistakes ... But the real source of pressure is one - we ourselves, ours perception. We ourselves let it develop, go through us, hook on our psychological characteristics, weaknesses, unconscious reactions, crush and, ultimately, control us. And then we no longer act due to external circumstances, but fight with our demons. We start to do something wrong, at the wrong time, and sometimes even freeze and do nothing, although we need to mobilize.
Consider two different situations: a single strong outburst of pressure (defense of the fortress from an assault) and constant subtle and at the same time accumulating pressure (siege of the same fortress).
Defense
So there was a disaster. Itâs not enough pleasant, at the first moment I want it to be a nightmare or to shift the problem to someone. The pressure rises, emotions begin to overwhelm (here someone has some - someone wants to run abruptly to fix everything, someone - on the contrary, crawl into a corner, someone starts to blame himself, someone else). But a few minutes pass, and you understand: this is in reality, and you have to correct it (and if you are a manager to one degree or another, then also manage this process). At such a moment, thinking turns out to be bad, and therefore it is good to have an understandable algorithm that is thought out in a calm environment.
I propose this, in a more general form, for a team manager who manages and extinguishes this fire himself. For example, for team lead or PMA.
Minimize external pressure
Most likely, several people already learned about this: users - and, accordingly, support, your boss, his boss, heads of related departments, in case of outsourcing - the customer. All of them will call, write and want to communicate - and this is normal. If they are taller than you in the hierarchy, then the degree of their direct influence on the situation is less, they understand less (even if you have not yet begun to understand, and have no idea what happened - in contrast to them, you can at least predict the options), you know cogs inside and understand them, but they do not. But the criticality of the situation is more for them. You run the risk of a spoiled evening or several days, perhaps a fine or non-receipt of a premium, well, a maximum dismissal, and their rates may be higher - up to the loss of business. Therefore, they will be nervous and shake you until they get at least some degree of confidence that you know what to do, and really fix it.
But at the same time, if everything is left to chance, you will be distracted by them, and now all your efforts should be directed at correcting the situation, and not reassure the next callers. Therefore, the most economical option is to show that you a) know about the problem and are already solving it, and b) give the information that you already know (the scale of the problem, the reasons, the time to fix it, what additional resources you need). If it is not clear now, then clearly give a time period when it will be clear. If you cannot name such a deadline, give a cut-off of the time when you phoned or met in order to think out a plan of action, if nothing had been clarified before that moment. There is nothing worse in this situation than to answer in the style of âwe are working on itâ - such an approach will only spur demons in an already restless head, and instead of one source of pressure you will have several.
At the same time, you still need to remove all external pressure from the team, redirecting it to yourself (or even better - to someone selected from the team - to make him a press secretary). Of course, you will not envy him, but in this case you will have a freer head for leadership, and your team will have one source of pressure instead of several. The overall goal is to relieve external pressure from the team altogether.
Forget about everything else
If you had any tasks, problems (I am now solely in the context of work - in other contexts, advice is superfluous) - all this should cease to exist. The exception is if the catastrophe occurred is less critical than anything else - then the catastrophe will be âsomething elseâ. You should have one goal left - to put out the fire, everything else will sit in your head and eat up your precious attention, increase anxiety and distract. The same goes for team members.
This also includes analysis of the situation, including non-constructive one. Attempts to think: âhow did it break so?â, The search for the guilty: âWell, Vasya, well, I told him, remove this crutch, it will explode,â âNo, well, I told the customer, give the server for backups, and he then, then, âself-flagellation:â Damn, I wanted to fix it, I thought I got a bug in the tracker, but distracted and forgot â,â Well, how could I miss this case â, conclusions for the future:â That's it, now we introduce a review so that the whole team approves before merging - and do not care what managers say about speed - that's what leads to "- for all this, now itâs not E-mail. Even if you are a hundred times right that the customer did not give, Vasya did not correct, the manager does not listen to you, and you yourself forget everything - now this value is zero. Over time, you will find that you do not do the thing when it is needed, but indulge in thoughts, and even spend your strength on them. This will all be necessary, but - then.
Defining a fire brigade
This is a trivial step, but if you skip it, we can get problems due to the team not playing, if someone does not understand that his main task now is to fire. If you are in the fire brigade, then for you the rest has stopped (see the previous paragraph). By the way, it would be nice to notify those who are not aware of the fire, but want some action from your team - so that they donât bother when no one will answer them. Of course, if there is time for it now without loss of quality.
Make a plan
Everything is trivial here - as in development. If the task is difficult and incomprehensible, then proceeding to it without a plan, we find ourselves going in the wrong direction (and there were almost no chances to go in that direction - no one knew which way), and then, when there is not enough time, we will recall with annoyance that it was then that they did not think and did not stop. And even if the plan is trivial, then the idea to draw it up has at least two advantages. First, we unload our heads (especially if we need to coordinate several team members). And secondly, by crossing out the completed points we get the positive reinforcement that we need so much in a stressful situation, because it affects us at the psychological level.
Do
There is nothing to add - we put out the fire. How exactly - depends on so many factors, and for the main topic is unprincipled.
Check
A very important point (however, what is unimportant here?). The worst that could happen here was that they seemed to put out, told upstairs (to the boss, manager, customer, users, customers), relaxed, and they went to use it - and it collapsed. Do this a couple of times - no one will have confidence in your words and your work, verified. And to restore each such mistake is a hundred times harder and longer than to allow. In rare cases, they can save past merits, but how lucky it is depends on people, merit, the criticality of the situation, and so on.
So we checked, just checked that we put out. Better to spend a little more time checking and making sure that it works. Although upstairs everyone is worried and demanding sooner.
Investigate the reasons
In a number of situations, this item may change places with the latter, it already depends on the project, organization processes, managers and the situation.
For the sake of this moment, we cherished our suspicions, accusations, reproaches and other funny moments. Of course, itâs better to do it constructively. You can check the versions and suspicions, or you can simply investigate the reasons. The main goal here is to establish how exactly it happened that the fire occurred, and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. This accuracy determines how often we will put out such fires in the future.
Yes, by the way, for those who like to grumble (I love, for example) - this is the best time for your grunts to be heard (of course, if they are constructive). For example, if you werenât given time to check the system for security, they demanded to throw the task into the sprint without testing and do it yesterday, beat it for backups - if they donât give the go-ahead at such a moment, then I donât know at what point and will give. Right now, while the flood of cortisol has not yet subsided, they will listen to you especially carefully.
Notice that there is only a talking room (and a resolver): we do nothing. We will do it in the next paragraph, because there can be many events, and they can be lengthy and large-scale.
We take measures so that this does not happen again
Here we implement what we came up with in the previous paragraph. I consciously separate âinventâ and âdoâ into different activities, because the success of how to do depends directly on the success of how they thought it through. If nothing has come to anything except âfrom now on we write without bugs, and whoever allows the bug - bears full financial responsibility for thisâ has not reached it, then it will not work out. In addition, if in the process we think about the plan, the implementation will be lame (and the plan will turn out so-so).
In addition, many things obey the laws of clarity rather than clarity: you cannot guarantee that there will never be any more bugs or the server is 100% secure. Although some participants in the process do not want to admit this, life is like that. By the way, it follows from the same conclusion that if we came up with an imperfect solution that covers only part of the problems, it does not mean at all that it does not need to be implemented. If we canât exclude the risk - we reduce it, we can not reduce it significantly - we reduce as much as we can.
Relapses are very dangerous because one or two relapses kill reputation and trust in zero. After the second time, they may not be entrusted with what you did before, and for the third time this will happen almost guaranteed. In addition, our opinion of ourselves as cool specialists will also be uneasy from repeated rakes (and, I must say, very fairly).
Have a rest
Another very important point. Each such fire does not pass without a trace, people are so arranged that they need to rest from stress. If you do not, your body will do it for you and there will be no ceremony. And, if you do not take this into account, you will have a pleasant surprise when you disconnect at the wrong time. And if you are also the team leader, then the whole team will turn off. Therefore, it is wise to plan to relieve stress in a way that is comfortable for the team and you. Or, at least, just to understand that in the near future it is worthwhile to lower the intensity of work and not take on difficult tasks. Perhaps you or the higher authorities will have a desire to put pressure on the team members or punish the offenders, forcing them to work more on the contrary - remember that you canât deceive nature. Probably, you can push this much, but will the result please?
Siege
The assault is difficult, but at least it is clearly noticeable. But what about situations when everything is not obvious? When is a slow but inevitable press coming at you? When nothing terrible seems to happen, and things suddenly went awry: the decisions are wrong, the efficiency has fallen, there are few forces, all problems are perceived inadequately sharply, people want to beat their faces? If this has always been the case, then perhaps you need to seriously think. And if not - most likely, a long-lasting source of stress appeared that was a pulling force, and we did not notice. What to do with this?
Two types of stress
First, a little theory. Stress can be divided into eustress (mild stress, mobilizing the body) and distress (too strong, destructive or depressing organism). Eustress plays a positive role in evolution, with the help of it, we develop as a species and gain new skills (just what all sorts of fashionable uncles and aunts are talking about, driving them out of our comfort zone - perhaps we will not talk about them). Eustress helped ancient people not to roll lazily under a palm tree when a tiger ran on them, but to run fast or think - as a result of which they developed (first of all, they survived). Distress, on the other hand, negatively affects health, undermines the immune system, and is close friends with burnout and, in general, a big byak.
Although the technological progress over the past few thousand years is enormous, and there are also many changes in society, the people inside have hardly changed. And therefore, a fallen production or force-siege is involuntarily perceived as a tiger - and you want to grab a club or run away to the cave. However, we ourselves can decide which way to release this stress. To develop, process this experience and become more mature
Introspection
It is very important to determine stress in time (monitoring). A good way is to regularly poll your condition and answer the question: how do I feel? What do I want at the moment? Has anything changed since the last time such a survey improved or worsened? And large or dramatic changes will indicate that a source of stress may have appeared. The effectiveness of tracking depends on your character and psychological properties - for someone it is already built-in, and it works on the machine, and for someone it will take a lot of work.
A similar method, for example, is used by companies in evaluating 360 , collecting measurements from employees and understanding where they have more / less stress compared to the last time.
Focus on solving the situation, not stress itself
If you understand in time that you are under pressure, this helps to make the right conclusion - you need to consider your actions as the actions of a person in a stressful state. No need to worry and get hung up on thoughts: âwell, that I canât do it, some miscalculationsâ, âwhatâs so unlucky with tasksâ, âwhy everyone in the team craps, you canât rely on anyoneâ - because the reason is then itâs clear to you: you (or your team, and therefore, you as a leader) are under pressure. So, they are tired, you have less strength, both physical and emotional. Such thoughts are a dead end: instead of participating in the situation, we sat down, crossed our legs, and the tiger ate us. And you will not succeed, not be lucky and do not have enough strength - accept this, and treat yourself in this state with understanding.
Exactly as in the situation: you, say, the boss again lectured you for some kind of miscalculation (let's not go deep, he is right or wrong) or you see that you did something wrong again. The right moment (since you know that you are under pressure) will not be offended, defended or angry, but will switch to solving the situation. Wrong done - correct. Yes, perfectionism or samoyedstvo say that in general this should not have happened - but it did. And you can get out of this by correcting this, rather than having a self-destructive session.
Removing from the situation works well: switch from completely immersing yourself in the problem to the fact that you simply find yourself in a situation and you need to fix it (improve, well, or at least not drown in it). You can think of yourself in the third person ("one familiar developer has such and such a problem, it is solved in such and such ways, they differ in this and that"), you can imagine that you were invited as an expert to resolve a difficult situation (which someone created another) - in a word, everything that can switch you into constructive mode.
Remember the goals
It is useful to regularly remind yourself: why am I doing all this? If you have an unpleasant colleague, communication with which causes stress and negative emotions - you do not communicate with him because you want to communicate, but to make a project. You have been doing boring and tedious work for many months to get experience / position / funds for a mortgage. And if you have decided that you need the highest goal (and only you can know about it), then the answer to the main question is received. And he will already help to find ways to reduce stress itself: if I want to make a project, do I have to communicate with this colleague? Is there any other way (not chat or chat less)? And if not - do I have to remember that he, say there, grunts into the phone, and it infuriates me? Maybe I will accept that he simply <his role>, and I will communicate only within this?
Making a plan for pulling stress
It is important in the same way as in defense. At the same time, to fight the tiger and think - we donât know how. The better prepared you are, the more likely you are to manage. In general, this is the same risk assessment and planning as the project assessment (the risk here is to reduce our energy and ability to make adequate decisions).
Ask for help
If our adequacy is reduced, we can fill this gap with those who are not under siege and whom we trust. The brain can focus on very few (if not one) things at the same time, and if we stare at one point, we may not notice the obvious things around. On this occasion, there is a very funny experiment with an invisible gorilla . Well, nobody canceled the psychological support - in a state of stress, when there is little strength, it is better to draw them from everywhere. The difficulty also lies in the fact that under stress, the body just resists external influences, and you will have to try to force yourself (again, the degree varies depending on your nature) to turn to someone for help.
Biological Status Tracking
A funny joke
A man is lying resting, and his wife chopping wood.
His neighbor says to him:
- Why arenât you chopping this wood yourself?
And he:
- What if the war, and I'm tired.
His neighbor says to him:
- Why arenât you chopping this wood yourself?
And he:
- What if the war, and I'm tired.
In a joke - the main message of this item. We deal better with difficulties if everything is normal on a biological level. It is no coincidence that all the methods I know of getting out of burnout, for example, begin with the fact that you need to normalize sleep and daily routines. And only then hobbies, positive emotions, stress, thoughts and so on. Therefore, monitor, breathe correctly, take breaks every hour, drink enough water, eat as you need, spend energy rationally. Neglecting these things will spoil your well-being at a time when, on the contrary, you need strength.
Useful Stress Video - How to make stress your friend .
Successful work with stress! And better - without it!
