Perhaps you have somebody in your team who reacts badly to stress, or maybe the whole team is under stress and the cracks are beginning to show. Maybe you just want to avoid the avoidable, and help your team learn about how to deal with stress effectively.
This individual exercise asks your team members to reflect on stressful situations they have dealt with in the past, and encourages them to improve their technique for dealing with stress in the future. As this exercise can touch upon sensitive issues, it is best if team members complete it individually. It should take around 30 minutes to complete.
Learning Objectives
Team members will be able to:
Identify stressful situations;
Examine the way they approach or react to these situations; and
Make plans for improving the way they deal with stress in future.
What to Do (20 minutes)
Explain the aim and learning objectives of the exercise.
Each team member should complete the task.
As this is an individual exercise you will not have much input, but be on hand to answer any questions or help with any problems.
Stress Reliever
This individual exercise asks you to consider stressful situations you have dealt with in the past, and encourages you to improve your technique for dealing with stress in the future.
Task
Think of an event that occurred at work in the past couple of weeks where you felt stressed.
Describe the situation fully.
Situational Awareness
Who was there/involved?
How did I feel?
Did I do anything?
What did I say?
How did I say it?
What happened?
How did I feel afterwards?
Ask yourself and self reflect
How else could I have approached the situation?
What would be the benefits of this approach?
Finally
Make a note of the steps you would like to take in future.
Review Activity (5 minutes)
Once everyone has completed the task, ask them to consider the questions at the bottom of the task sheet. How else could he/she have approached the situation? What would the benefits of this approach be?
You may like to start a group discussion here on the techniques for managing stress. Ask for feedback from the group to get ideas of how they would handle stress, both their own stress and the stress shown by others.
Apply Learning (5 minutes)
Ask each individual to write down three steps they will take when faced with stressful situations in the future. Explain that these will provide useful guidance and will allow them to avoid reacting on instinct when faced with stress. This is important, as when people are stressed they may not be able to stand back and review the situation objectively.
They may like to make a rhyme or acronym out of these so they can remember these steps and recall them in the future.
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