Driving Results Through Culture

Does your work culture amp up stress – or does it purge stress? Stress is an emotion that’s created by limbo. If team members don’t know answers to questions like, “What should I do?” or “What if x, y, or z happens?“, they experience greater stress. Greater stress means they can’t act. They can’t move forward. And they worry about every single bad thing that could happen when they do take action. Workplace cultures riddled with stressed-out people are environments built on uncertainty — not healthy uncertainty, which can fuel ownership, engagement, creative problem solving, and high performance. Stressed-out people create unhealthy uncertainty — the kind of fear that arises when people aren’t sure that they will continue to be valuable to an organization if decisions they make don’t pan out. Unhealthy uncertainty amplifies stress, erodes confidence, and creates anxiety. Stressed out people are not calm, cool, and creative. Stressed out people are much more likely to stop and observe rather than to proactively