Organizational Behavior V2.

0
By Talya Bauer and Berrin Erdogan
Published by:
Flat World Knowledge, Inc.

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13-1
Chapter 7
Managing Stress and
Emotions
Managing Stress and Emotions

1-3
Learning Objectives

1. Understand the stress cycle

2. Recognize the sources of stress for employees
3. Recognize the outcomes of stress
4. Understand how to manage stress in organizational
contexts
5. Understand the role emotions play in attitudes and
behaviors at work
6. Learn about emotional labor and how to manage it
7. Understand how emotions can affect perceptions of
what is ethical
8. Understand cross-cultural differences in stressors

1-4
The Stress Process
In Selye’s General Adaptation
• Stress is the body’s Syndrome (GAS) model, stress affects
reaction to a change an individual in three steps: alarm,
that requires a resistance and exhaustion.
physical, mental, or
emotional
adjustment or
response.
• In a 2012 Gallup poll, Resistance to Stress
41% of Americans
reported that they
felt stressed the day
before.

Alarm Resistance Exhaustion

Workplace Stressors

Role Demands

Role Role Conflict Role Overload

Ambiguity • Facing • Having
• Vagueness in contradictory insufficient
relation to demands at time and
job work resources to
responsibilitie complete
s one’s job
Workplace Stressors

• Information Top 10 Stressful Jobs

Overload – The 1. Enlisted military personnel
information 2. Military general
processing demands 3. Firefighter
on an individual’s
4. Commercial airline pilot
time to perform
5. Public relations executive
interactions and
internal calculations 6. Senior corporate executive
exceed the supply or 7. Photo journalist
capacity of time 8. Newspaper reporter
available for such 9. Taxi driver
processing. 10.Police Officer
Work-Life Conflict

• Work–life conflict
occurs when the
demands from
work and non-work
domains are
negatively
affecting one
another.

George Lucas found making The Empire

Strikes Back stressful both personally and
financially. Those who worked with him
describe him as being fully engrossed in the Source:

process, which led to, among other things,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George
_Lucas_cropped_2009.jpg

work-family conflict.
 OB Toolbox: How Stressed Are You?
Part of the Holmes-Rache Scale:

Life Event Points Life Event Points

Death of spouse 100 Foreclosure of mortgage or loan 30
Divorce 73 Change in responsibilities at work 29 Chance
of
Martial separation 65 Son or daughter leaving home 29 Stress
Jail term 63 Trouble with in-laws 29 related
Death of close family 63 Outstanding personal achievement 28 Points illness
member
Personal injury or illness 53 Begin or end school 26 <150 30%
Marriage 50 Change in living 25
location/condition 150 -
Fired or laid off at work 47 Trouble with supervisor 23 299 50%
Marital reconciliation 45 Change in work hours or 20
conditions 300+ 80%
Retirement 45 Change in schools 20
Pregnancy 40 Change in social activities 18
Change in financial state 38 Change in eating habits 15
Death of close friend 37 Vacation 13
Change to different line of 36 Minor violations of the law 11
work
Outcomes of Stress

Physiological Psychological

• Nervousness • Depression
• Tension • Anxiety
• Headaches
• Anger
• Irritability
• Fatigue
 Work Outcomes

• Individuals who are able to find the

right balance of not too much work
challenge which spills into exhaustion
and not too little work challenge which
can signal apathy see increases in
High

performance.
Low

Low High
Stress
Individual Differences in Experienced Stress

Type B
Type A
• Tend to be
• High levels of
calm, and tend
speed/impatien
to think through
ce, job
situations as
involvement,
opposed to
and hard-
reacting
driving
emotionally

1-12
 Discussion

• Research shows that entrepreneurs who are leading

new enterprises experience low levels of stress. Why
would this be true? Explain using stress models.
• Stress can be in the form of a challenge or
hindrance type of stress. Think about stressors you
experienced in the past six months. Were these
challenge or hindrance stress? Does this
classification depend on the person?
• What stressors do you have experience with? Can
you think of additional categories of common
stressors?
Individual Approaches to Managing Stress

The
Corporate Flow Diet
Athlete

Detachment Mindfulness Time

and and Management
Relaxation Meditation https://www.fastcompany.com/15
69600/see-how-much-tme-you-
are-wasting-rescuetime

Create a
Psychological
Social Support
Coping
Network
Time Management Quiz

1. True or false: I sort my mail when it comes in, open it, place it in a folder,
and deal with it when I am ready to.
2. True or false: I do what my boss asks me to do immediately.
3. True or false: I don’t take breaks because they waste time.
4. True or false: I answer the phone when it rings regardless of what I am
doing.
5. True or false: I check my emails as soon as they arrive.
6. True or false: I create a “to do” list at the start of every day.
7. True or false: I do my “heavy thinking” at the end of the day when things
have calmed down.
8. True or false: I don’t like to take vacations because making up the work
is always too stressful.
9. True or false: Multitasking helps me be more effective at work.
10.True or false: I don’t have to organize my office since I always know
where things are.
Designing Work That Flows

Challenge Meaningfulness

Competence Choice
Organizational Approaches to Managing Stress

Make Expectations Clear

Give Employees Autonomy
Create Fair Work Environments
Telecommuting
Employee Sabbaticals
Employee Assistance Programs
Organizational Approaches to Managing Stress

Whose responsibility do you

think it is to deal with
employee stress – the employee
or the organization? Why?
© 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation

Telecommuting helps
employees avoid traffic
jams like this one.
Emotions

 Desired Event Positive

• Joy
Emotions • Love
• Surprise

 Undesired
Event
Negative
• Anger
Emotions • Fear
• Sadness
Emotional Contagion

Frustration
Customer
carries to
argues
next
with you
customer

Customer
You argue
leaves in a
back
huff
OB Toolbox: Practice Changing Your Emotions

Close your eyes

Breathe in slowly

Release your breath

Open your eyes

Smile wide
 Discussion

• How easy do you think it is to “manage” one’s

emotions?
• Which types of emotions are most socially
accepted in the workplace? Why do you think this
is?
• What are factors that affect your emotions?
• Share an example of either positive or negative
emotional contagion. How did it start and stop?
• What do you do, if anything, to try to change how
you are feeling? How effective are your strategies?
Emotions Affect Attitudes and Behavior at Work

Anger Fear Affective Events

Theory (AET) explores
how events on the
job cause different
Sadness Joy kinds of people to
feel different
emotions.
Love Surprise
Emotional Labor

Surface Acting
Displaying physical signs, such as smiles, that reflect
emotions (without actually feeling the emotions).

Deep Acting

Pretending to experience emotions.

Genuine Acting
Displaying emotions that are aligned with emotions that
are actually felt.
 Emotional Labor

When it comes to Employee

acting, the closer to Personality
the middle of the Genuine
circle that your Acting
actions are, the less
emotional labor your Deep Acting
job demands. The
further away, the Surface
more emotional labor Acting
the job demands.
 Emotional Intelligence

• The four steps of Relationship

emotional intelligence
build upon one Management
another.
Social-awareness

Self-management

Self-awareness
 Discussion

• What is the worst job you ever had (or class

project if you haven’t worked)? Did the job
require emotional labor? If so, how did you deal
with it?
• Research shows that acting “happy” when you are
not can be exhausting. Why do you think that is?
Have you ever felt that way? What can you do to
lessen these feelings?
• How important do you think emotional intelligence
is at work? Why?
Case Study: American Express

Source: shutterstock.com
Case Discussion Questions

1. What are some other jobs that deal with relatively negative or
unfavorable emotions daily?
2. In what type of job might American Express’s open emotion
policy not be acceptable?
3. What type of personality might be better equipped for dealing
with negative emotions at work?
4. What are some ways you deal with negative emotions either at
work or at school? Do your methods differ depending on what
type of situation you are in?
Emotions and Ethics

Joshua Green’s Experiment:

Scenario 1 Scenario 2
A trolley is racing A trolley is racing
down a track, about down a track, about
to kill five people. to kill five people.
You have the ability You can push a large
to steer the trolley man onto the tracks,
onto another track, which will save the
where it will only kill other five.
1 person.
Most felt this was OK – the Most felt the sacrifice
lesser of two evils. was emotionally wrong.
Lack of Leisure Time and Stress around the Globe

• 40% of Americans do not plan to take a vacation within the

next year.

• Americans have 16.5 hours of leisure time per week after

their work and household obligations are fulfilled.

• Some Japanese employees work an average of 236 hours

more per year than their American counterparts and 500
more than employees in France or Germany.

• Many Europeans take the month of August off.

 Discussion

• Explain a time when you have seen emotions help

someone to be more ethical than they might have
otherwise been.
• Explain a time when you have seen emotions help
someone to be less ethical than they might have
otherwise been.
• Why do you think some countries have so much
vacation time compared to others? In your opinion,
is this a problem? Why or why not?