Written by: Catherine Elizabeth Wood, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Organizations can trigger stress in the workplace unknowingly or inadvertently through unclear direction, miscommunication, unfairness, creating overwhelm, lack of support, and so on.
When employees feel stressed, they are unable to think, plan, organize and experience a sense of calm. When the limbic system automatically activates the fight-flight-freeze response when the brain senses a threat such as overwhelming workloads, for example, the prefrontal cortex which is responsible for executive functioning, goes offline.
How organizations can trigger stress in employees is through many different methods including toxic behaviors in the workplace. Often, we overlook how our behaviours can be unconsciously copied by another employee in terms of our gestures, speech pattern, and attitude, called mirroring.
It only takes one person with toxic behaviour for the organizational culture to become toxic. This is because practiced behaviours over time, form habits that are difficult to break.
Likewise, it only takes one person to model positive and constructive behaviour and incorporate some brain science-based strategies to create a culture of psychological safety, motivation, engagement, and performance resulting in a future-fit organization.
What can your organization do to promote a future-fit organizational culture?
Understanding how stress in employees is triggered, is key to building a brain science-based strategy that helps to build trust, psychological safety, a shared purpose, motivation, and engagement in the workplace. Only then will organizations enable employees to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Trust
A critical ingredient for human motivation is trust. When there is trust in the workplace, the brain-friendly chemical oxytocin is released which builds social cognition, learning, cooperation, empathy, and psychological safety. Oxytocin reduces stress and being aware of what an organisation can do to build trust in the workplace, will enable employees to thrive. Consider how your organisation can promote a trusting work environment.
Purpose
One of the basic biological human needs is having a sense of purpose and meaning in what you do. When employees experience a sense of knowing and understanding of how they add value to the team and the organisation, for example, they will be more willing to tackle challenging situations rather than avoid them. Consider how your organisation can drive a sense of shared purpose across the teams in alignment.
Delegation
Another basic biological human need is to have a perceived sense of autonomy and control. A way to meet this need as an organisation is to use delegation of tasks, decision-making, and responsibilities. Ensuring employees can make choices in the workplace will help them to thrive by meeting this need.
Familiarity
When employees are familiar with what they need to do, the brain senses safety. Therefore, familiarity leads to an increase in oxytocin levels in the brain which will result in a calmer state. Besides being rewarding, clarity and transparency are key ingredients for organizational performance. Consider how your organisation can bring familiarity through clarity and transparency.
Fairness
Treating employees with fairness has been shown to positively impact attitudes, thoughts, emotions, and behaviours in a variety of settings. We all constantly seek to determine whether other people can be trusted because our brain is constantly making decisions about the intentions of others. Showing fairness to employees will result in positive outcomes for the organisation so consider how your organisation can demonstrate this.
Confidence
Boosting employees’ confidence will encourage learning and growth through structured feedback and empowering them to make decisions. Enabling employees to have a sense of pride in what they do will bring positive outcomes and build their ability to recover effectively and learn from failures. With this approach, employees will see failures as opportunities to learn and grow. Consider how your organisation can boost employees’ confidence.
Novelty
When employees are curious about their work, it is intrinsically motivating. Novelty triggers curiosity which activates the brains' reward centre and releases the brain-friendly neurochemical dopamine. This results in positive reinforcement, positive mood, and facilitating learning. Consider how your organisation can encourage novelty within teams.
Catherine Elizabeth Wood, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Catherine Wood, is a leader in mental resilience, science-based coaching through neuroscience, and creating new habits for behavior change. After an acute brain injury as an adult left her having irrational thoughts and self-doubt, Catherine developed an interest in neuroplasticity to understand how she could challenge her self-beliefs, promote helpful thoughts and create new habits for behavior change. Catherine has since dedicated her life to helping people to establish their self-belief in who they are as their best self to drive helpful thoughts and create new habits for behavior change in the workplace and in their personal life. Catherine is the Founder of Life Renewal, the online coaching business combining leadership coaching and team coaching with evidence-based techniques in neuroscience. Catherine helps leaders drive employee engagement by modeling leadership behavior across 7 key leadership skills. Catherine has helped clients through her own coaching programs, workshops, and digital courses including "Mastering Emotional Competence in Leadership." Catherine has been a guest writer for Thrive Global which included an article on "Seeking Opportunities While Navigating Uncertainty", and she hosted a resilience series including "The Neuroscience of Resilience". Catherine's mission: Science-based coaching for collaborative leadership behavior.
