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WORKING UNDER PRESSURE

November 7, 2024 - November 7, 2024   


How do you cope? Discusses Life & Business Coach Eric Gilston…

Around May, I look forward to escaping from the rainfall in England and hopefully having a week of some sunshine in the Algarve, Portugal. It also means that I can have a week relaxing by the pool, reading a book and going in the pool for some enjoyable swims.

This is certainly my way of coping when I have been working under pressure. It is also a time when I can reflect on the business coaching that I have been doing in schools when I work with students ranging from 13 to 17 years old.

The duration of the work in any school, with a particular year group, is for either four or five consecutive days. During this time, they work on a real business challenge set by different top companies. One of the common factors across all the challenges is that on the final day they present their solution to the challenge to a panel of senior employees of the respective companies.

Adults working on similar challenges within their own company would be given far more time to come up with their ideas, and would talk about the pressure that they are working under to come up with some workable solutions.

It is my view that those adults who consider that they are working under pressure are inflicting this on themselves, and need to take a leaf out of the students that I have had the pleasure of working with.

Why? My observations were as follows. It all starts when the challenge is given to the students and the adrenalin starts to build up when they realise that they are not only being asked to contribute to something that will help a business, but it’s also something that they can get excited about. I wonder if the same thing happens with employees like yourselves – is it excitement or fear?

The group of students then determine which aspect of the challenge they want to work on, either individually or in teams, and get down to some serious work in school time. I wonder what the level of enthusiasm is with employees working office hours – think about yourself?

All the time, the students are aware of when their work has to be completed by, in order to be ready to present on the morning of the fourth or fifth day. I wonder if employees deadlines are so far into the future that they allow other work to be done, and then put themselves under undue pressure as the deadline gets closer?

The day of the presentation arrives and the students do not believe that they have been working under pressure because they are excited about wanting to tell the client all about their own contribution to the overall challenge. They have learned all about the skill ‘working under pressure’, and have determined how to cope with it and not let it get on top of them. I wonder if the same logic applies to employees?

It is my opinion, that pulling all of this together, it is down to the individual as to how they want to address ”˜working under pressure’. You might want to disagree?

So you might want to use this approach that the students used to cope with working under pressure, or you might want to consider the following thought.

If you are the emotional type who allows working under pressure to get to them, convert your emotions into the energy needed to solve the problem.

I’m now going to turn this article on its head, and ask YOU to let me know what you do to cope whenever you are confronted with ‘working under pressure’. I’d love to hear from you, and I’ll share your actions with readers of FashionCapital as part of next month’s article.

If you want to contact me on Life Skills, then simply email me at eric@coachandcourses.com




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