The podcast episode discusses the importance of peak performance and resilience optimization in organizations. The guest, Dr. Lisa Grossman, emphasizes the need for organizations to adapt to change and support their employees' well-being. High performance is defined as achieving the desired outcomes and sustaining success while being resilient and adaptable. Measurement of performance varies depending on the field and organization, but goals and the ability to adapt are key factors. Strategies for creating a workplace culture that encourages peak performance include communication, support, and providing resources for employees to take care of themselves. Resilience optimization involves enhancing a team's ability to bounce back from challenges and disruptions. Skills such as self-awareness, mental fortitude, self-regulation, and optimism contribute to building resilience. It is important for organizations to take preventative action and support their employees' well-being to avoid burn
Welcome to Coaching Office Presents podcast, a part of the ECS Network. This is the Masters of Leadership Teachable Moment Series. I'm your host, Laura Perez-Earhart. I'm the CEO of Epiphany Consulting Solutions, a management consultant and executive coach. Today, we're exploring organizations' dynamic world of high performance and resilience optimization. In this episode, we'll unravel the strategies, insights, and stories behind successful teams and leaders who consistently raise the bar. So whether you're a seasoned executive, aspiring leader, or simply someone who's passionate about unleashing your peak performance, join us as we dive into the keys to organizational excellence.
Get ready to elevate your understanding and unlock the secrets to achieving exceptional results. My guest is Dr. Lisa Grossman. Lisa is the Director of Human Performance and Tactical Programs at HRS Consulting. She's an expert in peak performance training, resiliency, and mental wellness, with over 20 years' experience working with military, law enforcement, healthcare providers, veterans, including athletes and private industry. Lisa, welcome to my show. I'm really excited and looking forward to talking to you about peak performance and resilience optimization.
And this is brilliant timing since we've seen accelerated spikes in anxiety, burnout, and stress in the workplace. And organizations need to know how to manage it and what they can do to improve their stress management, best practices, to improve overall performance. Peak performance is crucial to organizations today for many reasons. It gives organizations a competitive advantage, it helps people and their teams adapt to change, and it's great for employee engagement and retention. So there are many positive factors that contribute to the overall health of a business and its people.
Right, Lisa? Yeah, absolutely. What's your definition of performance and what does high performance look like? Well, thanks for having me on, Laura. My definition of high performance, you know, if I were to say, you know, what is the success, the outcomes of our clients? Are we able to achieve what we're setting out to do? Are the people that we are out to help reaching that success? Their success, in turn, equals our success. And that's what our level of peak performance is.
And that's the way I look at it, at least for our organization. Being able to attain and reach that success for whatever organization, whatever the goals are for that organization, are being able to sustain it, maintain it, and having the people that work within that environment being well, resilient, being able to tackle whatever needs to be tackled, and being able to adapt with change and the things that are being thrown at them at any given time.
And we know in today's environment, things are constantly evolving and changing. And being able to override those challenges and adapt with that, also key to peak performance. You know, things are not always going to be going well, but being able to ride those waves and not be thrown off the surfboard is part of that. Being able to support one another seamlessly without having to ask for that support is a part of it. The way that team works together and that organization works together, being proactive and just being able to take initiative.
There's a lot of entities that are involved with peak performance in itself. But being able to push through, being able to be resilient, and navigating those high-pressure situations no matter what, at any given time. Right, that is so spot on, 100% Lisa. How do you measure it? That's interesting. You know, it depends also in what field that you ask. You know, you talk about, you know, in the financial field, and people are going to say you measure it by, you know, the ROI and those dollar signs.
You know, in the medical field, you measure it by patient success and patient outcomes. You know, I think it depends on the field that you're looking at, and I look at it at least in what I do in terms of my client's success. But, you know, at the end of the day, and what I do looking at the human factor and the human performance element, who's standing at the end of it? How successful are we as an organization? Are we reaching those objectives? Are you hitting those goals? In itself is a way to measure that.
You know, you look at it like goals. You know, what are your goals? Are you attaining those goals? Are they realistic? Are you able to identify those throughout? Are you making those adjustments? Are you hitting the smaller goals? You know, some of those smaller successes also are just as important as those larger successes, and sometimes we overlook that. But, you know, it also depends on the structure and the organization itself. Yeah, for sure. I think that being able to define it, measure it, is really important to any business, no matter what industry you're in, public, private sector.
Because you're right, it's about are we moving toward the goal, or are we further away from the goal? Are we hitting our targets, or are we missing them? What's the barrier here? What do we need to do? How do we pivot? Absolutely, and it might not be hitting that end goal is that critical component. That end goal may shift based on those smaller intermediate goals. And a lot of folks lose sight of that and don't realize that.
As you're working towards that main goal, you say, oh, well, wait a minute. As we're working towards that, we see that we may need to restructure or make some changes. Change occurs throughout an organization midway through or partially through. Companies are bought out. Major shifts happen within administration and leadership happens, and that may adjust some of those goals. So a key measurement is how well does your organization adapt? Adapt with the least amount of difficulty and negative impact as possible.
And that also, to me, is a measure of peak performance. A lot of people don't necessarily look at it that way, but that is such a critical element. Because without that skill, since we can't control the environment and the things that are happening on a regular basis, we have to be able to navigate ourselves, and the people have to be able to adapt in those situations. Yeah, since we're talking about adaptability, now that you've defined it, you've talked a bit about measuring it, can you talk about some strategies that you employ to create a workplace culture that encourages peak performance among employees? We have to support the people that work in the organization.
Companies need to practice what they preach, and leadership needs to practice what they preach. Support, communication is critical. Offering different programs. Encourage timeouts when needed. Walk away when it's needed, and being able to do that. Identify when ā I'll just use myself as an example. I need to be able to identify when I need to do something. I didn't get enough sleep last night. Maybe I need to do this. We have to support employees to make decisions and take action to take care of themselves in order to be successful in the workplace.
We can't just keep pushing and expect people to operate at a level 10 consistently. People will crash and burn. We are not built that way. You have to put these strategies in place. Offer different resources. Offer training courses. When work ends at a certain time of the day, don't expect to get emails back at 10 o'clock at night or on the weekends. We have to practice what we preach and then support when people do that as well.
Because performance is going to be impacted when people are running at a 10. The brain just stops working at a certain capacity when that occurs. Yeah, for sure. What I heard you say is the best strategies and best practices are support, communication, which are crucial to these strategies, and to really supporting staff members. Let's pivot a bit and talk about resilience optimization. When I think of resilience optimization, Lisa, I would put in context of improving resilience in business or personal well-being.
Resilience is the ability to bounce back or recover from challenges or setbacks. I think of resilience optimization as a strategy, practice, or process that aims to enhance a team's ability to withstand, adapt, or recover from stressors or disruptions. How close am I to your definition of resilience optimization? You're right there. You're there, Laura. You got it. You hit the nail on the head. You hit it. That is the definition of resiliency. When I teach about resiliency, anybody can learn to be resilient.
In order for an organization to be resilient, people have to learn to be resilient. Not everybody has those skillsets. Everybody can learn those skills, but we have to often teach that. You don't know what you don't know. When I look at resiliency, oftentimes I get asked, what makes somebody resilient? Self-awareness, being aware of what's going on within yourself. How are you doing? Are you tense? Are you being more forgetful than usual? What's happening? Mental fortitude, being able to push through when things are tough.
Digging deep into your gut. Self-regulation, knowing that you're getting a little wiped and rebooting yourself. Taking a step back, take a breath, reset. Optimism, I believe, is a big part of resiliency. These are all things that I think really hone into what builds resiliency. A lot of people, unfortunately, don't necessarily have some of those skills. We can teach those skills, but we have to provide that education, that content. Unfortunately, what I see a lot of folks doing, and what's happening across the board, is we're not taking preventative action.
A lot of organizations are pushing, pushing, pushing. People are just pushing, pushing, pushing. That's normally what we do. All right, that's okay. We start to see problems. We're identifying problems. Then things get worse over time, and we see crashing and burning. I'm like, wait a second. Let's take a step back. Why aren't we being proactive and preventing some of these problems from occurring? Just by providing upfront education, coaching, training, some skill sets, we could prevent a lot of the bad from happening by giving people some of these tools to be resilient so that they can work on navigating themselves.
When you have more resilient individuals, that collectively will make for more resilient teams. They're prepared for those changes. They're prepared to be able to adapt in the face of whatever comes and be able to regulate, look at the positive things. When stuff gets really hard, have that mental fortitude to dig deep. You have to look at the individual first and build from there. We have to provide people those skill sets to be able to do that.
So true. I like what you said earlier. Take a breath and hit reset. Oh, that is my biggest. If nobody takes anything else away from this podcast, please take that away. If you'd like, I can expand on what I'm saying. You know when you have a computer running and you've got like 10 programs going at the same time? Oh, yeah. Yeah, and you want to throw your computer out the window because it's not working and you're really frustrated with it, and you're done.
And so you have to restart it. We don't do that to ourselves. We've got 527 things going on in our head at once, and the brain doesn't function well that way. And I know a lot of high-level executives leave. I do my best. I know the greatest pressure. Yeah, you're great at what you do. Can you be a little bit better? I bet you can. How's your body functioning? How's your blood pressure? You're having heartburn every day.
Our bodies, you know, are running so often. A majority of people are running at such a high level of stress. And the only way to turn off the stress response is to breathe. So when I say reboot, disengage, take a couple slow breaths. In through the nose, hold it up at the top, slow and controlled exhale out the mouth. Reboot, take a breath, disengage your stress response, trigger the relaxation response. I promise you your brain will work a whole lot better.
The first organ to be impacted when that happens is your brain. I always ask in the classes and the workshops I teach is how many people have read a couple pages of a report or something, and you read it and you go, what did I just read? Or you're on the phone and you're talking to somebody and saying, I can't find my phone anywhere. Or you misplace your keys and you're looking around for an hour and a half and have no idea where you put them.
That's not because you have a cognitive problem. I mean, you might, but it's most likely as a result of stress. And we just reboot. And if you did that every 40 or 45 minutes throughout the day, you would see what a difference it would make. Great advice. I love that. So I'm breathing deeply as you speak. What's being that right mindset? So as an expert in performance, Lisa, how do you ensure that employees have the necessary resources and tools to learn strategies and build a resilient mindset and reach or maintain their peak performance levels? I encourage organizations to incorporate training, different ways to provide those things to their people.
Be open to trying new things. A lot of places like to keep doing the same old, same old. You know, I go to places and they say, well, we have EAP. Counseling is important. We need to have those types of resources. And then I say, well, how long is the wait for your employee to get counseling services? And a lot of places right now, it's a month or two months out until some folks can get the help that they need.
You know, I say, why don't you be open to trying something new? Try some training. Be open to thinking out of the box. You know, people don't know what they don't know. And you have to provide that information. Be open to thinking out of the box. You know, people don't know what they don't know. And you have to provide folks those tools and those resources and that type of training. And not just looking at a computer and hitting, you know, a key and watching a recording.
Interaction is important. It's critical. It's tangible. One of the big things that we do with our training and our coaching is we incorporate wearables so that people can then also monitor and identify what's going on internally, physiologically with themselves. So they can monitor their sleep and see, are they actually able to take some of the things that we're teaching them and employ them so that it's making an impact? Biofeedback is another tool that I use. Same thing.
Are you able to actually take the tools that I'm teaching you and the skills that I'm teaching you in a workshop and be able to implement them and experience them? Are they making an impact? If I can ask somebody all day long, are you relaxed? You know, I'll tell them breathe. And I say, are you relaxed? And they go, oh, yeah, I'm relaxed. And I go, do you know what relaxed feels like? And they just kind of look at me with this confused look.
Adding in the technology piece is a really fascinating, critical tool often to be able to ensure that they're really getting the message. Organizations need to be open to trying new things. If you want success from your people, you have to think out of the box and not be so structured. And not everything is going to work for everybody. Try different things. Yeah, sometimes it's like throwing pots at the wall. Yep. Earlier we talked about some crucial strategies around peak performance and resiliency.
So what role does effective communication play in achieving and sustaining performance in the workplace? Communication is the most critical. You know, listening is probably at the top of that. A lot of people, when they talk about communication, they forget listening is the most important part of that. Without that, you have nothing. You have to be able to listen. You know, one of the things I talk about with peak performance is attention control. And attention control is something that's very difficult for a lot of people.
I would probably say we have more people with attention deficit disorder now today than ever before. And they're like, why is that happening? I said, because there's more vines for attention than ever before. And when I say listening and how that's tied in, when we're communicating with each other, if I'm busy trying to come up with an answer or solution to what you're saying, guess what I'm not doing? Listening to what you're saying. And I can't fully process whatever you're saying if I'm too busy trying to come up with a solution.
And if my brain is bouncing to 562 other places, I can't fully listen to what you're saying and I can't absorb it. So active listening is necessary. Collaboration is a part of that communication. We have to be open to hearing what everybody's needs are in order to achieve that peak performance from everybody within a team. Transparency is a part of that. And trust is tied into there. And another big one is self-advocacy. Employees need to be able to advocate for themselves, speak up for themselves to reach that level of peak performance.
And I think that, unfortunately, a lot of people don't feel comfortable doing that in an organization when they're struggling in any way. And, you know, maybe it's the technical aspect of their job. They may not feel comfortable being able to communicate and speak up and ask for help. They might feel, you know, that's a weakness, I can't do that. And being able to self-advocate and relay what they need. But if they were able to speak up and ask, then success would be there and they would be able to achieve that.
So I think that's a part of it as well. And I think that self-advocacy piece is so essential for that peak performance aspect for a team. Yeah, that's a really important thing that you bring up right now around someone not knowing how to ask for help or not wanting to. The not wanting to, and this is just from past experience and having a conversation with a client, why not ask for help? Well, you know, it's around shame, feeling shamed or a fear of being rejected.
They feel incompetent if they ask for help. Advocacy for the self is really, really important. But I also like that you said attention control. Oh, yeah. When it comes to communication, that listening component, people do very poorly. And you're spot on, Lisa, because people tend to be distracted by their phone, by if they're on Zoom, they're looking at their other screens. You know, they are already thinking of what they're going to, how they're going to respond.
So there's all those elements that are distracting. But that attention control is really important, which takes me into my next area of wanting to hear from your expertises around mental discipline. To be a top performer, you need to have a level of mental discipline and a sense of competitiveness, you know, competitive appetite. But you also need to know when to pivot that energy, right? An analogy that I heard, which I really like, was dimmer switch. You need to know when to turn it up and when to turn it down.
For example, Steph Curry, NBA all-star here in San Francisco, Golden State Warriors, he's married, he has a family. So when he's in the middle of a game, he pushes the needle of performance and he knows his competitor's weakness. He's in the moment. But when he's back at home with his family, he completely shifts his energy and his mindset to connect and be present with his wife and his kids and to meet their needs. So he turns that dimmer switch down, right, that he's pivoting.
So working in an organization, individuals need to be able to learn how to use that dimmer switch with their energy to meet that peak performance depending on the role that they're playing at the moment. To get into that right mental mindset, for instance, when I'm preparing to give a presentation, I focus on three key words. Key points, humor and engagement. But when I'm in my office and I need to address one of my staff members on performance, the three key words that I use to have that mental mindset is listen, empathy and coach.
From your viewpoint, Lisa, how important is it for employees to realize such a discipline to be able to shift their energy and mindset based on the role that they're playing at work? Because we all play different roles in the day. What are some key things that you use to teach employees or folks out there about mental discipline? I love the question. It's fantastic. And you bring up a great point. While we're awake, we have to be energized to a certain degree.
That level of energy, we need to be energized, but we have to control our level of energy and our energy requirement is based on what we're doing. When you're at the office and you are presenting, you have to have a certain level of energy. When you're sitting at your desk and you're doing something, a certain level of energy. When you're talking to somebody, you have to be more self-aware and aware of the performance environment in which you're in for you in this moment to be at your best.
And it's a learned behavior. So if I'm teaching somebody how to improve upon this, the two big things I'm going to probably be teaching is self-awareness and self-regulation. Talking through what some of the requirements are throughout the course of the day. When do you need to be more energized? What is required for you to be able to be at your best in that moment? Where do you have to control that? A lot of folks have a hard time being up in front of large crowds.
Even some high-level executives that are very well-known and they still have a hard time getting in front of a large room full of people. And being able to control that level of energy because the energy, i.e. stress, is so great that it compromises them. So being able to identify that and put some practices in place to control it is key. That's that mental discipline. Being able to get into that zone in that moment. That's what an athlete does.
And even though you might not be out on the basketball court or the football field or anything like that, you can still get into the zone as a professional. Block everything out and just zone right in. And you do that by regulating your breath, honing in, blocking out distractions. But you have to build upon that. And we do that with different strategies. Having pre-performance routines. Before you go and walk into a room, we visualize it and practice it.
We incorporate breath training and monitoring heart rate and being able to just optimize those key components. Just like you would do in athletics, but you do it in a business professional setting. And you hone in on your physiology and your cognitive state. And you change it up based on what your requirements are. And when you're back in the office and you don't need to be at that level, you tone it down. But you can immediately turn it back on right when you need it and you come back down when you don't.
So that at the end of the day, when you get home, you're not completely taxed. You can't be at a level 10 all the time. You can't be at that just running, running, running, running, running high level and then still have gas in the tank left to be able to engage with family or whatever. You have to be able to turn it up, turn it down, and keep doing that so there's still some left in you and you don't crash at the end of the day.
Yep, that's why I said I like that light switch. Yeah, great analogy. For me personally, I use key words when I know I'm going to step into a different environment, you know, get that mindset. So that's what just works for me. Another area, those key elements to being able to shift your energy and your mindset is also effort. I think a lot of people know who Mark Cuban is, businessman, billionaire. He's a celebrity on Shark Tank.
In 2023, during an interview, he made a statement that stood out to me and it still stuck with me today. What makes the business most successful is because they make the effort and that's what gives them the competitive advantage. What efforts do organizations encourage skills development to enhance employee capabilities and contribute to peak performance? I think he's right and I agree with it as well. In my world, it would be making the effort by focusing on their people.
Lead by example, offering new innovative methods and training, offering, you know, out-of-the-box thinking, letting employees explore options that they would like. A lot of places will say, okay, I want you to do this. This is what you need to do. We're going to offer you this, but this is your option. Thinking out-of-the-box, having employees be proactive and having some ownership and responsibility for some of these things and asking them, you know, go out and explore. What would be some things that you would like to learn about? How would you like to continue to learn and expand your skill set? Present us with ideas and let's discuss them.
I was speaking with somebody a few months ago and their organization talked to some of their mid-level management and said, we want you to go out and look for continued training ideas that you think you and your employees would enjoy. And the middle management actually spoke to the employees and said, what would you like to learn? We're not going to tell you what you're going to learn. We want to know what you would like to learn.
And they actually took that feedback, went out, looked at different courses and things like that, different training. The organizations need to be up-to-date on what's the newest research, what's the newest technologies that enhance continuous learning and skill development to build those capabilities of their people. But ultimately, yeah, showing that effort to improve your people is at the core of all of it. You know, we have to get folks involved. That's going to show effort in itself.
Focusing on people skills equals competitive advantage for an organization. I believe so. That is so spot on. And that's where you find a lot of the most competitive but yet successful organizations because they invest in their people and they know that that's the biggest competitive advantage of their people and their culture. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so how does leadership balance the need for innovation and risk-taking to maintain consistent performance? You have to take risks to grow and improve.
But when you invest in the people, if your people are doing well, you know, you can't control the things that are happening around you. Things are going to continuously happen that are going to impact the organization, the market, and, you know, there's constant factors that are impacting an organization. At the end of the day, the only controllables that we have that are 100% certain is that people can control three things in this entire world, what we think, what we say, what we do.
You know, no matter how much money you have, no matter what greatness, magic skills, anything you have, you cannot control ultimately 99.9% of the things that go on around us. But people can control what they think, say, and do. Got to take some risk in that. But when you invest in your people and build their strength and their ability to maximize those three, you just mitigated your risk. Because, again, you cannot control for external factors. What are the things that disrupt organizations? Things that a lot of times they're just uncontrollable.
You can do a lot to try to prevent them, but ultimately things are going to happen. And I will tell you, going back a little bit to what you were saying, you see so much what's happening with these organizations and why are some so successful when they're focused on their people. Burnout is, you know, a big thing. And you've got this high turnover rate. But the organizations that are taking a couple extra steps have less turnover.
And they can retain their people. Their people are not feeling so frazzled. Again, focusing on the folks that are making up that company. At the end of the day, you can only control those three things. And so if you employ your people to be able to do that at max capacity, that in itself is going to help mitigate quite a bit of risk. Oh, absolutely. A hundred percent. The things that at times an organization cannot control is internal conflict.
Conflict happens at any time. I really believe that conflict is a normal state in any organization. There's disagreements that surface, misunderstanding, personality clash. How do you handle and manage conflicts within a team to ensure that they don't negatively impact the overall performance? It's tough. I mean, I'll be perfectly honest with you. I've been called in before over the years to help manage that. And when I walk into a job, I want to put on my black and white striped shirt and bring in my yellow flags and start running around.
I'm ready to go. I'm like, here I am. Especially depending on the level and the roles that, you know, are part of the conflict. You've got a lot of very motivated, strong-minded, strong-willed people, very intelligent people. And the more you have of that, the more conflict you're going to get. And that's okay. I think it's important to dig in and find out what's happening. I think sometimes it's important to take a step back. I think it's also helpful to have some external folks, and not external necessarily to the company, but maybe outside of the immediate team to come in.
Right, like a mediator. Like a mediator to provide some different perspectives. What happens is we communicate on two different levels, content and emotion. And a majority of the time, regardless, people communicate on emotion. And when there's conflict involved, there's a lot of emotion involved. There's also a lot of stress involved. And sometimes when, you know, we get caught up in the moment and conflict arises, it is very hard to see anything other than that. And so having a different perspective that is not emotionally invested in the situation can really help add to diffusing the situation, being able to speak up.
And that's where having some of that foundational trust is important and some of those key aspects of baseline communication skills and agreement early on is important. You know, what does that team look like from the start? You can't wait until there is a communication breakdown to try to start to figure that out. And I think it's important for organizations and some of these teams to work on that. I've done a lot of team coaching before, and you've got to get into the we.
A lot of conflict comes because there's misunderstanding that just never needed to occur in the first place. When things aren't said, people fill in the gaps with what they think should be there, and that's not necessarily the case. It's often just a lot of misunderstanding. So it's just getting to the root of the problem, digging in, sometimes seeing different perspectives, taking emotion out of the equation. Everybody doing a little bit of a reset, and let's start from the ground up and figure out what is the root cause.
I like that you said take the emotion out of the equation. That's big. So a lot of times when I'm talking executive teams, senior leaders, they're having an explosive conversation. I'll have that one-on-one conversation. It's like, okay, now say that again, but remove the emotion out of what you just said. Helping them to learn these different approaches and tactics to be successful, to promote a positive, healthy team environment. I want to take this at a higher level.
What role does leadership development play in sustaining peak performance, and how does the company invest in the growth of its leaders? That's a great question. Leaders have to be open to change within themselves, and that's a very hard thing to occur. And I see a smile in there. It's tough. It's a really hard thing for a lot of folks to kind of come to that realization. And I will tell you, anytime at any level, everybody can improve.
The greatest leader, there's still room for improvement. The greatest athlete, there's still room for improvement and development. I've always said the day you think you know it all is the day you need to walk away. I truly believe it. So important when you talk about leadership development. I think that leaders have to be open to continuously evolve and grow and change and gain new information. In order to reach that high-level performance, there's always ultimately the potential for higher.
And what can you do as a leader to do that? In order to be successful as a leader, are your people successful underneath you? That is going to be a direct reflection of you. They're modeling the way, right? They are modeling the way, and they have to practice what they preach. And you have to live it. You have to demonstrate it. And paint that picture so that your people can see it and understand it and really visually capture what you want.
And be open to that change and that dynamic. And when that occurs, you get that level of peak performance. But it's an evolving process, and it continuously changes. But, you know, we talk about adding these skill sets, you know, the mental skills training, the peak performance training for employees. The same should be done for leadership. I think there's continued awareness that should be achieved by all levels within an organization. Self-awareness, self-regulation, stress management. You know, a lot of people think stress management should just be for employees.
Like, what about leadership? What about admin? You know, command? You know, all that. They have a different level of stress. Everybody is susceptible. You know, I go into workshops and I teach people about things, and I say, but I have to practice the things that I'm teaching you myself. We as human beings are all susceptible. It doesn't matter what level you're on. And so we all need to work at enhancing that. And I think that's a huge part of leadership development.
And I think it's necessary to continuously work on that to achieve that level of peak performance. Yeah, you're spot on, Lisa. You know, leadership has evolved over the last two, three decades. You know, it used to be called management. It's no longer management. It is leadership. There's a big difference. There's a lot more stress and higher expectations the higher you go up in an organization. One of the things that has escalated is stress. And we've seen massive spikes of stress, anxiety.
Employees suffer from anxiety. Their productivity drops. They become less innovative. They're more likely to make errors. And this can spread throughout an organization. So it can severely impact the employee's health, performance, behavior, quality of work, even the bottom line. Additional effects of job stress can lead to burnout, reduced motivation, decreased job satisfaction, higher absenteeism, higher turnover, low morale, including interpersonal conflict like we just talked about, and so much more. So, Lisa, how does the organization support employees in dealing with high stress levels? You're hitting my favorite topic, Laura.
You're hitting my favorite topic. So needed. I will tell you, today the number one culprit that are impacting people, like just the number one thing that's impacting everybody in a negative way is stress. Stress is, we allow it to impact us. We allow things to impact us. And stress is different for everybody. And we have all these stressors. And a majority of the things that cause us stress are things that we have absolutely no control over.
But we have control over how we navigate our perception, our interpretation of those stressors. We have control about what we think about them, what we say about them, and what we do about them. But it's important to recognize that employees are experiencing probably the highest amount, the highest levels of stress that they've ever experienced before. And not only work stress, but there's also a whole other piece to the puzzle, and that's personal stress. And I know that in a great world, everybody says, well, we have to separate, you know, work and life.
And that sounds wonderful, but let's be honest, it's not necessarily realistic. There's a lot of things going on in the world, and just it's very hard to separate those two things completely. They're going to influence each other. And they're going to impact, they're going to impact people's health. They are impacting people's health. We see people experiencing greater levels of anxiety, depression. So our top three mental health challenges are anxiety, depression, and substance abuse for the working class, working Americans in this country.
Those are the top three. And if you look at the root cause of all of it, I guarantee you it's stress. A lot of people are not sleeping well. What's the root cause of that? Oftentimes it's stress. So, you know, what do we need to do for these folks? We've got to give them some skills. We've got to teach people how do you navigate that stress. We can't take away the stressors. You know, what are the stressors? Well, some things we can try to work on as an organization.
You know, making sure that people are working from a certain time to a certain time, and that's it. You know, making sure that we're putting policies in place to ensure practices are met the way they should be. You know, a lot of people say we work from 9 to 5. Okay, but they're like, but I have to get this done. And they're working until all hours of the night to get something done. They're expected to be on vacation but be answering emails.
They take their computers with them, you know, those kinds of things. Encourage that on lunch. And I know a lot of people are working remote these days, so it's hard to do that. But making sure that there are times throughout the day that people can step away from their computer. But then you've got to provide additional services. Like I said, with EAP, if people need counseling, I often ask leadership, I say, well, how long does it take for a person to get into a counselor? I don't know.
Well, you've got to find out. Talk to HR and see what's going on. A lot of places are backed up. Providers are not out there. If people are really struggling and it's hard enough to contact them to get it, we've got to make sure that they can get in. And most importantly, a very easy tactic is provide education and training to your folks on how to mitigate that stress. Give them the skills. Teach them those skills, stress management skills.
How can you sleep better? A lot of companies spend a lot of money on training this and training that and training this. And I'm like, okay, that training is great and all, but if your people are not well, all that training is going to go out the window. So what is it for anyway? A lot of organizations spend a lot of time and effort with all this fancy training, and a lot of it is needed. Yes, I understand that.
But if you don't spend the time and effort and finances on giving them tools so that they can be okay, then you're going to lose them anyway. Because at some point something is going to happen and they're not going to be able to keep up or do what they need to be doing, or you're just going to have a high turnover rate. And you did all this and spent all this time training and all this money training, and they're out because they couldn't meet their objectives.
We've got to provide them the tools and the resources to do that. And there's training out there that can be done. Give them coaching. People don't know what they don't know. You know, teach them how to think differently. Teach them how to take those mini breaks. Teach them how to do breath regulation. Teach them how to be more mindful and practice some of these techniques about sleep, nutrition, self-care, all of these practices. And you'd see a difference.
So true, Lisa, especially when it comes to self-care. But I think the responsibility is both on the employer and the employee. It takes a whole village to really help an employee be healthy personally and professionally. So when it comes to, you know, having resources or some type of outlets, I want to put a little spin on technology. Do you see businesses leveraging technology and digital tools to enhance efficiency and contribute to performance in the workplace? And if so, what are they? I'm slowly seeing it.
I'd like to see more. There's a lot of different tools that are out there. Like I said, we're using more and more of the wearables technology, and that's a great piece that can be used. Being able to identify sleep patterns and things like that, and we can pick up and identify where there's some gaps and provide techniques to improve some of those factors. Businesses have been very open to it. And with the technology, you also have to have the other components.
So based on what you see with the technology, then the coaching piece does really aid in that. Technology is an incredible tool, but we have to be picking the right thing and be able to provide the instruction and the coaching with that technology to enhance the outcomes for their people. But there's some great technology out there for that that helps people to identify what's going on internally within themselves. And there's also brain training tools and things like that that are out there that can be utilized for folks that have been very successful when used correctly.
But then the employee also has to be proactive and take responsibility and do it. At the end of the day, you can be provided all the tools in the world, but if you don't use them, then they're not going to be successful. So you're right. It's a two-party street. You both have to do that. And so it's got to be provided, but the employee has to take action to want to improve themselves as well. And that's critical.
Yep. Like I said, it's a two-way lane, and the responsibility and accountability falls on both. Absolutely. But, you know, at the end of the day, you're right. If the employee is saying, I need help, and the employer is saying, here, here's the resources to help you, the employee needs to take charge and start doing those exercises or diving into those brain training tools, as you've mentioned earlier. This is a fantastic conversation, and I know you and I can continue on because I love this conversation around peak performance and resiliency.
Especially, like you said, when it comes to stress and burnout. Really huge topic, and it needs to be exposed and talked about more. There's no shame around stress or anxiety, right? Nope, not at all. Everybody's experiencing it these days. Thank you so much for lending your expertise and your superb advice with our listeners, Lisa. Thank you so much for having me. It's been wonderful. I really have enjoyed it, so thank you. And thank you for the wonderful questions.
Anytime. I'm looking forward to another podcast. Sign me up. Thanks, Lisa. You got it. Thanks again. To learn more about HRS and Lisa, log on to their website at https://hrsconsults.com. That's it for this episode of Coach Anomaly Presents Podcast. If you're interested in being a guest or you're a subject matter expert, please go to my website, www.epiphanyconsultingsolutions.com, and submit your request on the Let's Chat link. You can also find me on LinkedIn under Laura Perez Earhart or my website, epiphanyconsultingsolutions.com.
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