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How Will Technology Shape HR in the Future

In our present times, there is an increasingly high interest for investment in HR technology. According to a study done by CB Insights, in 2016, there have been over $1.96 billion invested in start-ups that exclusively dealt with HR tech. Workplaces around the world are continuously changing due to technology. The tech revolving around HR is there to automate and streamline practices in order for the department and company to become the definition of efficiency, high performance and cost-effectiveness.

The biggest challenges for HR stem from recruiting and hiring, thus, applications have come to life in order to save the employer and employee’s lives.

Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment

In today’s competitive job market, around 75% of CV’s are being screened out. Furthermore, the HR department loses numerous hours on resumes from unqualified people. Losing so much precious time represents one of the biggest challenges for HR. This is one area where technology may solve the problem. Artificial intelligence (AI) is on the front foot in regards to developing specific HR tech. Recruiting and AI fit perfectly together due to the simple fact that AI demands huge amounts of data and multi-national companies have resumes by the millions in their databases. Going through such a large database is exhausting for a person, but with the help of AI the process of screening can be done rapidly and offer a compelling list of candidates based on job requirements by means of simply grading them from best to worst. By using AI for the screening process, you might save the company up to 75% of screening costs.

Schedule and outreach automation

The interest in automating the recruiting process is continuously rising. On average, it takes 41 days for a company to fill in an available role in their ranks. On LinkedIn, there is a reported 11% rise in the volume of hirings this year; however, only 26% of recruiters have a positive headcount. Discovering top talent in today’s world is hard enough and recruiters require automation to intelligently pick their candidates.

Automation can be helpful in many ways. Recruiters can automate their calendars and email to send requests to candidates that have been identified as good matches through the use of the AI screening tool, so recruiters don’t have to deal with B-list candidates.

Training and Testing through Virtual Reality (VR)

Virtual reality simulates the environment surrounding us which can be controlled through our body movements. In a survey organised by Universum, employees working at various companies believe that in the next 10 years VR will become an integral part of their workplace. VR will be of tremendous help with testing and training. Recruiters can use this technology in order to assess a candidate’s skills and abilities.

In a survey conducted by Korn Ferry, it has been discovered that 39% of employers deal with high employee turnover rates in the first year due to mismatch. VR could be massive for the HR industry, because it could help reduce turnover by providing candidates with a realistic view of what the job actually consists of and get to understand the company culture as well. The medical industry could greatly benefit from VR. Onboarding and training could be completed by residents in the trauma and emergency sections of the hospital, where the stakes are always high.

Productivity and Engagement through Wearables

As mentioned in a previous article, one of the biggest HR trends from 2017 is employee engagement. In order to nurture it in employees, employers have started tracking their behaviours so that they can interact and communicate better at work. For example, at Microsoft, there are digital employee badges that monitor employees’ movements, who they spend their time with at and many more. This type of tech collects data which is processed and then given to employers in order to understand their coworkers and how they communicate, how to better optimise the office space and manage the dynamics of the team. This could potentially lead to a better organisation and collaboration within the company.

There are also rumours that in the not so distant future, wearable technology could lead to insights in emotions and personality during screening or interviewing.

Great People Inside provides easy-to-use tools and processes to attract, assess, match, select, onboard, manage, develop, benchmark and maintain workforces anywhere in the world.

Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation, can be a very challenging task. It requires deep knowledge of your own organisation’s culture and keen understanding of the candidate’s personality, strengths, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you find employees who can flourish and reach the highest performance required to constantly bring your company forward.

Request a free demo:

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Sources:
https://blog.hrtechweekly.com/

 

Excessive Collaboration leads to Mediocrity

Collaboration has always been sought out in order to resolve problems, improve efficiency and even raise the office’s level of engagement. It is often seen like the perfect ingredient which transforms a group of people into a team. Collaboration offers people the possibility to explore various ideas and perspectives and share their views and experiences with the others. Nonetheless, besides all these obvious benefits, there are also downsides to over-collaborating. It usually leads to all the work being completed by the more productive workers. And a study conducted by Applied Psychology has come to aid this idea.

A work environment where there is a whole lot of collaboration will make your top performers, innovators and hard-workers who will undoubtedly feel used, miserable and socially isolated. The vast majority of average employees do not regard top performers as mentors or role models, but perceive them as threats, because they feel that they might be replaced by them or that they are the reason why their work might not be appreciated. Instead of focusing on their own efficiency, mediocre employees may also start spreading hurtful rumours about top performers, try and sabotage them, or even attempt at stealing their work and get credit for it.

Social isolation is one of the most used techniques that occur at the workplace. It is especially hard for introverted top performers who operate in open-plan environment. Given this situation, introverts are better off working from home, deepening the gap between themselves and their colleagues. Naturally, this leads to more backstabbing and gossip. Obviously, this represents the number 1 reason for top talents leaving companies. They simply cannot accept an organisation which embraces mediocrity.

This shouldn’t be considered as a jab taken towards teamwork; complex projects require a team in order for it to be a success. But for teams to be successful, they require a leader, a leader who can thwart any attempt of separating and slandering a top performer. More often than not, teams require formally ranked leadership rather than more collaboration opportunities. And maybe it is time for more private spaces to appear in order to encourage better social interaction.

There are a few tell-tale signs that reveal that your coworkers are over-collaborating. Here are the most important signs you should keep an eye on:

 

  1. Consensus is achieved but time-loss is immense

This is one of the most common problems when people are over-collaborating. Every important decision requires too much input and buy-in, meaning it takes way too long to happen, and even longer to implement. The size of the team can depend, but there are some areas of the project that must have rules that are intangible. People understand that some rules or ideas cannot be changed and if they have a certain degree of input on a few ideas, automatically they will feel ownership.

  1. Compromising as a solution

This represents the single most tremendous problem with excessive collaboration. When too many people are involved, this situation could potentially lead to the feeling that everyone at the table should have their opinions included in the decision making process and afterwards reach a consensus. The conclusion of collaboration is to reach the best possible outcome. People tend to compromise that outcome when too many ideas and opinions are being introduced in order to make people feel that their opinion is being valued. Managers need to realise that the majority of people crave to be heard and validated and that is not the target of collaboration. In this scenario, managers have to listen and offer a concrete reason why people’s opinions won’t be part of outcome.

  1. Involving people in every possible decision

This represents another problem that arises from excessive collaboration. When managers are involving too many people in absolutely every single decision, the final outcome will suffer due to the fact that if people are not involved in the decision making process they feel cheated and underappreciated. The truth is: not every decision requires the entire be department be present for debate. Some decisions are urgent and crucial, and collaboration would just take too long. Some decisions cannot include other members of staff because they do not possess the necessary information, due to confidentiality agreements, lack of resources or experience.

Ideally, people should start understanding the fact that collaboration is useful, but the world we live is far from perfect. Decisions need to be made, but collaboration will still be useful where the situation affords it. This is what people need to understand…

Great People Inside provides easy-to-use tools and processes to attract, assess, match, select, onboard, manage, develop, benchmark and maintain workforces anywhere in the world.

We help you find the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation. It requires deep knowledge of your own organisation’s culture and keen understanding of the candidate’s personality, strengths, interests, work style and other characteristics. The GR8 Productivity Gap tool is excellent at showcasing the evolution of any given employee over time. By contrasting two assessments made before and after training, it allows you to analyse both your employees’ development and their involvement in the process as well.

Sources:

https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/collaboration-creates-mediocrity-not-excellence-according-to-science.html?cid=hmmore

http://hr.toolbox.com/blogs/performance/three-signs-youre-collaborating-too-much-74191

 

Salary Talk – dangerous but necessary?

 

Talking about salaries with your coworkers is always a difficult and sensitive issue at the workplace and can potentially lead to problems with your employer. Although it’s not illegal to discuss wages around the office, it is something that is frowned upon. Of course, there will be situations when salary will have to be discussed and when that happens, it must be handled with great care so it doesn’t come back to haunt you.

How to Talk about Salary

If you really wish to discuss this topic with your coworkers, approach this conversation with caution. At first, it would be wise if you talked with your ‘work buddies’. Every person involved should avoid mentioning the discussion to anyone else. A safe way to bring up this subject is to discuss about people who have left the company in the past, or have moved to another department. It might be a bad idea altogether because of the discussions that could spiral afterwards.

Why you shouldn’t talk about wages

There is always the possibility to find out that your coworkers are earning more than you and from then on, jealousy and resentfulness are just around the corner. If the situation is in reverse, than your coworkers may start resenting you and you may as well be phased out from common break times or from social events after work. Besides the resentment, morale and teamwork in the workplace may suffer terribly. This could lead to potential problems with your manager, especially if he or she specifically asked you not to initiate such conversations. Although you cannot get fired over this, your job may become troublesome to perform. It’s always good to focus on what you can do by yourself to boost your salary; getting involved in more projects where you feel your contribution may be decisive. Initiative comes a long way.

When you should discuss salaries

Apart from the obvious risks mentioned above, there are a few scenarios which are worth exploring when talking about wages. If you discover you are being underpaid in comparison to your colleagues, it’s a good thing you find out early on. This will offer you the possibility to analyse the range of salaries amongst the office and you could negotiate a better pay further down the line with your manager. There is a slight chance that all your coworkers, including yourself, are being underpaid. Thankfully, there are websites (Payscale.com) where people can compare the average salaries for similar positions in various companies. If everyone’s pay is under the market average, you may work together to find a solution in which all of you can get a fair wage. You should always take into account the fact that every person’s circumstances are different, so your approach should be well thought out.

What managers can do

Discussing pay with your employees can prove to be difficult. Conversations with your staff can bring up various emotions, most of them negative such as: jealousy, greed and sometimes even hate. Employees are likely unaware that pay is different due to factors like education, training, negotiating skills and, of course, experience. In order to avoid back talks around the office, that may as well affect company morale, here are a few strategies managers could deploy so that employees feel their work is treated with respect:

  • Decent salaries – Have a look at the company’s finances and, if possible, have the salaries at a competitive level in the marketplace.
  • Encourage official workplace discussions – People need to feel safe and comfortable if they are to approach the HR department with enquiries or considerations regarding pay or workplace conditions.
  • Future potential – It’s important for managers to have constant conversations with their employees, everything ranging from salary range to professional development. Advise and guide them towards adding more skills, trainings and certifications to their existing palette. Additions that would lead to a promotion and automatically a pay raise.
  • Internal surveys – It is always good to get a read on the workplace atmosphere. You can discover the level of morale, engagement and how to solve these issues as well. It also gives a chance for employees to have their voice heard on various themes regarding the company.

Companies should know by now that their employees represent the backbone of their organisation. Trust and appraisal can keep problems at bay even before they get the chance to escalate. With the help of the HR department, issues such as this should resolve themselves quite easily.

Great People Inside can help you find the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation. It requires deep knowledge of your own organisation’s culture and keen understanding of the candidate’s personality, strengths, interests, work style and other characteristics. The GR8 360° tool is excellent at developing managerial competencies, skills and behaviours. When using this assessment, you will find over 50 dimensions that come along with suggestions for future improvement and development. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you find employees who can flourish and reach the highest performance required to constantly bring your company forward.

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Sources:

http://work.chron.com/can-tell-coworkers-salary-7204.html

https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/dangers-discussing-pay-coworkers

 

The Search for Emotional Intelligence (E.Q.)

 

The global workforce is continuously changing. Managers and entrepreneurs are finding it harder and harder to find the right candidates for their roles. Normally, when searching for a new employee, they look at candidates’ skills, prior experience and professional goals. Of course these are important factors that need to be taken into account, but it somehow makes managers forget about a key ability which is quintessential to a successful hiring: emotional intelligence (EQ).

In order to understand how overlooked this factor is, you should know that many job descriptions do not even list this ability as one of the reasons for a successful candidacy. Building a team of emotionally intelligent people can have a positive effect on the company’s performance.

What is emotional intelligence? There are many interpretations surrounding this phrase, but how exactly can we define it? Psychology Today defines it as: “the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others.” In other words, a person is considered to have a strong emotional intelligence when they are able to keep their emotions in check, whilst also empathising with coworkers and understanding why and how their feelings can impact the quality of their work.

People with high emotional intelligence are more capable of working in teams, are more flexible and they adjust easily to change. A person with a high level of EQ is more likely to succeed than one with degrees and qualifications who lacks EQ.

 

But how can we find emotionally intelligent employees? Here a few tips and tricks in order to identify them easier:

 

  1. Enquiries about past actions and professional relationships

During the interview, the recruiter can ask how well the candidate interacted with his former co-workers, if they got on well. This is where recruiters should be able to find out how in touch with their emotions the candidates really are and whether they are capable of describing them. The answers received during these questions offer you a good start regarding candidates’ emotional abilities.

  1. Hypothetical scenarios

To get even more in-depth information about the candidate, present them with a hypothetical situation like this one: “A client is mad due to a delivery mix-up and your company is not at fault. How would you deal with that situation?” EQ people will always remain calm and will try to figure out what happened to the client and try and sort things out in a calm and polite manner.

  1. Candidate self-awareness analysis

Candidates with a strong sense of self-awareness can easily detect their own strengths and weaknesses and how their actions can influence or affect others. Self-awareness also goes hand-in-hand when a person learns a lesson through constructive criticism. People such as this can also control their emotions when the situation asks for it. They understand, but don’t let anything control their actions. Candidates with a high level of EQ do not require motivation, because they are self-motivated. Even when disappointment occurs, they pick themselves up quite fast given their inner ambition. Last but not least, these type of people can easily trust and work within a new team. They do not favour backstabbing and avoid power struggles at all costs.

In their search for EQ people, many companies have started using behavioural assessments and analysing their internal data. Although the tactics mentioned above are great, you may be surprised, but you can find the necessary emotionally intelligent people in your organisation. Besides the usual qualities required for a successful employee, some recruiters consider emotional intelligence to be a hassle in their search, but it is worth the extra work. Having more and more people with a high level of EQ can radically transform the workplace, given the fact that your employees will be more engaged and committed to steer the organisation into the right direction.

Great People Inside provides easy-to-use tools and processes to attract, assess, match, select, onboard, manage, develop, benchmark and maintain workforces anywhere in the world.

Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation, can be a very challenging task. It requires deep knowledge of your own organisation’s culture and keen understanding of the candidate’s personality, strengths, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you find employees who can flourish and reach the highest performance required to constantly bring your company forward.

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

Entrepreneur.com

FastCompany.com

Preventing Burnout in 5 Easy Steps

If you’ve been working in the past few years, you’ve probably heard about the term “burnout” and you should know that it is directly related to stress revolving around work. The general definition for burnout describes it as a combination of 3 factors: mental, emotional and physical fatigue combined with serious doubtfulness regarding your competence and value of work. Everyone has a couple of coworkers who stay for way too long at the office after the business hours have ended. Of course, this is understandable if they have an important contract to honour, a project deadline that cannot be pushed any further, or maybe they are just really dedicated. No harm, no foul until the stress from the actions mentioned above can transform itself into a serious case of burnout.

Entrepreneurs are flying into the face of danger due to their working program, which usually is 24/7/365. Given the fact that they are trying to build a serious company from the ground up and have to deal with issues left and right, the stress that is building up inside them can lead to a serious burnout.

Thankfully, nowadays there are many ways in which you can identify if you’re starting to experience burnout symptoms. They are pretty easy on the eye if you feel you are heading towards complete exhaustion. Here is a list of a few early signs of a potential burnout:

  • Huge amount of stress and anxiety
  • Low engagement or lack of it
  • You’re more cynical than usual
  • Not enough sleep
  • No breaks during the day
  • The feeling that there aren’t enough hours in a workday
  • Consistent physical illness

 

These are 5 easy steps you should follow in order to get back on track on your own terms:

 

  1. Take frequent breaks during office hours

People sometimes fail to understand that it is an art to accomplish top workplace performance. You cannot remain at 100% during all of your working hours, which is why it is important to give your brain a bit of a break; it needs a recharge, just like your smartphone does. If you have a more flexible work arrangement, go for a run or a walk in nearby park. Try and have lunch outside the office space, it will allow you to decompress and maybe see the bigger picture. Needless to say, you need to careful when taking a break as well. Avoid doing so when your brain activity is at its highest, more often than not, this happens in the morning.

  1. Distance yourself from digital devices

Before the era of smartphones, gadgets and various wearables, when you left the office that meant you were done for the day. Even if you wanted to work from home, that required a lot of planning and effort. Now, we never really leave the workplace, because we are physiologically and psychologically very much still connected. Although it may seem difficult to get rid of this problem, there actually is an easy solution for it. As soon as you arrive home, either leave your phone somewhere in the hallway or even turn it off after a certain hour. You must understand that whatever you want to do CAN wait until tomorrow.

  1. Plan something interesting right after work

Whether this activity involves playing football with your friends or cooking with your loved one, it will make you focus on that particular action rather than telling yourself you shouldn’t check your emails every 10 minutes. You may as well want to be transform yourself into a couch potato as soon as you get home, but engaging in something more meaningful like a jigsaw puzzle or studying a new language will give you a better feel factor.

  1. Take a longer weekend from time to time

If you start to feel weak both physically and mentally, maybe that’s your body’s way of telling you it’s time for a longer break. Instead of taking a long vacation, try and constantly give yourself 3 or 4-day weekends. It is vital you don’t interact with anything related to work. It ruins the whole concept of a mini-vacation.

  1. Focus on the meaningful work you wish to do

There are some times when you simply cannot get some time off work. It happens to everyone and there is no need to panic. Instead, try and find a deeper meaning for the task at hand. Maybe you can correlate it with a personal or professional goal of yours. The reasons may vary from: getting the job promotion you wanted or simply preventing yourself from procrastinating. But keep in mind that this is just a temporary fix to the problem. If you are really stressed and lack any sort of energy, take a real break.

 

We have an impressive assessment library with hundreds of dimensions that can be leveraged in creating a custom skills-based assessment that supports your organisation’s specific competencies and unique vision. Please contact us if you need to measure the engagement level in your company.

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Sources:

Forbes.com

Hbr.org

 

 

Dealing With Stress, Step 6 and 7: Focus Attention Elsewhere

(This article is a part of a series; please start here)

Stop ruminating. It is natural, but not always constructive. I’d dare to say it almost never proves useful. It is not to say you shouldn’t analyse what happened; this helps you learn and get better at things. But it doesn’t help in any way to replay the movie time and again, beating yourself up or inventing alternative scenarios.

In order to stop brooding and start building, turn your attention to the outside. Consciously establish your objective: “I will scan the street and take in as many details of the outside world as I can“. Focus on things you like. If you are passionate about colors, look for every shade, for every nuance you encounter. If you are into smells, remark as many different smells, aromas, flavors as you can, from the fleeting perfumes of the passers-by to the thick smell of restaurant kitchens to the sharp smell of fresh paint as you pass by a door being redecorated. Whatever you like, look for it actively.

At first, this probably won’t last long. Your mind wants you ruminating. That’s OK. Don’t fret, don’t judge yourself, don’t try too hard. Observe the return to inner scenarios, file the fact away and get your eyes and attention back outside. Repeat as necessary.

If at all possible, take yourself into the nature: a wood, a park, a field. Nature is a healer, more so than any other man-made environment. But if you can’t, the cityscape will do nicely, as long as you remember that the essence is not succeeding in this exercise, but the repetition itself. Right, the repetition. Just like at the gym: it is not the weight you’re lifting, but how many times you lift it, that shapes muscles.

Attention and focus are much like muscles: you have to work them to make them stronger.

And while you’re at it, combine it with Step 7: straighten up. Raise your forehead, look upon the world as you own it and soon you will be better. “Fake it till you make it” is not a lie. It takes effort, for sure. But it works.

If your mind plays tricks on you, it is only adequate for you to play tricks back on it. You should be the winner.

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By Catalin Octavian Blaga – Trainer Great People Inside

Trainer who turns business experience and psychology into impacting training programs… and more!  You can find out more about Catalin by clicking here

Dealing With Stress, Step 5: Clinical Mode On

(This article is a part of a series; please start here)

Observing dispassionately allows control. Once you managed to take the previous step (dis-identifying Yourself from Mind) – or even at the same time – start observing yourself as you would an item in a museum.

Start by observing what happens inside your body. It is easier with the body, because it doesn’t play the identification trick. Scan your muscles, your gut, your heart, your face. Notice the tension in your arms and legs, notice the feeling of a solid rock in your belly, notice the fast-paced, shallow breathing, notice the sensation of heat in your cheeks.

Once you noticed those sensations, stop. Don’t take it further, don’t judge “I shouldn’t feel that, I shouldn’t be red-faced”. Just take the information in and file it without tagging it “good” or “bad”. Go back to scanning and do it as many times as you need to cool off.

After you get familiar with observing your body, you can take the next step and do the same with your mind. Observe what feelings it puts out. Name them as exactly as you can: “my mind is making me feel ashamed“, “my mind is making me feel furious“. It is good information. It is not something you should believe or act upon. If you can trace the source you’re even better off: “my mind makes me feel ashamed I made a mistake because in the first grade the teacher always made crude fun of me because I wasn’t talented at math“. Seeing the source is valuable, because it shows you that your mood has less to do with Now and more to do with The Past. The link is emotional, not rational.

If you have ever been in a negotiation with an used-cars salesman (or any slick, fast-talking sales guy), you know how you look at him working his number, recognize the tricks in his book and smile inwardly “You won’t catch me this time, dude!

The same goes with your mind. It won’t catch you again, because you will recognize its trick, see right through them and take appropriate action, as opposed to the hasty things It wants you to do.

“Response” is the name of the game. “Reaction” is a thing of the past.

Continue with steps 6 and 7 by clicking here
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By Catalin Octavian Blaga – Trainer Great People Inside

Trainer who turns business experience and psychology into impacting training programs… and more!  You can find out more about Catalin by clicking here

Dealing With Stress, Step 4: You Are Not Your Mood

(This article is a part of a series; please start here)

Your Mind and You are two different things. Any other part of your body hurting, you would say “my body part is hurting”. It is only with the mind that you say “I am hurting”.

Have you ever been overwhelmed by a feeling of dread, only to scan the near future and find nothing to explain that? It happens to me in the morning, usually. This is one of the many tricks in the mind’s arsenal. What happens is we surrender to the mood without questioning its validity.

But a bad mood is just that: a transient state of the mind. Brains have a way of taking over that other organs don’t. You just have to identify that for what it is: a state of one organ. Important, powerful, useful, but an organ nonetheless.

You can start by dis-identifying Yourself from Mind. Instead of simply surrendering and saying “I am anxious / furious / stressed out” switch to naming your feeling: “I feel anxiety / fury / stress“. This trick helps putting some distance between The Whole You and whatever happens inside.

Next, start calling out the perpetrator: “My mind is making me feel anxiety / fury / stress“. If you can, take a step back mentally and “see” your mind playing its little tricks.

Stop identifying yourself with the workings of your mind. Take a step back. Cool down. It is the most direct way of replacing reaction with response.

Read part 5

 

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By Catalin Octavian Blaga – Trainer Great People Inside

Trainer who turns business experience and psychology into impacting training programs… and more!  You can find out more about Catalin by clicking here

Dealing With Stress, Step 3: Don’t Fight Feelings

(This article is a part of a series; please start here)

Fighting the feeling will only enhance its grip. That is something adults almost never tell kids, when it comes to “proper emotional reaction”. At least where I am from, “boys don’t cry”. I’ve been told that many times; I’ve never been told how to fight tears (and, of course, the more I tried, the more they would trickle down my cheeks, red-hot with shame).

One doesn’t justify feelings. They are what they are: a natural, honest and strong reaction of the mind (and body) to an unpleasant set of circumstances. You wouldn’t even dream to justify breathing and explain metabolism. Why would you need to treat feelings differently?

That “good” feeling / “bad” feeling dichotomy is a purely social construct. “Chase away the nature, it will return at a gallop” say the French. And, as Nature would do, the harder you fight it the more it will return with a vengeance.

So, next time you feel something you “shouldn’t” feel, stop fighting it. If it is fear you feel, allow it; if it is anger you feel, say to yourself “This is fear that I feel; I will allow it to rise and go away without fighting it“. Name it, observe it and let it be. Eventually, it will go away.

That is not to say you should indulge in manifesting your every feeling. Having that feeling is one thing; acting on it is a different beast altogether. Do not allow yourself to act under the pressure. Bad moods alter the worldview, and consequences could be more than you bargained for.

If need be, you can explain: “I am feeling very nervous right now and it has nothing to do with you. I do not want to talk / explain / tell the story and I do not want to engage further because I don’t really know what I can do, so please let me be for now and I will come to you later“.

Please, do not make the mistake of taking it out on whomever stays in front of you at the moment. Even if you explain later that “it had nothing to do with you, I was just angry“, some things cannot be undone.

Feel your feelings. Name them, call them out, let them come and go without resisting. Where they’ve been, the landscape will clear out and refresh, more often than not.

Read part 4

Do you want to find out more? Get in touch with a consultant now or request a free demo!

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By Catalin Octavian Blaga – Trainer Great People Inside

Trainer who turns business experience and psychology into impacting training programs… and more!  You can find out more about Catalin by clicking here

Dealing With Stress, Step 2: Feelings are natural

(This article is a part of a series; please start here)

Feelings are natural, they are not a flaw. We are wired to feel down, empty, nervous, anxious or furious. Don’t blame yourself.

When you’re happy, content or joyous you never second-guess your feelings, do you? Why would you do that when you’re down, adding a supplementary layer of negative? Aren’t they all the same: feelings?

It bugged me since I was a kid, hearing “You shouldn’t feel [down, unhappy, sad], think of all the kids out there who don’t have half of what you have!” I couldn’t point out why, but I was (at least) annoyed. It was like my feelings should have had some kind of universal scale of measurement and go through a global referendum, in order for said feelings to be “valid”.

Nature wired us for feeling emotions. “Bad” emotions are like “bad” breathing – they don’t exist. Fury, anger, sadness, desperation – all are natural. They are what they are and they make you feel what they make you feel. You cannot deny, choke or feint them – at least not forever. They are your emotions, and are natural (acting on them is another thing entirely…).

You don’t have to feel anything. What you feel is what you feel. Numbness is what should get you worried.

So, let feelings be. They are Mother Nature’s way of letting us know something isn’t quite right. Just like breaking the bulb of an alarm lamp does not make things right, denying feelings serves no purpose. Notice your feelings, give them names, get friendly with them. Just don’t act on them.

Read part 3

Do you want to find out more? Get in touch with a consultant now or request a free demo!

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By Catalin Octavian Blaga – Trainer Great People Inside

Trainer who turns business experience and psychology into impacting training programs… and more!  You can find out more about Catalin by clicking here