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There is no doubt that stressis one on of the leading factors in illness and absenteeism among employees.Besides lowering a person’s immune response, stress makes us want to avoidwhatever is causing it. If there is stress at work, workers who feel mildly offwill feel even worse and resist coming to work. This costs many hours ofproductivity, especially when key personnel or production workers are absent—infact, it’s estimated that $300 billion is lost on stress-caused illnesses andabsenteeism.
A workplace that supportsstress management through workplace wellness programs not only helps theiremployees to handle pressure better and stay healthier during times of stress,it also sends a message that their company cares about them. This providesemotional support as well as physical support for fighting the effects ofstress.
How a Workplace WellnessProgram Can Help
When your employees arestressed, very likely there is one primary cause and several secondary causes.For instance, a worker may suffer stress due to poor interpersonalrelationships with other workers and problems communicating. Addressing stresswill help the worker feel better and regain connections to other workers,thereby reducing the stress in those areas.
Although a workplace wellnessprogram can’t de-stress everything a worker faces—like layoffs, cutbacks,firings, etc.—it can help with the physical effects of stress and help theworker cope when getting the pink slip. A healthy employee will have enoughenergy to move on and find another job but the unhealthy employee may suffer evenmore physical maladies from stress and plunge into depression. An employee whois watching others get fired or laid off will always be thinking, “When amI going to get the axe?”
There are several steps you cantake to reduce job stress.
Get a clear job description to avoidmiscommunications that cause stress, and to make sure you are doing taskswithin your sphere of responsibility only.
Get a new job. While this is not always an idealsolution, sometimes it’s the only one—a workplace wellness program will helpwith the stress of this change.
Find supportive agencies and programs to help youeither deal with the stress—such as the workplace wellness program—or find anew position. Isolation is destructive.
Change positions within the company. Perhaps yourtraining is not in the field where you are working, or you are being asked by asupervisor to do things far outside work hours and described responsibilities.If you like the company you work for but hate your job, this may be the answer.
See if your company has an employee assistanceprogram, which is sometimes part of a workplace wellness program, if there arelayoffs and firings going on around you. If so, use these services even if youhave been told you will remain at the company—things change daily in thebusiness world.
West Point exists to educate and train Cadets who are commissioned as Officers in the US Army upon Graduation. The commitment is for a total of 8 years, 5 of which are on active duty and 3 in the Reserves if you choose not to continue on active duty. A very few graduates may select commissioning in other services, primarily where one of their parents has served a career in another service.
The primary options for Army service are the choice of branch of service. You choose that at the beginning of your senior year. What are your army career options? After graduating from West Point, you will be commissioned in one of several Army branches. You may want a combat arms branch such as Infantry, Field Artillery, Armor, Air Defense Artillery, Aviation or Combat Engineers. You also may choose a combat support branch such as Signal, Military Police, Chemical or Military Intelligence.
You may also want to choose one of the combat service support branches such as Ordnance, Quartermaster, Transportation, Adjutant General or Finance. Opportunities are also available for the Medical Service Corps or the Judge Advocate General Corps later in your service career. You will advance to positions of greater responsibility in each branch based on your abilities.
West Point is looking for well rounded young men and women who want to serve as commissioned officers in the US Army. By well rounded I mean good students, good athletes, and good leaders. The focus is on service in the Army rather than on the college education part.
Now to answer your specific questions. Commissioned officers serve as leaders of the wonderful young men and women in our Army today. The military is organized into branches of service that are either directly involved on the front lines (infantry, armor, field artillery, etc) or operate in support roles (signal, ordnance, intelligence, aviation, etc.) I would go to the Army’s web site and check it out thoroughly.
As for percentage rates for West Point, there are two interesting numbers. The first is the percentage rate of acceptance of offers of admission. In recent years (since 9/11) the percentage rate has been steady at about 85%. That is the highest acceptance rate of any college or university in the nation, topping Harvard, Princeton and all the rest. This says that those who apply to West Point know what they are doing and are very serious about it.
The second percentage rate of interest is the graduation rate. In recent years the graduation rate has held steady between 75% and 80% of those who enter graduate, in four years. The national average is 50% in SIX years.
If you chose not to stay beyond your five year active duty commitment the world is open to you. Experienced young Army officers are in great demand everywhere in our business world and they have no problems supporting themselves or their families.
Finally, to answer your question about the potential for playing a professional sport following graduation. The Department of Defense has recently adopted a policy where a small number of Service Academy Graduates (not just West Point) to be released early from their active duty obligation to play professional sports. They do have to pay back the cost of their education (several hundred thousand $$) and serve in the Army Reserves in a recruiting role, but today there is a viable option for elite level athletes.
If you work for what you want then some day you will get it and when you do you will look back on your days at West Point and thank them for giving you the change to become something better to do something better with you life.
You want to write that novel. For years you’ve dream of taking time off to transcribe the idea you’ve nurtured for years. You can see the action taking place and you know every detail you want to convey, right down to your heroine’s eye color and her favorite foods. Maybe now you do have the time, you’re on sabbatical from work, or you’re retired altogether. You have the time, the paper, the workspace, but when it comes down to getting the story on paper, nothing. No ‘Once Upon a Time,’ no ‘It was the best of times.’ You’re blocked, and you haven’t even started!
You go to the bookstore for inspiration and see all the titles on the shelves. Some authors can crank out a novel a year, and you know your writing is just as good, if not better. How do these people become so prolific, and why can’t the magic rub off on you?
Actually, it’s not magic that can help you get motivated to write. Just good old fashioned common sense.
I’d like to share some great writing advice with you that has helped me thus far to complete thirteen novels in five years, two of which are available on the Internet and one on the shelves of Borders! It didn’t come instantly, however. Ten years ago, I couldn’t finish a chapter, much less an entire work of fifty thousand or more words. These days, it’s nothing to generate twenty thousand words in two weeks.
You say you have a great idea for a book and are going to pursue writing it? That’s great. Now, shut up.
That’s right, that the advice. It may seem a tad too contradictory to the position of a writer. You want your stories to be heard, and it would make sense to want to talk about what we are writing. Yet, talking in this case can be risky.
This advice comes from Harriette Austin, a teacher of creative writing at the University of Georgia for whom their annual mystery writer’s conference is named. When taking a class with her one semester, I noted how difficult I time I was having in writing just the first few pages of a mystery novel. The idea had been brewing inside me for years, so much that I had the entire story acted out in my mind, yet I could not transfer it to paper.
Harriette asked me if I had told anyone else about this story. I had told my husband and family. She told me that was the problem — I had talked about the story out loud to somebody else, and in all likelihood I talked the story to its end…literally talking myself out of writing it!
It may seem difficult to not talk about what you are writing, especially when you are excited about the story, as I hope many of you are when you write! However, since I wanted badly to write a novel, I took this advice to heart and kept mum about future projects. When people inquired about my writing, I gave them only a sage smile and ‘It’s a work in progress.’ Since receiving that advice, I’ve managed to quietly finish drafts of five mystery novels and eight romances!
Give it a try. Keep a pencil to the paper and a pin to the lip. Watch the words funnel through onto the page instead of out in the air where they may be lost.
How much would you estimate an entertainment lawyer would charge hourly to draft music contracts for you? Would you guess $50, $150, $100 or even $200 per hour? Think again! Try $300 or more, an hour! Unless you are absolutely loaded, I am going to safely assume that you don’t have that kind of cash lying around to blow on lawyer’s fees. This is especially true for people just beginning in the music industry.
Lawyer’s fees can easily take away from money you need for studio time, payroll, publishing, entertaining clients, advertising or any other crucial day-to-day activities that you or your company relies on to survive. Don’t let this happen to you because it is not necessary. You money is better spent elsewhere.
To be honest with you, most music business contracts that you receive from your lawyer are written by their paralegals or legal secretaries. This means, you are paying them your hard earned money only to have them pass the work off to someone below them. Keep this in mind when searching for an entertainment lawyer. Don’t get me wrong. It is a great idea to have a lawyer in your corner in case you need them. But you don’t have to pay the unnecessary fees when you have other options.
So, do you actually want to spend roughly $2500 on recording contracts when there may be an easier way? I surely hope not! If your goal is to save money then you have come to the right place. The key to cutting these types of corners is by using music contracts forms. For the money it cost to go to lunch, buy a round of drinks and spend a couple hours in the studio, you could purchase these pre-written contracts.
Now, you may wonder if there are contract forms that cover every aspect of the music business and the answer is yes. You can buy a complete set that fits all your needs. Whether it is distribution, manufacturing, royalties, copyrights or publishing, it doesn’t matter, it is all there. You can ever edit each and everyone to fit your distinct needs or wants. When it is all over, if you want your lawyer to review it, you will only be billed for 20 minutes as opposed to 5 hours. That will save you an immense amount of money in the long-run and who doesn’t love that?
Being able to de-escalate one’s own and the anger of others is an important skill to have in business. Hopefully, this is not something the reader deals with on a regular basis but unfortunately most people in business encounter either their own anger or the anger of others more frequently than they would like.
In order to be successful at de-escalating anger, a person must understand and become skillful in the following areas.
Prevention Steps:
1. Recognize that anger is a choice of a wide range of behaviors that could be used to get what one needs in a situation. It is a behavior that has benefit for its user. Anger can get people the attention they need, help them escape things they don’t want to do, help them gain control over another person or situation, or pump them up when they are feeling small and insignificant.
2. The person interacting with the angry person must identify his or her own emotion at any given point in time. If the helping person is also experiencing anger, then that person will not be very effective assisting others to manage theirs.
3. When potential interventionists are experiencing anger, they must be able to change what they are doing or thinking to get their emotions under control or seek the assistance they will need to manage the situation.
4. Perform a quick self-assessment. A potential helper must ask the following questions. Can I avoid criticizing and finding fault with the angry person? Can I avoid being judgmental? Can I keep from trying to control the other person into doing something he or she doesn’t want to do? Can I keep myself removed from the conflict? Can I believe that the people using anger have the right to make decisions and choices about how they meet their needs and that they have within them the ability to make those decisions? Can I try to see the situation from the angry person’s point of view and understand what need or needs he or she is trying to satisfy? And finally, can I remember that my job is to place the healing of relationships as my primary concern?
If the listener can’t answer these questions in the affirmative, then he or she will need assistance in managing the person who is expressing anger.
5. Recognize early warning signs. Many incidents of anger could be prevented if those who are around a person about to become angry notice the subtle change in the person’s behavior. Quiet people may become agitated while louder, more outgoing people generally become quiet and introspective. Paying attention to these subtle changes and simply commenting on the change could help the individual talk about things so he or she wouldn’t have to become angry.
Prevention goes a long way. However, there still will be times when you don’t notice the early warning signs or when your first encounter with the person occurs when they are already in an angry state.
Also, it’s possible that you will do everything right in this prevention phase and angry people will still choose anger as their best chance for getting what they want. When any of these situations occur, the listener will need to employ one or all of the five de-escalation skills.
Intervention Steps:
6. Active listening is the process of really attempting to hear, acknowledge and understand what a person is saying. It is a genuine attempt to put oneself in the other person’s situation. More than anything, this involves LISTENING! Listening means attending not only to the words the other person is saying but also the underlying emotion, as well as, the accompanying body language.
By simply providing a sounding board and a willing ear, a person’s anger can be dissipated.
7. Acknowledgement occurs when the listener is attempting to sense the emotion underlying the words a person is using and then comments on that emotion. The person may say something like, “You sound really angry right now!” By acknowledging and really trying to understand what the angry person is feeling, that person becomes able to release a lot of the aggression.
8. Agreeing—often when people are angry about something, there is at least 2 % truth in what they are saying. When attempting to diffuse someone’s anger, it is important to find that 2 % of truth and agree with it.
When someone is angry and the listener attempts to reason with the person, his or her efforts will be largely ineffective. When the listener agrees with the 2% of truth in the angry person’s tirade, he or she takes away the resistance and consequently eliminates the fuel for the fire.
9. Apologizing is a good de-escalation skill. I’m not talking about apologizing for an imaginary wrong. I am talking about sincerely apologizing for anything in the situation that was unjust. It’s simply a statement acknowledging that something occurred that wasn’t right or fair.
This can have the effect of letting angry people know that the listener is sincerely sorry for what they are going through and they may cease to direct their anger at the person attempting to help.
10. Inviting criticism is the final of the de-escalation skills. In this instance the listener would simply ask the angry person to voice his or her criticism of the listener or the situation. The person intervening might say something like, “Go ahead. Tell me everything that has you upset. Don’t hold anything back. I want to hear everything you are angry about.”
This invitation will sometimes temporarily intensify the angry emotion but if the listener continues to encourage the person to vent his or her anger and frustration, eventually, the angry person runs out of complaints. Just let the angry person vent until the anger is spent.
Even when using the above ten skills, there may be a rare occasion when the listener is unsuccessful in the attempts to decrease the other person’s anger. The listener’s safety should be the primary concern. The listener should not get between the angry person and his or her only means of escape and shouldn’t allow the angry person to block the listener’s only means of escape.
Anyone intervening in an emotionally charged situation should always have a plan or an established way to get help if needed and remember to always stay calm. An angry person is generally someone capable of getting out of control. When out of control people sense they are intimidating and scaring others, it can increase their sense of power and control, resulting in an escalation of the situation. The helpers must stay calm and act as if they are in control of themselves and the situation.
Should you want Coaching for Excellence to provide staff development for your employees in de-escalation skills, simply contact Kim at 708-957-6047, email her at Kim@CoachingforExcellence.biz or log on to the website at http://www.coachingforexcellence.biz.
Kim Olver has an undergraduate degree in psychology, a graduate degree in counseling, is a National Certified Counselor and is a licensed professional counselor. Since 1987, Kim has extensively studied the work of Dr. William Glasser’s Choice Theory, Reality Therapy and Lead Management. She was certified in Reality Therapy in 1992 and continued her studies to become a certified instructor for the William Glasser Institute. She is an expert at empowering people to navigate the sometimes difficult course of life—teaching them how to get the most out of the circumstances life provides them. Her website, http://www.CoachingforExcellence.biz, offers free chats, assessments, a blog and an eZine, as well as workshops, teleclasses, e-courses, counseling and coaching. Visit her website at http://www.CoachingforExcellence.biz or contact her at (708) 957-6047.