Personal Performance in Large Complex Organizations
Anxiety ebbs and flows.
It's natural and it's the body's method for focusing resources on an issue.
Anxiety signals a need for action and it's a useful feedback system (an early warning, like a trip-wire), but problems arise when a person does not regularly release the tension from built-up anxiety.
Tension is frozen anxiety trapped in your muscles.
Think of anxiety as a tool that will help you to prioritize with an alert of what or who needs attention.
Like any tool it needs to be recognized as useful and like any tool it needs to be tuned.
People performing at their best connect with their surroundings at a deeper level than conscience awareness.
You see this type of connection in athletes during competition.
The connection also happens when working in large complex organizations, although it's more subtle.
As organizations increase in complexity, social connections move further apart, and consequently, issues are less often tied to immediate surroundings but instead are more abstract, conceptual, and symbolic.
These weaker connections generate anxiety disconnected from movement, but since anxiety signals activity, when we experience heightened anxiety without the corresponding level of movement, anxiety accumulates in our muscles.
If you find yourself 'zoning out' with TV as you flip through stations, playing simple computer games over and over, or clicking around the internet, these are signs that you are struggling to dispel anxiety.
After a while, these techniques begin to produce more anxiety and solidify into tension, and that is why people can sit for hours and hours doing the same thing in a repetitive fashion.
People who do not release tension on a regular basis throughout the day, tend toward simpler tasks.
Complexity becomes a burden as more and more anxiety is created and not dispelled.
People caught in this cycle will rather repeat routines to avoid the production of anxiety because it's easier than taking on something new, and without a way to regularly reduce tension, the excess becomes a problem that they can not predictably alleviate.
As anxiety accumulates into tension, people hold in a state of readiness.
This complicates decision-making in the same way that noise complicates hearing a song.
With continual high levels of tension, it is difficult to identify its source.
This emotional tool becomes more important the further you are in your career, and you want to be able to differentiate the signal for a response from the noise of tension and the remnants from past situations.
The goal here is to express anxiety and release tension through movement and vocalization.
Find an exercise that elevates your breathing and heart rate.
In addition to the large muscle groups of the body, flex the interior muscles around the voice box and neck.
The release of tension deep in the neck requires vocalization, not necessarily verbalization because tension (like other emotions) can not be articulated with words.
Practice using different movements accompanied by sound to express yourself.
In order to experience deeper levels of relaxation, use a strong low 'huh' sound which originates from the abdomen.
This becomes your baseline.
Militaries and religions throughout the world use this technique.
The release and recognition of tension should become an intentional part of a daily routine.
Then, during high-performance situations when the stakes are substantial, you will be able to identify and respond to situations with a timely decision or a directed action.
It's natural and it's the body's method for focusing resources on an issue.
Anxiety signals a need for action and it's a useful feedback system (an early warning, like a trip-wire), but problems arise when a person does not regularly release the tension from built-up anxiety.
Tension is frozen anxiety trapped in your muscles.
Think of anxiety as a tool that will help you to prioritize with an alert of what or who needs attention.
Like any tool it needs to be recognized as useful and like any tool it needs to be tuned.
People performing at their best connect with their surroundings at a deeper level than conscience awareness.
You see this type of connection in athletes during competition.
The connection also happens when working in large complex organizations, although it's more subtle.
As organizations increase in complexity, social connections move further apart, and consequently, issues are less often tied to immediate surroundings but instead are more abstract, conceptual, and symbolic.
These weaker connections generate anxiety disconnected from movement, but since anxiety signals activity, when we experience heightened anxiety without the corresponding level of movement, anxiety accumulates in our muscles.
If you find yourself 'zoning out' with TV as you flip through stations, playing simple computer games over and over, or clicking around the internet, these are signs that you are struggling to dispel anxiety.
After a while, these techniques begin to produce more anxiety and solidify into tension, and that is why people can sit for hours and hours doing the same thing in a repetitive fashion.
People who do not release tension on a regular basis throughout the day, tend toward simpler tasks.
Complexity becomes a burden as more and more anxiety is created and not dispelled.
People caught in this cycle will rather repeat routines to avoid the production of anxiety because it's easier than taking on something new, and without a way to regularly reduce tension, the excess becomes a problem that they can not predictably alleviate.
As anxiety accumulates into tension, people hold in a state of readiness.
This complicates decision-making in the same way that noise complicates hearing a song.
With continual high levels of tension, it is difficult to identify its source.
This emotional tool becomes more important the further you are in your career, and you want to be able to differentiate the signal for a response from the noise of tension and the remnants from past situations.
The goal here is to express anxiety and release tension through movement and vocalization.
Find an exercise that elevates your breathing and heart rate.
In addition to the large muscle groups of the body, flex the interior muscles around the voice box and neck.
The release of tension deep in the neck requires vocalization, not necessarily verbalization because tension (like other emotions) can not be articulated with words.
Practice using different movements accompanied by sound to express yourself.
In order to experience deeper levels of relaxation, use a strong low 'huh' sound which originates from the abdomen.
This becomes your baseline.
Militaries and religions throughout the world use this technique.
The release and recognition of tension should become an intentional part of a daily routine.
Then, during high-performance situations when the stakes are substantial, you will be able to identify and respond to situations with a timely decision or a directed action.
