Category: Leading People

It’s the day after Tax Day, and the Health Resource Network is sponsoring the 22^nd National Stress Awareness Day today.  In fact, April is also National Stress Awareness Month.

Not all stress is bad.  A little bit of stress is good for us, but it’s important to keep it in check. When left to its own devices, it can lead to a number of health issues, from heart problems, to weight problems, to even depression and anxiety.

The important goal in identifying and managing stress is to find that optimal level within your ‘best stress zone’ that you need to work most effectively.  With too much stress, we can become overwhelmed.  At the same time, zero stress might have the opposite effect—complacency.  There is a fine balance that must be maintained to reach one’s highest potential on a day-to-day basis.

In finding what’s right for you, Dr. Henry Cloud’s 2013 book, Boundaries for Leaders: Results, Relationships, and Being Ridiculously in Charge proves instructive.

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My last post summarized lessons from the last two weeks of the NIV Leadership Bible, focused on the leadership skill of communicating vision.  This hearkens me back to the days of NASA’s Leadership Development Program.  Six years ago, our 12-member group from across NASA was immersed in learning all we could about leadership.  One of our group members learned that a senior executive was reading Chip & Dan Heath’s Made to Stick—the 2007 Best Business Book of the Year by 800-CEO-READ book awards.  So, he offered to lead a book club discussion about why some ideas make it and others don’t based on the Heath brothers’ research.

The Heath brothers start with the assertion that history is littered with good ideas that failed to catch on, as well as bad ideas that didn’t.  So, they dug deeper by asking why?  They define “sticky” as understandable, memorable, and effective in changing thought or behavior.

Then, they outline 6 principles that reinforce one another and multiply the “stickiness factor.”  If you want your ideas to stick…especially if you’re communicating vision to your team, learn more about the 6 principles here.