Live Better Lead Better: Strategies for Healthy Choices in a High Stress Vocation

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Live Better Lead BetterStrategies for
Healthy Choices in a High Stress Vocation
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• Effective school reform cannot occur on a
  foundation of broken homes and shattered
  relationships.
• ---Michael Fullan,
• Change Forces

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Or, Is Fullans maxim true, or just another
comforting myth manufactured by an overpaid
consultant who wouldnt have a clue about what to
do when confronted by the kind of irate parents
we deal with on a daily basis!?
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John SkrettaAssociate PrincipalNortheast High
SchoolLincoln Public Schools
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The Dao of Bill

• Robinsons koan
• It is what it is.

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What this presentation IS

• A concise overview of important research findings
  on stress and its impact on school administrators.

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What this presentation IS

• A synthesis of anecdotally and empirically
  validated wisdom for reducing stress through
  cognitive, interpersonal, and organizational
  means.

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What this presentation IS, (minus the
jargonistic eduspeak)

• Ideas to help you rethink
• How you respond to stressful situations
• How your organization is equipped to handle
  stressful situations

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What it ISNT

• An infomercial for Body By Jake, the
  Ab-Domenizer, 8 minute buns with 8 minute
  thighs, or any other off-the-shelf physiological
  stress reduction package.

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What it ISNT

• A presentation anchored in exercise promotion or
  relaxation techniques.

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Touchstones for the presentation

• Fullan and Hargreaves contention that
  intensification and fragmentation are the two
  greatest burdens facing public schools and
  educators today.

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Touchstones for the presentation

• The biggest problem facing schools is
  fragmentation and overload . . . Schools are
  suffering the additional burden of having a
  torrent of unwanted, uncoordinated policies and
  innovations raining down on them from external
  hierarchical bureaucracies.
• --Change Forces, The Sequel

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Touchstones for the presentation

• Golly, mom, that sounds like a recipe for stress!

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Touchstones for the presentation

• Northeast High School instructional belief
  statement
• We believe effectively employed, research-based
  strategies maximize achievement.

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A guiding assumption

• Unmanaged stress has profoundly negative personal
  and organizational consequences.

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Stress, defined

• Stress is a physiologically and
  psychologically-based response to a perceived
  threat.
• Stress is anything that disturbs our emotional
  equilibrium.
• ---Charles Atkins

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• Stress arousal or initial alarm reaction is
  readily observed in the self by noting
  symptomatic behaviors including
• Irritability
• Anxiety
• Fluctuating high blood pressure
• Bruxism
• Insomnia
• Heart palpitations / unusual heart rhythms
• Inability to concentrate
• Headaches

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But, John Whats Bruxism?

• You have a 70-year wear pattern on your lower
  front teeth. You are grinding the enamel off.

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• Whats bad about stress in schools is its
  almost always an inappropriate response.
• ---Sylwester, 2001

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What the research says about stress in schools
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Stress is positively correlated to illness

• Anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of diseases are
  stress related.
• Swent, 2001 Sylwester, 2001

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Stress is positively correlated to illness

• The number one killer of Americans is coronary
  heart disease, accounting for half of all U.S.
  deaths. Coronary heart disease is twice as
  prevalent as all forms of cancer combined. One
  of the most significant causes of heart disease
  is anxiety. For most employed Americans, the
  primary source of anxiety is work.
• ---Barbara Bailey Reinhold, Toxic Work

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Consequences of unmanaged stress

• Addiction
• Poor physical health
• Shattered relationships
• Emotional and behavioral problems
• Professional consequences

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Keep in mind

• Stress is interactive it is a reaction between
  individual personality and environment (Swent,
  2001).

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From the Medical Journal Duh

• Since stress is interactive, stress management
  techniques must impact
• The individual response to the environment
• The organization that induced the stress

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Contrary to initial assumptions

• Not all stress is bad. Most researchers draw a
  distinction between occasional stressful
  experiences we invite in positive, risk-taking
  behaviors as Eustress. (Selye)
• A pattern of negative, stress-inducing events is
  described as Distress.

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Contrary to initial assumptions

• Bailey Reinhold points out that low stress low
  productivity and reduced overall health high
  stress produces the same effects. The need is to
  create a work environment where stress-inducing
  situations are not insurmountable challenges
  because the worker has solid self-esteem,
  autonomy, and a sense of accomplishment.

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The curvilinear relationship of stress to
productivity

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Therefore,

• The goal is not elimination of stress, but
  healthy management of stress to maintain
  stress-inducing situations at acceptable
  (institutional and individual) levels.

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More empirically validated basics about stress

• Stress can suck the individual into a downward
  spiral
• Stress Arousal response
• Distress persistent perception of stress
• Energy conservation depersonalization
• Exhaustion burnout
• Source Texas Medical Association

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Factors in Principal burnout (Wax and Hales)

• Expectation reality discrepancy
• Principal service recipient relationships
• Motivation initiation link
• Goal-attainment / professional fulfillment
• Psychophysical status vitality
• Time institutional nostalgia

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A question to ponder Observed any of the former
syndromes in your work experience? If so, you
could characterize elements of your setting as
distressful.
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Research on stress in schools

• Stress reduction activities can be distinguished
  as
• PHYSIOLOGICAL
• COGNITIVE
• ORGANIZATIONAL

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Research on stress in schools

• Stress Reduction Activities are intentionally
  used by most school administrators.
• Swent reports that almost 70 of high school
  principals and almost 76 of high school
  assistant principals reported using physiological
  stress reduction activities (exercise,
  relaxation).

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Research on stress in schools

• Aside from the obvious conclusion that Assistant
  Principals are better fit as a group than their
  Principals, what else does the data show us?

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Stress Reduction Strategies

• No more than 25 of any group of school
  administrators, including superintendents,
  consciously employed COGNITIVE stress reduction
  strategies.

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Stress Reduction Strategies

• No more than 15 of any group of school
  administrators consciously employed
  ORGANIZATIONAL stress reduction strategies.

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So, we can conclude that . . .

• While we all know about the importance of
  exercise, nutrition and even proper breathing
  strategies to reduce stress, we are pathetically
  inept at utilizing COGNITIVE ORGANIZATIONAL
  strategies for reducing stress.

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So, we can conclude that . . .

• Cognitive and Organizational stress reduction
  strategies are under-utilized by school
  administrators.

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Or, as Clayton Tucker-Ladd stated

• How do you develop psychological toughness? It
  may help you become psychologically tough if you
  physically exercise, but I suspect you must
  gradually handle more and more stressful,
  difficult problems and interactions at work . . .
  Not just in the gym.

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Cognitive Stress Reduction Strategies include

• Conscious cultivation of a positive attitude.
• Religious / Spiritual orientation.
• Acquiring or maintaining a sense of humor.
• Control tension by distraction.
• Substitute rational responses for catastrophic
  thinking.
• Systematic observation / plausibility study.
• Correct misperceptions by seeking confirmation or
  refutation of your viewpoint.
• Challenge irrational beliefs / test reasoning.
• Observe and model a person successfully
  encountering the stress situation.

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Organizational Stress Reduction Strategies
include

• Changing unhealthy interaction patterns.
• Changing unhealthy organization habits or
  traditions.
• Maintenance of clear and consistent communication
  patterns throughout the ranks.
• Fostering a shared sense of purpose.
• Encouraging input . . . Whenever possible.
• Atkins, Buoyancy or Burnout Morale makes the
  difference.

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Characteristics of collaborative cultures for
complex times

• Engage in knowledge creation (tacit to explicit,
  explicit to explicit).
• Fuse the spiritual, political, and intellectual.
• From Michael Fullan, Change Forces, The Sequel

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Proven stress-reduction strategies that work
From the fast-paced, high-volume home office.
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Develop a common language

• Mission first.
• Prioritize events.
• Distinguish events / occurrences, (planned or
  unplanned) between instructional and managerial.

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Distinguish between the substantive and
procedurally mundane

• High level of concern
• INSERT photo VF

• Low level of concern
• Insert photo VF

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Distinguish between the substantive and
procedurally mundane

• Leadership issues
• Moral mandates / moral purpose
• Instructionally focused matters
• Potentially revolutionary, clearly liberatory

• Repetitious
• Trivial
• Petty
• Annoying
• Merely procedural
• Bureaucratic

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Come down from the ledge . .
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Come down from the ledge

• Using this phrase in a semi-humorous / facetious
  manner, the intent is to build stress
  inoculation in the team member. Epstein (1983)
  posited that we can reduce unrealistic fears by
  repeatedly and gradually thinking through the
  upsetting aspects of a situation and becoming
  better observers and more accurate interpreters
  of information.

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Dont wade into The Fray---Rise above

• The Fray, defined
• To wear into shreds through friction
• To engage in a noisy fight or combat
• A heated dispute or contest
• A scuffle or brawl

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Dont wade into The Fray

• Stop negativity / abort negative thought
  processes when they arise.
• (Donald Clifton on interaction norms Were
  dippin in that guys bucket an awful lot)

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Collaborate Conversate

• Realize the importance of good talk as a team.
• Promote formal informal means of involvement
  (remember Kirby Blase?)
• Informal participation opportunities and
  impromptu encounters are traits of effective
  principals.

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Collaborate Conversate

• Talk is critical for getting out into the
  sunlight the moldy, self-limiting things . . . It
  will make your immune system happy, take some
  pressure off a muscle group or two, and probably
  even have a positive effect on your blood
  pressure. It can also get you firsthand
  information about about other ways of handling
  whatever problems youre stuck in, about other
  resources
• Barbara Bailey Reinhold

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Enjoy the Game

• The therapeutic benefits of laughter have been
  well documented in medical research
• Muscle relaxation
• Reduction of stress-related hormones
• Immune system enhancement
• Pain reduction
• Better respiration (esp. belly laughs!)
• -(Berk and Tan, Loma Linda University, CA)

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Enjoy the GameCsikszentwihalyi on Flow (1990)

• Enjoyment comes at a very specific point
  Whenever the opportunities for action perceived
  by the individual are equal to his or her
  capabilities.
• Optimal Experiences

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But John, Ive tried all these in my school
setting and nothing seems to work!

• Whats a despondent administrator to do?

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Have a cup o Joe

• Drink, swill, and chug that coffee. Remember,
  studies indicate coffee consumption
• Increases dopamine levels, a neurotransmitter in
  the brain that activates the pleasure center.
• Has little to no effect on cholesterol rates,
  blood pressure and heart arrhythmia.

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• The preceding research summary was brought to you
  by the non-partisan Coffee Science Source,
  funded by The Juan Valdez Foundation.

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Parting stress-immunization shots

• Modified from MITs News College Views

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Parting stress-immunization shots

• Holistic Health Practitioner View
• Stop denying and listen to the wisdom of your
  body.

• School Administrator View
• Work until fatigue forces unconsciousness.

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Parting stress-immunization shots

• Holistic Health Practitioner view
• Change your circumstances if you are perceiving
  negativity, proactively alter your environment.

• School Administrator view
• Suppress those thoughts and drink more coffee!

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Parting stress-immunization shots

• Holistic Health Practitioner View
• Learn to say No. Speak up for yourself and
  your own needs.

• School Administrator view
• Saying No is a sign of weakness and reduces
  your productivity to dangerously unsafe levels.

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Parting stress-immunization shots

• Holistic Health Practitioner view
• Learn to pace yourself to attain balance. Take
  life in moderation and realize that work must be
  balanced with diversion, pleasure and relaxation.

• School Administrator view
• A balanced life is a myth perpetuated by high
  school English teachers and their escapist
  literature.

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Parting stress-immunization shots

• Holistic Health Practitioner view
• Take care of your body. Dont skip meals,
  disregard your need for sleep, or devour
  non-nutritive foods.

• School Administrator view
• Vending profits help our activities. We need
  vending profits to increase due to the passage of
  LB1172 on Student Fees. I have a moral duty to
  eat these Twinkies!

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Complaints and inquiries regarding this
presentation

• John Skretta
• Associate Principal
• Northeast High School
• 2635 North 63rd St.
• Lincoln, NE 68507
• [phone]
• jskretta_at_lps.org