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Enjoying Your Work Richard Brislin |
Planning today can
prevent problems
tomorrowBenjamin Franklin once wrote that there are two certainties in life: death and taxes. To these, we can add that today's complex life includes future problems for which we cannot be totally prepared. Often, the inability to deal with unforeseen problems leads to stress with negative effects on health and psychological well-being. While life's problems and stresses cannot be reduced, people can take steps to minimize their negative impact.
When people take steps today that can reduce the impact of problems that may occur in the future, they are engaging in preventive activities. In primary prevention, people do not have certain problems today. However, they are concerned they might have the problems at a later date and so take steps to ward off future difficulties. One example is exercise. People might not have health problems today, but they realize that they might have them in the future. So they engage in an exercise program to prevent or to minimize threats to their health. Exercise helps people lose weight, and this leads to a decreased chance of adult onset diabetes. Exercise also helps people lower their cholesterol and to keep blood pressure at a level approved by their physicians.
People can engage in primary prevention as part of their work. If they dread speaking in front of others but know that future promotions depend on the ability to give public presentations, they can sign up for seminars where they can develop this skill. Community colleges frequently offer courses in public speaking. Realizing that they will face challenges to their technical skills in the workplace, people often nurture a support group of people knowledgeable in information technology, accounting and statistical forecasting.
If people enter into activities known as secondary prevention, they recognize that a potential stressor has entered their lives, so they take steps to minimize the negative impact of stress. If the stressor is medical, such as a pain in the abdomen or a dark blotch on the skin, they recognize the advantages of early detection and schedule a visit to their physician as soon as possible.
In the workplace, people asked to give a public presentation can call upon friends for various kinds of help. People might preview their talks in front of others, or perhaps they can form a panel where a number of colleagues give parts of a full presentation. People's support groups, called upon when difficulties are imminent, are often nurtured as part of primary prevention.
In tertiary prevention, people have experienced problems and stress. However, they put their experiences into perspective. They say to themselves, "Is this problem really so large that I should let it have negative impacts on my health?" Tertiary prevention also includes sorting problems into those that can be controlled and those that cannot.
For problems that cannot be controlled, the advice to "let it go" is often wise. My mother captured tertiary prevention when she chided her children if they whined about a trivial issue.
She advised us, "Save your tears for a broken leg."
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
The purpose of this column is to increase understanding of human behavior as it has an impact on the workplace. Given the amount of time people spend at work, job satisfaction should ideally be high and it should contribute to general life happiness. Enjoyment can increase as people learn more about workplace psychology, communication, and group influences.
Richard Brislin is a professor in the College of Business Administration, University of Hawaii. He can be reached through the College Relations Office: cro@cba.hawaii.edu
