STRATEGIES AND IMPORTANCE OF TIME MANAGEMENT

`Time management refers to a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when
accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals. This set includes a wide scope of activities, and these
include planning, allocating, setting goals, delegation, analysis of time spent, monitoring, organizing,
scheduling, and prioritizing.

Initially time management referred to just business or work activities, but eventually the term
broadened to include personal activities as well. A time management system is a designed combination of
processes, tools and techniques.

Some authors (such as Stephen R. Covey) offered a categorization scheme for the many time
management approaches that he reviewed:

First generation: reminders based on clocks and watches, but with computer implementation
possibility; can be used to alert a person when a task is to be done.

Second generation: planning and preparation based on calendar and appointment books; includes
setting goals.

Third generation: planning, prioritizing, and controlling (using a personal organizer, other paper-
based objects, or computer or PDA-based systems) activities on a daily basis. This approach implies
spending some time in clarifying values and priorities.

Fourth generation: being efficient and proactive using any of the tools above; places goals and roles
as the controlling element of the system and favors importance over urgency.

Time management has been considered to be a subset of different concepts such as:

Project management. Time Management can be considered to be a project management subset and is
more commonly known as project planning and project scheduling. Time Management has also been
identified as one of the core functions identified in project management.

Attention management: Attention Management relates to the management of cognitive resources, and
in particular the time that humans allocate their mind (and organize the minds of their employees) to
conduct some activities.

Personal knowledge management: Time-management strategies are often associated with the
recommendation to set personal goals. These goals are recorded and may be broken down into a
project, an action plan, or a simple task list. For individual tasks or for goals, an importance rating
may be established, deadlines may be set, and priorities assigned. This process results in a plan with
a task list or a schedule or calendar of activities.

Authors may recommend a daily, weekly, monthly or other planning periods, usually fixed, but
sometimes variable. Different planning periods may be associated with different scope of planning
or review. Also, authors may or may not emphasise reviews of performance against plan. Routine
 and recurring tasks may or may not be integrated into the time management plan and if integrated,
the integration can be accomplished in various ways.

The goal is to help yourself become aware of how you use your time:
One resource in organizing, prioritizing, and succeeding in your studies; the context of competing
activities of friends, work, family, etc.
* Try our exercise in time management:
- How do you spend your time each day?
Strategies on using time:
Jot down one best time block you can study. How long is it? What makes for a good break
for you? Can you control the activity and return to your studies?
Dedicated study spaces
What is the best study space you can think of? What is another?
Weekly reviews
What is the best time in a week you can review?
Prioritize your assignments
What subject has always caused you problems?
Achieve "stage one"--get something done!
What is a first step you can identify for an assignment to get yourself
started?
Postpone unnecessary activities until the work is done!
What is one distraction that causes you to stop studying?
Identify resources to help you
Are there tutors? An expert friend? Be as specific as possible.
Use your free time wisely
Review notes and readings just before class
How would you make time to review? Is there free time you can use?
Review lecture notes just after class

Importance of Time Management:

Time management is of great importance for your personal life and career success. It teaches you
how to manage your time effectively and make the most of it.

1. Time is a special resource that you cannot store or save for later use. Everyone has the exact
same amount of time each day. Time not well used cannot be retrieved.
2. Most people, feel like they have too much to do and not enough time. They blame lack of
time for their poor finances, stress, bad relationships, and for not exercising their body. Wise
 time management can help you find the time for what you desire, and for what you need to
do.
3. You need time to get what you want out of life. If you wait for extra time to appear, you
might lose the game of life. Through right time management, you can “create” the time you
need, and not just wait for it to come. By planning your time wisely, you will have more time
to do more things.
4. Time management will help you set up your priorities.
5. Time is limited to 24 hours a day, so plan your life wisely.
6. Time management helps you make conscious choices, so you can spend more of your time
doing things that are important and valuable to you.
7. You can learn to find the time for the things that are important to you. Even a small amount
of time once a day, or even once a week, will take you closer to your goals, and you will be
surprised at the progress you make.
8. You become more productive using improved time management skills and tools, and can
accomplish more with less effort and time. Time management can help you reduce wasted
time and energy, help you become more creative and productive, and enable you to do the
right thing at the right time. This will of course lead to more balance and fulfillment in your
life.
9. Life today presents so many distractions, and therefore, it is very easy to lose time on
unimportant activities. Ask yourself, is watching this or that TV program, reading this or that
gossip or participating in a certain activity is going to add anything to your life. Is the time
spent on a particular activity well spent, or is just a waste of time and energy?
10. Life puts in front of everyone so many choices each day, and the question is, do you follow
what appears on your way, or do you consciously choose what you want to do? Do you allow
external distractions to deter you from your goal, or do you use willpower and self discipline
to walk toward your goal in a straight line, without wasting time and energy?
11. A certain degree of detachment and inner peace are useful in managing your time effectively.
They help you avoid spending too much emotional and mental energy on what people say and
think about you. They help you stay calm, despite distractions or difficulties, and this saves
you a lot of time and energy, which you can spend on better and more rewarding activities.

Thinking, planning, finding out how others manage their time, and reading books and articles on
time management, will develop these skills and give you good ideas. Among the many changes that you
can make to manage your time, there is one that is important and easily available, and that is getting up
early in the morning. Give up watching TV late at night and go to sleep a little earlier than usual. It will
then be easier to wake up earlier

Here are the most common reasons why time is so important:

1. Time cannot be stored
Everyone no matter how rich or poor spends time the same way, it doesn't speed up for the
rich and slow down for the poor. Time management is equal to wise usage of time. This may be
the difference between fame and failure.
2. Time is rare
Yes, everybody has the same number of hours, but haven't you noticed that people are
complaining that they don't have enough of it? There is just “so little time and so much to do”
 that people go out of focus.
3. Time is needed for everything
Everything takes time; everything needs time to materialize. With time management, each
task is given enough time to be finished.
4. Time management helps you finish more jobs with less effort
By allotting a certain amount of time for each activity, you don’t have to worry about the
next thing that you will do. With time management, you become more organized and the things
you do become more habitual than panic-driven. By making it a habit, you become more
productive.

ASSERTIVENESS OR ASSESSMENT OF SELF-AWARENESS

Introduction:
When people learn how to be assertive, they experience benefits in such areas as:
• Handling confrontation more easily and satisfactorily;
• Feeling less stressed
• Having greater self confidence
• Being more tactful
• Improving their image and creditability
• Being able to disagree more convincingly but in a way that maintains the effectiveness of the
relationship
• Resisting other people's attempts to manipulate thern through bully, emotional blackmail,
flattery etc
• Feeling better about themselves and other people.
I. Understanding Assertiveness:
Assertive:
1 Behaviour Type:
 Keen to stand up for own rights while accepting that others have rights too.
2 Body language (assertive):
Enough eye contact to let people know he or she is in earnest. moderate, neutral tone of
voice, moderate, open body posture.
3 Actions (assertive):
Lots of listening; seeks to understand. Treats people with respect. Prepared to compromise;
solution-oriented. Prepared to state and explain what he or she wants. Straight and to the
point without being abrupt. Prepared to persist for what he or she wants.

The four cornerstones of assertiveness:

• Good eye contact;
• Neutral tone of voice;
• Open posture;
• The words you use.

II. Why We Behave The Way We Do

• First, if you think of behaviour as something separate from yourself, it is easier to change it.
Alternately, if you think about behaviour as being part of your personality or as something engraved
in stone, you may feel it is permanent a. so impossible to change.

• Secondly, separating yourself from your behaviour makes analysing the cause of that behaviour
easier.

Two fundamental lessons for effective interaction with other people:

1. The importance of taking full responsibility for your behaviour
2. What you can do to take eye contact of your behaviour.

The behaviour/outcome equation:

The behaviour/outcome equation looks like this:
S + B= 0
Which means the situation plus the way you behave in it will determine the outcome. It has two
questions:

• Why do different people behave differently when faced with the same situation ?
• How can I change my behaviour when faced with a familiar situation?

To understand the answers to these questions we need to introduce another element to the equation: “
We tend to gear our behaviour more to our dominant feelings than we do to the outcome we want to
achieve.”

Here are some examples:

 - Your boss, leaning over your desk, wagging a finger at you as he or she criticizes your work may
induce feelings of injustice and powerlessness which cause you to behave passively.

- A genuine invitation to explain why a piece of work was not ready at the agreed time may induce
feelings of fair treatment and respect which make it easy for you to behave assertively.

The trick to behaving assertively, therefore, is to control feelings. To help you with that control,
we have to answer another question: Where do our feelings come from? In answering that question, we
shall have to look at our natural mechanisms for coping with confrontation:
The situation, feelings, behaviour, outcome sequence:
Situation  Feelings  Behaviour  Outcome

Our natural mechanisms for coping with confrontation:

We have two mechanisms with which we attempt to cope with confrontation. We can fight it or
we can flee from it. This is called the fight-or-flight —response. It is an autonomic physical response
designed to enable us to take rapid action when confronted by physical threat.
As human beings, however, we have another mechanism with which we attempt to Cope with
confrontation: our verbal reasoning ability. This is a deliberate response (i.e., not automatic) which
enables us to communicate our way out of confrontation.

When faced with a situation in which we feel emotionally threatened, we gain more practice in
aggressive and passive behaviour than assertive behaviour. At this stage, there is another question that
needs to be answered: if that is the behaviour we learn as a childa, why do we take it with us into
adulthood?

Internalisation: The answer lies in our having internalised, or learnt, the association between the situation
and the feelings.

• Our brains act as a kind of recognition machine and, spotting something even remotely familiar,
interpret the situation for us, tell us what kind of situation it is, and then hit the playback button on our
emotional tape recorder.

• You see, everything that happens to us is mentally recorded and once recorded, can be played back.
And the 'what' that is replayed is the dominant emotion our brain associates with the situation. In just
the same way that the teacher leaning over you criticising your homework triggers emotions of
injustice and powerlessness which cause you to behave passively, an aggressive boss leaning over you
criticising your work can trigger identical emotions causing you to behave passively in that situation
too, because you have learnt to associate the feeling with the situation.

The association has become internalised. That is, you do not have to think about it: the association is
made automatically. By the time we reach adulthood, many of the feelings we experience in conflicts and
the consequent behaviour, can justifiably be called habit. And in that small word lies a big problem - your
robot.

Your Robot: (example driving a car): the Thing that enables you to handle such tasks automatically is
your robot. How your robot convinces you its programming is correct:
** Situation: (unjust criticism; aggressively delivered by your boss)
 Feelings (injustice, resentment, no power to speak up for yourself due to low self esteem)
  Behaviour (Totally passive)
 Outcome (boss does not discover truth; you know you have not stood up for yourself)
 Confirmation ( you cannot handle these situations because of your low self esteem).
 Feelings (injustice, resentment, no power to speak up for yourself due to low self esteem).

III. How To Think Assertively

Behaving assertively starts with thinking assertively: If you lay firm foundations, behaving
assertively is not only easier, it is more beneficial to everyone concerned and more likely to be sustained.
To help you, we are going to look at:

• Your self talk;

• Your rights.

Self talk: It is the little conversation you have with yourself that stimulates the feelings you associate with
a situation. It occurs deep within your subconscious and, as such, is controlled by your robot.

Self talk is important for 3 reasons:

1. It is the earliest point within the situation/feeling/behaviour/outcome sequence over which you
have control and hence, the earliest point at which you can intervene in the sequence and make it
work for you rather than against you.

2. Intervening in your self-talk requires conscious thought. That is the only way you can begin
reprogramming your robot to cause positive, rather than negative feelings.

3. Changing your learnt association between situations and feelings is easier because working with
words is more 'tangible' than working withiwe can now answer another question: "What can you do
to make your self-talk more positive? That takes us on to rights.

Your rights: A right is something to which you are entitled. Here are some examples of general rights:
* To be the ultimate judge of your own thoughts, behaviours, and emotions.
* To be treated with respect;
* To state what you want or how you feel;
* To have and express an opinion;
* To be listened to;
* To be imperfect;
* To make mistakes like every other human being.
* To feel OK about yourself;
* To use emotion rather than logic to make some of your decisions if you want to;
* To put yourself first on occasions;
* To choose your own feelings and emotions;
* To stand up for your rights, or not, as you choose

IV. How To Behave Assertively:

Once you are thinking assertively, you will find it easier to behave assertively. • Techniques:
• Stay in control of your feelings;
• Stand your ground;
• Confront an issue with another person.
 Techniques to stay in control of your feelings: staying in control of your feelings makes it easier
for you to behave assertively. These are two techniques help you do that by creating a barrier between you
and what someone else is saying.
Acknowledging:
It is a response from you which shows the other person that you heard what they said without it
actually affecting your emotions. It has two main uses: The first is in response to a 'put down". A “put-
down” is a verbal attack on you. Sometimes flippant, sometimes concealed behind 'humour' (remember
passive/aggressive), often sarcastic or patronising, and usually totally exaggerated. Responding to a put-
down is a good way to illustrate acknowledging as an assertive techniques.

Probing:
Probing is when you make no contribution to the conversation. All you do is ‘test’ what the other
person has said or seek to understand them better.

Techniques for standing your ground:

One of the big problems for people prone to passive behaviour is that they try to he assertive once
and, when they are not immediately successful, give in. They do not persist.
Another problem is that if they are not immediately successful they quickly escalate a situation. They rub
people up the wrong way with remarkable ease.

So techniques that help you stand your ground are useful in both sets of circumstances.

1. The three part sentence:

It is a sentence in three parts. Part 1 reflects the other person wants; Part 2 communicates
how you feel; and Part 3. states what you want
.
2. The broken record:
The broken record enables you to stand your ground in the face of bullying, manipulation and
sympathy seeking. It is one of the most widely used assertiveness techniques. It is called the
broken record because just like a scratched record, you repeat exactly the same phrase over
and over again.

Techniques for confronting an issue with another person:

These techniques help you initiate a conversation, and as such, can be more useful when you have
to confront an issue with another person.
Two techniques: 1) Pointing out a discrepancy 2) Pointing out a consequence

i) Pointing out a discrepancy: This technique helps you confront an issue with another person in the
following sorts of situations:
• where that person has not done something which you had agreed
■ where his or her behaviour or performance is below expectation
^ where his or her behaviour or performance is outside the norm.
Its benefit is twofold. First, if you are prone to passive behaviour, it gives you a form of
words to which the other person cannot react aggressively. Secondly, if you are prone to aggressive
behaviour, it prevents you sounding accusatory.

ii) Pointing out a consequence: With this technique, you tell the other person what will happen if the
situation persists.
V. Your Implementation Plan

• information to enable you to understand what learning is and how it can be assisted
■ some common questions I am asked about assertiveness and the answers I give
^ suggestions on how you can continue learning well into the future.

Understanding learning
When we learn to be more assertive, we go through four stages. These are the levels of learning:

Briefly, we progress from not being aware of our shortcomings (Level 1, i.e. unconscious
incompetence) to being aware of them (Level 2, i.e. conscious incompetence). At these stages, our
behaviour is habit. The only difference is awareness. We then progress to performing correctly but having
to think about it (Level 3, i.e. conscious competence), otherwise our old habits take over and we 'revert to
type' (Level 2). Finally, sometimes after much persistence, we progress to Level 4 (i.e. unconscious
competence), where the correct performance is internalised. At this level we have effectively replaced old
habits with new ones. It is not until we reach this level that we can say that we have truly learnt what we
intended to learn.

Now, why is this diagram (below) so important?

There are two reasons. First, a lot of people stop at Level 2 (conscious incompetence). They know
what aspects of their behaviour are counter-productive and what they could usefully change. They delude
themselves that just because they are aware of their shortcomings they have rectified them! Secondly, a
lot of people experience difficulty at Level 3 (conscious competence). That means you perform the new
behaviours but you have to think about them with the conscious part of your mind.

And therein lies a problem. Because the conscious part your attention is easily diverted to more
pressing matters. That is when your robot takes over (because it does not get reprogrammed until you
reach level 4) and you slip back to conscious incompetence (level 2). Your robot makes you feel
uncomfortable about this slippage and attempts to convince you that either the change is too difficult for
you or that the technique do not work for you.

Either way you can be more comfortable at level 2 (conscious incompetence) and gradually slip
back to level 1 (Unconscious incompetence). That is where your robot is happiest.
How to assist your journey to unconsious competence? (level-4)

Your learning log: Your learning log not only helps you build up the detail of what you intend to
implement, it also provides a degree of motivation by pointing out how your learning will benefit
other aspects of your life.
Self-development: Another recommendation to help you progress from level 3 to 4 is to engage
deliberately is self-development. This is especially important in today's working environment, where
lifelong learning is widely recognised as the only effective route to employment security.

Some Common Questions:

Does it always work?

Definitely not. Nothing can guarantee that sort of success rate when dealing with people.
Assertiveness does, however, give you the best chance of reaching an outcome satisfactory to both
parties.

Are there any times when I should not try to be assertive?

Yes, when emotions, either yours or the other person's , are running very high. Better to wait for
you or the other person to cool off and then start the dialogue.

Are there any times when it is ok to be aggressive?

Only one: in a crisis when there is no time for dialogue. • Why do people confuse assertiveness
with aggression?

Why do some people confuse assertiveness with aggressiveness?

Probably because they have been unfortunate enough to come across someone who has learned
‘ old fashioned’ assertiveness and who goes around asserting themselves irrespective of other
people’s rights.

How do I make sure I don't come across as aggressive after reading this book?
First, remember the four cornerstones - eye contact, posture, tone of voice, and words - and pay
particular attention to tone of voice, because it is very easy, as you try to assert yourself, to sound a
little dogmatic or sarcastic.

Why is self-esteem so important and how can I improve it?

Self-esteem is the regard in which you hold yourself. Hold yourself in too high a regard and you
will probably be self-opinionated, you will not listen to other people, you will interrupt them, and so
on. You will be seen as aggressive. Hold yourself in too low a regard and you will probably
underestimate yourself and behave passively. Feel 'OK' about yourself and you will find it easier to
behave assertively. Here are six suggestions to help develop our self-esteem:
 - Think of yourself as distinct from your behaviour. That way, while you are at Level 2
(conscious incompetence) you will not allow your robot to convince you that getting it
wrong now and then is confirmation that you cannot do it.

- Remember that everyone makes mistakes So learn from them, and above all, don't let
them stop you.

- Interpret criticism, no matter how cutting it is, as someone’s opinion and not fact
Criticism is feedback; you have the option what you do with it.

- Resist the temptation to do things you might otherwise not do just because you are
concerned about what other people might think of you.

- Be prepared to give yourself priority now and again. Spoil yourself. Be selfish on
occasions. Never to do any of these things is you saying that you are not worth it.

- Give your health some priority in terms of both exercise and diet. Aerobic exercise is
particularly useful because, after the exercise, the brain releases 'cooling-down chemicals
which induce a sense of well-being and relaxation.

What can I do if I just don't feel assertive?

There is a simple but profound answer to this question: pretend to be. Let me explain the
rationale behind this answer. Your robot likes predictability and stability. It has a vested interest in your
staying exactly as you are until the day you die. It will, in short, cause you to underperform. (If you
have trouble accepting this statement, ask yourself why is it that people will perform well in a selection
interview for a job they do not want and perform poorly in a selection interview for a job they want
desperately. Surely, if our conscious mind was in charge, it would be the other way round.)

Our robot resides in our subconscious and our subconscious is incapable of distinguishing
between fact and fiction. So if you pretend to feel assertive (and it may take practice), your robot can be
tricked into letting you behave assertively. Do that a few times and the positive outcomes reinforce the
pretence until feeling assertive is accepted as a replacement program by your robot. Simple, really.

How can I prepare for situations in which I need to behave assertively when I am afraid I can't?
Your subconscious is great at visualising. So think of your mind as a video player. Press fast
forward, go into the future, and play the forthcoming scene as you want it to go. As I mentioned in the
previous answer, however, your subconscious cannot distinguish between fact and fiction. So, if you
take charge of your mental video player, you can make it play the forthcoming scene as you want it to
go. You still gear your behaviour to your dominant thoughts and experience the self-fulfilling prophecy
but, because this time it is positive, it works in your favour. Sportspeople have been doing this for years.
It will work for you, too.
 What if enthusiasm wanes before I reach Level 4? What can I do to keep the pot on the boil?
Here are some suggestions:
1. As you read this book, make annotations in it. know: your robot, programmed by
successive school teachers, won't like it. So who's in charger) Underline phrases and
points you want to find again, make marginal notes etc. These annotations will make
your subsequent reviews of the book quicker and easier.

2. Review the book and your annotations after a day, a week, a month, three
months, six months and a year. From the three-month review onwards, create
a new learning log.

What is the best way to consolidate what I have learnt?

Select two people and, in 20 minutes for each, teach them the main points you have learnt from
this book

COPING WITH ORGANISATIONAL STRESS

Counteracting Stress
Though stress has become an inevitable part of our social functioning, it need not be considered
totally unmanageable. It can be prevented and effectively managed, to a considerable extent, through
planned efforts. There are basically two ways of counteracting stress which may be divided into:
1. What an Organization Can Do
Stresses of job life can be conveniently managed, to a large extent, at different stages of their
operation through various organizational interventions.
Here, I would like to briefly recapitulate a number of proactive interventions on the part of an organization
which I have developed over time (1987). Some of these in are:

(a) Undertaking Stress Audit: The term 'Stress Audit' was first used by Kets de Vries in 1979 but had
not been properly operationalized. An effort to operationalize the concept in India earlier works
(1987c).
Organizations have for almost a century past paid due attention to the maintenance, creation
and updating of technology. We are only gradually emerging from the stage where machines are
better cared for than men. A stage has now been reached when the significance of 'human resource'
has been recognized for productive and healthy functioning of an organization. When an organization
decides to have a scientific look at the mental-cum-physical health status of its backbone group
(executives), the exercise is called a stress audit. It involves an attempt on part of the organization to
study, explore and con-trol various types of stresses which the individual executives ex erience by
virtue of their organizational membership.

In attempting a stress audit in an organization, a distinction can be made among three

categories of variables: causal stress variables (stressors), mediating variables (the effect of
personality, culture, and contemporary environment) and end result variables (stress reaction. The
data required for stress audit can be collected through questionnaires, clinical diagnostic interviews
and, if possible, physical examination (Pestonjee, 1987c).
Stress audit is a four-stage HRD/OD intervention which can be utilized by organizations to
overcome prevailing stresses (Pestonjee and Muncherji, 1994; Pestonjee, 1997; Pestonjee an
Muncherji, 1998). Stress audit is carried out in four phases:
Phase I: Carrying out an exploration on Stress Tolerance Limit (STL) with the help of
psychometric instruments in terms of anxiety proneness, depression proneness,
state/trait an r, dominant motive/need profile, etc. Phase II: Identifying the dominant
organizational role stress dimensions. The main dimensions are as follows (Pareek,
1993):
 Inter - Role Distance (IRD)
 Role - Stagnation (RS)
 Role Expectation Conflict (REC)
 Role Erosion (RE)
 Role Overload (RO)
 Role Isolation (RI) .
 Personal Inadequacy (PI)
 Self-Role Distance (SRD)
 Role Ambiguity (RA) and
 Resource Inadequacy (RI)

Besides the above ORS dimensions, one can also measure the Role
Effjcacy Index (REI) for the executives. The Role Efficacy Index is made up
of 10 components (Pareek, 1993). These are as follows:

+ Centrality
+ Integration
+ Pro-activity
+ Creativity
+ Inter-role linkage
 + Helping relationship
+ Superordination
+ Influence
+ Growth, and
+ Confrontation

Phase III: Collecting qualitative data on stress variables and their

effects on individual health and performance through structured interviews.

Phase IV: On the basis of results obtained in the first three phases,
remedial measures are suggested to the organisation for implementing
suitable modifications and changes in its activities and practices. This might
also entail slight restructuring of the organisation.
In summary, the objectives of Stress Audit may be enumerated as follows
(Pestonjee, 1997)

a) Ascertaining the dominant stresses at various levels of the organization.

b) Identifying the dominant personality profiles in terms of nxiety, anger,
depression, values, motivations, etc.
c) Determining remedial measures, like training efforts, counseling, and
readjustment to enhance the effectiveness of the organization.

Now-a-days, stress audit is being used by Indian organisations in order to

understand prevailing levels of stress among its managers as well as
various organisational and non-organisational coping mechanisms.

(b) Use Scientific Inputs

Dissemination of information on h~wto face stressors within the organisation and outside.
One may derive immense benefits from knowledge of the fundamentals of stress response, dietetics,
exercises and meditation.
(c) Check with Company Doctors
Doctors can act as a valuable resource to the members of their organisation when it comes to
coping with identified stresses. They also have important information about interpersonal and
organisational conflicts. It is a pity that most members of the top management tend to think of the
doctor only as a clinician.
(d) Spread the Message
The importance of regular habits of work, leisure, proper diet, exercise and mental peace
should be emphasized at the organisational level. Hence, above are the interventions specified by
Pestonjee to reduce organizational stress.

Murphy (1988) has suggested three different forms of stress management techniques:

1. Stress Management Training Program : This program refers to training courses designed to
provide employees with improved coping skills, including training in techniques, such as meditation,
biofeedback, muscle relaxation and stress inoculation.
 2. Employee Assistance Program : This program refers to the provision of employee counseling
services by an organisation.

3. Stress Reduction / Intervention Program : This program is denoted by interventions designed to

change the level or form of job stressors experienced by employees, usually through job redesign or
work reform

A.K. Srivastava (1997b) has also suggested some organizational interventions. which can' be helpful
in preventing the undesirable consequences of stress:

a. Prevention of stress through organisational interventions at the management level; such as,
selection of suitable personnel, proper job designing and training adequate work conditions,
effective supervision and incentive system, effective communication system, participative
management etc.,

b. Minimizing the frequency and intensity of stresshl situations integral to the job at the
organisational level.

c. Moderating the intensity of integral job stressors and their consequent strains through the effect of
other variables of positive value, such as high or extra wages, non-financial incentives, social
support, generating team feeling, participative decision-making, etc.

Job Characteristics Approach

According to Hackman and Oldham (1975) creative traits not only cause stress among creative
managers but also make them like risk, insecurity and independent thoughts and actions. Second, they noted
that many of the coping strategies for creative managers aim at reducing interpersonal conflicts because their
emotional sensitiveness, mental complexities and novelty of ideas are a major source of stress. They
reviewed some studies done abroad confirming the view that the problem of mobilizing social and political
support are the major stressors for creative individuals.
N.M. Agrawal(1984) attempted to highlight the applicability of the job characteristics approach in
the management of organisational stress. Like others, he noted that stresses can cause serious health related
problems both for the employees and the organisation. However, he agreed with other researchers that
organisational stress can best be managed by creating a fit between person and his environment. This
congruence can be attained by the job characteristics approach to task design because the job design
approach attempts at linking the individual to the job characteristics, with expected out comes of high
internal motivation, high quality performance, higher worker satisfaction and low absenteeism and turnover.

Agarwal reviewed literature related to sources of stress and coping mechanisms to define and
delineate the scope of the application of the job characteristics model (JCM). He briefly reviewed the main
features of the JCM and the assumptions underlying it, and did an analysis to show how and why this model
can help in management of organizational stresses. He suggested and discussed a participative approach to
the implementation of the JCM.

This exercise enabled him to delineate two major categories of variables from literature on the
subject while highlighting the sources of stress. First, variables like jobs, roles, organizational structure and
climate, interpersonal relations and career development opportunities are major sources of stress for
individuals. Second, differences in personality variables like tolerance for ambiguity, abilities, needs, locus
of control, etc., moderate the effects of stressors on an individual. He defined these broad categories of
organizational variables and identified the types of stresses associated with them:

(a) Job as a source of fatigue has been the focus of study since the early years of industrialization, as
it produces monotony and boredom among workers.

(b) As Kahn et al. (1964) have suggested, the primary source of an individual's tensions in an
organization is role conflict and role ambiguity. Later, researchers identified many other role stresses
such as role overload—underload, inter-role conflict, role expectation conflict, role erosion, role
isolation and self-role. distance. Vansell et al. (1981), in their review of stress studies, concluded that:
i. role stresses lead to lower productivity, tension, dissatisfaction and psychological
withdrawal from the group;

ii. individual differences pertaining to the perception, adaptability and need for clarity
of the work environment moderate the stress—strain relationship, and

iii. The experience of role conflict and role ambiguity is a function of a complex
interaction of job content, leader behaviour and organizational structure.
(c) Organizational structure and climate define the pattern of communication, opportunities for
participation in decision making, autonomy, responsibility for people and resource, etc.
Each of these in turn can be a source of stress.
Theory of Job Characteristics Model

Based on a review of need and expectancy theories, Hackman and Lawler (1971) identified the major
characteristics of a job. Building on work of Hackman and Lawler (1971), Hackman and Oldham (1975)
developed a job diagnostic model which includes
a) job characteristics, such as, skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and
feedback from job itself;
b) measures for three psychological states, namely, experienced meaningfulness of work,
experienced responsibility for outcomes of work and knowledge of the actual results of work
activities; and
c) measures for personal and work outcomes like internal motivation, work performance,
satisfaction with work, absenteeism and turnover.

According to this model, experienced meaningfulness of work is enhanced by the first three job
characteristics whereas experienced responsibility for work outcomes and knowledge of results operate
when the job involves a high level of autonomy and feedback respectively.

Managing Organisational Stress Using the Job Characteristics Approach

Reviewing the literature pertaining to the five job characteristics, N.M. Agrawal (1984) noted that
job characteristics model plays an important role in reducing job stresses. Viewing the need for task variety
in the light of the activation theory, he argued that in repetitive tasks, the activation level of an individual
falls below the characteristic norms. Therefore, he experiences negative effects and will attempt to increase
the activation level by increasing the level of impact the job has on him. If he is prevented from increasing
this impact, performance decreases. Such situations lead to the experience of stress. Variations introduced in
a repetitive task will reduce stresses and improve performance. Second, task autonomy, i.e., substantial
freedom, independence and discretion in scheduling the work and determining its procedure is reported to
increase job satisfaction and reduce boredom, irritability, daydreaming and restlessness among employees.
Experienced responsibility for job outcome is another valued psychological gain attained through autonomy
on the task. The author inferred that the extent to which the job characteristics model provides an
opportunity to influence the out-comes of the job, it enhances employee satisfaction and reduces stress. Last,
Agrawal noted that researchers perceive task feedback as the most accurate source of feedback particularly
because it is difficult to measure the performance of others. Task feedback, therefore, is perceived as self-
evaluation evoking and intrinsically motivating.

Issues in Implementing the Job Characteristics Model

Leavitt (1965) has suggested that a change either in task, technology, structure or people can initiate
a change in the other three areas. Job enrichment can trigger changes in various subsystems of an
organization which may, if not anticipated, become a source of stress.

Job enrichment leads to an increase in job-related activities, responsibilities, skill required or a

combination of these which, in turn, necessitates an increase in monetary gains for the employee. The lack
of a contingent reward system may arouse feelings of inequality among workers because they expect that an
enriched job would lead to more promotions and higher salaries.
N.M. Agrawal's (1984) review of literature has proved this point: to avoid conflicts and stresses, it is
important to make rewards contingent while enriching jobs. Job enrichment may involve changing the
structure of the organization and the supervisor's leadership style. He has discussed these issues in the light
of the contingency them, and the situational theory of leadership. He noted that the JCM has defined only
high group needs as mediating variables. On the contrary, other person-related variables such as, abilities of
the employees, social settings, locus of control, interpersonal relations were also found to mediate between
job characteristics and outcomes like satisfaction, absenteeism and performance.

New Strategy for Using the Job Characteristics Approach to Manage Organizational Stress

The failure of the job characteristics model to explain the variations in satisfaction and performance
may be attributed to two reasons. First, limitations of need theories to which expectancy theories belong and
from which the JCM has evolved. Second, expectancy theories are difficult to operationalize and the theory
becomes very complex quickly. Keeping these facts in view, Agrawal (1984) has suggested a new approach
to the job characteristics model which substantially benefited from the principles of socio-technical design
(Cherns, 1976) and action research perspective (Levin, 1951). The author has called this new strategy the
'Participative Job Characteristics Model'.

Cherns in his socio-technical design advocated the need for a constructive participative organization
if the system is to become capable of self-moderation, adaptive to change and effective in making use of the
capacities of its manpower. The only condition for this is that people should be 'given the opportunity to
participate in the design of the jobs they are to perform'. Second, the action research perspective suggests
that data derives its meaning in a 'given context' and hence, the client system should be employed in
interpreting and analyzing data. These underpinnings guided the author's new strategy to job design for
managing organizational stresses.
The salient aspects of the PJCM are as follows:
(a) People who evince an active interest in activities outside the work arena may not like
to spend their energies on work more than what is the minimum. required. If people are to
 experience a psychological state of 'being in control of the job', the onus or responsibility for
enriching the job should rest with them. In other words, the decision to participate in job
enrichment should be voluntary.

(b) An instrument-based prescription may recommend the need for job enrichment
irrespective of the employee's interest and commitment. In the new strategy, the Job
Diagnostic Survey (JDS) (Hackman and Oldham, 1975) is proposed to be used for data
collection only rather than for the complete process of data collection, diagnosis and
prescription.

(c) Data generated by the JDS should be reviewed in a participative setting by the
concerned employee and his/her superior. This will help in defining role expectations and
identifying stresses arising from the job. It will also be useful in taking into account the
abilities and expectations of the individual and, hence, in improving effort—performance
expectancy.

Thus, the participative approach may ensure a number of advantageous outcomes. The author
has categorized this into two groups. The first level outcome of the PJCM includes:
(a) congruence between the job and the individual characteristics,
(b) role clarity,
(c) increase in expectancy effort performance), and
(d) increase in expectancy (performance reward.

Similarly, the second level outcome includes (a) control of organizational stresses, (b)
improvement in productivity, and (c) improvement in matters of worker satisfaction, turnover,
absenteeism, etc.

Role Efficacy as a Reducer of Stress

Role based stresses not only affect the work environment adversely and increase general fatigue but also
reduce one's potential to perform effectively. They tend to prevent the person form using the available
resources effectively. Pareek (1998) has proposed the concept of role efficacy and advocated that if
organisations assist individuals in defining their roles, and if individuals are willing to share their concerns
through strategies, such as, proactivity, confrontation, developing helping relationship and creativity, then it
may be possible to reduce role based tension.
Role efficacy has 10 dimensions of organizational roles: centrality, integration, proactivity, creativity,
inter-role linkages, helping relationships, superordination, influence, growth and confrontation. There is
enough evidence to show that role efficacy is negatively and significantly related with the role stress and the
role efficacy seems to help in overcoming the experience of role stress (Pareek, 1993,1997).
Sayeed (1985) conducted a study to examine the concepts of work related stress and role efficacy in
a multivariate framework to find out whether increased role efficacy reduced job or work-related tension.
Findings of the study revealed that an individuals role making or proactive behaviour was greatly affected
by the degree of experienced tension on the job. Sayeed emphasized role intervention strategies to enhance
individual role efficacy, so that an individual could relate with the organisation in the role capacity as
effectively as possible. This, in turn, would reduce the stressful situation of the organisation. Pestonjee and
Pandey (1996) emphasized that there is a need for conducting role efficacy interventions to strengthen and
reinforce positive behaviours and weaken negative behaviours. Through training and counselling, it was
possible to bring about the required change in role perceptions. Thus above are the studies related to role
efficacy as a reducer of stress.
 In the light of these findings, certain observations for evolving a strategy to cope with stresses were
made. First, if the organizational health characteristics were evaluated more positively, it would help in
reducing job-related stress or even eliminate the conditions that arouse feelings of stress in role occupants.
Second, a lower degree of job-related tension had a non-significant relationship with organizational health
which acted as a stressor in the organization, as low degree stress is produced by lower degree of
organizational health. On the contrary, a reduction in stress may result in improved job performance
provided stress is reduced by introducing healthy organizational conditions. Last, control at the individual
level and correction at the organizational level of some work stress areas such as perceived career tension,
heavy workload, supervisory evaluation without feedback, availability of information, and decision making
may considerably reduce the experienced job stress.

2. What an Individual Can Do

When individuals experience stress, they adopt ways of dealing with it as they cannot remain in a continual
state of tension. We will call this coping. Kumar in his paper on Management of Executives identified four
steps to be taken by executives to develop skills to resolve stresses:
1. Experiencing stress.
2. Identification of possible strategies to resolve stress.
3. Selecting and executing a strategy.
4. If stress is not resolved, trying out some other strategy.

According to Kumar, the resolution of stress is more curative than preventive and helps the executive
to resolve stress after it has been experienced. On the contrary, management of stress is both preventive and
curative. He attempted to make the individual executive understand:- direct, control, predict and prevent
stress in his job.

Defining the concept of stress, he noted that “stress is an individual's awareness or feeling of
personal dysfunction as a result of perceived conditions associated with his work environment”.

Stress: Its Perception and Consequences

It is conceived that stress can be viewed both as a positive as well as a negative force. For example,
when the level of stress is low, an executive may perceive it as a natural force, if it is high, then as a negative
force. On the contrary, a moderate level of stress is normally perceived as a positive force because it
increases one's activation level. Moderate level of stress is believed to be associated with an increase in
productivity and performance, the ability to accept challenging tasks, an increase in physical and mental
vigour, motivation to perform better, etc.

On the other hand, excessive stress may negatively influence certain organizationally and
individually valued outcomes such as job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, voluntary turnover and job
performance.

Awareness of Being in a Stressful State

The experience of stress leads to some particular physiological, psychological and behavioural
changes in the individual, termed as `stress signals'. Depending on the intensity and frequency of these stress
signals, executives may be able to gauge the severity of stress associated with the job.

What Happens During a Stressful Situation

The term objective stress refers to the state of being exposed to a stressful situation. When an
executive is in this state, his first reaction is to perceive stress either as threatening his normal functioning or
he attaches no importance to it. There may be a number of factors such as personality disposition and
previous experience in a similar situation which may influence such a perception.
 `Fight or flight' is another term used to imply coping strategies developed by executives to cope with
experienced stress. During this state, an executive identifies the possible strategies, selects some of them and
implements them to reduce experienced stress.

Proneness to Experience Stress and its Identification

In a review of the literature, certain personality variables were found to be positively associated with
the experience of stress. For example, Type -A pattern of behavioural disposition is most associated with the
experience of stress whereas Type-B is least associated with stress Similarly, open-mindedness, need for
independence, need for affiliation and ego strength were found to be associated with experienced stress.
Executives experience a variety of stresses, including role ambiguity, role conflict, role overload,
personal inadequacy, resource inadequacy, role shrinkage, role stagnation and role isolation. Depending on
the level of these stresses experienced by executives, they may be categorized as eustress and distress. The
former is a moderate degree of stress and has a positive impact on work behaviour and health. On the
contrary, the latter is a high degree of stress and the executive may not, be capable of managing it
effectively. Hence, it adversely affects health and normal functioning.

Coping Mechanisms in Indian Managers

Sam Batlivala (1990) compared the stressors experienced by the Indian executive at the
organizational and at the personal level vis-a-vis his American counterpart. The sample comprising 230
senior executives working in banks, textile mills, pharmaceutical, engineering, electrical and petrochemical
industries had participated in a workshop on Management of Executives Stress and Role Effectiveness. The
executives identified 19 stressors at the organizational and 15 at the personal level. The data indicated that
these executives experienced more personal stressors than their American counterparts, but he two compared
fairly well on the organizational front.

Insubordination, inadequate training, housing, demanding spouses and in-laws, integrity, noisy
environment, and transfer of jobs were recognized as some of the typical stressors in Indian executives. The
typical coping strategies adopted by them were: The typical coping strategies adopted by Indian executives
included are : Critical analysis and recognition of problems, Yoga, Practising good management,
Sex, If under-rewarded – slow down and work in proportions, Go and talk to the boss/union,
Improve self-image, Unwinding and going on vacation, Overvalue outcome of others, Overvalue your
inputs, Maintain better family relationships, Use scientific methods, Be decisive, Acquire alternative
interests or start other business, Avoid confrontation, Trust in oneself, Acquire more qualifications, Use
better communication, If over-rewarded, increase output, Decrease your reward, Force him to leave, Change
the person with whom you are comparing, Undervaluing input of others, Resign.
Batlivala concluded that there is no one best stress reducing tech-nique and each person learns from
his/her own personal aperiena how to transform stress into an asset.