Effective Problem-solving and Decision-making under Pressure

High-pressure environments can be hard on professional relationships. You can so easily get caught up with a major project or looming deadline that your interpersonal skills slip. Under pressure, you may start to make instinctive emotional reactions as your awareness of others' feelings fades.

In order to maintain the highest level of performance, it's important to understand and control your own reactions to pressure and to handle the effects of pressure on colleagues. There are many circumstances where interactions with colleagues can generate pressure.

To perform well under pressure you need to think sufficiently about what needs to be done, but not fall into the trap of overthinking your performance. Similarly, you should have confidence in your abilities and knowledge, but not to the point where your arrogance impairs your judgment.

Overconfidence leads people to underestimate challenges and fail to ask whether their skills, experience, and knowledge are sufficient to accomplish the task at hand. An example of an overconfident response is refusing to consider alternatives to opinions and decisions.

The stress you feel in a situation can be influenced by how you interpret the situation. When you perceive a situation negatively, you may perform below your ability. To help you perceive a situation more clearly, you can follow a four-step method.

The next step is to determine what exactly needs to be accomplished. This allows you to minimize emotional distractions and focus on dealing with the situation. Finally, this clarifies your priorities and, when others are involved, helps to establish a common understanding of the issue.

To take action in high pressure situations, you need to first make sure you've optimized how you look at the challenge. This means asking whether your perception may be distorted by emotion and revising any thoughts that are obscured. Then you should clarify what the real challenge is.

The second step of the method for taking action is to identify your goal. To help identify it, ask "What do I need to achieve?" You need to be clear about the challenge, and what kind of solution is acceptable, before you can prescribe any actions.

Once you've decided on a solution, the final step is to design a plan of action to implement the solution you've chosen. The first thing you should do is divide what needs to be done into manageable tasks or steps that can be accomplished with relative ease. This can help to keep you from being overwhelmed by the pressure, or becoming paralyzed by over-analysis.

Many stress-induced reactions are driven by automatic thoughts linked to emotions. By learning to recognize these kinds of thought distortions, you can optimize your responses to high-pressure situations.

This course sets out some principles to help you avoid the dangers of overconfidence and overthinking, which can impair your performance when under pressure. It then teaches a technique for clarifying your perceptions in such situations and creating an action plan to optimize your performance under pressure.

High-pressure environments can be hard on professional relationships. You can so easily get caught up with a major project or looming deadline that your interpersonal skills slip. Under pressure, you may start to make instinctive emotional reactions as your awareness of others' feelings fades. But, to be as effective as possible, you need the support of others, and high-pressure situations are no exception.

Pressure-induced stress can cause behaviors that create tension in the workplace if they're not managed properly. Typical reactions include irritability, lashing out in anger, actively avoiding people, or vocally being hypercritical of others. In pressure situations, the preferred action is to remain calm, professional, and deal with the issue assertively.

For the vast majority of people, work involves interaction with others, which means that good working relationships are indispensable to good performance. But pressure is also an inescapable aspect of work, and pressure can cause relationships to suffer.

Pressure isn't always bad. In fact, some pressure is desirable; it generates action. In some circumstances it enhances performance – like an athlete getting psyched up for a race. In the workplace, pressure can bring members of a team closer, focusing the team on a common objective and producing feelings of camaraderie when all are sharing the same pressures. However, it's important to understand how pressure can have negative impacts.

An individual's response to pressure may be rooted in that individual's work style. Of course, a preference for one style doesn't mean an individual won't adopt another style under different circumstances. Furthermore, an individual's response to pressure situations will vary depending on his or her ability to cope with different kinds of pressure.

Access the learning aid Work Style Behaviors to review the four styles.

In order to perform effectively with others who are under pressure in the workplace, you must manage your own reactions to pressure. If you don't manage your reactions to pressure well, you may fall into a trap of negative interactions with others. For example, in a stressful situation, you may become irritable, tactless, or uncooperative toward colleagues.

One of the most difficult interpersonal challenges in the workplace is dealing constructively with other people when they're reacting to stress. There are guidelines to help you deal with such situations. First, always show respect to others. Second, learn to detect stress in others. Third, avoid getting hooked by the other person's behavior. And last, don't try to block a person from using their automatic stress-reducing mechanisms.

The third guideline to help you deal with stressed colleagues is to avoid getting hooked by their stressed behavior. One way to do this is to reframe your thinking. For example, rather than focusing on your dislike of the behavior the other is exhibiting, realize what lies behind it. You'll generally find that the person has experienced an enormous buildup of pressure that's causing them to react in this way.

The fourth guideline to help you deal with stressed colleagues is to avoid blocking automatic stress- reducing mechanisms. If you do this – say, you tell someone to calm down – you're more likely to prolong the stress reaction.

Unpleasant interactions with colleagues are a typical source of pressure in the workplace. It's likely that you have encountered a situation recently that you wish you'd handled differently. Even if you have exceptional people skills, you'll still come across challenging people in the work environment from time to time – whether it's a colleague, superior, or client.

You can use a four-step technique to help you manage negative interactions at work. First, monitor your feelings and tendencies toward instinctive responses to pressure. Then, use a diversion – such as a brisk walk – to avoid obsessing about the situation. Next, replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Finally, prepare to interact positively.

The second step for handling stressful interactions is to use a diversion – if required. A diversion could be taking a brisk walk, deep breathing, listening to music, or engaging in some routine task. This helps block negative tendencies to dwell on the situation. It also prevents you from exaggerating the problem further or becoming even more stressed. A diversion also creates some distance between you and the stressful situation, and gives you space to calmly work out your response.

The final step for handling stressful interactions is to prepare to interact positively. If you let yourself get into a negative frame of mind about an interaction, that interaction is much less likely to be successful. Start by clarifying what's emotionally challenging about the interaction. For example, if you're unable to complete a task, you may be afraid that your manager will become irritable.

Course wrap up and conclusions

Proposes an effective problem-solving model and details the approach to problem-solving

Presents the techniques and steps of effective problem-solving.

Helps you recognize the effects of five types of mind traps.

Details the five types of mind traps and gives you the opportunity to practice.

Presents the techniques for dealing with problem-solving mind traps.

Presenting process barriers in problem-solving.

Introduces a framework for developing problem-solving competencies.

Developing and using skills for problem-solving theory and practice.

Gives an overview of the decision-making section, introduces a decision-making model and defines terminology used in the course.

Present the context and importance of effective decision-making.

Introduce an effective decision-making process and its components.

Detail the steps of the decision-making process.

Present four decision-making styles and personal prefferences in decision-making.

Detailed presentation and practice on the 4 decision-making styles.

Influential factors in decision-making.

What factors to take into consideration to choose the style that suits the situation.

Practice adapting decision-making style to specific time, experience and importance of decision.

Overview of decision-making tools and techniques and of the section.

Detail the steps of an optimal decision making process

Present and practice the nominal group technique of decision-making.

Discuss and practice the return on investment tool of decision-making.

Describe and practice the Devil's Advocate Technique of decision-making.

Present and practice PMI Analysis, and Ease-and-effect matrix, as tools of decision-making

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