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Tried and true stress remedies rule

By dmc-admin

Published: November 2, 2007 at 1:00 am

Joan Koerber-Walker, executive director of the Arizona Small Business Association, keeps a Tiffany whiskey set on her desk. “Since I don’t drink, it’s full of holiday M&Ms candies,” says Koerber-Walker. When ASBA staffers get stressed out from servicing their 3,000-plus membership, “we hit the M&Ms bottle,” laughs Koerber-Walker.
Although Koerber-Walker gets a few chuckles from her preferred stress reduction method, dealing with stress isn’t a laughing matter. Studies ranging over decades point to many health woes related to allowing stress to dominate workers’ lives. One of the most recent studies, conducted in 2003 by GLS Consulting of Boston and WorldWIT of Boulder, Colo., an online networking site for women, found that 63 percent of working women felt emotionally sapped by their careers due to stress.
The study also noted that job losses, especially in the high-tech sector, have led to more women becoming entrepreneurs. The U.S. Department of Labor Statistics notes that, in 2002, women were four times more likely to start a business than men. With more women becoming top policy-makers in Arizona and the state’s large proportion of small businesses, women are feeling more stressed than ever.
Family time
However, women who help shape policy in Arizona have some major support mechanisms. One powerful support team is one of the oldest: family. Patti Hibbeler, chief executive officer of the Phoenix Indian Center (PIC) and an advocate for Arizona tribes and “urban” Indians, typically puts in a 60-hour workweek. Hibbeler, a member of Montana’s Confederated Salish and Kootanai tribes says that just being with her 10-year-old son Hawk helps her decompress.
“When I’m not at work, I focus on my family,” says Hibbeler. “I also use the power of positive thinking and prayer to help me cope with the stress of managing both PIC and engaging in a $4 million capital campaign.”
PIC recently partnered with Native American Connections, a substance abuse treatment and prevention firm and Native American Community Health Center to purchase and remodel a six-story building on North Central Avenue. The three non-profits are still raising money to pay off the mortgage and make other repairs to the building, which the consortium purchased for $7 million in January 2006. “If that’s not stress, I don’t know what is!” says Hibbeler.
GLS’s study found that this old-fashioned remedy is used by most working women. “Seventy-four percent of women said they cope with stress by turning to their families and relationships,” wrote GLS Principal Mindy Gerwitz.
Another soldier in the war on stress: effective teamwork. Koerber-Walker, of ASBA, manages membership services for her clients, including networking and professional development seminars, speaks to many outside groups on small business’ power to invigorate communities, promotes ASBA’s small group insurance program and manages her staff. Yet it’s evident she still possesses a powerful positive streak. “One really nice thing is that we have such a great team here that our stress is decreased,” says Koerber-Walker. “We have a team of 15 people statewide that helps us be more effective by reaching out.”
Ask for help
Koerber-Walker also says that women engaged in developing policy shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help. “You can’t be Super Woman, you can’t do it all,” she says. “If it’s not done at the end of the day, it’ll be there tomorrow.”
Koerber-Walker recommends managing what creates stress and diverting it by forming partnerships. “We partner with SCORE,” she says. “We work with the Small Business Development Centers in Tucson, as well as with micro business generators. We all share a passion for small business, and you can’t believe how much this decreases stress!”
Hibbeler also touts sharing the load. The three non-profits worked together to form a “one-stop” center for American Indians who come to town in search of work, job training, substance abuse treatment or for a new life, she says. “We used to be scattered across Central Phoenix,” says Hibbeler. “Now, if a native person walks into the ground floor of our native American Community Service Center, he or she is immediately offered a range of services all under the same roof.” The three firms also merged their information technology and human resources functions, which saves money and contributes to more effective service delivery, she notes.
The GLS study offered some other ways that public policy executives, as well as their private sector counterparts, can reduce stress for both themselves and their staff:
• “It is useful to think of stress as being generated as the result of feeling helpless or powerless to deal with actual or potential threats,” wrote Gerwitz. Executives can mitigate stress by ensuring that they and their people have choices, that they can make a difference, and can influence various aspects of their environments. “Empowering people, and giving them as much safety, rhythm, and predictability as possible inside the workplace will tend to protect them from stress-inducing circumstances and events,” Gerwitz noted.
• Relationships help people cope with stress both at home and in the workplace, stated Gerwitz, and executives can make use of this fact. They can encourage the establishment of solid, open working relationships in the workplace. “Such relationships are very helpful to people,” wrote Gerwitz, “and they can contribute to knowledge sharing and creative problem solving, which are good for the organization.”
• Because relationships are important in people’s lives, companies can encourage sensible work-life balance, and ensure that people have time and opportunity for their families and non-work social relationships, the study found.
Whether a public policy leader copes with stress by exercise, strong family ties, partnering with other people or firms or simply keeping chocolate on the desk, it’s apparent that Arizona’s female policy wonks are doing a great job of dealing with that age-old bugaboo, stress.

ARIZONA LEGISLATIVE REPORT

Tried and true stress remedies rule

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