FREE SAMPLE OF SUCCESS UNDER STRESS 111I magine a person who responds to daily challenges and minor
emergencies by thinking only of short-term solutions instead of look-
ing at what’s best for the future. Unable to see new approaches or new
opportunities, he looks only to the past for solutions. He focuses on
the problem, not the whole picture. He overreacts; he stresses over
how a situation could possibly go wrong, keeping himself anxious
and on guard.
If you had such an employee, you wouldn’t look to him or her
for innovations, would you? And in fact, that employee might not
last long with you. Yet, what I just described is a typical stress-system
response, left unchecked. Without knowing it, our response to daily
stressful events may keep us stuck handling challenges the same way,
day after day, thereby preventing us from reaching our next level of
success. Clearly, if we don’t do something proactively to achieve Suc-
cess Under Stress, we might never have it.
Of course, we want better control over how we respond—we
want to respond thoughtfully, not reactively. And, in a manner that’s
future oriented. We want to build value for a long-term benefit—not1
From Survival Under Stress
to Success Under StressM
American Management Association / http://www.amanet.org