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Aim for a calmer heart rate
A new client wanted Chelsea Ryckis herself for something coming up, even though she knew others on her team could handle it. She showed up the way the client expected and needed her to, while someone else on the team did all the work of solving the problem behind the scenes. She coached that person, brought in another coach for an additional perspective, and mostly received updates. It was a middle ground.
The employee kept coming back to ask what she thought about it, and she kept asking what they thought. That is a method of coaching, aimed at the employee developing through the problem.
The reactivity is still something she is figuring out. She goes through seasons where an email from a tricky client does not raise her heart rate and she is not hunched over her computer all day. Then other seasons arrive with the same her and the same resources, even though life is usually better than before. She prefers the word integrated to balanced.
How does coaching with questions build employees?
Google's Project Oxygen, an internal study begun in 2008, analyzed performance reviews and employee feedback to find what made managers effective. Being a good coach ranked first among the eight behaviors it identified. Those behaviors included giving specific feedback and supporting each person's development. The project's list was later expanded to ten behaviors.
Where did the phrase work-life balance come from?
The phrase work-life balance appeared in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and came into wide use in the United States in the 1980s. Critics have long argued that the word balance implies two competing sides. In a 2018 interview, Jeff Bezos said he preferred the phrase work-life harmony.
Why does chronic stress wear down the body?
Neuroscientist Bruce McEwen and Eliot Stellar introduced the term allostatic load in 1993. Allostasis means the body maintaining stability by changing, such as raising heart rate and stress hormones in response to demands. The load is the cumulative wear from repeated or prolonged activation of those systems. McEwen described the stress hormone cortisol as protective in the short term and damaging when it stays elevated.
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