Is Work Killing You?

by David Posen MD

Overview

From the bestselling author of Authenticity and The Little Book of Stress Relief comes the definitive guide to treating — and eliminating — excessive stress in the workplace.

Dr. David Posen, a popular speaker and a leading expert on stress mastery, identifies the three biggest problems that contribute to burnout and low productivity: Volume, Velocity, and Abuse. He shares revealing anecdotes and offers clear descriptions of the biology of stress to illustrate how downsizing, economic uncertainty, and technology have made the workplace more toxic than ever. Most importantly, he offers practical advice and easy techniques for managing the harmful symptoms and side effects of stress.

Witty, engaging, and accessible, Is Work Killing You? touches on everything from meetings to tweeting, from fake work to face time, from deadlines to dead tired, and more. With this book, Dr. Posen gives us the tools to stop harming our most valuable resource — ourselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770892750
Publisher:	House of Anansi Press
Publication date:	02/02/2013
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

David Posen, M.D., is a physician, popular speaker, and the bestselling author of The Little Book of Stress Relief, which sold more than 50,000 copies and has been translated into five languages.

Table of Contents

Preface: Why I Wrote This Book 1

Introduction: Workplace Stress - Setting the Context

Defining the Problem 9

What Is Stress and How Do You Know When You Have It? 13

Why Should You Care? Why Is This Important? 17

The Futility of UAU: When Good Stress Becomes Bad Stress 23

Six Degrees of Stress: Everyone's a Victim 28

Sources of Stress: The Big Three 34

Section 1 Volume: The Factors that Contribute to Overload and What Can Be Done About It

Chapter 1 What Tips Us Over: The Causes of Overload 45

Chapter 2 Too Few Hands to Share the Load 55

Chapter 3 The Elephant in the Room: The Conspiracy of Silence 62

Chapter 4 Belief Systems and Changing the Corporate Zeitgeist 74

Chapter 5 The Fallacy of Face Time: Performance Measurement Has to Change 82

Chapter 6 The Lunacy of Long Hours and the Need to "Work Fresh" 87

Chapter 7 The Slippery Slope to Burnout 102

Chapter 8 Where's Your Sweet Spot? The Zone for Optimal Performance 114

Chapter 9 Fake Work and Spinning Wheels; Prioritizing and Letting Stuff Go 121

Chapter 10 Slicing Up the Corporate Pie; Restoring the Basic Bargain 130

Section 2 Velocity: How to Navigate the World of Work When the Pace is Faster than Ever

Chapter 11 Unrealistic Expectations: The Mind Trap That Fuels the Treadmill 113

Chapter 12 Realistic Expectations: Training Your Clients and Customers 155

Chapter 13 The Myth of Multi-tasking; Single-tasking and Focus 160

Chapter 14 Timeouts: The Pause That Refreshes 166

Chapter 15 Overuse and Misuse of Technology and How to Tame It 174

Chapter 16 Meetings; The Need for a New Meetings Manifesto 191

Chapter 17 Bureaucracy and Red Tape: Bumps on the Road to Productivity 199

Chapter 18 The Work-Life Interface: Balance or Blending? 204

Chapter 19 Health Habits and the Staggering Cost of Self-Neglect 216

Section 3 Abuse: What to Do When the People You Work with are Your Biggest Source of Stress

Chapter 20 Identifying and Dealing with Problem People 225

Chapter 21 People Don't Leave Jobs, They Leave Bosses 241

Chapter 22 The Games People Play: Office Politics 256

Chapter 23 The Keys to Employee Engagement and Stress Reduction 261

Chapter 24 The Obsession With Numbers 274

Chapter 25 Does It All Have to Be About Money? Must the Rich be Filthy Rich? 279

Conclusion: Prevention

Pay Now or Pay Later: Prevention Is the Best (and Cheapest) Cure 289

What Companies Can Do to Decrease Workplace Stress 295

What Managers and Leaders Can Do 303

Throttling Back to Move Ahead: It's Time to Recalibrate 308

Who Will Lead the Charge for Change? Who Will Bell the Cat? 312

Wrapping Up and Moving Forward 321

Acknowledgements 327

Appendices 331

Resources 341

Illustration Credits 350

Index 351

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Dr. Posen's work could not be more timely. As people create and manage projects and organizations of ever-increasing complexity, it is more clear than ever that we needed rested, clear heads to make critical decisions. Stress, fatigue, and cognitive overload put all of that at risk and are invariably implicated in all kinds of industrial disasters, from refinery fires to financial crises. We won't make our world safer until we learn to manage our work and ourselves better.” — Margaret Heffernan, author of Willfull Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril

Editorial Reviews

If you don’t want your tombstone to read “death by stress,” the latest book from Posen (after The Little Book of Stress Relief) may have the right remedies for you and your workplace. Posen makes a sound, compelling case for active stress reduction at work, due to concerns such as inefficiency, depression, and increased risk of heart disease and stroke. After defining stress, explaining why it’s damaging, and identifying its main sources, Posen distills the common stressors into three main categories, dubbing them “the Big Three”. He then devotes the body of the book to discussing each one individually, delving into the problems and some possible solutions. The first section covers work volume. The second is about velocity, or the speed at which the workplace and the world of work run. The third discusses abuse, positing that people can create stress just as much as circumstances can. The book is replete with charts, graphs, and diagrams illustrating concepts such as the path to burnout and proper work-life balance. Some of the surprisingly straightforward ideas Posen mentions, such as sending fewer e-mails to receive fewer e-mails, can easily be implemented on a personal level, though this book is primarily aimed at changing the workplace, not the worker. Above all, it’s a call for radical change in corporate culture. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

As I was reading Is Work Killing You?, there was one question that kept popping into mind: why isn’t this book taught in school? You’ll ask yourself that, too, because Posen makes many good points for employees and business owners alike...Posen offers pages and pages of ideas meant to make the business world better, do-able from dual sides of the paycheck.

The Augusta Chronicle - Terri Schlichenmeyer

You'll ask yourself that, too, as you devour this common-sense, how-to, rant-slash-advice book because Posen makes many good points for employees and business owners alike. In making those arguments, he underscores his research by sharing dozens of anecdotes from his patients and others, and some of them are jaw-droppingly uncomfortable to read. Posen doesn't leave us hanging on those squirmy details for long, though; he offers pages and pages of ideas meant to make the business world better, doable from dual sides of the paycheck. This is one of those books that could potentially benefit anyone who works for a living, and I'm excited to finally see this topic tackled.

Inside Business

...solid advice for anyone who wants to transform their current workplace, or is looking for new employment.

Winnipeg Free Press - Deborah Bowers

Dr. Posen's work could not be more timely. As people create and manage projects and organizations of ever-increasing complexity, it is more clear than ever that we needed rested, clear heads to make critical decisions. Stress, fatigue, and cognitive overload put all of that at risk and are invariably implicated in all kinds of industrial disasters, from refinery fires to financial crises. We won't make our world safer until we learn to manage our work and ourselves better.” — Margaret Heffernan, author of Willfull Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril

From the Publisher