Introduction to Pressure and Stress

Pressure can be defined as the perceived burden of physical or mental distress and the constraint of circumstance. The perception of pressure is dependent on each individual and their mental state, in particular, their ability to cope. Stress is our mental state in response to pressure where we feel an inability to deliver and meet expectations.

The Impact of Stress and Pressure on Performance

Stress is due to the interaction between the individual and their environment. (Meichenbaum 1985). Two types of stressors may affect performance:

1. Primary stressors - arise from demands on the task, for example, blood obscuring the view of the airway preventing a doctor from operating. Primary stressors help increase arousal (defined as “a state in which you feel excited or very alert”: Source: Collinsdictoionary.com) to meet the challenge in front of you.
2. Secondary stressors are aspects of the situation unrelated to the challenge itself. For example, being afraid of failure, desire to perform well in front of others, or generally feeling ill-prepared. These are likely to impair performance due to unpredictability, are harder to control, and are unrelated to the task at hand. (Whitelock and Asken 2012)

Performing optimally under pressure can draw on two techniques:

1. Problem-focused techniques aim to manage negative emotions by addressing the underlying problem and are ideal in controllable situations.
2. Emotion-focused coping techniques manage emotions directly without addressing the underlying problem and are ideal when stressors are brief and controllable. (Driskell and Salas 2013; LeBlanc 2009).

The stress response is heavily influenced by how the situation is assessed by the individual (Kowalski-Trakofler et al 2003; Driskell and Salas 2013), based on:

1. Demands of the situation are what is required of us to achieve a goal.
2. Assessment of the resources, personal and environmental, available to achieve that goal.

With sufficient resources, the situation is seen as a challenge, and a positive psychologic state of ‘eustress’ (beneficial stress) ensues supporting optimal performance. If demands outweigh resources, the situation is seen as a threat, and a negative psychological state of ‘distress’ results in impairing performance.

The stress response is subjective and primarily based on the individual’s perception of the demands and resources. Any factor that increases perceived demands or decreases perceived resources increases the likelihood of a distress response. (Weisinger and PawliwFry 2015; LeBlanc 2009)

Succeed under pressure

Top performers need a certain level of pressure to create stress that lifts performance. The key is how to manage this state to help improve performance.

The ’Succeed Under Pressure’ framework is designed based on studying individuals and teams operating in high-pressure and emotional situations, such as professional sportspeople, accident and emergency doctors, and other performers. However, the lessons may be applied to any performance-related situation and are not limited to the professions listed.

People have different perspectives on success and this can mean different things to different people

Pressure can destroy the most talented and inspire the most average people. It manifests itself in different ways. Some people respond well to the intensity of the situation, others do not!

People have different perspectives on success and this can mean different things to different people. In all of the research the one consistent theme of “success” under “pressure” is the personal perspective. The key questions we ask are:

• What is our interpretation of the situation?
• How would we like to cope with the challenges?
• How do we cope with challenges?
• What do we perceive we are in control of?
• What are we actually in control of?
• Are we being true to ourselves?
• What does success mean to us?

The objectives of the Succeed Under Pressure framework are:

• Provide mind-based support for participants, to cope with high-pressure roles in testing and challenging environments.
• Develop personal mind-based skills to cope, and perform, at optimum levels in pressure situations.
• Provide tools and techniques for participants to have a happier life fulfilling their desires and make their dreams a reality.

The primary sources of pressure in the workplace as identified by research (Tytherleigh, Webb, Cooper, and Ricketts 2005) are:

• Work overload caused by unrealistic expectations and demands
• Poor relationships in the different environments people operate in
• Perceptions of control of multiple factors in the environment, particularly caused by the perceived lack of influence and consultation
• Job security Resources and communication to perform a job effectively
• Role ambiguity within the organization that people primarily operate in
• Overall Work/ life balance

To perform, individuals at their best, have to ”own the pressure”

The performance will depend on the degree to which an individual ‘owns the pressure’. This is well demonstrated by the curve above, which is adapted from Yerkes-Dodson Law first observed in 1908. The key to owning the pressure is:

• Working with a manageable amount of pressure
• Being challenged
• Being motivated by what they are doing because of interest and the challenge provided
• Feeling mentally and physically well

Too much pressure, where the individual no longer ‘owns the pressure’ will likely lead to burnout and, subsequently, is likely to be stressed.

Being under-challenged, or ‘rust out’ as shown in the performance curve, comes from not being under enough pressure. Consequently, people feel bored, disinterested, and disengaged, which hurts performance.

Success is defined as “having achieved and accomplished an aim or objective.”

The performance will depend on the degree to which an individual ‘owns the pressure’

Being successful means the achievement of desired visions and planned goals. However, the challenge in many cases is that success is not defined by the individual, but by a third party. This may also be because the individual has not realized the extent to which they can negotiate the aim or objective and also the degree to which they possess the self-awareness to know what they are capable of achieving. Consequently, this leads to a lack of ownership and belief, in the aim or objective. In addition, aims and objectives are not set at an appropriate level providing a feeling of failure on the lack of delivery, as opposed to a mindset of growth and learning from having attempted a challenging goal but not achieved it. This growth or learning mindset maintains a positive mindset that ensures the individual continues to move up the performance ladder.

What makes an optimal performer?

Sport is a great environment to help us understand what characteristics make a top performer. Various studies identify many traits that are features of top performers from different backgrounds. Experience has shown the key characteristics of top performers are:

1. Accountability Star performers take responsibility for their decisions and performance.
2. Learning Performers learn their craft correctly, are prepared to learn from others, and possess a growth mindset
3. Driven performers possess both an inner desire to succeed and a winning mentality
4. Natural goal-setter performers are comfortable, and need, to set improving targets for everything they do
5. Resilience performers are prepared to make mistakes, and fail and have the ability to learn from these setbacks
6. Embrace pressure performers are at their best under pressure.

Key influencers of how we respond to pressure

Four ‘influencers’ impact performance under pressure. These are:

• Skill Level. For a person to perform at their peak it requires them to possess a certain degree of skill and to have developed the attribute to perform to a certain level. The skill also has to be honed so it can be as instinctive as possible (the unconscious competence stage of the Kolb Learning Cycle) allowing maximum benefit from creative exploration and testing.
• Personality. An individual’s personality also plays a key role in performance. This is not to say one particular form of personality is better than another, but these may impact outcomes in different ways, depending on the situation. There does not appear to be any conclusive evidence to suggest different personality types have a direct impact on performance, but they will affect the way you develop and respond to pressure situations.
• State and Trait Anxiety. Anxiety is a response during situations of uncertainty and high threat that are characterized by apprehension and increased awareness. ’State anxiety’ is the psychological and physiological responses to adverse situations at a certain moment of time, and is thus seen as temporary. ’Trait anxiety’ refers to the stable tendency to handle negative emotions such as fears, worries, and anxiety across different situations. A trait tends to be a more stable and enduring characteristic or pattern of behavior. Trait anxiety is representative of a person’s self-talk and also their level of self-confidence.
• Task Complexity. Task complexity reflects the level of attention and effort that people have to put into a task in order to complete it successfully.

The Succeed Under Pressure Framework

The Succeed Under Pressure framework attempts to provide, and develop, some of the skills needed to help individuals answer these questions, and thus perform at their peak.

The diagram below provides a diagrammatic overview of the framework

Pressure is a term taken from kinetic theory and is defined in engineering terms as “continuous physical force exerted on or against an object by something in contact with it.” In leadership and management terms, pressure can be increased by applying a larger force, in terms of the key factors that affect a specific individual, or by increasing the perceived impact of the outcome. Pressure as mentioned earlier is different to stress as it represents the external force, whereas stress is the individual mental response to pressure.

The self-awareness to actually know what they are capable of achieving

To ‘own the pressure’, we need to know what is its source. what type of pressure is it? how much pressure we are experiencing? Another key concept that can be taken from engineering is the concept of FLOW. In engineering, pressure has an impact on fluid flow. Similarly, in the case of human performance FLOW is affected by the individual’s perception of pressure, and the human response in terms of focus and attention, to reach optimal performance. It is the energy and focus that delivers continuous high-level performance.

Factors affecting FLOW

Flow is a state of optimal performance where the individual is fully immersed through concentration and engagement in the activity leading to an emotional state of ecstasy. The activity being undertaken is challenging and stimulating for the individual as they are optimizing and advancing their skills and capability.

Having established the importance of understanding pressure and its impact on FLOW, we now need to take a few more concepts from engineering to understand how we achieve optimal flow in terms of succeeding under pressure.

To ‘own the pressure’, we need to know what is its source. what type of pressure is it?

Firstly, it is important to understand what level of pressure we are experiencing. A pressure-monitoring system is used to help us understand the level of pressure that exists in the environment that an individual or team is operating in. Ideally, a specific measuring framework would be useful, but it is difficult to quantify in a psychological setting. The measurements may be subjective but can still prove to be very useful by drawing comparisons with different situations. A greater range of experiences helps us improve our assessment of the level of pressure that exists. By assessing the level of pressure we are able to determine if we possess the skills and ability, and also how we can manage the four influencers to help us achieve optimal performance. By understanding the level of pressure we are also able to apply the correct amount and balance of influencers to impact performance. The benefit of this is that we do not over-exert ourselves when we do not need to. This ultimately aids recovery and ensures we are ready to perform the next time.

The following flowchart shows the various stages leadership needs to go through to understand the impact of pressure on our teams as a whole and what decisions need to be taken.

Similarly, there is a corresponding flowchart for every performer to help them achieve optimal performance levels.

The role of the pressure pump is to increase the pressure level to ensure the level of flow is maintained. As demonstrated in the Yerkes-Dodson Model, the right amount of pressure is key to performance. If there is not sufficient pressure then the role of the pump is to increase the pressure level, and if there is too much pressure then we need to use the pressure control valve to release some pressure.

In engineering, the level of pressure safely withstood by some form of piping needs to be known before being exposed to the real world. Similarly, different people will respond to pressure in different ways and it is important to understand what pressure levels can be withstood by different team members. To understand this level pressure tests are performed. Similarly, this is important in coaching and team-based environments.

The three key stages of the pressure management process are:

1. Pressure testing. Leading a team effectively demands knowing the boundaries of performance of the team, under challenging and pressured circumstances. Often, leaders leave this purely to chance, adopting a sink-or-swim mentality. An effective way of managing this process is to understand, and coach the team, on how to handle pressure by observing how they react to different levels of pressure under more controlled scenarios. Pressure testing adopts an approach focusing on real-life situations, but where the level of risk is manageable and appropriate for specific individuals in the team. Leaders also need to be able to coach team members to enable them to perform at their optimal level, under different circumstances.
2. Pressure monitoring. Monitoring and understanding the level of pressure being perceived by team members requires an appreciation of the capabilities and personalities of team members. Through monitoring, leaders are able to assess how the performance level of their team members is being affected by perceived pressure.
3. Pressure control. This assessment through monitoring will determine the nature of leadership intervention. Does the pressure need to be controlled by releasing pressure or pumping pressure?

Tools used in the Pressure management process

• Pressure testing

• Pressure monitoring

• Pressure control

• Pressure release valve

• Pressure pump