Stress Management towards Effective Problem Solving
■ Mayur Kalbag is a Leadership Coach, Corporate Trainer & Author who regulalry does corporate training in Fiji. This will be his regular column in our Jobs section on Saturdays providing readers some useful tips. He can be contacted via email: mayurkalbag@ hotmail.com
It was almost 11 pm and as I was getting ready to go to bed I received a phone call. It was one of my colleagues and he was sounding tense. “Hey Sunil, what happened? Is everything okay? You normally would not call me this late ever!” I said to him. “Mayur, I am really stressed” he said. “Stressed about what? I asked. “Boss has asked me travel to our branch office to meet some clients and resolve some issues. I have been told that these clients have been extremely upset with our after-sale services. I really am stressed because I don’t know how they will react when they meet me. I am not sure what to do especially because we actually have made some mistakes in providing them with proper service. I called you to ask you if you can join me tomorrow as that will help me to ease my tension. The thought of facing these clients tomorrow is making me extremely stressed and I am unable to even sleep”. Sunil was sounding fearful about meeting these clients in the knowledge that he will be surely shouted at and told off by them. I understood his situation. “Don’t worry my friend, I will join you tomorrow for the meeting but only on one condition, you must go and get a good night’s rest. By thinking about these clients right now and get stressed is not going to change the situation” I hoped my words made him understand. The next day I travelled with him to the branch office and as we entered I noticed that there were some people waiting for us. They seemed very impatient and upset. I saw Sunil getting very nervous and stressed. His facial expressions said it all. One of the clients started yelling at us telling us about how bad our services were. I realized that they had to be calmed down. “Sir, I have already solved your situation and will explain to you if you will be kind enough to give me the opportunity. I know you all are very upset and I can totally empathize with your situation. Sunil, my colleague has been the one who has resolved your situation” The moment I sais this Sunil looked at me with a facial expression that said, “Really!” “First, let us sit in the meeting room and have some coffee as I have missed my morning coffee” As I said all this I began to see them calming down. We went inside the meeting room and began our conversation. I told them about the fact that there were mistakes from our side and that we were taking steps to improve on them. “Dear respected Sirs, you all are our most esteemed clients and we will always be aiming at providing the best sales and service, but I also know that you have been upset due to some issues. I therefore wish to let you now that I have had a discussion with my boss this morning and we have decided to replace all faulty products with new ones. We will also will be providing you the after-sales service completely free for the next one year. We believe that mistakes have happened from our side and we will make all the efforts to resolve them at the earliest” Saying this I along with Sunil thanked them for their time and especially their support. For the first time the four clients smile. “Mr Kalbag and Mr. Sunil, we were very upset with the lack of response from your After-Sales service people from this particular branch. Having said this I must say that you and Sunil have taken the effort to personally meet us and not just resolve the issues but even offer us free after sale service for a year. Thank you” Saying this they left. That day Sunil and I went out for dinner. I wanted to share a few important things with him. “Dear Sunil, last night you were extremely stressed and nervous that you even lost your sleep over this issue. By you getting stressed would the problem be resolved. Remember stress will only make the situation worse not just for you but also for your team, your colleagues and especially your clients. What is important is to understand that getting stressed about certain negative situations is very natural but what is more important is how quickly and swiftly we reduce this stress and not let it affect us. The more we get stressed the less we are able to think positively about solving problems and resolving issues! Dear Sunil, after my conversation with you last night I opened my laptop and studied all the emails that some these clients had sent about their issues. Based on this I looked at some solutions for them and after a brief discussion with boss this morning I was ready. You allowed the situation to stress you too much and hence all you were seeing was a problem and not the solution” I could see that Sunil had understood my point of view. “Hey Mayur, can you tell me how really could I manage or reduce stress?” In my next column I will highlight on some of the effective ways to reduce or manage stress and generate more positivity.