Another Stress Book

The negative effects of stress have challenged people for a long, long time. For years, psychologists have endeavored to offer advice and assistance to those coping with personal and professional issues. For obvious reasons, many counselors, consultants, and trainers have focused on managing stress at work. Employers want smooth operations without the potential serious consequences of stress-induced problems. Careers have been destroyed by inabilities to deal with the ongoing changes in business.

I opened this book with an expectation that I might find some new secrets...perhaps a whole new approach to how workers-individually and collectively-could function much differently. What I found was another book on stress. Others may see some new ideas, but I've read a lot in this field so my expectations are probably higher than the average reader.

The text is organized to explain resilience-essentially having the inner strength to cope because you're doing a good job at managing change. The authors describe this as developing hardiness, the foundation of their Hardiness Institute. The book reports on a 12-year longitudinal study of employees at Illinois Bell Telephone. The stress of all the change over the years caused the departure or failure of two-thirds of the workers. The survivors practiced effective stress management techniques. The keys they promote include approaching change as a challenge, developing sound problem-solving strategies, resolving conflicts, and building commitment.

Readers will find an abundance of case studies that make points for the authors, teaching techniques and offering examples to stimulate thought.


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Hardiness Works

What a delightful read! I have been through the Hardiness Training as a student of the authors and am now trained to provide the program to others. This book is a wonderful guide on how to apply the techniques in the workplace; quite timely considering we're all in a world of constant change. The use of real-life examples of resilient and non-resilient individuals was very clever. A brillantly written book and a truly wonderful legacy for Dr. Maddi and Dr. Khoshaba to give to the world!

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Learn hardiness from the master

RESILIENCE AT WORK shows how to learn the core elements of hardiness that Salvadore Maddi identified in his classic research project at Illinois Bell Telephone twenty years ago. Maddi and Khoshaba explain that "the key to resilience is hardiness," and then show readers how to develop the three core hardiness attitudes:
* commitment
* control
* challenge

To these. they add two vital skills: transformational coping and social support.

RESILIENCE AT WORK reflects decades of practical experience teaching hardiness skills in corporate settings. Many real-life examples illustrate the points. A concluding chapter provides companies with guidelines for improving worker resiliency.


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