Over the years many models have been proposed to try to define and explain stress, but a common feature is a reliance on capacity.  So-called life-event scales, for example, assume a capacity for coping which is exceeded when someone is exposed to a sufficient number of events.  The approach was refined by adding ‘readjustment scores’ to the events, but to no avail: the life-event approach not only completely fails to explain stress, it also misleads people into thinking that events are somehow inherently stressful.  Other models have relied on materials science, using concepts of strain and stress, but since coping is fundamentally influenced by emotion, inert materials are no model at all.  Others again have spoken about coping resources being exceeded by demand, another mechanical view which explains very little.

Business is based on competition, and it is the choice between competitors that benefits consumers by keeping prices down.  Monopolies can charge whatever the market will bear, which is why most governments have mechanisms to control monopolies.

At the beginning of September I had the great pleasure and privilege of again being able to contribute a talk about my work to the annual HRINZ conference in Wellington. The theme for the conference this year was ‘Regaining the Trust’, but to regain trust it must once have existed. My experience is that in many cases there never has been any trust to regain. However, the problem is rarely company-wide; rather, there are teams in all companies where there is trust and others where there isn’t. 

During the 1950s and 60s two US Naval surgeons noticed a relationship between the number of things that had happened to people and their tendency to become ill. The relationship is in fact negligible, but based on dubious psychological science these observations were formalised as life-event scales – lists of things that might have happened to you, and the task is to tick all of the ones that have actually happened to you over the past say 6 months. The more ticks the more stressed you’re supposed to be.

We generally attach relaxation to particular times, such as weekends or the summer holiday. If you only relax on these occasions then the rest of the time (in other words, most of your life) you must be tense. Unfortunately relaxing is often confused with being laid back, and that usually implies not working efficiently. So we end up ‘thinking in twos’ – I’m either relaxed or I’m tense. The solution is not to find some mid-point between them but to have a third point, which is best described as being alert.