Workplace Strategies Watercooler 2025: Mental Health Matters—Managing Issues at Work

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John Stretton: Hi, this is John Stretton and Maria Danaher. We’re here live from Workplace Strategies 2025 in Las Vegas. Maria and I just finished up a program entitled Mental Health Matters: Managing These Issues at Work. Great program, we had a lot of people, a lot of great questions, but we wanted to take some time to share with everyone through this podcast. So, one of the things that when we started off the program, we were thinking another title to this presentation could be, Your employees are anxious, are you making it worse?
And so what we talked about, and we’ll talk about with you here, is how to talk about anxiety and how to deal with employees that are anxious. We’re not going to get into ADA accommodations. We’re not even going to talk about whether anxiety is a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. That’s a whole other podcast. But what we will talk about is how do we recognize people that are anxious? And what strategies can we employ to ensure that we are not making it worse? So, I’m going to pass the baton off to you, Maria, and if you can tell us a little bit about what anxiety is.

Maria Danaher: All right. And let’s talk about the difference between anxiety and fear. Because anxiety is more of an emotion. It’s more of something that we’ve got worried thoughts. Sometimes there’s a physical, increased blood pressure, or we’re short of breath, or we’re very tense and can’t really figure out why. That’s anxiety. It’s often future-oriented as opposed to what’s happening now. It’s, can I really do a podcast? But now that I’m sitting here, I’m just afraid, I’m not anxious anymore. So, usually anxiety is more of a diffused threat, whereas fear is present-oriented. I’m afraid of thunderstorms when I hear the thunder, when I see the lightning. So, it’s that moment. It’s short-lived.
And the strange thing, and the thing that we were trying to say to the HR people, is that fear seems to be more appropriate. I’m putting that in air quotes, you can’t see it. But more appropriate, and it’s more of something that we can help. We don’t like anxiety because we really can’t fix anxiety for other people. And that’s the challenge. The challenge is to help a fearful person, we focus on the thing that’s making them afraid. But for anxiety, it’s a whole different skillset. The best we can do is really give them some psychological safety, let them know that we understand that they’re anxious and that we’re here to just be aware and be of assistance. So, John, how can we do that? How do we summarize that big topic?

John Stretton: Right. It is a big topic. So, what we’re going to try to do through this podcast here today is give you three strategies for managing anxiety in the workplace. So, the first one is, it almost seems a little simple, be aware. Learn to recognize situations that are going to create and increase anxiety. And the second thing we’ll talk about today is how do we improve our own communication? So, all of us can improve our own communication, and there’s skills. So here, the goal of improving your communication is to not make anxiety in the other person worse. That’s what we’re really going to be focused on. And then to wrap it up, the third strategy is, how do we help our employees cope? Or never mind our employees, just the other person we’re dealing with. How do we help them cope with the anxiety?
So, I guess let’s dive into the first one. And the first one is focusing on awareness and recognizing situations that may increase anxiety. So, as we mentioned right off at the very beginning here, your employees are anxious, are you making it worse? And part of fixing that or part of working on that is being aware and recognizing those situations. So, as Maria just mentioned two minutes ago, you can’t fix somebody’s anxiety, but we certainly can do our best not to make it worse. So, what we’re going to do is give you a couple of examples that, since we’re talking about employment right now, is what we as managers do do that increases anxiety, especially with people that are prone to anxiety. So, we’ll give you a couple of ideas there. And the first one here would be not offering a clear path forward. What does that mean? Well, that means if you give an employee a project and you don’t give any direction, there’s no deadlines, there’s no guardrails. It’s essentially, figure it out. Let me know if you have any questions.
And the, “Let me know if you have any questions.” It’s just a lazy way out because you’re not being clear with what your expectations are. When you’re not clear what your expectations are, that’s going to drive anxiety. One of the things that we talked about here is when you create a clear path forward, you’re actually helping yourself and the individual you’re talking to because if they end up coming back with a deliverable to you that really isn’t what you wanted, now all of a sudden you’re going to get anxious, your anxiety is going to increase because you didn’t get the product you were asking for. So, putting forth a clear path forward is not only going to help that other individual, it’ll help you as well.
The next item is failing to provide no update updates. And what we talked about here, one of the examples were when you send an email out and you don’t acknowledge receipt of the email. So, for an anxious person, that’s going to drive them crazy, they’re going to wonder, did that email even make it to the inbox? I sent Maria the email, is she even here? Is she out on vacation and doesn’t have an out-of-office? All sorts of things start running through your mind. Or just ignoring me, even worse. Or just ignoring me.
So, when you’re dealing with someone with anxiety, just responding, “Hey, got your email. I’m tied up this morning. I’ll get back to you this afternoon or tomorrow.” That just reduces the stress, reduces the anxiety. So, the no update updates is an important one. Anxious fixing. That’s basically micromanaging. That’s I’ll take care of it, or I’ll just do it. It’ll just be faster if I do it. The problem with that is, of course, you’re devaluing that person, and when you devalue that person, you’re just going to increase their anxiety. So, you really got to work more with, “Hey, these are the issues here. Let’s talk about how we can fix it.”
And again, that falls back to the first one, offering that clear path forward. So, don’t micromanage and definitely work on putting that clear path in front of the employee. Another one, which we thought was, it’s a little bit different, a lot of people don’t think about it, is not staying up to date on world events. Because anxious people, they’re just not anxious about being at work, they’re anxious about everything. So, it can be a situation where we brought up the Ukraine war, and then they may be very concerned about what’s going on, and what the impact will be on the world, and what the impact may even be on them personally. Who knows, they may have relatives in Ukraine. So, while we’re not saying you have to babysit people, but being aware of what’s going on can definitely help you communicate and interact with employees better.
Another item is refusing to adjust expectations. Obviously, an easy thing to default to is we’ve always done it this way, this way works. We don’t need to do it a different way. But none of us are perfect. There’s always going to be a different way. But taking the time to at least listen, they may have a better idea, they may surprise you. Or maybe they won’t. But by taking the time to listen to what their idea is on changing how to accomplish it, it’s going to reduce anxiety, and it’s going to improve your relationship with them. Now we’ll move on to communication. So, communication is so important. And this is something, Maria, that we really spend a lot of time in the program talking about because communication truly is our currency.
It can help us de-escalate a situation, it can help us achieve greater productivity, it can help us increase collegiality, but it can also do the exact opposite. It can escalate, it can reduce productivity, and decrease collegiality. So, it really is the key. So, two of the things that we chatted about is, one, not reacting to anger and frustrations of others. And two, paying attention to your own word choices. And the reason why this is important is when you don’t react and you focus on de-escalating, then what you’re going to do is you’re going to focus more on the facts and more on the business-related information and less on the emotions. When you respond with anger to someone, you validate that person’s anger. People, at least momentarily, you feel good when you get angry because maybe even if it’s for a split second, because you’re essentially telling yourself I’m right and that other person’s wrong. You may immediately regret it, but at least for a moment, that’s oftentimes why people get angry, because at least you’re telling yourself, I’m not wrong, and the other person’s wrong.
But when you respond to anger with anger, all that does is just validate the anger, and it doesn’t accomplish anything. But if you turn your attention to focusing on what are the facts? What is the business-related information as opposed to the emotions? And you look for the root cause, that’s when you’re going to create a productive result. And one of the things you never want to do is react to the anger by saying, “You need to calm down.” Because nobody in the history of world has ever calmed down by being told, “You need to calm down.” Instead, you got to say things like, “Hey, listen, I hear you’re upset. Why are you upset? What can I do to help you?”
And one of the things that I think is very simple but very effective, and I pulled it from that Ted Lasso show, is be curious, not judgmental. So that’s one of the things that if you really are curious, you’re asking the questions and you’re finding out what the root cause of the anger situation is as opposed to just judging them and say, “Hey, listen, you’re angry, you’ve got to knock it off.” You’re going to de-escalate the situation, and you’re going to make some good progress.
This is going to be hard to do on a podcast, but the next one was non-verbal cues. And what we mean by that is if you say to someone, “Hey, tell me more,” but you have your arms crossed in front of your chest, it’s like, I dare you to tell me more. Because you’re looking very defensive, you’re not looking as though you’re welcoming the conversation. But if you have your hands open and you’re like, “Tell me more.” It’s a much different communication style. So that’s what we mean about non-verbal cues. And people will mimic your behavior. So, if you appear very welcoming, then they’re going to respond in the same fashion more often than not. Let me throw it over to you, Maria, to tell us. So, how can we change our reactions to responses, and how will that help?

Maria Danaher: All right. So, one of the things that you’re talking about in your points is really de-escalation. And we de-escalate because, as you said, people reflect the other’s, people reflect the person that they’re talking to. So that, if you’re angry, it’s very possible that the other person is going to get angry as well. And so, what we want to do is change our reactions to responses. That is what happens is somebody says something, and I want to jump right in and answer it. Like two hands together and one hand goes up, that’s their statement, and the next hand is me smacking into them with my statement.
What I need to do is move those two hands apart and create some space so that instead of reacting to something, I’m responding to something. Whether that space is because I’m taking a breath or because I’m just giving it a beat of silence or whatever it is. If we can increase the space between the action and our reaction to that, it makes our reaction into a response. That is hard without, I’m a hand talker, and so I’m doing it, but you can’t see it. But we’re moving our hands apart. That’s the work.
The last thing, I think, in terms of these communication tips is using silence as a tool. Using silence as a tool. So, when we’re talking to someone, what we want to do is create space, even if it’s just a fraction of a moment. And that does two things. It allows you to hear what you just said, and it allows the other person to hear it and think about it and maybe formulate a response instead of a reaction. So, consciously using silence as a tool rather than a punishment. I’m not talking about turn your head away or walk to the corner and not say anything. I’m talking about the pause between sentences. When we speak, especially when we’re doing these kinds of things, whether it’s a podcast, an in-person training, or even just a conversation. If we leave space, it makes it a more open, more effective communication.

John Stretton: One of the other things that was a little variation on the creating space that we talked about is when you’ve had a conversation and you yourself are angry about the situation, go ahead and write an email, but don’t send it. Go through the act of actually writing out the email, and then just put it into your draft folders. Look at it the next day, and I guarantee you, you will not send that email. You’ll look at it differently, but you’ve created space.

Maria Danaher: Right. So that’s communication tips. So, now we’ve given you two. One is to be aware of the anxiety traps, things to avoid if you are dealing with somebody who’s anxious. The second thing is just to keep the communication tips in mind. Keep your word choice top of mind. The third thing, then, is supporting the coping skills of other people. When you’ve got somebody who’s anxious, you can’t fix it, you could make it worse. But what we need to try to do is allow an anxious person to understand their own coping skills and what they can do to fix things. So, working to understand someone else’s anxiety is always a good move, even if that anxiety is caused because of your actions or your words. So, if I’m a manager, if I’m an HR person, and somebody comes into my office and says, “I hate what you just did.” The very worst thing I could do is to say, “Well, I don’t see why. I was just doing what needed to be done.”
Instead, as John said earlier, being a little bit curious and saying, “Boy, that feels really bad. Why do you feel that way?” Or, “What makes you feel that way?” And that way, you’re starting a conversation rather than telling them, yes, their anger is justified because you’re not very good at what you do. We can also support the coping skills of others by incorporating physical activity into the day. And I do this with the people in my office. If I’m going to talk to them about issues, sometimes I say, “Let’s take a walk. Let’s walk and talk. Let’s get out, and grab a coffee, and sit outside and talk about this.” It changes the perspective. Rather than just having them in my office while I sit at my desk with all my stuff around me and letting them feel uncomfortable, let’s go to a neutral spot.
The other thing that we can incorporate into the day is mindfulness. And what is mindfulness? Mindfulness is paying attention on purpose to the present moment without judgment. There’s that without judgment again. But paying attention to the present moment on purpose and without judgment. And when we do that, we’re only thinking of what’s in front of us. We’re not thinking about what’s going to happen tomorrow. We’re not thinking about our fear of what’s coming next week or our anxiety of what’s coming next week. We’re here and now in this moment. And we could do a little exercise on that, but it’s harder to do when it’s a podcast. But I would suggest to you that you can find podcasts with people who are talking about mindfulness and maybe doing a one or two minutes of sitting still and talking through it. Look for that. It’s sometimes helpful.
The other thing that we can do to boost people’s coping skills is to help them be confident about what they’re not anxious about. So, if they’re anxious about presenting, don’t make them the presenter. Have them draft things. If they don’t want to talk face-to-face to clients, don’t push them into it. Maybe have them write a script or do some research or whatever it is. Boost their confidence in areas that aren’t related to their anxiety. And respect their emotions even if you disagree. If something makes someone worried, don’t say, “Oh, you can’t be worried about that. It’s nothing.” Now you’ve just denigrated their anxiety on top of everything else. So that’s going nowhere. And that’s it. And then understand the available resources and what they can do to make things better. Maybe you’ve got an EAP program, maybe you’ve got some in-house trainings. Whatever that is, you can put them in that direction or help them get there.
So, those are the three things. Being aware of anxiety traps, thinking about communication, considering communication tips, and then supporting the coping skills of other people. So, a couple of points that we can point out is helping people to understand that they are anxious because they’re not just not good at something, they’re not untalented. Because people who are anxious will often criticize themselves, “Oh, I can’t do this. I’m no good at it.” Try to turn them into a more positive frame of mind and say, “I don’t look at it that way. I look at the fact that you don’t want to do public speaking as something you don’t want to do. Let’s find something else for you to do.”
Let people know that when they’re frustrated or they’re scared, that you can help them. Because if you don’t try to understand them, they could get aggressive, they could get disrespectful of you, and then everything just goes downhill. But understand, especially HR people need to understand, that anxiety does not excuse dangerous behavior. Anxiety doesn’t excuse threatening behavior. We can work with anxiety, but we don’t want to work with danger or threats. That we need to get help for. All right, so I think that’s it. Do you want to sum up our three?

John Stretton: Well, I think you just did that. Yeah. Well, to sum up our three just before we sign off, is to remember the three basic strategies. One, be aware of the anxiety traps. Be aware, notice, and be prepared to notice what is going to likely cause anxiety. The second is working to improve your own basic communication skills. And then the third is reaching out and helping that other individual and supporting them with their coping skills. So, thank you very much for joining us today on this podcast. Ogletree is recording a number of these during Workplace Strategies so that we’ll have a lot of new content available for you. So, whether it’s on your commute in or your commute home from work, throw on one of these podcasts and listen, and we’d love to have your feedback. So, thanks for joining us today.

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