Dr. Rachel Boehm, an Organizational Behavior Specialist, shared Science-Backed, People-Proven™ strategies to help CSO Center members reframe stress into confidence, productive action, and stronger relationships in the March webinar: From Punches to Pivots: Reframing CSO Stress for High-Pressure Times. We sat down with Dr. Boehm to further discuss how security professionals transform stress from a liability into a strategic advantage.
In your recent workshop with CSOs, you frequently advised the simple instruction to “take a breath” as a tool for managing high stress, overwhelm, frustration, and related feelings. In an environment defined by high stakes and constant pressure, why is such a basic practice your go-to guidance?
“Take a breath” is a starting point. I always fear that it will sound at least a little trivial or cliché. I get a little nervous every time I tell people to, when in doubt, take a breath, because I have been on the receiving end of that and know that it can feel insufficient or soft compared to the size of my feelings or stress, or the magnitude of the challenge stressing me out. And certainly, the breath alone is not sufficient to solve the problems. But it is what will enable you to effectively solve the problems.
When the proverbial stuff is hitting the fan, you have to stay in control. And taking that breath helps you reset. It helps you get back in control so you can lead with logic and bring logic to the logic gunfight (e.g. high-stakes decision-making).
The rest of the tools cannot happen without that breath. Even the ability to identify what you’re feeling and why, to see how it is impacting you physically, to notice how it is changing your ability to interpret situations and identify and evaluate options…none of that can happen when you are in a heightened state. You have to reset with the breath so that you can move forward.
Security professionals are trained to prioritize organizational resilience, yet many struggle to apply the same discipline to their own personal recovery. Why do you think this is? Is that where coaches, therapists, or both come in?
There can be so many reasons why all high-achieving professionals, particularly those in the security world, put the organization before themselves, or said another way, put the mission first. Some, though not all, examples include a sense of duty, how they define who they are, how they measure their worth or value, the culture of the organization, the behavior of the colleagues around them, and the context of their personal lives.
Coaches and therapists can help here in different ways, as can peer groups within ASIS, like the CSO Center, Subject Area Communities, or your local ASIS Chapter. Peer support is always a plus. It helps you normalize experiences, feel human in the profession, and learn from each other through personal and professional development. That is assuming that the group is a psychologically safe place and that what you are learning is supportive for you.
In terms of therapy and coaching, you can work with both simultaneously, or separately, or choose one over the other. The high-level difference between coaches and therapists is that coaches are present-future oriented. Therapists are past-present oriented. I would use this as an example: if past experiences feel like they are still showing up for you, your self-worth is shaky, or your identity is largely or solely tied to your profession, therapy is a great starting point.
If you primarily want help identifying goals, laying out a roadmap to achieve them, having someone help you with accountability, getting thought partnership and a safe place to just vent on occasion about the stressors of the position and life, then coaching might be a better starting point.
Emotional intelligence has become an essential component of effective leadership in high-pressure environments. What do you think high-achieving professionals get wrong about soft skills, like emotional intelligence?
Most people, and admittedly I was one of them for several years, don't know that the term “soft skills” originated in the US Military to distinguish between skills that did and did not require “hard” equipment (e.g., driving a tank). It was not meant to distinguish between skills that were mandatory and nice to have. In fact, quite the opposite. The identified soft skills were seen as critical to mission success. I wrote about that here.
As with so many things in organizational behavior, psychology, and other fields, the term gained popularity without a clear distinction and definition, so it came to be seen as non-essential compared to technical skills. You need both.
And I would argue, though I am biased, that your ability to perform technically rests on your ability to control your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions so that you can represent yourself professionally with a cool head, be open to feedback and alternative views, move through discomfort, recover from high-stress moments, make high-stakes decisions, and challenge your own assumptions. You cannot do those to the best of your ability without emotional intelligence and other soft skills.
Is there a particular stress management tool or practice that you find high-achieving professionals often overlook, yet proves consistently effective? For example, we hear a lot about the importance of journaling, yet it can often feel time-consuming, given everything we have on our plates.
Journaling is one for sure. In the past, I didn’t see the point because I never went back to read anything I’d written, so it started to feel like a waste of time. What changed my mind wasn’t hearing new information about journaling, but hearing it framed differently.
In professional and even minor-level sports, you have play tape and practice tape. You also have coaches watching how you do your job. You are going to get performance feedback from multiple sources to help you see how you fit into the bigger picture, what you did that worked well within that picture, and what you need to do differently next time.
We don’t have that in real life. We don’t have coaches following us around or performance tape from our day at the office to review how we did. Journaling can provide that play tape, so to speak. If you treat it that way, you can use it to reflect back on the day and ask yourself a series of questions to identify situations you handled well and those you wish you had handled differently. You can explore why you made the choices you did, and how to interrupt the cycle.
Security teams often operate under significant operational stress but rarely normalize personal recovery. How can security leaders help foster a culture where personal recovery is openly encouraged and consistently modeled?
My session for the CSO Center was an excellent starting point for those at the CSO level, both directly and indirectly. Directly for their own recovery and indirectly for those reporting to them, because culture starts at the top with leaders' practices. This speaks to both the challenge and the opportunity. The extent to which you can influence your organization’s approach to personal recovery will depend on your seniority and your influence with executives.
No matter how much influence you have, it is imperative to prioritize your own recovery. At the end of the day, it is one thing that you can fully control. This choice serves as a model for others and helps those who did not feel comfortable going first start going second, third, etc. As you grow in numbers, you can start leading from the bottom instead of waiting for change from the top.
If you do have some influence at the top, it’s helpful to put numbers on the risks of failing to prioritize personal recovery. And you want to use data that speaks to the biggest concerns of the person you are talking to (e.g., CEO vs CFO vs COO). For example:
Being awake for 17 hours is similar to having a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.05% (the level Utah and some countries use for drunk driving violations).
For every increase in sleep problems within a year, work performance degrades 6-8% that same year.
Burnt-out employees are at a 57% increased risk of workplace absence greater than two weeks due to illness.
Employees with unhealthy diets were 66% more likely to report a loss in productivity.
You can then look at salaries and health care expenditures in the organization and determine what lack of personal recovery is costing in terms of reduced performance, increased safety risks, healthcare costs, and more.
For a security professional who is extremely busy but ready to prioritize personal recovery, what is the first step you recommend they take?
Pick one area of your life to focus on first. I would encourage sleep. Then build up strategically (which is another way of saying small, incremental steps). If you currently get 5 hours a night, don’t try to hit 8. That won’t happen, at least not sustainably. Try for 5 hours and 15 minutes. When that becomes fairly routine, increase it to 5 hours and 30 minutes, or even 5 hours and 45 minutes. When that becomes routine, increase it again until you are routinely in the recommended range of 7-9 hours per 24 hours (night or day, depending on shift work).
We are all in a hurry to see results because fast results provide certainty that our efforts were worthwhile. But new habits take time, particularly those tied to identity and self-worth.
Dr. Rachel is an organizational behavior specialist running a modern change management firm. She helps leaders identify and correct culture breaks in the organization driving down retention, morale, resilience, engagement, performance, and employee health. Dr. Rachel leverages Science-Backed, People-Proven™ strategies to improve the way people naturally respond to change and stress. As a result, clients enjoy improved morale, engagement, team cohesion, leader-staff dynamics, retention and recruitment, and a culture of sustainable high performance. Dr. Rachel works with clients across the United States. Connect with her here.
