Current economic woes are translating directly into more stress in the workplace as employees worry about the fate of their jobs, their companies and their families in addition to the usual inter-office politics and frustrations.

But challenges can bring out the best in work teams, motivational speaker Dr. Robert Rausch — who prefers to be known as 'Dr. Bob' — told the annual general meeting of the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) of Bermuda yesterday.

Trained as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Bob — who is the author of 'I Don't Dress Dead People' — said he realised in the 1980s that a lot of the problems driving people into his practice were connected to energy. When he began focusing on clients energy levels, progress was made.

The key to energising the workplace, Dr. Bob told representatives from EAP member companies, is to harness the energy in and around us in a positive or stress-reducing manner. "Performance and productivity is a result of using good stress to develop powerful energy frequencies in our personal lives, companies and teams," he said.

Alternatively, bad stress is the enemy of performance — it drains energy and can lead to mental and physical health problems. The job costs related to stress in the American workplace total $300 billion a year, Dr. Bob said.

Good stress, however — eustress — can "energise performance when we are faced with adverse circumstances or challenging situations".

To illustrate how energy can circulate within a team, Dr. Bob, had participants use an energy ball which lit up when in a complete circuit. Only if the energy was shared through a whole table by touching, could the circuit be complete.

To harness stress in the workplace into eustress, managers must make sure everyone on their team is on board with projects, Dr. Bob said.

Offices tend to have "energy vampires" who can suck the energy away from otherwise keen employees. But every employee has their strengths and the overall energy of the team will be higher is everyone is working together and maximising those strengths.

Most offices actually have more talents on hand then they will ever utilise, Dr. Bob said, but many also have managers who kill energy in their staff. "What a dumb thing to do," said Dr. Bob.

Sometimes all it takes to improve energy and teamwork is the opening of communications channels.

"If you don't work on anything else with your teams work on the energy stuff," Dr. Bob said. Teams need to eliminate energy defuellers and maximise energy refuellers.

Most people have threshold behaviours which come out when they are stressed, he said. For some this will manifest itself in depression, others anxiety, some people will withdraw, others may react with anger. These will defuse a team's energy.

To avoid team members sliding into threshold behaviours, managers should focus on stress as a motivator, choose their battles carefully, recognise and accept a sense of personal significance to their companies and accept responsibility without passing the buck, he said.

Every team meeting should put energy management on the agenda, he said, a good starting place is making a list of energy-sappers and attacking them.

Verbal appreciation and encouragement should be offered to employees and employees should be allowed to define expectations of their supervisors and hold them accountable to those expectations. This will open up key communication channels.

Teams should also focus on tasks at hand, he said, and not be distracted putting out other fires all the time. Adversity should be looked at as offering opportunity to make it energy producing rather than draining.

And teams should avoid letting fear of failure derail them.

"Good things happen when we are challenged," said Dr. Bob. "And some of the greatest things we have ever learned we learned when we failed. Blow it off gang! You'll all land on your feet, trust me."