“Pressure makes diamonds.” – Physically, yes. Mentally, I don’t think so.
Applying this quote to professional life can’t be always a good idea. In my opinion, there is a fine line between encouragement and pressure. Because one enables you to do/achieve things, and the other might create unnecessary stress and panic on people and that might lead to failure.
Working is a constant pressure; from the client(s), from our managers, from our colleagues and from internal teams that we are working together in order to reach certain deadlines. In most cases, it helps getting things done on time, or even faster. But at the same time, it takes its toll on people who were exposed to this kind of pressure constantly.
Unnecessary pressure creates a stressful environment, where panic arises and it leads to mistakes on certain tasks. This situation adds more delays to the projects and also decreases the quality of work done by people who work under such pressure.
Even in the holiday seasons, there are still people working under such pressure to reach certain deadlines. My message is, please try to understand the limitations and show more empathy towards your colleagues and your partners. Once you do, you can be sure that they will give their best effort to reach your goals.
We are all carbon based lifeforms, but please don’t try making diamonds out of us. Otherwise, we might just break.
Comments