Manage Stress by Taking a Longer-Term View

By Lisa Hochgraf

Take a peacock feather. Place the tip in the palm of your hand. Try to balance it there while looking at your hand. That’s a tough assignment.

But then do what CUES’ VP/Marketing and Professional Development Christopher Stevenson is doing in the foreground of the photo at right: Try balancing the feather by looking up.

During CUES’ all-staff strategic brainstorming sessions last month, co-presenter Scott Isaksen (the guru of The Creative Problem Solving Group, Buffalo, N.Y.) underscored that the second assignment is much easier.

“This meeting is about looking up,” he said. “Looking up is a lot less frenetic. A longer-term view is a lot less stress.”

Does your credit union’s strategic plan take a long enough view to help relieve day-to-day worries? Why or why not?

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