From victim to victor, Briskman has made his weakness his strength. Today, Briskman stands by the old adage: when you look back at life, you'll never wish you had spent one more day at work or an extra meeting. But you will wish you had spent more time with your kids or gone for another vacation.
-Shardha Subramanian
Don't Work Yourself Up
What will I do if my servers crash? What if my DR plan fails? What if my team quits halfway through a project?
'If' is the operational word. In that word lies the seed of stress.
Satish Das, CSO, Cognizant Technology Solutions, knows this because he's been there. "When I had to trigger a business continuity plan as part of an annual BCP test, I came face to face with what they call 'burn-out'. It was extremely stressful. The thought of not being able to recover some projects made me break into a sweat," he says.
It also made him realize that stress has its roots in the mind, when there is a perpetual anticipation of a crisis. "I feel most burn outs happen because of unrealistic expectations from people around you and the promises you makes to meet those expectations. I've learnt to identify the sources of such expectations," he says.
He figured that there was no point in fretting over things that were not in his control. "I decided to work around my problems with all the passion I could gather. I trained as many people as possible in DR and created a second line of resource to manage a crisis," he says.
But to use this approach, Das believes it is important to be disciplined for the benefit of your subordinates. "If you chasing work 24/7, your subordinates will do the same. And then both will be completely stressed out."
But when stress does loom, Das beats it back with games - indoor on weekdays and outdoor games on weekends. He also jogs 5 km everyday and never misses an opportunity to watch movies with his family. He's happier because he believes in crossing a bridge once he gets to it.
-Shardha Subramanian
Take it or Leave it: Arun Gupta, Customer Care Associate & CTO, Shoppers Stop
Work pressure is a reality. It's the stress that is optional. It's the balance between work and life, this see-saw that continues to keep me on my toes.
There is no single aspect of the job that causes stress. It is always a combination of several factors. For me, the most challenging parts include cross-team coordination and dealing with vendors who over promise and do not deliver.
The problem is, when I am under severe stress, I tend to get aggressive. Occasionally, this hurts people. There was a point in my life, about a decade ago, when I took on a lot of stress. Eventually, it affected my ability to think rationally, my health and my family. It was more or less a burnout. That is when I realized that I needed to introspect. I asked myself where this stress was leading me. It took some hard decisions but I moved away from this adrenalin rush.
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