One thing that usually causes agitation within a company is change. The prospect of transformation of the work environment can leave many employees fearful and anxious of the consequences. In these moments, people managers and leaders need to carefully plan out their course of action to ensure a seamless transition and the well-being of their teams. Fear and anxiety are related but, according to our speaker, they represent a focus on different timeframes.

Anxiety represents a focus on the unknowable future – we don’t know what will happen, we have no frame of reference, and that causes anxiety. Fear, on the other hand, comes when we have a negative reference regarding the outcome – when we research what effects did similar events had on similar contexts and that knowledge empowers our fear because we know that something bad happened in a similar situation. In other words, anxiety focuses on the future and fear focuses on the past.

A team that is fraught with anxiety for the future and fear of the past will not perform as well as they usually do. So, a team leader needs to know how to refocus their teammates. The only timeframe that is unaffected by both anxiety and fear is the present. When we focus on what we can do in the present moment, we stave off our insecurities. This is why techniques such as mindfulness have become so popular nowadays – people become so engulfed in their worries for things they cannot control that they lose sight of what they can do in the present moment.

So having the ability to focus on your present self has become a goal for many adult professionals. Equipped with this knowledge, a team leader might help their team by delegating tasks and activities that keep the other members busy and focused on the present.

Or maybe they might introduce informal teambuilding activities to practice mindfulness or breathing techniques, to relieve the tension. In any case, a leader that strives to help their team focus on the present is more likely to succeed against the natural worries of the future and the past that would otherwise haunt their team.