2023 GLOBAL SRM RESEARCH REPORT
ACADEMIC INTERVIEW: SUPPLIER STRESS
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who form part of our organisation’s extended enterprise. We look at the consequences of such behaviour and consider what can be done to remedy it. Three categories of microstresses Through their research Cross and Dillon identified 14 most common sources of stress that could have the greatest impact, then grouped them into three broad categories (see box out): Those that hit your capacity to achieve, diminish your emotional reserves and identity. They concluded that most people experience several of these 14 types of microstresses on a day- to-day basis. They hope the list will help people to recognise what happens to them and why, and identify where they could be the cause of microstress in others. Most or all of these 14 types could be inflicted - unwittingly or otherwise - on suppliers by buyers. Here, Cross says microstresses could occur in the buyer/supplier
relationship across all three categories and highlights the four perhaps most common sources of negative stress that procurement professionals are likely to impose. 1. The first is ‘unpredictable behaviour from a person in a position of authority’. This is an example of a microstress that drains a supplier’s capacity to get things done. Cross: “If a supplier isn’t clear what the buying organisation wants, or if the buying organisation itself doesn’t know what it wants or changes what it wants, or is emotionally irrational, stress will cascade down and it will impact on a supplier’s performance and ability to deliver.” 2. The next is ‘confrontational conversations’ . These are an example of a microstress that can deplete emotional reserves, and impact on resilience, focus and prioritisation.
Clearly buyers and suppliers will sometimes need to have some challenging conversations. There is, however, a difference between being confrontational and overly critical; rather than being curious to find the source of an issue and to resolve it together. Clashes could be, for instance, over costs or criteria. If not discussed constructively, such conflicts will likely provoke a negative response in that supplier that will, over time, diminish their resilience, resolve and ability to perform well. Second-hand stress is another that could easily be brought about by ill-considered behaviour in buyer/ supplier interactions. This is brought about by people who exude stress, effectively transferring the anxiety, tension or pressure they feel onto others. It could happen through their line of questioning, tone of voice, body language, facial expressions and so forth. “Stress passes through people,” says Cross.
How do you cope when stress is ever-present? How can you reduce the levels of stress felt by others? State of Flux speaks to academic Rob Cross, co-author of ‘The MicroStress Effect’, on the damaging impact of such anxiety and tension, and what to do about it. Reduce supplier stress to raise results
Everybody encounters work stress from time to time. That’s life right? An impending deadline, a big presentation, urgent action needed to prevent a problem. We might each find different situations more or less challenging, but we all will have instances that we find difficult to handle. Some say they thrive on stress. They may even choose to work in a field where they are regularly put into high-stress situations. Or, it could be that they particularly enjoy the moments of a job that require their immediate and effective attention, riding the wave of adrenaline induced to see them through. On those occasions - big, sudden or extreme events - our brains trigger a response to help us cope. The problem is, when it comes to small occurrences of stress, that doesn’t happen. There is no automatic first-aid mechanism, and the accumulation of near- constant mini-spikes of anxiety can cause chronic - if not crippling - complications. Rob Cross, and fellow co-author of The MicroStress Effect: How Little
Things Pile Up and Create Big Problems 1 , Karen Dillon, call these moments ‘microstresses’. These mini incursions into your equilibrium may appear on their own to be harmless and manageable, but in fact they are not so easily dismissed. Cross and Dillon cited some examples in a recent Harvard Business Review article on ‘The Hidden Toll of Microstress’. 2 “Think about a vague, worrying text from your teen flashing on your phone while you’re in a meeting; the appearance of a colleague who always wants to vent to you; or having to tell your team that the project you’ve all been grinding out extra hours on is no longer a priority. Because they’re small and brief they don’t trigger the normal stress response in our brains to help us cope. Instead, microstress embeds itself in our minds and accrues over time. The long-term impact of this build-up is debilitating: It saps our energy, damages our physical and emotional health, and contributes to a decline in our overall well-being.” They discovered the phenomenon while conducting research into what makes high performers
different from the rest of us. In total, interviewing 300 people from 30 global companies, evenly split between women and men, from 2019 to 2021. “Many of these high performers were powder kegs of stress, and to our surprise, most of them didn’t realise it,” they said. “Being ‘micro’ doesn’t mean they don’t take an enormous toll in the long run.” As Cross and Dillon found, these can come from anywhere - work, home, daily life - and there is no escaping them, they can reach you every day, everywhere. They can impact your ability to get things done, deplete your emotional reserves and challenge your identity, leaving you with the uncomfortable feeling that you are not the person you really want to be. Ultimately, the build up of all these small instances of stress can be massively damaging to the health, happiness and success of both ourselves and others. Here, Cross extrapolates the theory to explore how our behaviour as procurement and business professionals can impact on those we work with. In particular, the effect it can have on the key suppliers
1 The MicroStress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up and Create Big Problems - and What to Do about It by Rob Cross and Karen Dillon, released April 2023 2 ‘The Hidden Toll of Microstress’, by Rob Cross and Karen Dillon, Harvard Business Review , published February 2023
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