Nov 2001 Meeting Recap

          by Maris Bergeron

          Approximately 30 people attended the meeting..

          Our speaker for the evening was: Mia Melanson, Performance Consulting.

          MIA’s experience includes development and delivery of training in customer service, telemarketing, coaching, and management skills, within entrepreneurial organizations and Fortune 500 companies. She instructs students at Northeastern University’s School of Business where she is an adjunct faculty member. She has authored articles and books on coaching, telephone communication skills, and stress management. She is a member of the Association of Support Professionals, and the Help Desk Institute faculty.

          Her topic was “Overcoming Overwhelm: Coping Resources to Reduce Stress”


          This interactive session started with the following definitions by attendees of their interpretation of stress:

          1. The fear of being out of control.
          2. Worrying over something you have no control over.
          3. Reaching a reasonable threshold between negotiable and unnegotiable tasks.
          4. Worrying over something you have no control over.

          5. Something that makes you focus.

          6. A feeling of lack of control over situations.

          7. Having unrealistic expectations that can lead to trauma.

          8. A brief assessment tool.

          After defining the causes and types of stress, Mia told us that some of us produce stress and some receive it. Stress makes us change course. It is a grief or loss process. We all respond to it in similar but sometimes different ways. There are definite warning signs both physical and psychological. She went on to teach us many ways to cope. For Managers, these included:

          1. Offer your staff a “Whine and Cheese” meeting.
          2. Develop, manage, and enforce SLAs
          3. Staff and schedule realistically
          4. Provide work task variety.
          5. Schedule “good news” meetings, game room
          6. Provide managed forum for venting, humor
          7. Provide ongoing recognition and rewards
          8. Arrange for coverage for off-site training, meetings, and events.

          In addition, the attendees interacted by offering the following coping techniques:

          1. See challenge as opportunity.

          2. Focus on what you can control.

          3. Focus on issues.

          4. Put change and issues into perspective.

          5. Use humor, exercise, yoga.

          6. Attain a goal or accomplish something.

          7. Make time for family.

          8. Watch kid’s shows on TV.

          9. Take time for outdoor recreation.

          10. Use 30 seconds of mediation a day.

          11. Give yourself personal rewards but don’t overdo shopping and alcohol, etc.

          Mia successfully presented a very dynamic and interesting evening to everyone in her audience. We left the meeting feeling we had accomplished our goals. We had gained new insights to stress and learned appropriate methods to help us resolve it



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