ACUP Lesson: Deflate Your Stress
It was a sight you don't often see at a business conference. Dozens of balloons being simultaneously released, to deflate in crazy spiraling patterns all over the room.
ACUP attendees hold their stress balloons, ready to release them into the air. (Photo by Kahrim Wade, UMass Boston)
Yet that's what happened in the final keynote presentation at the Association of College and University Printers (ACUP+) conference last week to symbolize letting go of stress over things one cannot control.
ACUP attendees hold their stress balloons, ready to release them into the air.
That was one of the key messages of speaker Patti Hathaway in her session "Untying the 'Nots' of Nonstop Change." Though always stressful, she said, change is inevitable, and ignoring it or complaining about it leads nowhere productive. Instead, she urged, focus on the opportunities change can bring.
Admirably, Hathaway did her research before taking the ACUP+ stage and cited IPG research on college and university in-plants, unaware that IPG Editor Bob Neubauer was in the room. (A brief moment of humor ensued when she mispronounced his name, only to have him pipe up from the audience to jokingly butcher the pronunciation even further.)
Stress balloons fill the air at ACUP 2017. (Photo by Kahrim Wade, UMass Boston)
More than half of all quality improvement initiative fail, Hathaway said, due to resistance. That happens when people pretend the changes are not happening and don't buy into them by offering information that could help. Others focus on berating those responsible for the change or just whining about it.
Don't hang out with whiners, Hathaway cautioned. When confronted with them, ask them what they would suggest. Get their solutions. Stay forward focused.
Keynote speaker Patti Hathaway at ACUP 2017.
She asked ACUP+ members to consider what they can and can't control in a change situation. Then, rather than stress over the latter, she said, let those things go, like releasing a balloon. If you take action on things you can control, you will feel good and powerful. All changes need cheerleaders, she said, so become one.
Keynote speaker Patti Hathaway at ACUP 2017.
