There can be many causes for a stressful climate in an organization. Employee conflicts, performance issues, communication breakdowns and organization or leadership change are common situational factors that lead to corporate stress. Investigating the reason for stress in an organization is much like peeling the skin of an onion where one layer leads to another. For example, simply identifying a breakdown in communication as the cause of stress is often not enough. Behind the communication challenge are people. Related to people are two types of stress, internal and external:

1. INTERNAL stress refers to conflicts that arise among character parameters of an individual and is very complex. This can be identified with accuracy using the Character Assessment.

2. EXTERNAL stress is relational or structural in nature and has two broad categories, interpersonal and environmental.

   1. Interpersonal

      • between two individuals
      • between an individual and a group
      • between two groups

      Comparing data obtained from Character Assessments will identify the cause of relationship based stresses.

   2. Environmental

      • Personal - which occurs in conflict between a person (character) and factors related to home, work or even hobbies and friends that is carried into the work environment and affects performance.
      • Structural – which occurs when an organization doesn’t properly identify and apply employee competencies
      • Job Classification – when there is confusion with job roles and expectations often caused by job descriptions that do not accurately reflect job requirements
      • Employee/Job misalignment – which often is introduced to the organization by ineffective hiring practices.

      Environmental stress can be evaluated by a Life-Balance Assessment and a Job-Balance Assessment.

Regardless of the type or cause of stress, stress left unmanaged, is a draw on the productive energy in an organization and ultimately affects performance.