We’re all familiar with the potentially harmful effects of stress.  Experienced over long periods, the fight-flight response has been linked to many serious medical conditions.  Stress is a very generic term, used to describe anything from a traffic jam to a messy divorce.  But what every stress has in common, is that there’s a gap between what you want, and how it is.  Life’s not co-operating.

But there’s more to stress than fight or flight – we’ve evolved some other powerful (and far more helpful) stress responses.  The first is the challenge response – the one which kicks in when there’s a gap you really care about closing.  The exam you want to pass, the presentation you want to absolutely nail, the project you want to deliver.  These are often the stresses which give life the most meaning.

As well as his illusions and mind tricks, Derren Brown occasionally re-creates famous psychological experiments.  This one was astounding….

He showed the participants into a room filled with random objects, like bean bags and hula hoops.  On the wall, there was a large counter, and he told them that once the counter reached 100, they’d be allowed to leave the room.

They started to handle the objects, all the time watching the counter – if it went up, they’d repeat what they’d just done, trying to increase the count.   As time passed, their activities became more and more bizarre, as they tried to figure out the exact actions which caused the count to increase – hoping to get to that magic 100 which allowed them to leave the room.

But what they didn’t know, is that behind the scenes there was a fish tank, with a vertical line painted half way along one side.  Each time a fish swam past the line, the counter went up.  Completely random -  it had nothing at all to do with the participants' actions, yet they continued in their efforts to find the cause and effect. 

And not one of them tried the door – it wasn’t locked.  They could have left at any time they chose.  The need they felt to understand a pattern, to control the counter, was powerful - and kept them stuck.    

A million pounds?!! You’d jump at it, wouldn’t you?  That’s what I offered a company I was working for a few years ago.  I put forward my plans, showing how we could save all that money from one of our processes – and even better, it didn’t require spending anything.  Low risk, high gain.  I thought they’d absolutely jump at it.

But they didn’t….

I was gobsmacked, deflated and demoralised, so much that I seriously considered handing in my notice.  I’d presented a compelling, logical case.  And it bombed.  It was the first time I’d experienced a well-thought, logical proposal having no impact whatsoever.  And like most learnings, though it was painful at the time, it’s been invaluable since.

I recently took my daughter to the local playground.  It was gloriously sunny, so it was packed – and as you’d expect with lots of excited children running around, there were quite a few trips and falls. 

And I started to notice something….  When a kid falls over, what do you think determines how loud, and how long it cries?  and surprisingly, it's not how hard they fall....

In my mission to help organisations resolve stress, I’m always looking for innovative ways of stopping that stress building up in the first place. Recently, I was lucky to interview Andrew Kluge, Chief Executive of Cosatto, suppliers of ‘baby stuff with personality’. Based in an old Lancashire mill, it’s not a location where perhaps you’d expect to find a hive of innovation and fun…

Cosatto’s mission is to save the world from boring baby stuff, and banishing the boring begins as soon as you walk into the astro-turfed reception, with its large, retro phone. Even the loos are a little unconventional, with bright pink paper, and a speaker playing birdsong. The bright colours of their products are splashed throughout the building – I’ve seen organisations try this before, and it hasn’t always worked. But at Cosatto, it goes way deeper than a few licks of paint.