Laura Astaloș

BusinessDictionary.com gives us an extremely simple and comprehensive definition: feedback is the process through which the effect of an action is transmitted back (fed-back) with the scope of modifying future actions. In a work environment feedback can be formal, as part of the evaluation process, the objective being the alignment of behaviors and attitudes to the organizational standards of the company where we work, or informal, as one-off reactions to our daily activity (expressed directly or indirectly…). Nothing too complicated so far. But we are only human. And nothing is as simple as a dictionary definition when it’s about people because emotions always get involved. We’ll get to that a bit later.

In a 2001, a report from the World Health Organisation warns us that depression will be the second most important cause of illness and disability by year 2020. This is a gloomy prediction that hopefully has the power to make us aware of the factors that determine depression. Prevention is obviously preferable to treatment when it comes to this condition that has complex psychosocial causes and processes. The causes can differ from person to person and from culture to culture, but there are similarities nontheless. In the next paragraphs, we will explore a widely-spread phenomenon that constitutes an indirect, but very important factor that leads to depression: stress. We will further discuss a useful tool for leaders and employees as well, that helps identifying and eliminating work-related stress.