Officers get anger management tips. Picture by Manik Bose

Ranchi, Feb. 27: Is it possible to work as an officer in Jharkhand without getting angry? Perhaps, no.

But the trick, says expert H.R. Nagendra, is not to try to “control” this emotion but to “manage” it.

Nagendra, the vice-chancellor of Vyasa University, Bangalore, was in the state capital to conduct a session for young officers on how to manage anger. He taught probationary officers how to “use” anger productively to get official work done by sub-ordinates quickly.

Some probationary officers complained that if sub-ordinate employees are politely told to do a work, chances are that they would take the superior for granted. In the face of anger, work is done quickly. “I feel there is a lot of energy in anger. So, anger is not bad,” said a probationary officer.

Nagendra’s tip was simple. He asked the young trainee officers to differentiate between showing anger and getting angry.

He advised them not to become a slave to anger.

“One should not actually be angry. For, in this way anger would rein him. One should be the master of this emotion and use it at particular situations to get work done,” suggested Nagendra.

The serving officers felt that anger is a constant emotion in the career of a public servant, while Singh said the knowledge of how to manage anger would prove beneficial for a civil servant.

“Even I have felt that I have often failed to control anger,” confessed Singh. “The right thing is to manage the emotion rather than control it.”

Nagendra also said that the tolerance level of people is gradually decreasing under the stress of living. “This is because the modern day education system has excluded man-making elements and stresses only on equipping him technically,” he said.

Several serving officers, including A.K. Singh, the director-general of Sri Krishna Institute of Public Administration, took part in the session today.