One stressed leader = £10 million
sounds crazy I know...
I was once in a meeting where we were trying to put a financial cost on stress much in the same way that insurance companies do with car accidents.
The subject of this hypothetical was a partners in a law firm who was out of action for 30 days including weekend across the year.
The personal financial cost ran to a figure just over £41,000 assuming the firm had a policy of no play no pay but the money disappears somewhere.
We then looked at the firm impact of this.
Work bought in or not, the colleague and staff impact of working with some operating out of fear - Including their stress and stress motivated actions and employee attrition rate.
Then we had the personal short term and long term health consequences of stress knowing that 90% of all illness and pain is the result of stress.
We hadn’t even reached the relationship and familial impact of living with someone in chronic stress when the figure we settled on emerged.
It was a cop out figure really. The true number is incalculable and likely higher.
It’s crazy to think about really, especially given the cost of prevention is so comparatively low.
Stress sounds dramatic, like a lion being in the room - you’d know if you had it.
But it not, it’s like putting a frog in water and gradually heating it until it’s sat completely unaware it’s being cooked alive.
It’s so much more subtle. It’s being more reactive than you normally would.
It’s staying awake because you don’t want to go to work the next day or staying at work because you feel in control when you’re there.
It’s feeling more and more tired and lethargic. It’s more alcohol and coffee creeping in.
It’s worrying about things that previously haven’t bothered you.
It’s feeling run down. Less confident.
It’s feeling more anxious or worse, emotional numb.
It’s back pain that came out of nowhere, it’s illness on holiday. It’s getting blind drunk on a weekend.
It’s not one way or the other, it lives in the extremes it’s signatured mostly as a constantly feeling of dis-ease.
The desire to either fight everything or run away from it all or just curl up in a ball and forget the world.
And the thing is, it’s totally avoidable and escapable.
Not with digging around in your childhood or deep soul searching or sucking it up or cutting it away but by simply, systematically and effectively giving the brain and body what it needs to thrive.
If you’re fed up of mere survival then head over to the contact page and let’s have a conversation.
