Transforming organisations

Stressed out executives equals crashed out performance

With all the external pressures facing organizations arising from the development of the global knowledge economy, it is the failure to respond effectively at Board Level that is a direct cause of stress. Another easily assessed cause, and they are often linked, is poor quality recovery time.

Andrew is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He lives with Sara who is a partner in a solicitors practice. They have two children under the age of six. Consider that there are four types of time associated with a normal weekend:

1) there may be Sara’s time to do just as she pleases
2) there may be Andrew’s time to do just as he pleases
3) there could be family time with Sara, Andrew, the children and anyone else that the couple choose to include in their weekend
4) there may be intimacy, which is the time that Sara and Andrew choose to spend alone together, with no one else and with no interruptions. That’s how it was after all, when they first met. They made sure of that in those days.

If we have just 168 hours per week (that’s how it is in Hereford) to deploy our time and our energy, the question is how effectively do we use it? When work gets tough, guess which type of time disappears first in most relationships? Right answer = intimacy.

Other types of time disappear quite fast too. Working with Sara recently I said to her, “If you only had just one half an hour just for you next weekend, how would you spend it?” She answered, “I’d go visit my dad”

Wrong answer. That’s family time.

posted by Tim @ 12:51 AM