In the first of a regular column for Northern Insight, coach, consultant and therapist Dr David Cliff of Gedanken, based in Houghton-le Spring, reflects on some of the pressures faced by those in business.
We’ve all heard it, the Dragons, the movers and shakers. Indeed, the word entrepreneur was not in common usage 20 years ago. Now, it is associated with success and greatness. Such people are the risk takers, the wealth generators, the employers and the contributors to communities. This is perhaps why they are viewed by some as almost modern-day heroes!
The problem about this really lofty place of community esteem is that the realpolitik of being an entrepreneur means committing oneself to a life of risk and reward where one doesn’t necessarily follow the other in short order. It can be quite an anxious uncertain place and it is no accident that some studies indicate that entrepreneurs experience more stress than the rest of the general population.
In common with the self-employed however, entrepreneurs do not have the luxury of taking paid sick leave. As much as any ambition, the loss of cash flows, erosion of organisational growth, the maintenance of reputation and a myriad of other factors come into play that require entrepreneurs to keep going back to the fray. They do this often with little support, increasing neglect of their work-life balance and a consequence of potentially cataclysmic mental health difficulties further down the line.
Most organisations don’t have workplace mental health policies. Those that do tend to professionalise mental health responses, rather than looking at its maintenance as something that is about work-life balance, mutual support, kindness to self and others and just plain talking about our challenges long before there is a need to knock on the psychologists door.
The problem is people are just way too busy to do this. Equally, distraction from our problems of stress, business risk and the general market uncertainty can be all too easily provided by the flurry of activity that is tacitly accepted as par for the course when building a business.
The consequence is that many entrepreneurs work in isolation. They often become less thoughtful and supportive employers than they might be, and it is not unusual for them to display erratic behaviour and/or physical problems related to their psychological stress.
It’s perhaps time we had a real debate about the nature of entrepreneurialism and its attendant stresses. We need to move on from the hyperbole of success and risk taking into a sensible view of stress and burnout as common social phenomenon that affect our movers and shakers just as much as our young people are affected by disapproval and hostility within social media and our older citizens by social isolation.
Many entrepreneurial behaviours are habitforming. Whilst serial entrepreneurship is represented as almost heroic, some academics talk about entrepreneurship addiction. The very persistence considered vital to running a business, gaining customers, staying competitive and improving market share, requires behaviours that are almost obsessive in nature.
Yes, it’s important that entrepreneurs look after their self-care and everyone takes it upon themselves to ensure they go beyond the rhetorical social ritual of “how are you and truly start to listen!
