C. Executive stress is not confined to big organisations. Vanessa Stoykov has
been running her own
advertising and public relations business for seven
years, specialising in work for financial and professional
services firms.
Evolution Media has grown so fast that it debuted on the BRW Fast 100 list
of fastest-
growing small enterprises last year—just after Stoykov had her first
child. Stoykov thrives on the mental
stimulation of running her own business.
“Like everyone, I have the occasional day when I think my head’s
going to blow
off,” she says. Because of the growth phase the business is in, Stoykov has to
concentrate on
short-term stress relief—weekends in the mountains, the
occasional “mental health” day—rather than
delegating more work. She says:
“We’re hiring more people, but you need to train them, teach them about
the
culture and the clients, so it’s actually more work rather than less.”
D. Identify the causes: Jan Eisner, Melbourne psychologist who specialises in
executive coaching,
says thriving on a demanding workload is typical of senior
executives and other high-potential business
adrenalin periods followed by
quieter patches, while others thrive under sustained pressure. “We could take
urine and blood hormonal measures and pass a judgement of whether someone’s physiologically stressed or
not,” she says. “But that’s not going to give us an indicator of what their experience of stress is, and what the
emotional and cognitive impacts of stress are going to be.”
E. Eisner’s practice is informed by a movement known as positive psychology, a
school of thought
that argues “positive” experiences feeling engaged, challenged, and that one is making a contribution to
something meaningful do not balance out negative ones such as stress; instead, they help people increase
their resilience over time. Good stress, or positive experiences of being challenged and rewarded, is thus
cumulative in the same way as bad stress. Eisner says many of the senior business people she coaches are