There are three of you in the room. It’s likely that one of you will have suffered some form of mental illness during your life - from mild depression to full-blown schizophrenia. This is sometimes seen as a clinical or health issue. Of course, it is. But it’s also an employment issue.

If a significant percentage of your employees are suffering from, say, a combination of mild depression, substance abuse, unwarranted euphoria and obsessive-compulsive disorder then you’d better be prepared to cope with this from an organisational and an individual perspective. Stress has something to do with the expression of these and other conditions, so be prepared for more people to act out of character in an economic downturn, requiring more work and more high-profile decisions. I coach people and every so often I find a session entering ‘ cliincal territory’ where professional rules suggest that I need to refer the coachee to someone else with more relevant in-depth training.

Organisations have recognised this. Among the evidence is:

• The growth in coaching and counselling;
• Use of tests of management ‘derailers’ and the management ‘dark side’;
• A growth industry in books called things like ‘ the psychopath at the desk next door’

We need to be careful.

In a culture where we emphasise the positive as a ‘psychological’ way of ensuring we reach our targets ( often using techniques developed in sport ), it’s difficult to admit to stress, let alone mental problems. We also need to be careful that we don’t start labelling people negatively. The whole point about all of this situation is that mental problems are not some separate issue ‘over there’: a lot of us will suffer from these sort of compaints at some time in our lives. Mental illness is part of  a continuum with ‘normality’ ( whatever that is). And as we stress the need for talent, creativity, exceptional performance we’re liable to see more of it. There’s some research evidence that highly creative people are more prone to suffering certain conditions.

FACET 5 is based on a model - the five factor model - which is used in clinical work. It can’t be used to diagnose these sort of conditions but some careful work and sensitivity might allow its development so it helps people who work hard, contribute a lot but who occasionally - sometimes for long periods - suffer depression of mood and real problems which in turn effects their effectiveness at and enjoyment of work.

I come cross this situation occasionally. I’m bemused its not discussed more and in a less headline grabbing way -with more sensitivity to its individual and corporate effects

‘Heroes’ rarely rush into a situation mindlessly. Research I did years ago on people who risked their lives for others suggests that they weigh up the  odds, plan carefully and therefore end us as live heroes rather than dead ones.

Risk-taking sits at the very foundation of every organisation and every job. Take any decision and it involves a risk. If you’re in marketing you’ll know a bit about the differences between risk-taking behaviour in personal and professional decisions - this difference underlies the fact that consumer marketing and professional marketing use different techniques. Any good salesperson knows that part of what they’re selling is a reduction of risk ( hence ‘no-one lost their job by buying a market leader’; there’s safety in numbers.)

Inaccurate, bad or stupid risk taking helps to explain the recession. Companies, particularly financial ones took ridiculous risks. Leaders were irresponsible. Its not just true of finance houses. The whole of the 80s and 90s were about social pressures to increase risk in business. If you weren’t highly leveraged you weren’t using your assets. If you didn’t try something new you were a ‘rabbit’. There’s a distaste for the word ‘ risk’,  let’s look at opportunities. This is the ‘macho’ model of leadership and it’s failed.

Leadership and management jobs are about balancing risks ( like balancing a pension portfolio). You need to take risks to improve but you need to offset these with reasonably sure things. Taking risks based on gut instinct is, often, a recipe for disaster.

There are plenty of academic, statistical models of risk taking. Go to any business school and you’ll find them coming out of your ears.

Isn’t it about time we started at looking at how people ACTUALLY take risks; finding out who takes risks in what ways; teaching better techniques ? It’s obvious that social / organisational pressures come into play - some firms encourage risk, others ( equally ridiculously ) won’t countenance it in any form. But individual preferences, skills and personality are critical. I think this is one of the big issues for 2010-2015 and I’d like to see FACET 5 linked to other tools to develop a really good risk-taking profile method.

Anybody else got any ideas on this ?