Bulldozer00's Blog

Via the Netflix “Watch Instantly” service, I recently viewed this wonderful and scary National Geographic documentary: “Stress: Portrait Of A Killer“. The program focused on the results of these two studies:

• A thirty year study on African baboon troupes by a dedicated Stanford University professor.
• A forty year study, called the “Whitehall Study“, on 18,000 British civil service employees  (hint: hierarchy)

Ready to be surprised? In both studies, the results showed that the higher up in the hierarchy you ascend, the healthier and less stressed you become. Yepp, that’s right. Fuggedabout the crap that’s been drilled into your brain about the increased stress that comes with the so-called increase in “responsibility” as one ascends the corpo ladder. The reality is that the higher up you go:

• the more titles you accumulate (for your impressive LinkedIn profile),
• the more money you make for taking on more responsibility that you’re not held accountable for,
• the less “dirty and visible work” you have to do, uh, except for aimless and agenda-less meetings where you toot your own horn over others,
• the more control over “others” you have – to deflect blame when you screw up – which you never do.

How can that be stressful and detrimental to your health? By all means fellow DICsters, keep scratchin’ and clawin’ your way toward the top. It’s healthy fer ya.

I actually wasn’t surprised by the show. Well over 20 years ago, friend and mentor William L. Livingston opened my eyes to the Whitehall study results in his epically disturbing  “Have Fun At Work” book. It stunned me back then, but makes me laugh now.

To be fair, I have no doubt that there are many non-BMs in hierachical DYSCOs who do feel the increased stress their job should bring on. These are the people who thoughtfully and endlessly struggle with the conflicting demands of the wide ranging set of stakeholders who have an interest in the org’s economic and social performance. Thankfully, I have known, and do know, some of these people. How about you?

Note: If you want more detail on the documentary, check out my notes plus audio livescribe pencast on the program here.