ISM Stress in Sales Report

ZOË DOUGLAS-JUDSON presents the findings from the ISM’s recent membership survey into stress. It’s part of the Institute’s major new initiative: Stress in Sales

ZOË DOUGLAS-JUDSON is founder and CEO of mental health consultancy Mindologists, has a PhD in strategic change and performance, and is a consultant, practitioner, coach and motivational speaker. She has over 20 years’ experience delivering customised strategic change solutions to improve mental health, culture and performance. Visit mindologists.com The Stress in Sales 2018 survey marks the start of the ISM’s pledge to close the gap in mental health support, and specifically tackles stress in sales for the professional sales community it serves.

THE SCALE OF STRESS In October 2018, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published its annual Work related stress, depression or anxiety statistics in Great Britain, 2018. It kicks off with the Labour Force Survey figure of 15.4 million working days lost in 2017/18 among some 600,000 workers, because of these issues. Around 44% of those reported “workload” as the primary cause, with a further 14% citing a “lack of support”. The findings of the ISM’s Stress in Sales survey endorse this view.

Since 2011, stemming from an original study by the Centre for Mental Health, it has been documented that “presenteeism” – or feeling obliged to be at work excessively – costs the UK economy £15.1bn per year from mental health issues alone. In contrast, there is an estimated cost of £8.4bn as a result of absenteeism, suggesting workers are more likely to go to work with hidden problems than go absent and admit them. The ISM survey findings support the view that, due to self-stigma, there is a likelihood of presenteeism among the sales community.

Recent studies conducted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggest as many as 83 million people across Europe suffer with mental health issues, which equates to one in four adults in the UK, according to Mind, one of the leading UK organisations working for better mental health. DEFINING THE ISSUE Mind continues, “There’s no medical definition of stress, and healthcare professionals often disagree whether stress is the cause of problems or the result of them.” The Mental Health Foundation (MHF) suggests, “At the most basic level, stress is the body’s response to pressures from a situation or life event.” It goes on to describe stress as the body’s natural survival instinct triggering a “fight, flight or freeze” response to stimuli perceived as a potential threat. It varies from person to person.

Defining stress for World Mental Health Day in 2018, the MHF describes it as, “The degree to which you feel overwhelmed or unable to cope as a result of pressures that are unmanageable.”

While stress is not considered a mental health illness in itself, it is closely connected to such issues. Too much stress can cause mental health problems such as anxiety or depression. “Stress is a response to a threat in a situation, whereas anxiety is a reaction to the stress,” says the MHF. It adds that prolonged periods of stress, including feelings of being overwhelmed, can affect both the physical body and mental state, giving rise to terms such as distress, chronic stress or long-term stress.

At the same time, as the ISM survey notes, there is a “good” level of stress within sales, which is not only expected, but many purport to be needed. Every day, salespeople encounter stressful situations and it is widely accepted that this is part of the job. Feeling a rush of adrenaline and endorphins when a major deal is closed can provide a temporary feeling of elation and drive the salesperson on to find and close the next deal.

ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM With such limited clarity as to what stress is and is not, it is no wonder the world is struggling to deal effectively with stress at work.

Lack of prevention and cure is widespread geographically and is not culturally bound. A WHO report in June 2018 revealed “a global shortage of health workers trained in mental

health”. In its latest Mental Health Atlas, it highlights that “scale-up of resources for mental health is not happening quickly enough” and that “failure to invest in mental health as a matter of urgency will have health, social and economic costs on a scale we have rarely seen before”. Stress in sales is real. It is not just a local phenomenon, it is not a blip in the system, and it is not more likely to appear in one sector over another. As the results of the ISM survey reveal, it is shrouded by stigma and self-stigma. Alarmingly, despite reports in the press to the contrary, over half of the respondents do not feel secure about telling their manager they are feeling stressed. Sadly, almost 80% of respondents report experiencing negative feelings as a direct result of needing to take stress-related time off work, regardless of whether it had been caused by work or not – with guilt and disappointment being the strongest feelings.

While comments in the survey convey a growing belief that more awareness around mental health and stress is being generated, many respondents also comment that much more effort is still needed. This remains the biggest challenge for the sales community and the results strongly suggest improvements would be best achieved through significant changes to performance management and leadership style.

When considering proactive interventions, and even prevention, it is clear from the responses that emotional suffering can be eased with more support. While the ISM report identifies that organisations are creating pockets of change, over 38% of line managers claim “none” or “very little” action is being taken to prevent excess stress and mental ill-health in their workplace. Less than 5% of leaders note Mental Health First Aid or similar programmes in their workplace. The most frequent suggestion for support is improved preventive measures and training. On a more positive note, almost 30% of leaders feel confident that they could deal effectively with stress in their team, with a further 55% having some degree of confidence but also a desire to know more.

FIVE KEY RECOMMENDATIONS Throughout the ISM report a number of key findings are presented and discussed, with supporting research and industry statistics to provide evidence for workplace improvements in sales management. Here, I summarise those key findings and present five recommendations. The aim of the recommendations is to provide valuable insight and support to sales industry decisionmakers in promoting and delivering a brave new workplace, where “the human side of support” will in future be truly valued like never before. SEIZING THE INITIATIVE ON STRESS

TOM MOVERLEY, DIRECTOR OF THE ISM, EXPLAINS WHY THE INSTITUTE’S STRESS IN SALES INITIATIVE IS SO IMPORTANT

While some stress is inevitable – and can be beneficial – too much can have a negative impact if it is not managed correctly. In short, too much stress leads to distress. To address this issue, the ISM is partnering with Zoë Douglas-Judson and Astrid Ennis, leading mental health professionals, to develop our new Stress in Sales initiative – a series of resources, such as webinars, whitepapers and blogs, to help foster mental wellbeing among salespeople. The initiative is already well under way, with our recent survey of members collecting 231 sets of data. It is a great response, and we will be building on it further in the coming months through additional research, interviews and focus groups with our members. The research results already gathered are more than a paper exercise for the members of the ISM. They provide an up-to-date, indepth look at what our members are experiencing and feeling right now. With such great insights from within our own specific specialist area of sales, we are better equipped than ever to support our members in ways they truly need and deserve. Our members are more than a collection of national numbers or international statistics. In sales, we have our own nuances, so gleaning first-hand insight from our members on the issue of stress has been an imperative exercise if we’re to develop appropriate interventions successfully, and be able to support them well in today’s ever-changing sales environment. The importance of building a stronger awareness of stress among our growing community – particularly understanding the tipping point where healthy stress becomes distress – cannot be underestimated. The insights our members have provided are invaluable and will help us to continue our mission in raising the value of sales. While this Winning Edge cover story summarises the main findings from the survey, and puts forward some key recommendations for sales leaders, further features in future editions of the magazine will focus on different aspects of the research in more detail. In the meantime, more information on Stress in Sales can also be found at ISMprofessional.com

Recommendation 1: Clarify the causes of stress

The report demonstrates a clear need for leaders to seek more clarity of the root causes of stress in sales, in order to remove or mitigate them and, in so doing, make a positive impact on performance, presenteeism and work-life balance.

The survey shows that work-related stress is more likely to hinder performance, affecting as many as 37% of sales professionals. Furthermore, of that 37%, over 10% frequently consider a change of career. This recommended clarity should seek to embrace non-work related stress too, by raising the value of the sales professional as a human being, living a full life, as opposed to a “human-doing” enacting a sales life. This view is particularly supported by the fact that almost half of sales professionals struggle to switch-off from work.

If sales leaders were to improve their

STRESS IN SALES: WHAT ISM MEMBERS SAY

awareness and knowledge of the drivers of stress, impacts would be felt through reduced rates of attrition, absenteeism and presenteeism. Such favourable improvements and ways of working should naturally improve morale, employee longevity and sales performance.

Recommendation 2: Create a culture of trust

The second area for improvement is the significant need for leaders to create a culture of bravery and trust. With almost 80% of sales professionals reporting negative feelings should they need to take time off work, much must be done to change this. In addition, with over 50% of respondents lacking a sense of security to confidently discuss stress, a greatly improved sense of “It’s OK not to be OK” must be achieved.

Stress and mental health issues are frequently considered to be invisible by many, even the sufferer themselves, but this is no excuse for ignorance or lack of ownership of its existence. While clarity and boundaries may still be blurred, responsibility should not be.

When leaders improve internal communications to improve awareness of stress and clarity over mental health, favourable impacts will be noted. Creating a safe and supported place of work will reward the business and its people.

Recommendation 3: Reconsider performance management

Salespeople often behave in relation to how they are measured, so taking a fresh look at how performance is managed is highly recommended for the sales community. Leaders must give renewed attention to innovative ways of setting targets and balancing workload to improve motivation. Understanding that there is a fine line, and often an individually unique line, between good stress and bad stress for optimum sales performance, opens up a raft of new approaches.

Leaders should also consider how they are recruiting their salesforce in order to improve the match of performance management techniques with the psychological profile and motivational mindset of new candidates.

As leaders become more aligned and creative in how they motivate their sales professionals they will foster improved psychological contracts, performance results and overall job satisfaction.

Recommendation 4: “Walk the walk” as sales leaders

Leadership style is a clear area for improvement. As improved internal communications increase awareness, trust and bravery for the salesforce to “talk the talk”, leadership styles must

receive appropriate training to “walk the walk”. Demonstrable change must be seen through the behaviours of sales leaders if stigma and self-stigma are to reduce. Almost 90% of line managers notice higher than normal levels of stress on a regular basis. Reducing stress requires two-way strength and understanding between those suffering from stress and those supporting them.

Fostering a culture of bravery and trust requires more than simply telling someone, “It’s OK.” Through original and lateral thinking, leaders must be given opportunities to put their training into action and show how they have changed, to allow others to follow.

When leaders visually and vocally demonstrate new styles in communicating, leading, listening and motivating, barriers will begin to drop. As the sales community is encouraged to grow in confidence, so will the leader. Together, the workplace will observe at first hand the benefits of focusing on people as a valuable asset, rather than a cost burden.

Recommendation 5: Commit to mental health training

The final recommendation is based not on the strongest survey response, but the most consistent – the need for more specialist mental health training and support. Suggestions given included Mental Health First Aid training courses and employee assistance programmes (EAP), with some ISM members commenting, “It needs to be more than a tick-box exercise.”

Though less than 9% choose EAP as a source of help in the workplace, the qualitative responses highlight the need for more than just a change in how sales professionals are managed. This conclusion is significantly strengthened by the survey finding that 55% of line managers – despite feeling some confidence about dealing with mental health issues within their sales team – still want to learn more. Additionally, three-quarters of respondents declare they had either never, or did not know if they had ever, received mental health or stress training at work.

Awareness is key. From awareness, leaders can build a better understanding and ultimately improve their effectiveness in both spotting the signs and supporting those suffering internally from stress or mental health issues.

Promoting an improved understanding of mental health and stress is at the heart of this challenge, if a lasting legacy of prevention over cure is to be achieved for organisations to reverse the escalating costs of absenteeism and presenteeism.

You cannot fix what you do not understand – so, as a sales leader, the solution to stress in sales starts with you. You must take responsibility to fully understand and value your own mental health, and the mental health of those around you. ISM PARTNER PROFILE: MINDOLOGISTS

ZOË DOUGLAS-JUDSON, FOUNDER OF MINDOLOGISTS – THE ISM’S PARTNER IN THE STRESS IN SALES INITIATIVE – EXPLAINS HOW THE CONSULTANCY CAN TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR TEAM’S MENTAL HEALTH

Never before has mental health been so under the spotlight, yet it is still one of the most under-invested areas of human functioning, especially in the workplace. This is mostly due to confusion about what is and is not mental health, but also a lack of understanding of where the responsibility to improve it rests. Mindologists are geeks of peoplethinking, behaviour and mindset transformation. We deliver on the whole mental health spectrum, from shifting severe negative mindsets in our private practices, to enabling and developing high-performing behaviours, individually and in teams, through our outsourced support service. While there’s been a rapid development over the last 30 years in self-help and professional support, such as psychoanalysts and counsellors, these have tended to be issue-based only – to fix problems. We firmly believe that the mental health of you and your team is something to maintain and proactively support, not just fix. Mental health is often perceived as a negative issue that costs companies money, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Get your mental health right and everything changes for the better, including your bottom line. As the stigma around mental health is broken down, leaders and individual high performers are starting to value new approaches to building strong mental health. In the workplace, it is now difficult to see why you wouldn’t invest in your greatest asset – your people. Mindologists can help. We’ll look after workplace mental health, allowing you and your business to stick to what you do best. At Mindologists we are constantly researching and refining how we influence, shift, motivate and effect meaningful and positive change to a person’s thinking, doing and being. A Mindologist is a hybrid practitioner trained in techniques and disciplines from many schools of thought. This ensures we provide a whole system perspective and approach to your physical, physiological and psychological self. We embrace a client-led approach – ensuring we are never stifled by fixed external standards or general market data – to deliver a unique mental health support service. With Mindologists it really is “all about you”. In delivery, we proactively and often subliminally implement the “how” part of people transformation, guided by your unique data inputs gathered through our Mood App, to impact both individual and organisation-wide mindset shifts. Blending our expertise with purpose-built technology, we actively listen to generate a true awareness and understanding of your current and future performance needs, then deliver customised services to meet those specific requirements. Investing in your mental health is akin to investing in a great nutrition and exercise plan – with quality inputs, your physical and mental performance benefit. Invest wisely... Visit www.mindologists.com

FREE YOUR INNER POWER Poor mental health can affect you, your salespeople, and your organisation. But you can free them all, releasing hidden depths of inner power. It’s time to show enlightened thinking by reducing the huge health toll stress exacts – as well as commercial nous by lifting the financial burden it places on businesses. How you respond counts.