How can businesses better help support the mental health of their employees?
It’s a question that concerns Fortune 500 executives and perhaps even more pressing for startup founders where the move fast and break things Pace can be both incredibly inspiring and a fast track to crisis.
That’s exactly where Andy Dunn, co-founder of menswear startup Bonobos and author of memoir 2022 Burn Rate: launching a startup and losing your mind met several years ago. In fact, the story is so dramatic that we’ll stop to set the scene.
In short, the successful entrepreneur had been hiding a bipolar diagnosis since college. While he was CEO, a manic episode led to him being taken to the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital and being held there for a week as the psychosis gradually dissipated. Upon his release, he was greeted by a reception committee of NYPD officers who informed him that he was being arrested for stripping in a frenzy and assaulting his girlfriend. then and his elderly mother-in-law, an incident he barely remembers.
It is difficult to reconcile this image with that of the Dunn that several of us were lucky enough to see the other evening at a dinner in downtown Chicago sponsored by Fortune and ServiceNow. Polite, charismatic, funny and brutally honest, he spoke to a group of CHROs about mental health and the workplace in conversation with my Fortune colleague Matt Heimerand, it was an incredible adventure. He traveled back to the onset of his illness in college, through the wild startup years where the manic life of an entrepreneur served as a screen to mask his underlying illness, to the point where he had to inform Walmart, the company that had agreed. to buy his startup and that when they ran a background check they would find out about the felony arrest.
In recent years, Dunn has partnered with leaders such as ServiceNows Chief Human Resources Officer Jacqui Canney to help destigmatize mental illness. As Dunn wrote in Burn rateThe truth, however, is that the stigma is there, and it runs deep. Mental illness is one of the last taboos. The business world values stability. When it comes to leading teams, managing capital and governing businesses, a steady hand is what is sought. So even though we have entered a new era, in which assumptions about race, gender, and power are being challenged more profoundly, issues of mental illness in the workplace remain largely ignored. For most of my professional life, mental illness seemed indescribable: a fast track to awkward silence, a closed door, or lost opportunity. The problem is that many of us have it. A lot.
He goes on to say that bipolar is seven times more prevalent among entrepreneurs, which could mean that around 20% of entrepreneurs have it. Although Dunn acknowledges that his chance to leave his startup allows him to speak more candidly than most, such revelations are, as he says, contagious. If a leader admits vulnerability and talks about their own struggles, employees will feel like a door is open. Although the rest of the conversation at the table was off the record, I can say that the personal stories, ideas sparked, and questions raised (how much should a company cover for emergency room visits? What mindfulness has significant benefits? ) encouraged everyone to strategize. about how they can do more to help struggling employees.
And really, whether you’re a CHRO, a startup founder, or just someone who enjoys a heartbreaking read, if you haven’t read Burn rateget a copy. I can’t recommend it enough.
See you tomorrow,
Lee Clifford
Joe Abrams curated the deals section of today’s newsletter.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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