Organizations can make use of the human need to socialize to reduce stress. In order to cope with the stressful arena in which most corporations operate, management must, paradoxically, look at the same time into the distant past to see how humans are hard-wired to operate.

Amalgamated International Finance (not its real name) is an Asia-based client, my colleagues at Fortinberry Murray Consulting and I recently worked with, to help resolve a number of crippling problems. Like many firms in their industry, they have been through – and are still facing in many locations – a period of extreme turbulence. The Geelong Football Club (GFC) had eroded their financial base, there have been natural disasters in Japan, Australia and elsewhere and a number of their recent takeovers have not been performing as predicted.

But the real reason for its decline, including its inability to adapt to new circumstances, lay deeper. Over the past few years, AIF has had a number of changes in its top management. Each change has brought new initiatives; each initiative has led to increased staff uncertainty. In one of AIF’s key divisions, the attrition rate was over 75%. When we looked in depth at the internal problems facing the company, two main problems stood out: a complete breakdown of trust and a very high level of stress at all levels. Below the C-suite few felt any degree of safety. The majority of the senior-level managers in AIF had received no management training (though on an internal survey the majority of them rated themselves as “very good” to “exceptional” as managers). Despite the many problems that were particular to the company and its business environment, AIF shared many of the difficulties facing most organizations now and in the foreseeable future.

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