The Rising Pressures to Perform

On the surface, he is a successful executive at Kaiser Industries, 40 years old, with important responsibilities. But he worries constantly about whether he is equal to the job. More often than not, a routine phone call from a superior sets off a sudden, stabbing pain in his chest. Company doctors are seriously concerned about his health. Constant tension, they report, brings on the pains of angina pectoris, which often precede a heart attack.

TENSION kills few people outright, but there is evidence that the increasing competitiveness of business has stretched many executives to their emotional and physical limits. While the work week is declining for laborers, more and more executives are discovering that there are no longer enough hours available to study reports, attend meetings and make decisions, let alone spend time with the family. A study of Chicago businessmen by Daniel D. Howard Associates, management consultants, showed that the average chief executive puts in 53 hours at his desk every week, then carries another ten hours of work home. At the Ashland Oil & Refining Co. in Ashland, Ky., higher-ranking officers often work a 61-day week, with only enough time off on weekends for church and 18 holes of golf at the club.

A Desk Full of Pills. Today's top executives, explains one Ohio physician, "spent their teens in the Depression, their 20s in the worst war in history, their 30s trying to make up for lost time. And now they must stay ahead in the age of cybernetics." Because of the computer, more information is readily available than any man can digest; but many executives push relentlessly in an effort to keep abreast. To make things tougher for them, jet travel has broken down the constraints of distance. With the farthest plant or subsidiary only hours away by air, many executives get into the habit of dashing off on grueling one-day inspection trips--and thus work ever harder in the office, trying to catch up. Typically, Goodyear Chairman Russell DeYoung last year jetted 104,000 miles to keep track of the company's business.

While most executives have become resigned to such travel, the Howard Associates poll indicated that 42% of the wives of company presidents resent the time that their husbands spend on the road. In some suburbs, the men are away so often that all-women cocktail parties have become an institution. Many of their husbands also drink more than their share. In Manhattan, restaurants advertise Businessmen's Breakfasts, featuring a Bloody Mary. An Akron psychiatrist says: "Stress and executive anxiety are endemic. Desks are full of pills. Liquor for lunch is a necessity." As a result, many companies employ a psychiatrist.

U. S. Steel Psychiatrist John Maclver surveyed 2,000 managers in the metals industry and found that 42% of those responding expressed fears about their ability to keep up with advanced technology. The growing pace of mergers has brought on another kind of anxiety known as "conglomerate psychosis." Many chief managers worry about how long there will be a company left for them to manage. Lower executives fret about keeping their jobs after a takeover. Then there is company involvement in urban affairs; executives are expected to participate KAISER MEDICAL OFFICE in community groups at the expense of their free time. Says Dr. L. S. Thompson Jr., a physician who treats executives of Dallas' Southland Life Insurance Co.: "You see a lot of battle fatigue in business, just as in war."

The pressure to perform well in business looms ever larger as a reason why the life expectancy of males in the U.S. is only 66.7 years--five years less than in Sweden, and appreciably less than in such countries as Japan, Czechoslovakia and Israel. Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. ranks low in longevity--24th among countries that keep statistics. The male life expectancy rate has not risen significantly in the U.S. since the 1940s.

For all the tension they face, many businessmen do not suffer from executive breakdowns. To find out why, two San Francisco physicians, Dr. Ray Rosenman and Dr. Meyer Friedman, have been keeping records on 3,000 men from ten corporations since 1960. They have divided their subjects into two groups. The "A" man is aggressive and harddriving, the kind of competitor who hates to lose. He is almost surely heading for trouble. The "B" man is more relaxed. He does not take his problems away from the office, and he is occasionally late to work. He also lives longer. Since the study began, 250 of its subjects have had heart attacks--nearly three out of four were "A" men. "The old Horatio Alger story," says Dr. Friedman, "is becoming the biggest killer in the U.S." The doctors cannot yet explain the link between stress and body chemistry, but they have observed that the cholesterol level of accountants under study rose as the April tax deadline approached and fell afterwards.

Man in the Middle. Other doctors dispute the relationship between hard, stressful work and poor health. Dr. Lawrence Hinkle of Cornell studied the health of 270,000 Bell System employees over a five-year period and found that executives suffered 43% fewer heart attacks than blue-collar workers. He concludes that a process of natural selection operates to ensure that the men who make it to the president's office are the strongest.

Indeed, the strain is often greatest on the middle managers, who do not get the lift that conies from being on top. One personnel officer admits that his company's major health problem is that too many men seem to burn out at 55. The harried middle manager feels the hot breath of rising young men, who now start at salaries that it once took ten years to achieve. Frank Cassell, professor of industrial relations at Northwestern's Graduate School of Business, detects a widespread malaise that affects even these high-priced junior executives. "Young Northwestern alumni are wondering about the meaning of their lives in business," he says. Meanwhile, many students have been repelled by business, partly as a reaction against their fathers' long hours and frequent trips.

Corporate directors for years have understood that the success of their organization is predicated on executive efficiency. But it is obvious that a new factor has been added to the equation. To recruit and retain top-caliber people, business leaders must somehow modify the demands of the executive suite.

They must make it more rewarding for those who occupy it, and more attractive to those who should be working toward it.

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