Is Work Killing You?

February 18, 2013
If you don’t want your tombstone to read “death by stress,” the latest book from Posen (after The Little Book of Stress Relief) may have the right remedies for you and your workplace. Posen makes a sound, compelling case for active stress reduction at work, due to concerns such as inefficiency, depression, and increased risk of heart disease and stroke. After defining stress, explaining why it’s damaging, and identifying its main sources, Posen distills the common stressors into three main categories, dubbing them “the Big Three”. He then devotes the body of the book to discussing each one individually, delving into the problems and some possible solutions. The first section covers work volume. The second is about velocity, or the speed at which the workplace and the world of work run. The third discusses abuse, positing that people can create stress just as much as circumstances can. The book is replete with charts, graphs, and diagrams illustrating concepts such as the path to burnout and proper work-life balance. Some of the surprisingly straightforward ideas Posen mentions, such as sending fewer e-mails to receive fewer e-mails, can easily be implemented on a personal level, though this book is primarily aimed at changing the workplace, not the worker. Above all, it’s a call for radical change in corporate culture.