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Craig Fearn Request a call

Everyone at your level says they're fine.

Confidential counsel for senior leaders. No notes, no board, no stake in your outcome.

What you said

"We're going through a restructure. It's a busy period."

To the chair, on Tuesday. Reasonable. Accurate. True.

What was true

"I have not slept properly since March and I am making decisions I do not trust."

Which you have said to nobody, because there is nobody it is safe to say it to.

What you said

"I've got a great team around me."

Also true. They report to you, which is the whole problem.

What was true

"Every person I could talk to has something riding on my answer."

Your peers compete with you. Your board appoints you. Your family needs you steady.

What you said

"I'll take some time once this is over."

You have said this about four consecutive things.

What was true

"I don't know what I'd do with the time if I took it."

This is the one most people recognise, and the one nobody volunteers.

I know the left-hand column because I wrote it for years.

I was diagnosed with chronic headaches, and the bank I worked for told me I could resign or be managed out on ill-health grounds. For years before that I had said all of the things in that first column, to people with every reason to believe me.

I hit rock bottom, and what got me back was counselling. Everything after that is paperwork: Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health, Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, Stevie Awards judge, and five years as the Institute of Directors' Wellbeing Ambassador.

Leaders do not call because of the letters. They call because the right-hand column can be said out loud to me without it costing them anything.

Three reasons people arrive here

Write two lines. That is the whole first step.

I answer everything myself, usually inside a day. The first conversation costs nothing and goes no further than the two of us.

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