Its a song we hear all to often when working with leadership teams to develop sustainable mental health solutions. "How do we solve a problem like Maria?" (name changed for confidentiality and for dramatic purposes)
You see its all to common for leadership or management within the organisation to identify the individual that is experiencing mental health issue, such as work-related stress, depression or anxiety as the problem. It is easy to fall into this thought pattern for a variety of reasons.
1. Firstly we tend to view the world from a position of our own needs. This is something unexpected that impacts our needs to complete the task
2. We see what we want to see, the leadership team don't want to see a problem with work environment, culture or system because that means something deeper that requires a greater solution. Its easier to see the problem as an individual that cannot deal with work.
3. We all wear camouflage at work to mask our individual experience and if we are having a troubling time we will tend to stay quiet and endure until breaking point.
The thing is the problem is not Maria, she is simply experiencing something that is causing distress. The real area we need to focus on is the cause, what made Maria so stressed that she could no longer function. Imagine if we removed the cause from the workplace. No more Maria problems to solve!
Think of it like this, if someone crashes into a pot hole regardless of any other contributing factors there is a hole in the road and it needs fixed so no other drivers crash.
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