Jennifer Thamm on Managing Leadership Stress

How can companies manage the risks posed by the stress their senior leaders face? That’s what Says Life, the company founded by my guest on this episode, Jennifer Thamm, is looking to solve.

Says Life helps companies mitigate Human Risk at a leadership level by providing senior executives with a service that allows them to manage stress in their lives; whether at work or home.

Says Life works with the senior leader to help them identify where stress might arise and arrange appropriate support for them and their families, whether or not it's directly work-related. They also provide the employer with anonymised, aggregated data on the human risks facing their leadership, so the company can look to address the aspects it can control.

This fascinates me from a Human Risk perspective because it addresses two key areas:
- The fact that people in senior positions have a lot of industry experience doesn’t mean they don’t need psychological support to do their role. In fact, they might need more of it.
- What influences human decision-making inside work can be heavily influenced by what is happening outside of it.

Historically these things have been difficult for companies to explore. Both because the data wasn’t available, but equally because of understandable privacy concerns on the part of employees who might want to keep their private lives private.

In our discussion, Jennifer explains the logic behind the Says Life business model, and we explore how she is thinking about mitigating human risk for senior leaders.

To find out more about Jennifer and Says Life:
https://www.sayslife.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferthamm/