Why “People” Doesn’t Conflict with “Profit” According to Neurobiology
Dear Tech Companies,
I’m here to share some science with you about why it’s actually in your company’s best interest to devote time and resources to mental wellbeing. It can save you money. By “hacking in” to a more calm nervous system, managers and employees can increase productivity without disciplinary action and spreading fear or toxicity — and may even reduce turnover, a well-known issue in tech.
I’m a licensed mental health therapist in North Carolina with a unique clinical interest in supporting employees of all backgrounds who work in the IT, CS, and programming industries. For the sake of my clients, and my own curiosity, I’ve familiarized myself with the common plagues of distress in these areas. As it turns out, long hours in front of a computer screen barely scratches the surface of threats to mental wellness in these fields.
Though the concept of professional burnout is well-known to tech managers, employees, and HR professionals alike, I’ve become privy to a myriad of other systemic illnesses in the sector such as: employee isolation, imposter syndrome, racism, homophobia, substance use, performance anxiety, family concerns, inadequate health insurance and/or time off, unreasonable deadlines, aggressive competition for talent, stagnant pay, lack of support in professional growth, intimidation, harassment, fear of being fired with no notice, and gaslighting when employees try to address these issues or seek support.
If you’re scratching your head to figure out why some of these things, such as imposter syndrome and substance use are systemic problems, read on.
All of these issues — and many more that I haven’t listed— boil down to one common company principle: Productivity, and/or profit, above all else.
As a therapist, my frequent goal is to empower my client to identify, and then overcome, an internalized, persistent negative self-belief. This is often a statement that begins with “I am.” In my experience, the most common theme among tech workers appears to be some variant of “I am not enough.” Add a word between “not” and “enough” if you like: productive, smart, talented, likable, confident, male, white, cis, etc.
Say this sentence to yourself out loud. What do you notice? Emotions? Sensations in your body? Do you believe it? If you do, therapy may offer a safe, supportive place to help you tackle it. If you don’t, can you imagine a circumstance where you might?
It’s become evident in my practice that these negative self-beliefs are frequently not just merely unaddressed, but are actively being reinforced regularly in the work environment, because of prioritization on productivity and profit above everything else. I often find that it’s easy for someone to feel dismissed when raising issues to employers, even if they haven’t explicitly been told the problem is not important. It only takes someone to listen well to start chipping away at these negative beliefs. But due to our brain’s confirmation bias, it only takes one ill-placed comment, or simply a lack of follow-through, to fortify them again.
Some managers or CEOs have gone as far as to glorify things like sleeplessness, or knowingly joke about the climate of fear over who was going to be fired next, akin to that of “Survivor.” I don’t know these people, but I’m guessing that they haven’t considered that this toxicity has such potential to infiltrate personal lives. It can destroy relationships, trigger a depressive episode, panic attacks, or a drinking problem. But if we’re sticking to the bottom line here, a stressful work environment actually detracts from productivity. In business there’s a common myth that the choice is “people” or “profit,” and this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Neurobiology Helps Us Understand Productivity
Yes, those U.S. capitalistic values that continue to tell us to grab those bootstraps are alive and well in the tech world. But science tells us otherwise. Productivity in tech relies on a high-functioning prefrontal cortex of the brain, named so because it lies near the front portions of the skull near the forehead. Here lies our center for our most complex, executive, human functions, such as focus, reasoning, language, problem-solving, planning, and decision-making. As long as this stays “online,” we’re typically pretty good at performing and completing tasks. Writing code, communicating with clients and teammates, creating innovative solutions, and learning new information or skills can all happen fairly smoothly.
But the prefrontal cortex has an “off” switch, and for our purposes, it depends heavily on a tiny, almond-shaped part near the center of the brain called the amygdala. This acts as the “watchdog” of the nervous system, and it evolved to scan our environment for threats. The amygdala is constantly taking in sensory information during waking hours. When it does not receive a threatening message, it relays this signal back to the frontal lobe as if to say “All’s well.” When it does receive a threatening message, it relays this to areas of the brain further to the back of the skull to activate them. I refer to this as the hindbrain, or survival brain.
At a certain threshold for distress or perceived threat, the amygdala provides the frontal lobe a signal to shut down, and for survival/hindbrain to take over. This is where strong emotions live to prepare a person for responses like fight or flight. We don’t have conscious control over this. In the mental health world, this is referred to colloquially as “flipping your lid,” because the prefrontal cortex sits somewhat on top of the hindbrain and amygdala. It “flips,” and reduced activity can be seen in CT scans.
When the survival response is triggered the prefrontal cortex is deemed unnecessary, even if temporarily, to the rest of the nervous system. Instinct kicks in and will always prevail. Not even your most talented employee is capable of complex thinking when they are activated in this way, until the amygdala can work to regulate the system and bring the frontal lobe back online. The very success of your company’s performance relies upon well-functioning frontal lobes. A person under significant distress is the literal opposite of a productive one.
What activates this switch? It’s complicated and varies by individual. It can happen easily when brains are presented with life-threatening situations, but also when the demand for frontal lobe activity is too much. When we’re consistently cognitively overwhelmed the hindbrain responds with a distress call to conserve energy, as if to warn us that we’re overloading the circuit. When someone is accustomed to operating at this level it’s most often co-workers or families that notice a change in behavior, instead of the person themselves. Maybe that person has become more withdrawn, or worried, or irritable.
The term “burnout” is aptly-named because those neural pathways can go haywire with overuse, sometimes causing a cascade of responses and triggering serious concerns like substance use or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. At this point, the nervous system needs time to heal and rebalance itself. While treatable, these issues take much longer to recover from than tending to the system in the first place. Neglecting the nervous system at work can easily translate to more support, more time off, more productivity loss on average, increased turnover, and higher costs.
When employees leave, projects are further delayed. Hiring is time-consuming and expensive. Others are frequently left to pick up the slack until a new person can be trained to 100% capacity. We need more tech employers to take an active, preventative approach to mental wellness. Since happy employees are productive ones, the company is bound to ultimately benefit in terms of competition, creativity, and profit.
What’s Next
Our best hope for getting brains — and humans— at their best is to create a productive environment while also helping employees to manage distress as much as possible. Yes, this can include healthy habits such as encouraging walk breaks for fresh air, drinking water, having nutritious lunches, and minimizing distractions, but most companies can do much more in terms of de-stigmatizing mental health. This starts with leadership.
Managers have a huge role in determining workplace culture. One small way to start normalizing and addressing the presence of stress is to help employees talk about what makes their job difficult, and listen. Ask about stress levels when discussing project status, and what you can do to support folks who are struggling. Implement a de-brief meeting when a project is completed, to reflect on what went well and what could be improved.
You might have noticed a theme here: Get proactive in seeking out feedback wherever possible. Stay focused on directing this information where it needs to go to turn into action and build accountability into maintaining these changes. If you don’t have the time, capacity, or energy to listen, hire a consultant, or bring a professional on board with this specific role. Creating space for growth in company culture is not only best for your employees but will ultimately help your business to become known as a great place to work.
