ZEBRA TALK - A deep dive into the economic and human cost of mental health within the workplace
In conversation with Lord Dennis Stevenson, co-author of the Thriving at Work report – a deep dive into the economic and human costs of mental health - commissioned by Theresa May in 2017. We talk about the significant findings from the report as well as the many practical action steps that were recommended at that time and their application to date.
In this insightful conversation, Dennis also opens up about his own journey with mental health and what he wished he could have included in the report and would do, if it he were able to do it again.
The full transcript of this podcast episode can be found below.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Please note that this transcript is auto-generated from the audio file through Rev - Humans Working Side By Side With The Best Speech-to-Text AI. We believe this to be a good representation of the conversation, but it isn’t checked word-for-word and therefore isn’t 100% accurate.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (00:00):
... and I think I was blind, metal health blind until I was well into my thirties, and very insensitive and not at all aware. I've become much better, and I believe that, in terms of your direct reports, let's say the average person has 10 direct reports, shall we say, or eight, or something like that, that it's part of your job is to know enough about them and what's going on in their lives that you can spot if something's wrong. And that if something is wrong you can put it into context. And I've been doing that ever since I was in my mid thirties and encouraging other people to do it. And I think one of the things you need to get your direct reports to talk to you about is what they're doing about theirs and do they really know what's going on in their lives?
Matt Meyer (00:41):
Hello and welcome. This is Zebra Talk and my name is Matt Meyer. Today I'm in conversation with Lord Stevenson. Lord Stevenson was the co-author of the 2017 report Thriving at Work, which was commissioned by the then prime minister, Theresa May. Lord Stevenson co-authored the report with Paul Farmer, who was then and remains the chief executive of the charity Mind. It's a really insightful conversation in which Lord Stevenson opens up about his own journey with mental health. We talk about the economic as well as the human cost of mental health challenges, and we look at the many practical action steps which were recommended in the report. Our conversation finishes with Lord Stevenson talking about what he wished he could have included in the report and would do if he did it again.
Matt Meyer (01:32):
Dennis, absolutely delighted to be having this conversation this morning. You're the co-author of the Thriving at Work report, and that was an independent review of how employers can better support individuals to essentially thrive and continue to thrive in their workplace. I'm really interested to know a bit more about what the background to that was. It was commissioned by the then prime minister, Theresa May. What was the background to the report and the timing, and of course, your involvement?
Lord Dennis Stevenson (02:02):
Let's start with me because I like talking about me, but no, the... I'm involved in this area simply because about 30 years ago, I discovered I was feeling like S-H-I-T and discovered that I was suffering from what they call clinical depression. Although, there's a lack of definition of what that means. I've got involved with it ever since and learned how to handle my own problems and stuff and became known for it. And I reckoned that if I didn't talk about it, who would, because by the time I realized it, I was rather successful, not exactly impoverished. I had a wife who would still talk to me, children who talk to me, and a lot of friends, et cetera. So I did [inaudible 00:02:46] and became quite [inaudible 00:02:46].
Lord Dennis Stevenson (02:47):
Anyway, to your question, I was rung up just before Christmas. It must've been, I don't know, four years ago, three or four years, by the then head of the [inaudible 00:02:56] at Number 10. Say the prime minister would like me to chair a commission on mental health. I was frightfully chuffed at this. And by the way, as a side issue, a little known fact about Theresa May is she's interested in mental health. And although I hardly know her on the basis of the two discussions I've had with her about it, she's very well-informed. I thought about it and I thought the last thing we need is any kind of a commission wrong or otherwise, because you have commissions by government when there's huge disagreement on something. Now academics don't always disagree, but the truth is the great thing to understand about mental health is we, the human race, know the square root of very little about it. There's not much to disagree about.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (03:39):
I went back the next day and said, "Look, it's not such a good idea because we have a commission, it'll take two years. There'll be rooms full of ring binders with evidence, et cetera. And then I'll have to get the lowest common denominator out of about eight or 10 human beings. Why doesn't she just commission a report?" They came back very quickly the next morning and said, "Fine, you do it." At which point I made the one good decision of the last decade [inaudible 00:04:06]. I said, "Fine, I'll do it so long as you ask Paul Farmer as well." Paul Farmer was, and is the chief executive of Mind, has done a staggering job, not just for Mind, but for all of us, and is a really, really good guy. I rang up Paul and he said, "I'd be delighted to be your number two." I said, "No, Paul, this is joint and several, it's together," which of course is mad. You don't have two people doing something. Actually he's a friend for life. We met with eight, nine civil servants once a week for a year and did it together and it was a treat. That's the background how it happened.
Matt Meyer (04:44):
That's a great story. And when I read it, which was recently, and with the benefit of some experience in this area, through my own role, the two things that stood out to me was one, the very clear conclusion that the UK faces a significant mental health challenge, particularly in the workplace. And obviously I, and many of our listeners, are very much focused on workplace mental health. And the other was that, although there was a strong human cost to what was going on, that actually there was a very strong financial cost. Whether that was to individual businesses, the economy, or the world economy. And what were the key takeaways for you from the report? You've had the benefit of a couple of years to reflect on your conclusions. What are the things that you think were most powerful in that report?
Lord Dennis Stevenson (05:31):
I assume we'll come on to any thoughts I have on what businesses should be doing, et cetera, but starting way to your left, I have to say, I assumed when we started that we would be producing a beating hearts report saying this is awful and in the name of humanity and decency and morality, we got to do something about it. And I hope our report is that, but we did something, which in hindsight, thank goodness we did it. We commissioned an independent report on the extent of the problem. Now, we could have got the government economic service to do it, and they were very good by the way, but the trouble is people wouldn't have believed it. But we commissioned Deloitte to do an independent report, and as you know if you read it, albeit some years ago, but I think I can remember the facts, they did a pretty good analysis over a period of months and concluded the UK economy was losing something like a 100 billion pounds a year through mental health. And that sounds self-indulged stuff. Most of that is tangible identifiable expenditures. The amount of money wasted on training people who then had to leave because of mental problems. I mean, fixed amounts of money. And it was something like, I think, 1500 pounds per employee, not just those who were mentally ill was being wasted or some astonishing sum of money.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (07:03):
They then looked for case studies where people had invested, companies had invested in improving mental health of my employees, and they find 20 examples, just a round figure, it was 20. Every single one, and it's very rare where someone had quantified the effect, they find a positive return on investment. And to underline the point, because you'll have read it, but it's a wonderful thing, by wonderful chance, something like three weeks before the report came out, the Lancet published an article about a part of the Australian fire service, which talked about them investing in trying to improve their mental health, because obviously it's a very pressurized form of employment. And they found that for every... I think that the exact figures were, extraordinary how things will come back to, even my ripe of age, for every Aussie dollar invested they got a $9.08 return. Now that's extreme, but it's a really important point. This is not just a bleeding heart thing to a chief executive saying, "Hey, you're a good guy. You've got to do nice things." It is actually saying this isn't self-indulgent stuff, you can actually improve the profits of your business.
Matt Meyer (08:17):
Do you think that ROI approach, that empirical approach is as important to government taking the issue seriously as it is to individual businesses?
Lord Dennis Stevenson (08:26):
I think to be fair to our former prime minister, Mrs. May, definitely. She did this and she commissioned another report on the aspects of the legal background of mental health. This is something that's close to her heart. In fact, we all know, she was completely preoccupied, poor thing, with Brexit. That's about the other thing she did. I mean, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but I would say the civil service has some of the best examples of people paying proper attention to mental health. Generally the politicians aren't that interested, but the civil servants are. Central government, some of the best outfits in the UK.
Matt Meyer (09:09):
That's interesting, isn't it, because I think so much of this comes down to individual leadership in the context in which you find yourself. And you're right, in government that ebbs and flows, obviously. That's the nature of the system.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (09:19):
Let me give you a simple example of this, just come back to me. The daughter of a friend of mine works for the Home Office and she made contact with me three or four years ago and said, "Would I come and talk to a group of people." I did, and it was standing room only. Someone in one of their outposts in Sheffield or Leeds, one of them had gone to their boss and said, "Look, a number of us have problems with mental health, could we do something about it?" And this thing was incredibly impressive. I'd like to say I spoke so brilliantly, but it wasn't the case. They were so open, so honest, and they discussed their own problems in front of 50 or 60 fellow civil servants. Most of them each one individually didn't know. It was good. There's a lot that's good going on in central government.
Matt Meyer (10:08):
And of course one of the things that you talked about in the report was the importance of transparency. And I guess that is a good example as well as in the Home Office. What does transparency mean to you? How can we push that transparency in organizations?
Lord Dennis Stevenson (10:28):
Take one step back to the broader general question. To ask a question that a friend of mine asked me, and I will give you the official answer from the report, all of which still stands, and then I'll tell you the answer I wish I'd given him. It was a guy with several 1,000 people working for him. He genuinely, his motives, he wanted to make sure the people working for him, that their lives were more contented, but he also had noticed that cost savings could be made. And something else that isn't in the report, but should have been, is if you look at the generation of, should we say under forties, certainly under 30, they are much more literate in mental health. And I, in my own life, I now, I can think of three examples of people in their twenties who've taken an employment decision based on their view of how well the organization deals with mental health. Not because they've had mental problems, but it's been one of their criteria.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (11:38):
First, I think all organizations that have more than one person working for them should have a mental health policy/plan. It doesn't have to be more than a slide of paper or a little bit on the website, but when people go, they should know what it is. And it should set out what the company's philosophy is on it or what the company will do for you with mental problems, if you want to put your hand up, what you do, et cetera, et cetera. Second, the company should make reasonable investments, and they don't have to be big at all, in increasing mental health awareness. To state the obvious, by just having it talked about us and getting people in to talk about [inaudible 00:12:24].
Lord Dennis Stevenson (12:24):
Third, and I think very important, is the way people are managed. Jeremy Haywood, who was the cabinet secretary, sadly had died, he was persuaded by Paul's and my work to bring in, when he was doing his annual reviews, to bring in the performance of the permanent secretary reporting to him, on managing the mental health and wellbeing of their employees. That was a criteria which would affect the outcome of the review. And furthermore, being someone who didn't like nonsense, he asked someone to draw up a set of metrics. You are, should we say, the permanent secretary in DWP and you'll say, "Oh, we had a wonderful Mental Health Awareness Day, Jeremy, and we did this and that and that," and Jeremy would say, "Well, how do you explain for the fact that five years ago Z percent of people were putting their hands up and doing it and now it's Z minus five, et cetera?"
Lord Dennis Stevenson (13:35):
Personally, I was blind, metal health blind until I was well into my thirties, and very insensitive and not at all aware of it. I've become much better, and I believe that, in terms of your direct reports, let's say the average person has 10 direct reports, shall we say, or eight, or something like that, that it's part of your job is to know enough about them and what's going on in their lives that you can spot if something's wrong. And that if something is wrong you can put it into context. And I've been doing that ever since I was in my mid thirties and encouraging other people to do it. And I think one of the things you need to get your direct reports to talk to you about is what they're doing about theirs and do they really know what's going on in their lives?
Lord Dennis Stevenson (14:21):
I'm a nosy... I was going to say, use a rude word. I'm a nosy soul, but I think it is utterly responsible, if you're working with people, to know what's happening in their personal lives. If their marriage is in trouble, if they've got problems with a child who's ill, if dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, because we work very intensively with our colleagues and you need to know that sort of thing to be able to help. Going back to [inaudible 00:14:48], management is all important, but you guys need to know I lost 10 years of my life because of clinical depression. A hell of a thing for the permanent secretary to do. Now, you are an ambitious 28 year old pushing your way up DCMS. Is that going to make you more likely to put your hand up? You bet it is. et cetera. And then I can't resist telling this, there was a minister who's got a wonderful name. Oh dear. Anyway, she's a football referee as well as being this. And she's probably still in government now and she followed on and talked and they changed DCMS by doing that.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (15:27):
Getting people who are credible to talk about their own mental health problems or their husband's or their wife's or their children's or their friend's mental problems, is the quickest way I know to changing the culture. And it's hugely important. I wish we put it in the report.
Matt Meyer (15:45):
I think that's really fascinating because it's not that approach, that philosophy is not only relevant to mental health, I think it's relevant to so many issues and challenges that people are facing. And the whole agenda of trying to create a more inclusive work environment, I think is about having those conversations about the challenges that people face. And we've had some fascinating conversations in our own business about challenges that women have faced returning to the workplace, that some of our black colleagues have faced growing up in environments where they were facing prejudice from a very early age. And just surfacing and being transparent about those conversations, I think it creates a really healthy workplace. One of the things I'm interested in, we've obviously couched this conversation in the frame of mental health, but I think a lot of organizations are talking at the moment about wellbeing and positive cultures more generally. I mean, do you see those as different things? Is there a spectrum between mental health and positive, healthy organizational culture, and how are those things related to each other?
Lord Dennis Stevenson (16:50):
Well, first, I think I said earlier on, something that I think is hugely... Well, no, I'm going to caveat everything I'm saying by saying the following; I shouldn't say this. I don't really know what I'm talking about, but then neither does anyone else. This is the truth of the matter. And just in case anyone takes me seriously, you might be looking at this, the truth is the human race knows very little about mental health. And by the way, there's a wonderful man called... Oh God, anyway, he ran and NIMH, which is the National Institute of Mental Health in America, which is the biggest expenditure on mental health, and stood down about two years ago. Name will come back to me. I came across the other day, about a year ago, two years ago, he made this astonishing statement, great integrity, saying that it was 13 years of his life running it, and he'd spent, I think, $20 billion, some astonishing sum of money on neuroscience [inaudible 00:17:51]. And he couldn't think of a single thing that he developed that had helped a single patient in the clinic. And that we just got the approach wrong.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (18:00):
A very extreme case, but basically this is an area, it's a bit like cancer 50 years ago. Before you were born, Matt, we didn't know much about cancer. We really didn't. There was a community of people called cancer specialists who said they did, but they didn't. We now know, not that much, but we know much more. Mental health, we don't know very much. Having said that, in our report, we make the distinction, we say look, at any point in time, you may be thriving, you're fine, you may be struggling, or you may be ill. And the vast majority of us, like 99.9% of us, are either thriving or struggling and moving between the two. Ironically, small percentage of us are seriously ill with serious illnesses. Now, I can't prove that to you, but that fits with my experience.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (19:04):
Now, the word wellbeing has always slightly bothered me, not least because Sally Davies, the last chief medical officer who was completely wonderful, she did a report on mental, a very, very good one about five or six years ago, where she said, "If anyone talks about wellbeing again without giving me [inaudible 00:19:23] to what it means and proper scientific proof, I'll shoot them." And it is a bit too easy of a word, however, translated into my common sense... And let me now switch to one of the other people I really respect. I'd mentioned Simon Wessely, who was president of the Royal College of Psychiatry, is a really, really good guy, and then became the first psychiatrist to be whatever you are at the Society of Medicine, et cetera. When he came to see me to talk about this work and he sat on my sofa and he said, "Know how we're doing a report, Dennis, it's perfectly obvious what the answer is." I said, "Oh yeah?" And he pointed his finger at me. He said, "It's your responsibility," by which he meant to say, presumably you're senior partner or something, you're managing director of 10, well, it's your responsibility.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (20:13):
And what he was basically saying is that yes, to be sure, for the relatively small number of people who have something which is a clinical illness, like they really can't get out of bed and they really want to throw themselves out of windows or they hear voices all the time, whatever it is, yes, to be sure, that's what specialists are for. But for the rest, we've all got to become more aware of mental health, our own mental health, other people's, and get better at helping other people. That if, you or I go out into the street now and stop the first person we meet and say, "How's your mental health," they'll probably think we're talking about an illness. Actually, if you said, "How's your physical health," they wouldn't. And I regret that I was not brought up, nor did I bring my four sons up, to be aware that they had mental health just like they have physical health. And we are now, I'm glad to say, but we need to accelerate the process, moving into a society where we're all aware we've got mental health and we're all becoming better at managing our own and helping other people.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (21:20):
Coming right back to the workplace, I very much hope and believe we're moving to a situation where, in workplaces, everyone is aware they've got their own mental health and their colleagues have, and they're aware of little tricks of the trade of how to help deal with them, et cetera, et cetera. I've had to learn that over the last 20 years. I'll stop, I'm talking too much.
Matt Meyer (21:43):
No, it's perfect. As you were talking, I was reflecting. I read an article this morning and I was just reaching to see who it was by actually, which was about your mental health five a day. We've all got our head around having our physical wellbeing protected by having five a day. But it was talking about sleep and reflection and rest and all these kinds of things. And which I thought was a very interesting way of thinking about things. But I hear you, and I think the individual responsibility, the need to own the issue at every sense, whether that's the transparency of the issue or the solutions to the issue, I think is absolutely critical. And personal responsibility stands very much at the core of that. But leaders in business, and back to your original point, start with having a plan. At least have to have an acknowledgement, a transparency of the issue and a plan. I think that that came through very clearly.
Matt Meyer (22:39):
Now, the report is absolutely packed full of recommendations, which I think was one of its great assets. There's a lot in there for people to dig into, and we'll provide a link to the report with the podcast. But thinking about your own experience and your personal experience in it, you obviously had a very successful business career, but you've also been very open about the mental health issues that you faced, what are the recommendations for businesses in particular? I mean, you talked a lot about government and public sector in the report, but thinking about businesses, what are the recommendations for businesses that you think are the critical ones?
Lord Dennis Stevenson (23:16):
It starts at the top of businesses. It's great that you're doing this. I mentioned Legal and General, and I bet I've touched, but Nigel Wilson who runs Legal and General, chief executive, who is a rather formidable human being, he has been totally behind their move into mental health. And I didn't know if he originated, but they had, and have, I believe, a policy called No Red Card, which basically is saying to the employees of the business, if you put your hand up with a mental health problem, there will be no red card. We will support you and it won't affect your career. And I know about that because they asked me to come and be part of the cabaret when they launched it at... They spent a huge some of money. They took over the conference facilities at Twickenham. And they used sport, they invited a load of sportsmen who were infinitely more interesting than I was, to come and talk. And they did it properly.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (24:26):
And then the key point, and Nigel, who I've known for a long time, he's a friend, wrote to me and asked me to do it and said he'd be launching it. I thought Nigel would turn up at nine o'clock and do it, and we'd do things throughout the day. Nigel was there at nine o'clock, whenever it was, stayed all day, waiting till the end, and his PA or whatever the person was called, told me he only looked at his mobile once. This is the chief executive of one of our biggest [inaudible 00:24:58]. Now, I don't know how many people L&G employees, about a 100,000 or something ridiculous, that sort of information gets around when the boss... As I say, starting from the top... Second, I think I said to you, get other people to talk about it and show that it's a good thing to talk about it. Third, definitely spend money on, and very small sums of money, on mental health education. Fourth, definitely have a written policy as to what you will do, including what you'll pay for and what you won't pay for.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (25:38):
And since either the Simon Wessely view of, "Hey, it's your problem. You fix it," actually you shouldn't need to pay for that much. That I got to make it up. I happen to know the person who's responsible, well, the most senior person at a marketing in Taylor Vinters is going through a very bad time, is feeling, S-H-I-T. I don't think she's got serious clinical depression, but I think she's feeling awful. And I think it's your problem and not a psychiatrist problem or a psychologist problem or whatever, whatever. And I think you [inaudible 00:26:18], you need to develop the skill set to be sensitive, to know about it, how to handle it.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (26:26):
A guy, oh dear, if I can remember his name, he wouldn't mind me... Anyway, he worked at the BBC and very senior. I mean, he was running, I think 3,000 news journalists or something. Matthew something. And he got very bad depression. And his boss, in a spirit of enlightenment, said, "Don't worry about thing. You go home and don't come back till you're better." That was completely wrong because you're sending this guy back... As it happens, he doesn't have another half or didn't last time I talked to him about three years ago. And so anyway, his boss then talked to someone and I don't know what happened, but rang him up and said, "By the way, you know that café we occasionally meet at, how about you and I getting together once every three or four days for breakfast?" And that made all the difference. And that kind of contact is not necessarily right for everyone, but I'd like to meet the boss because he or she, I think it was a she, was quite a thoughtful, aware person and took good advice.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (27:42):
There's the need to create a culture where people think like that. If someone in your office has a temperature, you know what to do and what to say. If they're having a lousy time and you happen to know their marriage is in trouble and this and that. Are you aware of what Thames Water's been doing with virtual reality?
Matt Meyer (28:03):
No. Tell us more about that. You've alluded to that before. I'm intrigued.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (28:09):
Whoever is head of health and safety, Carl someone. Anyway, an ex soldier, an ex tank commander, who just for your interest, he is one of the two or three most impressive people I've met in the mental health space. The Army never promoted him above being a sergeant. Isn't that shocking? Just really, really shocking. Anyway, that's as an aside. He had experienced virtual reality. I think he did several trips to Bosnia when he was a solider. They've developed [inaudible 00:28:46] technique. And I think I remember him saying everyone has to go through it. And I think I also remember him saying that you could check on it. That if you're tendering for a contract with Thames Water, the team that would be working on it has to go through it. And they showed me one of their bits of virtual reality, just one. You first of all are shown a film. I think the guy's name was... Whatever, I'm going to say his name was Matt. [inaudible 00:29:13] Matt. And you saw two of his colleagues. Now, of course they're actors, are talking about Matt. He'd been given a promotion an Matt wasn't himself. And they were fed up with Matt and it was just dreadful. And what are they going to do about it, et cetera, et cetera?
Lord Dennis Stevenson (29:29):
You then switched to the virtual reality and you put on the things, et cetera, et cetera, and you find yourself living Matt's life. And you're in his home, dealing with his wife, his children, his friends, et cetera, and it's pretty grueling. And you then go back to a film bit and you have his boss talking about him and so on. It goes on and you see his wife leaving him, and it's brilliantly done. And eventually Matt goes up a town, he's about to thrown himself out of a window and someone pulls his feet back. And I promise you, at that point, I wanted to take the things off. It was complete. You then go back to a discussion with the actors about how they could have noticed and what they should have done and how other people would notice their colleagues. And it's, I'm sure Taylor Vinter has brilliant first aid courses, which you all do, and I'm sure you will remember it, but I remember I had to do CPR for about three and a half minutes after it first getting [inaudible 00:30:41], and I don't remember anything. And I have nothing against mental health first aid, and it's a good thing too, but that, I think, will stay with me for the rest of my life. It is utterly brilliant and can't have cost them that much to do.
Matt Meyer (30:58):
I mean, clearly impactful. And I think it reminds me of something, this work that's been done at Cornell University on the psychology of leadership. And they go through an approach, which is whenever you're about to jump to a conclusion, a negative conclusion about why someone has done something or not done something in your team, actually just take time out and write down three possible reasons why they might have not attended the meeting.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (31:24):
That's really good.
Matt Meyer (31:24):
And it's very practical tool. And as someone who regularly jumps to conclusions, I put myself through that discipline and definitely found it helpful. And it may not even be that you come across the correct reason why someone's doing something they're doing, but actually the conscious act of trying to think outside what's in front of you is very helpful. And that story reminds me of that leadership approach. Lots of people are in a different working environment where it's perhaps harder to have that peripheral vision. I mean, do you see any long-term challenges with the way where we're working now and the way it looks like the working world's going, and any thoughts on how we might address that?
Lord Dennis Stevenson (32:01):
I suspect the challenge for Taylor Vinter is to create a flexible system which gives people flexibility as to what they do. The answer is, I don't know what the implications of all this are, except that they are... I mean, within my generation, I've been quite ahead of the game on using technology, which doesn't mean to sound at all literate, by the way, but I had an email address in the early '90s, which for someone in my advanced age is quite something. And I thought I understood what was happening. I hadn't understood how much time... I'm normally in London. I'm not here. How much time I spent going from meeting to meeting in London. I mean, it's ridiculous. Completely silly. I mean, I know I have an extra hour or so every day.
Matt Meyer (32:50):
Dennis, looking back on the report from the vantage point of being a few years on, are there things that weren't in the report that you would include now or that you wish you'd focused on more?
Lord Dennis Stevenson (33:01):
Yes. I'm not humble enough to admit of things that we hadn't thought of, but there were things that we knew we weren't doing justice to [inaudible 00:33:12]. And the obvious area is the SME economy. I mean, basically I think it's fair comment that I doubt whether there's more than a minority of the top 250 quoted companies who haven't moved to having proactive mental health policies. And I'm not saying that's entirely due to our work, because there was a following a wind in society. A lot of it's created by people like my partner in crime, Paul Farmer in Mind. And in a sense, quite often, I get asked about a large company and I say, "Well, don't bother me with it." It's kind of you can do it yourselves. You're rich enough and muscly enough and ugly enough and you've got it, and there'll be people working for you who know more about it than you do. I said that to a great friend of mine the other day. He was nearer my age than yours doing it.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (34:10):
The SMEs are a different matter. And when you're walking around Whitehall or whatever and you meet senior [inaudible 00:34:18] politicians, talking to them, you get the impression they think the country's run by big companies who employ. And of course they don't, it isn't. Big companies employ a relatively small percentage of the population. It's smaller organizations that employ the vast majority of our fellow citizens. Now, does that mean no SMEs doing the right things [inaudible 00:34:39]? Not at all. Some of them are way ahead of the game, but that is the biggest priority area for action. And if government was to do another operation, and last thing I want to do, they should focus on practical communications policies that can deal with SMEs. And of course below SMEs there's an emerging, very tricky area of the economy called the gig economy. All those, mainly young men and women you see wandering around on a bicycles who are, again, typically going home to flat shares with people who may come and go, with virtually no work support and very little home support, et cetera, et cetera, and not a huge amount of income. And it's an area I know very little about, but it's an area I observe.
Lord Dennis Stevenson (35:35):
Those would be the two areas. To take SMEs, one of the things that is beginning to happen, and I think will happen, just as with the environmental things, you increasingly have large organizations, whether in government or in big companies, saying, unless you tick certain sustainable boxes, doing certain things in the environment, you can't tender for our contracts. Which [inaudible 00:36:03] authority. And I think increasingly, let's take Tesco's. I don't know what Tesco does. I've no reason to think anything other than it's... But I would hope that Tesco's, if it doesn't answer, will move to a simple policy whereby you can't tender to be a Tesco supplier unless you convince us you're doing a number of the right things on mental health. Could that lead to a box ticking thing? Yep, it could, but is that better than nothing? Yep.
Matt Meyer (36:32):
I think that it's fascinating. I think that the SME point is really interesting and certainly you're right, even within my own organization, there are lots of people who are very, very enthusiastic about approaching these challenges consciously and positively. And I think in the SME, it's an easier opportunity to capture that enthusiasm and do something with it. And it's also an environment where you've got, back to transparency and being aware of what's going on in people's lives, it's much easier to do that in an organization that's the size of a frigate rather than the size of an aircraft carrier. And I think that's a real opportunity. But the question about the gig economy is an interesting one too, actually. And I can see a report or an article or something on who's looking after the gig economy workers being a really interesting, because that's a business model that's here to stay, I have no doubt, and will grow.
Matt Meyer (37:28):
Finally, Dennis, I mean, you've been very transparent about your own personal experiences with mental health and you've had a long and varied career. I wondered if there was one thing you would suggest leaders reflect on that's based on all those experiences that you've had. What would that be?
Lord Dennis Stevenson (37:47):
I regret to say, in a sentence, if you're only allowing me one thing, it's like, [inaudible 00:37:53] this, one thing for a leader to reflect on, it would be read the report. No, don't ever read the report, read the summary. It's very, says he with the modesty of which I'm famous it's very good, the summary. And actually... And if you're interested, get hold of the Deloitte's report, because it will convince you and show you that for most organizations, by investing relatively modest sums of money, and mainly by investing your own time as a leader, you can actually improve the financial profitability and performance of your organization. Now, of course, there are other things I want leaders to concentrate on. And I don't think leaders are nasty people who want their colleagues to be unhappy or miserable. But if I had to [inaudible 00:38:48] one thing, this is not just a do gooding thing. This is about making sure that you have a more productive, more profitable organization at home. That would be the one thing I'd ask them to concentrate on.
Matt Meyer (39:04):
I think that provides fantastic perspective for the end of our conversation. We'll make sure that the report and the Deloitte report are available through our own channels. And just thank you very much for your time today and all the great work that you've done on this topic.
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