Are You Psychologically Ready to Retire?

ARE YOU PSYCHOLOGICALLY READY TO RETIRE?

BLOGGER: Michael B. Friedman, LMSW

Work is a central part of the lives of most people.  It is source of personal identity and self-definition.  It is a source of day-to-day structure and of social interaction.  Work can be a source of self-esteem.  Earning a living adequate to take care of yourself and your family is an important source of pride and self-worth.  If you have been lucky enough to have a personally meaningful career rather than just a way of making a living, work may also have resulted in a sense of importance, of achievement, and of making a contribution to your community, nation, society, or even humanity.  Work of this kind results in recognition and admiration that many people come to crave.

So, when you retire, there’s a lot to make up for.  Are you ready?  How will you define yourself?  What will you say when someone asks you what you do?  How will you feel about not earning a living and perhaps being dependent on government or family for support?  Are you confident that your savings will hold up?  How will you structure your days so that they don’t get away from you without doing what you wanted to do?  Who will you chat with?  How will you get recognition and respect when you are no longer a “star”?

Keep in mind that with increased life expectancy, retirement will not last just a couple of years before you die.  If you retire in your mid-60s chances are you will still be alive and able to be active at 85—another 15 to 20 years.  That’s a lot of years.  Some of you will be vital into your 90s and have 25-30 years of post-retirement life.  This creates both a great opportunity to take on new roles and a great challenge not to miss out on the potential satisfactions of late life.

One danger is that without work, days can slip away unnoticed.  Sleep a bit late, read more of the newspaper while having breakfast than you ever did before, take a walk or exercise a little, sit down for lunch, do errands such as shopping, visit a doctor to check out your aching joints, have a drink at 5 preferably not alone, dinner, a book, a favorite TV show, and before you know it it’s time for bed.  Some people seem to be happy to live this way, but many get bored and disenchanted or feel they are wasting their lives.

Do you know what you will need to be satisfied with a life without the work you will retire from?

Here are a few possibilities.

For some people, having fun in recreational and social activities and being close with family and friends are enough.  Family particularly can provide opportunities for close relationships, for teaching the young, and for being helpful—all of which contribute to a sense of self-worth.  Not that these are easy achievements in families, which often fester with angers and disappointments and do not respect old family members.

Recreational activities—whether it’s playing golf or poker, fishing with your buddies, quilting, following your favorite baseball team, reading, listening to music, or almost anything—offer opportunities to cultivate personal skills as well as to enjoy the company of others.  Keep in mind that retirement can be very lonely.  Work comes with opportunities to be sociable that don’t exist when you are home by yourself.

For many people it is important to do something meaningful.  Meaning, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.  Some people find meaning in artistic activity.  Others find it in working for a cause as a volunteer.  For some getting paid is critical for economic or psychological reasons.  For some meaningful old age is found in taking courses to pursue neglected interests or to develop new skills.  Many people find satisfaction in work as part of religious, communal, or political organizations.  So much needs to be done to repair the world that there is always room for another hand.

If you are a person who is much admired in your world and if, like most such people, you enjoy the admiration, enjoy being recognized, enjoy being respected, or enjoy being in charge, engaging in “meaningful” activity may not be psychologically enough.  For many people, having-been an “important” person is not nearly as satisfying as being one.  Taking pride in the past, tempering your personal ambitions, and taking pleasure in watching and contributing to the unfolding of younger people—which are critical components of aging well—can be hard achievements for people who in fact have much to be proud of.

The transition from work to retirement generally is not easy psychologically because so much of who we are and of our sense of meaning and value comes from work.  Expect at least a small emotional roller coaster.

 

The Importance of Creativity in Old Age

The Importance of Creativity in Old Age

BLOGGER:  Michael Friedman

“I have two driving forces in my life — to be creative and to be helpful. If I had to choose one, I would choose to be helpful.”

Bernie Kessler — a retired psychologist and an active, avid, very skilled photographer and photography teacher — said this to me recently when we got together during his recovery from heart surgery and the infections and subsequent surgeries that nearly killed him after the original “successful” surgery. Bernie is 84. He knows he will not live forever. But he also said, “I am not depressed. I am grateful to be alive.”

Creative and helpful! An important insight, it seems to me.

Of course, any pair of key components of living well is bound to be too simplistic; there’s always more to it. But sometimes simplistic insights are illuminating. Freud, for example, identified love and work as the fundamental goals of human life. That rings true. But for those of us who are older, particularly for those of us who are aware that death is closing in, finding ways to shape and to express ourselves through artistic and other creative processes, and finding ways to pass on what we know to the generations of our children and our grandchildren, are increasingly important.

It is not that love and work become irrelevant to older people. They do not. But something happens as we become older that changes the nature of intimacy and changes our long-term ambitions. Love and work become a bit less central. Articulating ourselves and leaving a legacy become, or can become, as Bernie put it, our “driving forces.”

Bernie, of course, is an unusual person. He is highly educated, financially successful enough to be able to live comfortably and married to a caring woman for 63 years. He has a daughter who shares his interest in photography and visits regularly, a network of friends who have been there for him during this very difficult time and connections with several arts organizations where he has exhibited and taught regularly. For him, being creative and being helpful are possible.

What about those who may not have creative talents, who may seem to have nothing to teach, who spent their lives doing jobs they hated, who barely have enough to live on, whose families are not intact, who have few friends or who are not connected with community organizations?

If their isolation is extreme, old age is likely to be terrible. But most people have something to contribute to their families and communities, and most people have interests they can cultivate. Yes, some people create and some appreciate, but appreciation of the excellence of others is an opportunity for expertise that is satisfying in itself and can be passed on. Knowing batting averages, the plots and characters of TV shows, which celebrities are doing what with whom, the results of political polls — all of these are opportunities for personal development and to share knowledge. And virtually everyone is able to share their history, which is a great service to younger people smart enough to be interested.

The American society is wonderfully diverse, with a highly-developed sector of organizations that reflect the beliefs and interests of people from a multitude of backgrounds and life experience. Participation in these community groups, whether religious, cultural, recreational or political creates opportunities to cultivate new skills (including creative skills), to make a contribution and to leave a legacy. You don’t have to be a Bernie Kessler — a person of creative brilliance — to find the satisfactions of creativity and helpfulness in old age.

But Bernie is instructive, because even in the aftermath of illnesses that nearly killed him and have left him visibly weakened, he has lifted his art to a new level. While I was visiting with him, he showed me photographs he is readying for a new show. It is called “Silent Places,” and the photographs are simple black and white renditions of furniture in otherwise empty rooms. They are stark, without visual flamboyance, but filled with a sense of transcendent meaning that takes us beyond their visual surface. This work captures, I think, what the philosopher of art Arthur Danto has called “the transfiguration of the commonplace.”

Bernie’s new photographs are mature work that he probably could not have done when he was younger, despite the considerable beauty of the work he has produced over the years. I don’t mean to suggest that young people cannot produce works of transcendent meaning. Obviously they can and do. I only mean to suggest there are new opportunities for creativity and self-definition in old age.

Bernie Kessler is just one illustration of the possibility of new discovery and of the cultivation of a meaningful legacy in the final stage of life.

 

Dementia Caregivers: How to Build Meaningful Relationships

Dementia Caregivers: How to Build Meaningful Relationships in Spite of Memory Loss

BLOGGER: Michael B. Friedman, LMSW and John Zeisel, Ph.D.

Being the caregiver for someone you love who is gradually losing mental capacities is about as tough as it gets in human life outside of wars, disasters and profound poverty. Parents who were once your source of nurturing and knowledge; who worked hard to take care of their family; who had interests in politics, religion, sports, movies, celebrities and more; who had fun with their friends; who may have been among the best in their field. Parents who lose their mastery and become unable to manage their own affairs or to care for themselves in the most basic ways — parents who become dependent on you to take care of these things for them — can be, and often are, a source of great sadness.

Spouses and lovers who were your soul mates, your partners in life, the people with whom you shared your most important, moving, pleasurable and challenging moments — spouses who gradually lose their capacity to be with you as companions and confidantes can also be a source of great sadness.

On top of this, the time, energy and resources that it takes to be the primary caregiver for these people who are so important to you, can sap your own strength. You can feel that it is more than you can stand.

What can help?[1]^{, [2]}

Changing your expectations of the person with declining cognitive capacities can make a big difference, helping you to be less frustrated and irritated by his or her inability to do what they once could and especially to be with you in the way they once were.

Focusing less on the past and on a wished-for future can make it possible to connect emotionally in a new way and to get the most out of the moments you have together. Our relationships are often oriented toward a collective future: retiring together, traveling together, getting old together. It can be daunting to maintain a relationship that does not have the kind of future we always assumed it would.  But it is not impossible to have relationships in the moment that are emotionally satisfying even if we are terribly sad about what they, and we together, have lost.

Understanding that the person we love is still there, despite their inability to access memories without help, can also make a difference. Reminiscing together — even if it is mostly one-sided — can be a gratifying experience, especially when the person’s eyes light up with recognition. Talking about and engaging in old interests, listening to favorite music, going to a baseball game or even getting the feel of it on TV, watching old movies, taking a walk in the old neighborhood — all these can be sources of satisfaction in the moment. Even if the explicit memory of these experiences slips away because of the complex ways in which dementia affects the brain, the emotional connections remain.

Discovering the possibility of being together in silence can be deeply moving and meaningful as well. When we put aside our dashed dreams long enough to be open to the rich emotions alive in that silence, just being together can release an unspoken emotional exchange.

But what about the really difficult times? Dad has wandered away again. Is he safe? Mom says she doesn’t recognize you and yells for the police when you visit. Your wife curses you for cheating on her. Your husband demands sex with the home health aide. Your friend seems lost in himself and does not respond to your presence at all. What can you do?

There is no magic wand guaranteed to make bad times go away. Even if by changing our own behavior we reduce their anxiety and agitation, sometimes the people we care about remain disengaged. Some people’s disappointments and angers run so deep that moments of peaceful, loving exchange seem impossible. Some of us who are caregivers can’t stand another minute.

But these terrible times do not beset all people all the time, not by a long shot. It may seem impossible for the person you care about to get meaningful satisfaction out of a life so different from the life she or he lived before cognitive decline. It may seem impossible to have a meaningful and satisfying relationship with a parent, a spouse, a partner or a friend with whom you can no longer have in-depth conversations. It may seem that they cannot possibly find life worth living.

But a great many can. People with significant cognitive limits can get satisfaction out of life, and it is possible for us to have meaningful relationships with them — if we learn to shift what we want and expect from them, see the person who is still inside, and develop the capacity to live in the emotional moment.

(Michael Friedman is Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University’s schools of social work and public health.  John Zeisel, Ph.D., who is Founder and President of The I’m Still Here Foundation and of Hearthstone Alzheimer Care.)

 

Is Melancholy an Inevitable Outcome of Getting Old?

Elderly Depression: Is Melancholy an Inevitable Outcome of Getting Old?

BLOGGERS: Michael B. Friedman, LMSW and Lisa Furst, LMSW

Depression is dangerous and one of the most significant impediments to aging well.

People with depression[i] usually experience a profound sadness and sense of hopelessness that goes far beyond ordinary unhappiness.  They often experience terrible psychic pain, which some people report is harder to bear than severe physical pain.

People with depression often experience a profound disinterest in life.  What has made them happy and kept them vibrant no longer does.  Life may have no meaning for them.

People with depression often find it difficult to carry on ordinary life functions.  They may have trouble sleeping or sleep too much.  They may have no interest in food or may stuff themselves in futile efforts to counter their bad mood.  They may find it difficult to concentrate on work, day-to-day tasks, or social interaction.  They may ruminate about relatively minor matters and be unable to make a decision or forgive themselves for errors or discourtesies.  They may feel that doing anything takes too great an effort.  They may always expect the worst and give up without trying.  They may be angry much of the time, easily irritated by small aggravations.  They may often think about death, even about taking their own lives.

People with depression have lower life expectancy than those without.  The combination of depression and a serious, chronic physical illness, such as diabetes and heart disease, results in greater risks for disability and premature death than for people with the same physical conditions without depression.[ii]

People with depression are also more likely to be socially isolated and caught in a vicious cycle in which depression feeds isolation and isolation feeds depression[iii].

Most people who complete suicide are depressed.[iv] And the sense of hopelessness inherent in depression makes many people reluctant to seek or accept help.

Obviously, depression makes it hard to live well at any age, including old age.

The good news for older adults is that, contrary to common belief, depression is not a normal or inevitable outcome of aging.  But the ageist expectation that it is frequently results in failure to take steps to overcome it.  ”There’s nothing to be done.  They’re just old.”  This attitude too often robs older people of opportunities to enjoy life.

In fact, each year major depressive disorder affects fewer than 5 percent of adults 65 or older who live in the community.[v] The rate is higher among older adults with serious chronic health conditions, those who need home health care and those who are institutionalized.

A much higher proportion of older adults who live in the community — perhaps 20 percent — experience symptoms and forms of mood disorders, such as dysthymia or sub-syndromal depression[vi], that are not as severe as major depressive disorder but may have nearly as much negative impact[vii].

So, a significant proportion of older adults suffers from depression.  But, it is important to note, 75 to 80 percent of older adults do not experience depression in any given year.  Depression — to say it again — is not normal in old age, an encouraging fact for those who may feel hopeless about their lives.

Depression often can be treated effectively or overcome through other means such as meaningful relationships, activities, or spiritual experience.  Unfortunately, it often goes unrecognized.

One reason for this is that it may not look like “depression”.  Frequently, it is expressed through physical symptoms such as headaches, “stomach” problems, aches and pains, fatigue or insomnia.

Depression also can be hard to recognize because it does not necessarily involve having a depressed mood.  There are two “cardinal” symptoms of major depressive disorder — profound sadness for two weeks or more and loss of interest and pleasure in activities that have had the greatest personal meaning.  It is necessary to have one, but not both, of these symptoms to be diagnosed with major depression.  It may seem strange, but there is depression without sadness[viii].

In older adults, depression may be missed because it involves cognitive difficulties that get diagnosed as dementia.  This common misdiagnosis is terribly unfortunate because successful treatment of depression can restore cognitive capacities that have been lost due to depression — even in people with dementia.[ix]

Finally, depression can be hard to spot because many people with depression are able to hide it.  From the outside they may seem unchanged, even though they may be suffering terribly on the inside.

So depression is dangerous, and it often goes unrecognized and untreated, depriving older adults of opportunities to get the most out of life.  What can be done about this?  We will address this question in our next post.

In the meantime, if you or someone you care about needs help, call 1-800-273-TALK.

And to find a geriatric psychiatrist in your area, refer to the website of the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation, http://www.gmhfonline.org/gmhf/find.asp.

This article was co-authored with Lisa Furst, L.M.S.W., Director of the Training and Technical Assistance Center of The Geriatric Mental Health Alliance of New York and co-author of  Depressed Older Adults: Education and Screening

Life After Dementia

Life After Dementia

BLOGGER: MICHAEL FRIEDMAN, L.M.S.W

I am afraid of developing dementia, the most common form of which is Alzheimer’s disease. The possibilities are horrifying — the ineluctable loss of memory and other cognitive functions; dependency on others to dress me, to feed me, to change my diapers; slipping into a fog, where I cannot recognize even people I love.

But is dementia inevitably a cruel, distorted end of a human life?

When I was younger, I thought so.  I had no doubt that I would prefer death to living in a demented state; that I would want to take my own life; and that, if I missed the timing and could not act on my own, I would want someone else to do it for me.  “Just shoot me,” I said to my wife — knowing, of course, that she would not and could not, but hoping that she would act swiftly as my health care proxy to have any kind of life support — including food and water — removed when I was no longer myself.

As I have become old (I am now 68), my thinking has changed.  When the time comes, if the time comes, I may want to live — even if I cannot engage in witty conversation; even with the need for someone to help me hobble on a walker to get out for a breath of air; even with the indignity of someone cleaning me after I mess my diapers.

What we expect and want for ourselves changes over time.  That is the fundamental insight of developmental psychology.  When I was a child, being a child seemed right.  When I became a teenager, I fought against being a child.  As a grown-up, my adolescence was an embarrassing memory.  I am happy now not to be driven to succeed at the work, which largely and happily defined my existence as an adult.  The low-stress life I am fortunate to have now feels right to me.

What will feel right when I am very old?  Will I care if I can no longer analyze public policy?  Will I be deeply distressed if I cannot write or teach?  Will I suffer if I cannot tell a joke or have an informed conversation about politics, world events, and the fields of knowledge and activity that have been central to my life?

Or will a visit from someone I like make my day?  Will my daughter and grandchildren (if I have them) be a source of constant interest?  Will watching world events on the TV with only faint understanding be enough?  And when the time comes, if it comes, will the feel of the sun on my face be enough for me to want to live?  Will a caring hand on my shoulder, the taste of French fries, the sound of jazz, the sight of a beautiful painting or sunset be enough?  I do not know the answer.

I do know that dementia unfolds in stages.  Although many people in the early and mid-stages are devastated by the growing loss of important abilities and develop mood or anxiety disorders, others have “full” lives that include the pleasures of friendships, love, and sex; the satisfaction of participation in social and communal activities; and even the discovery of new interests.  In fact, some experts on dementia (see, for example, John Zeisel’s book, “I’m Still Here“) maintain that diminished cognitive functions result in the release of capabilities that have been suppressed by the very cognitive abilities that are now in decline — particularly the willingness to take creative risks and the openness to human affection and intimacy.

There are, as we all know, people with dementia who become depressed, frightened or angry — some so angry that they are abusive to people who try to care for them.  There are some people with dementia who wonder why they are alive, or wish for death.

But there are also people with dementia who experience pleasure, who feel love, and who are at peace.

So, even though I still fear developing dementia, I no longer say with any sense of certainty, “Just shoot me.”

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Meeting Mental Health Challenges of the Elder Boom

Meeting the Mental Health Challenges of the Elder Boom

BLOGGER: MICHAEL FRIEDMAN, LMSW

The elder boom has begun, and our nation is not prepared. Between 2011 and 2030, the number of adults 65 or older will increase from 40 million to 72 million and from 13 percent of the population to 20 percent. This drives growing concerns about the viability of Social Security, the sustainability of Medicare, and the availability of a workforce to provide health and social services.

Despite widespread concern about the physical health of older adults, mental health needs are mostly not on the national radar screen, a serious oversight for five reasons.

First, contrary to the ageist assumptions of our culture, people can live well in old age, but not without mental health.

Second, mental illness has a terrible impact on physical health. People with mental disorders are more likely to have physical disorders, and people with co-occurring physical and mental and/or substance use disorders are at higher risk for disability and premature death and have far higher medical costs than those with physical disorders alone.

Third, approximately 20 percent of older adults have diagnosable mental and/or substance use disorders, including dementia. This increases to over 50 percent of older adults by age 85, mostly dementia, the prevalence of which doubles every five years beginning at age 60. The range of mental health problems also includes:

• Anxiety and depression, which often co-occur with dementia
• Psychotic conditions, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe depression
• Substance use disorders

Fourth, untreated mental disorders contribute to avoidable placement in institutions, such as nursing homes, driving up the costs of long-term care in the U.S. They also contribute to social isolation and high rates of suicide.

Fifth, all older adults face emotional challenges related to social and occupational role changes, diminished — but not lost — physical and mental abilities, losses of family and friends, and the inevitability of death.

Both the public and the private sectors need to take steps to meet the mental health challenges of the elder boom. These include:

• Making mental health promotion a key element of the health and aging services systems.

• Providing home and community-based services to enable people developing disabilities to live where they choose.

• Supporting family caregivers who provide 80 percent of the care for people with disabilities.

• Improving access to mental health and substance abuse services in the community.

• Improving the quality of mental health and substance abuse services in the community and in residential and institutional settings such as formal and “naturally occurring” senior housing, assisted living and nursing homes.

• Fostering integration of physical health, mental health, substance abuse and aging services.

• Enhancing the adequacy of services for minority populations, which will grow from 20 percent to 30 percent of the older population by 2030.

• Increasing research regarding effective mental health promotion and treatment of mental and substance use disorders and improving translation for research findings into practice.

• Providing outreach and public education to older adults and their families regarding mental health, effective treatment and where to find resources.

• Addressing the shortage of a clinically and culturally competent workforce, in part by recruiting and training more geriatric professionals and paraprofessionals and in large part by including older adults themselves in the helping workforce in both paid and volunteer roles.

• Restructuring methods of financing needed services so as to make them affordable, to enhance integrated care and treatment, and to support services in the home and in natural community settings.

• Making the mental health challenges of the elder boom more than a rhetorical priority in both private and public service systems.

In these times of cutback in government spending, addressing the mental health needs of older adults may appear to be an unnecessary frill. But the truth is that failing to address mental health needs will drive costs up in the long run. Ignoring this is very poor policy.

(This article is coauthored by Kimberly Williams, co-founder and Director of the Geriatric Mental Health Alliance of New York.)

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George Steinbrenner’s Split Personality

George Steinbrenner’s Split Personality: A Psychological Analysis

BLOGGER: JOEL WEINBERGER, PHD

As anyone who is even remotely interested in sports knows, George Steinbrenner, larger than life owner of the New York Yankees, has passed away at age 80.  We are inundated with interviews of those who knew him, specials on his network YES, major newspaper articles, and even commentaries on news and talk shows.  His appeal has reached well beyond the world of sports.  One theme that keeps appearing is what everyone refers to as a contradiction in his personality.  Mr. Steinbrenner was famously tough, impulsive, and bombastic.  He would fire employees at a whim, berate them, come close to harassing them with phone calls at all hours of the day and night, demand perfection, and ruled by fear.  At the same time, he was involved in many charitable causes, would help out those he had cruelly fired, and remain interested in the lives of his ex-employees.  So the question became, how could he be this cruel unfeeling person and, at the same time, this caring philanthropic person.  He was a walking contradiction.

This so-called paradox is more apparent than real.  The same personality characteristics that led to his angry, firing behavior led to his kindly, charitable acts.  In fact, Mr. Steinbrenner was completely consistent in his behavior.  Before I go on, let me state my biases up front.  I am a rabid Yankee fan and I loved reading about Mr. Steinbrenner.  I am absorbed in watching these tributes to him and would have loved to thank him personally for bringing the Yankees back to greatness.  My bottom line feeling towards him is a very positive one.  I also never did meet him so this is all based on known psychological principles but not on any personal knowledge of the man.

There are three characteristics that probably explain Mr. Steinbrenner’s apparently inconsistent behavior.  First, he was a passionately emotional person.  Although highly intelligent and even calculating, he was often ruled by his emotions and easily emotionally aroused.  Emotions came before reason for this man.  Second, he was impulsive.  He was a man of action and often acted without reflection.  That means his actions were often emotionally based.  Third, he was The Boss.  He needed to be in charge and he was in charge.  There was a paternalistic aspect to this.  He could be a caring or an unforgiving father but he was always the father.  That means the other person was always a subordinate, a son or a daughter.  Now let’s put this together.

As do all of us, Mr. Steinbrenner experienced a myriad of emotions that changed powerfully over time, sometimes over short periods of time.  We all love and hate the important people in our lives at different times, sometimes at the same time.  Unlike many of us, he was very comfortable having these emotions so that he did not question or deny them.  They ruled to the point that his behavior was often more driven by these emotions than by his rational reason.  Although this is generally true of people it was especially so for Mr. Steinbrenner.  He didn’t have the filters that most of us develop to consider what we should do when a thought occurs to us or an impulse to action is felt.  Mr. Steinbrenner was impulsive.  That meant that when an emotion hit him, he acted on it.  And he often did so without thinking much about it.  So when he felt angry, he acted angrily.  He fired people; he berated them.  When he had a question or a thought or an idea, he didn’t wait to think it through, he called the person at any hour and talked to him or her about it or he acted on it.  He was impulsive.  He was impulsive in what he said and impulsive in what he did.  And he was comfortable being this way.  This was behind his apparently uncaring and cruel actions.  It was also behind some of the lame brained things he did like hire a con man to get dirt on a player.  And it was behind some of his ill-considered quotes.  But when Mr. Steinbrenner had a positive emotion or a charitable impulse, he acted on that too and did so just as comfortably and easily.  So he rehired people.  He heard of a cause that moved him and immediately acted to help that cause.  He heard of an employee experiencing hard times and his feelings were stirred.  He acted and reached out to help that person.  As his emotions shifted and his impulses changed, he behaved differently.  The behavior looked inconsistent but was always consistent with the emotion de jure.  Look for emotional, not cognitive, triggers and you’ll see the consistency.

Finally, George Steinbrenner was The Boss.  No matter what he did, it had to reflect his status as the father figure, as the one in charge.  When he berated, or fired, or demanded an answer to something that had occurred to him in the last few minutes, or reacted to an event and offered the quotes that made the back page so often, he did so as the one in charge.  He was never a supplicant, a subordinate, or even an equal.  He was The Boss; the father.  This was true of his kind behaviors as well.  Whenever he helped someone, he did not have a back and forth.  He came from on high and bestowed his largesse.  He was still in charge.  He offered advice; he gave help.  Even when he took advice, it was from subordinates, not equals.  He was always the father and he retained the right to override and to second-guess his people.

So again, how could he be cruel and caring?  Because his emotions like the emotions of all of us shifted.  He just acted on all of them and he did so quickly.  He was impulsive.  And he was comfortable with it all.  How did he have the nerve to push people around, fire Yogi Berra, demand accounting from his subordinates at odd hours?  He was the boss, the father running the show as he saw fit.  How could the same man treat these people so well?  He was the boss, the father, providing them with his largesse.

In his case, it all worked.  Why?  Because he was extraordinarily intelligent, he was a talented executive, and because he had the carrots people wanted as well as the sticks they feared.  This style leads to mistakes and broken relationships but he was able to override those pitfalls because of his talent, charisma, and ultimately because winning was so important to him that he would back down if he saw that winning was in the offing.   Winning settled all scores and forgave all transgressions.   That is, whether you agree with it or not, he had a value that gave all of his actions meaning.

Joel Weinberger is Professor of Psychology at Adelphi University.  He is also co-founder of Implicit Strategies.  You can find out more about Joel at www.implicitstrategies.com.

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WHY CEOs DO SUCH STUPID THINGS

Why CEOs Do Stupid Things

BLOGGER: JOEL WEINBERGER, PHD

A scorpion asked a frog to take him across a river.  The frog refused, saying, “You will sting me.”

The scorpion replied, “It would be foolish for me to sting you because then we would both die.”

The reassured frog agreed to carry the scorpion across the river.  At the halfway point, the scorpion stung the frog.  The dying frog asked, “Why did you sting me? You will die too.”

“It’s my nature”, replied the scorpion.

We have witnessed the CEOs of the major car companies flying to Washington on private jets to ask for billions to rescue them from their own bad management decisions.  Next came the bank CEOs begging to be rescued from their foolish, almost criminal, behavior with subprime bonds.  Vikram Pandit, the CEO of Citigroup, assured Congress that he “gets it.”  A few months later, he authorized the expenditure of 10 million dollars to redo executive office suites for top Citigroup executives.  And the list for AIG is long enough to fill this essay.  The latest was that they awarded “retention” bonuses, totaling tens of millions of dollars, to employees of the very division that brought them to the brink.  Many of these valued employees have left so that the bonuses designed to retain them are instead rewarding them for jumping ship.  The excuse?  Contractual obligation.  Suddenly the corporate world has discovered obligation and responsibility, at least when the object of said values are themselves.  And now, one of these CEOs, Rick Wagoner of GM, has become a sacrificial lamb to our anger.

How do we explain this?  Stupidity?  Greed?  Arrogance?  Callous indifference to the opinions and feelings of others?  To a degree, all of the above.  But there is more going on and that more is part of human psychology.  These people acted exactly as people who hold such positions can be expected to act.  It was their nature.

People do not become CEOs by accident.  They want to run major corporations.  In addition to hard work, sacrifice, intelligence, connections, and luck, research has shown that there is a personality type that strives to climb to the top rung of the corporate ladder and is more likely to get there.  Such a person is high in what is called Power Motivation.  Power motivation refers to the desire to have an impact on the world and/or others.  When it is poorly socialized, power motivation can result in being a mob boss or a boxer who bites off ears.  When it is well socialized, it can result in rising to the top of an organization, to becoming an executive, even a CEO.

People high in power motivation have certain characteristics that go along with their need to have an impact.  They are competitive with others and assertive in their interactions.  They need to be top dog.  They crave prestige.  Thus, they value corner offices, keys to the executive washroom or even private bathrooms, exclusive country clubs, chauffer driven cars, private jets, and well-appointed offices.  They own high performance cars, wear expensive suits, and have their initials monogrammed onto their shirt cuffs.  The more such prestige items, the better.  Consider the impact of walking into a spacious, corner office with a magnificent view.  Although such an office has no bearing on the quality of work done in it, it screams importance and prestige.  This is just what the high power personality lives for.  Bonuses are important because they bestow immediate prestige.  They show how important you are and how much more important you are than your fellows.  They are better than high salaries because they can be repeated every year.

High power people also are prone to taking risks, especially when their choices are public.  This is both because big risks have more impact than small risks and because they do not want to be seen as “wimpy.”  An important person with high prestige needs to be at the forefront and show high competitiveness and nerve.  Taking risks shows “balls”, something a powerful person needs to have.  Leaders, people of high impact, top dogs, cannot be timid.  And, they get a charge out of having the kind of impact a high-risk decision can bring.

What this means is that CEOs are just behaving in accord with their personalities, their natures.  They are about prestige items, being splashy, and looking important.  They must take big risks and are especially likely to do so when others, especially competitors, are watching.  That they would behave in a manner consistent with their natures should not be surprising.  Even their inability to anticipate the public outcry their behavior engenders in our current economic climate is related to power motivation.  Much of this motive (and others) is not fully conscious.  People high in power motivation do what they do without really thinking about it.  These behaviors come naturally to them.  Only if something is clearly pointed out, would such a person become aware of the negative impression he or she is making.  This accounts for the “blindness” such people sometimes have to their foolish and callous acts.

What to do?  First, demonizing, unless the law has been broken (as with Madoff), does no good.  These people are just being who they are.  And who they are can results in positive consequences for their companies.  They work hard.  They are devoted to their companies.  It is only when their need to show off, to display, to be top dog, adversely affects business that we have the meltdowns we are now experiencing.

The good news is that these people, unlike mafia dons, are generally well socialized. They want to do the right thing.  If socialization pressures change, if what confers prestige changes, so will their behavior.  In order to reduce negative risk taking, outrageous bonuses, and out of line perks, the contingencies that support them have to be changed.  CEOs have to be made aware of the negative impact of some of their behaviors.  This changes their reward values.  The big three auto CEOs drove to their next congressional hearings instead of jetting there.  Many of the AIG bonus babies gave back their bonuses.  These items no longer conferred prestige.  Instead, they conferred shame and ridicule.  Top dogs do not want shame and ridicule.  They will do almost anything to avoid them.  The new prestige item may be $1 salaries.  Such a person is taking huge risks, making tremendous sacrifices, and garnering favorable publicity.  Such a person is having a real impact and is being admired.

Those monitoring CEOs can also keep the potential negatives of power motivation in line.  (I wouldn’t count on boards since they are likely to be high in power motivation themselves.)  If they do not, the CEOs will revert to their former behaviors once their companies are no longer in trouble so that their self-sacrificing behavior no longer has impact or creates prestige.  (We also cannot expect highly skilled people to work for nothing indefinitely.)  If stockholders know that high power people are liable to these excesses, they might keep a closer eye on them, especially when things seem too good to be true.  Make certain that perks and bonuses reflect the company’s performance rather than a competition for prestige items between a small group of competitive individuals with power.  Since stockholders can be shortsighted, focusing on immediate payoffs, government has a place as well, as watchdog.  These checks may be necessary.  If we disregard the nature of power motivation, we are likely to be stung again.

But the stockholders, society, and government also need to realize what makes high power people tick.  They need prestige.  They need to have impact.  They need the thrill of competition and of risk.  They need an outlet for these needs or they will obtain no fulfillment from their jobs.  They will have no incentives to work hard or even to seek employment in the corporate world.  They then won’t do the good they can do in our economic system.  If we don’t respect their nature, we will not benefit from it.

So, the solution is to allow, even encourage, the search for prestige and impact but to keep a watchful eye out for the excesses high power motivation people are prone to. In a nutshell, monitor, but do not straightjacket, corporate CEOs.  Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater through mistrust of the societal concerns of those high in power motivation (a left-wing excess) and don’t give free rein to unbridled power motivation in order to unleash the free market potential of talented people (a right-wing excess).

What are your thoughts?  Leave a comment.

Joel Weinberger is Professor of Psychology at Adelphi University.  He is also co-founder of Implicit Strategies.  You can find out more about Joel at www.implicitstrategies.com.

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