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The Conference Board Review® Article
We've all suffered through them. We all hate them. Is there any way to avoid . . . SLUMPS
By Justin Martin
Justin Martin is a former staff writer at Across the Board and Fortune, and author of Greenspan: The Man Behind Money and Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon.
Like any CEO of a thriving small company, Mike Avino looked to the future with high hopes. Revenues of Avino Construction, an East Northport, N.Y., firm whose sole client was the U.S. government, had grown each year, rising to revenue of $4 million in 2002. But the next year, work dried up. The number of jobs available for bid crashed; agencies that had reliably offered contracts fell silent. And the company's profits plummeted.
With no explanation forthcoming from the government's convoluted bureaucracy, Avino grew paralyzed. "I had this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach," he says. "I can't tell you how many sleepless nights I had. Bills were piling up; my company's checking account was heading toward zero. I slid into panic and total nondirection. I was deep in a slump."
Everyone -- everyone -- can claim firsthand experience with slumps: You're hot at the blackjack table, then ice cold; you get promoted like clockwork year upon year, then you're in the corporate doghouse. Slumps are one of our most widespread and painful afflictions, but despite their ubiquity, they're poorly understood. Science hasn't cracked their code, except to offer the observation that slumps -- like the stock market, the seasons, and so many observable phenomena -- are cyclical. Thus, slumps have been relegated to the realm of folklore. But anything so pervasive and pernicious deserves fresh scrutiny.
What are slumps really about? Do they sometimes contain hidden messages that you should heed? Is there wisdom behind slumps?
Weighting Yourself
Sometimes you can't see it right away -- especially while wallowing in the depths of a bleak and prolonged funk. But if you retrace your steps, chances are you'll find that a single event triggered the entire painful episode.
Maybe you were forced to report to a new, less congenial boss. Perhaps a presentation flopped. The trigger may be long forgotten, deeply buried, or seemingly insubstantial. It can even be something more amorphous, along the lines of a change in attitude, which explains why many executives face a mid-career slump. For them, this is a time of staleness, when they contend with the fact that they have been in the same field or job far longer than they originally intended. "People have idealized plans for their lives," says Peter Graham, director of psychological services at the Professional Renewal Center in Lawrence, Kan. "During mid-life, it's not uncommon for someone to suddenly experience a period of drift: 'What have I worked so hard for? Am I successful, or am I a failure? What do I really want to achieve in life?'"
Questions like this don't necessarily trigger a slump. People face setbacks on a daily basis -- losing a key account or getting passed over for a promotion -- without getting thrown off track. Certainly, it's possible to face the mid-career blahs without descending into a paralyzing stupor. "You can have two people go through the exact same external experiences," says Kiki Weingarten, a New York-based coach who has worked with executives at companies including IBM and TRW Automotive. "One snaps back quickly, while the other just keeps sliding."
Comments? Write a letter to the editor.
Return to the March/April 2005 The Conference Board Review® issue.
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