In November, Future Media Group launched the new initiative Media Mind Week. Linus Wennerström, CEO, reflects on the important difference between positive and negative stress among motivated employees – and the importance for a leader to disconnect, gather energy and focus on themselves for the rest of the organization to do the same.

 When the pandemic struck and forced society and workplaces to reposition themselves, the lines between work and private life were quickly blurred. No longer physically leaving an office after a workday was a change in itself; the mental break that previously came naturally during the journey home from work was not there in the same way. This highlighted a need to find other ways to give pause and relax.

 During the past year, we at FMG have seen many benefits of working from home. Our employees are driven and ambitious, which has seen the organization continue to deliver at the fantastic level it did even before the start of the pandemic.

Most of us have enjoyed being able to set up our days in a way that suits us. However, when working with ambitious personality types, one must be aware of the potential negative consequences of such ambition in the long run, if the stress turns from positive to negative.

Being constantly connected, often stressed, and perhaps also eager to showcase this connectivity to others, is something that seems to characterize many peoples’ own personal brands; there exists a belief that never relaxing paints you as a high achiever, not least in managers and leaders. This behavior is something the rest of the organization notices and tries to emulate, in the belief that it is the desired practice to be successful and to advance your career. Combined with wanting to prove that you can perform from home even when direct feedback and confirmation does not take place in the same way as in the office, this easily becomes destructive in the long run.

I have lived by the same motto until recently. I have brought the job along wherever I have been, whoever I have hung out with. Focus on dinner conversations has been diverted by sending a quick text message to a colleague. Today, I have grasped the importance of being able to take a break and gather energy, something that felt unthinkable just a couple of years ago. What if an employee tried to reach me without me answering, and therefore would be convinced that I had my thoughts on something other than work? Would my brand as a forward-thinking, committed, and supportive leader then collapse?

As the boundaries between work and personal life changed drastically at the beginning of the pandemic, FMG placed great emphasis on promoting the mental well-being of the organization, something we quickly realized was a success factor in the aim to create a sustainable and successful organization. We made efforts to listen more effectively to our organization’s needs, established tools and techniques to keep track of well-being and detect any changes, to be able to quickly act. We soon concluded that this focus was, and permanently should be, a natural part of a high-performing organization. We have always put a lot of effort into keeping track of performance but will continue to focus on well-being as they go hand in hand.

With this insight, FMG chose to launch the Media Mind Week event for the first time. We did not initiate the week to pat ourselves on the back and show the industry how well we handle our organization’s well-being – on the contrary, we want to emphasize that even though we have done a lot, we know there is much more to learn. We invited five lecturers who talked about everything from statistics on mental well-being, to active meditation, and invited our colleagues in the media industry to attend the live streamed webinars for free. In parallel to this, we arranged internal activities every morning and afternoon, to encourage our employees to get in the right mindset in the morning and be able to leave the workday to focus on leisure and family – whether the day was spent in the office or at home.

For us, it was always a given to share the tools and insights we gained during Media Mind Week with our industry colleagues. We want to preserve the great ambition of our employees and eagerly face the rapid changes while we continue our journey towards becoming the Nordic region’s leading growth partner.