Common Questions About Executive Interventions
What is involved in the Executive Intervention process?
The Executive Intervention and Case Management process is composed of three steps:
1) Preparation: assessment of situation; preliminary diagnosis; gathering facts and data; training of participants on preparation of intervention statement and intervention objectives.
2) Intervention and Treatment: participants meet with executive and conduct intervention; executive is invited to an immediate
psychological/sociological assessment; treatment is described; executive enters treatment; family is requested to participate in treatment process.
3) Case Management: 18 months of specified frequent contact with counselor for executive after treatment; consulting as needed within the organization; consultation with family; post-treatment program developed, defined and described as indicated for the individual.
Initial preparation and intervention (Steps 1 and 2) can be accomplished in 12-20 hours.
How do I know that one of my executives is alcohol or chemical dependent?
Chemical dependency may disguise itself as marital or financial problems, mid-life crisis or other personal or professional difficulties. As a manager, your personal sense of responsibility for your employees may unintentionally cause you to cover for or gloss over signs of possible chemical dependency.
A trained professional is needed to accurately diagnose chemical dependency. However, by looking at your own reactions, you may be able to spot an employee in trouble before she or he reaches the point of breakdown. Run through the checklist to help you more clearly define the warning signs of chemical dependency within your organization.
Why not use our company's employee assistance program?
Executives who are alcohol or chemical dependent are very careful to
disguise their disease and its effects in the workplace. Holding onto their jobs is how they prove to themselves that there isn't a problem. They may think, "If I can work, I'm okay." They may become overly dependent on their jobs for ego satisfaction and security, while unwittingly alienating friends and family, and dropping outside interests. Despite assurances of confidentiality, executives almost never voluntarily seek help through an internal employee assistance program because they fear losing respect if others find out they are chemically dependent. Without treatment, they will silently suffer the disintegration of their career, family life and health.
Why should I get involved?
Alcohol and drug dependence cost American industry an estimated $140 billion last year in health costs and lost productivity. A poor decision made by an alcohol dependent executive at a high level in the organization can have disastrous effects.
It is often awkward to dismiss someone who is a storehouse of company knowledge and may have critical client relationships and contacts. Replacing a key executive is expensive. Outplacement and recruitment costs can run as much as 35% of salary, in addition to the considerable expense of training and orienting a new executive.
Rehabilitation of the impaired executive is almost always a better choice. Many treatment options are available. The cost of intervention and treatment is usually far less than recruiting and training a replacement. By rehabilitating an employee, the organization keeps the knowledge and training of that professional within the company. By helping a valued employee gain control of her or his chemical dependency, the organization gains her or his gratitude, loyalty and increased productivity.
What if the executive claims, "I Don't have a Problem"?
Denial is the illness-induced phenomenon which prevents alcohol and chemical dependent people from getting help. It is clearly the number one presenting symptom of the disease of chemical dependency.
Rehabilitation is most successful when the executive completes the
intervention process. In the Executive Intervention process, the individual is made to realize that her or his disease is known by immediate and/or senior management and is told the consequences of refusing treatment.
What is the success rate of Executive Interventions?
Speare Intervention Counseling Associates has completed more than 50 Executive Interventions. Of those, 100% of the executives have gone into treatment. In every case but one, they remained at the same level in their corporation as they were prior to treatment, or they were promoted. |
