生如梦魇：高管自杀之谜

    49岁的瑞士电信公司（Swisscom）首席执行官卡斯滕•施洛特被每天24小时不间断的电话骚扰得不胜其烦。53岁的苏黎世保险公司（Zurich Insurance Group）首席财务官皮埃尔•瓦塞勒，与公司的首席执行官处于激烈的斗争之中。

    两位高管都选择了通过结束生命来彻底解决自身的问题：施洛特在今年七月，瓦塞勒在上周。尽管从自杀这般如此私密和复杂的事件中得出普遍的结论几乎不可能，但他们的死还是提出了一个问题：难道高管的工作环境已经紧张到了这个地步，以至于自杀成为了其中一些人唯一的选择？

    高管自杀的相关数据少得可怜，聊胜于无。罗彻斯特大学（University of Rochester）的自杀问题研究员埃里克•凯恩说：“我不知道美国有任何相关的数据。有一篇文献谈到了自杀和职位，但是并没有特指高管群体。也几乎没有任何事实证据。原因在于人们倾向于隐瞒这些悲剧，只有一些最突出的事件得到了报道。”

    位于华盛顿的美国自杀学学会（American Association of Suicidology）的数据显示，2010年，美国每10万人中有12.08人自杀。不过这个数据正在上升：上世纪末，自杀率大约是10万分之10.8。与之形成对比的是，瑞士电信公司和苏黎世保险公司所在的瑞士，自杀率实际上正在下降，从2000年的10万分之17.2降到2010年的10万分之11.1。根据欧盟统计局的数据，欧洲整体的自杀率同样有所下降，从2000年的10万分之11.8下降到了2010年的10万分之10.2。

    高管级别的自杀似乎与人们的常识不符。凯恩说：“高管群体的心理健康状况优于组织中的较低级别群体。他们掌握着更多的资源，面临着较少的经济问题。面对生活中的逆境，他们能得到更多人的帮助。他们的个性往往与他们的成功密不可分，这让他们的个性化需求得到了宣泄。”

    不过，法国枫丹白露的欧洲工商管理学院（INSEAD）商学院管理学教授曼弗雷德•凯茨•德•弗里斯表示：高管的压力正在逐渐增加，这已经不再是秘密。信息时代不断增长的需求已经让每天的工作时间延长到了极限。瑞士电信公司的施洛特在自杀前几个月曾经抱怨自己总得处于能联系上的状态。他在五月的某期《瑞士周报》（Schweiz am Sonnta）的采访中解释说：“可能发生的最危险的事，是你陷入了永动机的模式当中。当你一直要查看智能手机，查看有没有新邮件时，你就再也不可能发现其他任何事情了。”

    凯茨•德•弗里斯还获得过精神分析学的学位，他说：“我们得非常谨慎地管理这些设备，而我们当中很多人做得并不好。我给很多首席执行官上过课，在我的课堂上禁止使用电脑、iPhone和iPad。我发现人们对于这些设备的依赖已经到了病态的地步。去年有个学生，我一度怀疑他膀胱出了毛病。实际上，他只是得定时出去查看他三部手机里的短信。”  

    Swisscom CEO Carsten Schloter, 49, had trouble with being on call 24/7. Pierre Wauthier, 53, CFO at Zurich Insurance Group was in the middle of a horrendous conflict with his CEO.

    Both men ended their problems by taking their own lives: Schloter in July, Wauthier last week. While it is almost impossible to draw general conclusions from something so personal and complex as a suicide, their deaths raise a question: Have working conditions in the C-suite become so intense that suicide appears to offer the only answer for some?

    Statistics about senior executive suicides are scarce, if non-existent. "I don't know of any data in the U.S.," says Eric Caine, a suicide researcher at the University of Rochester. "There is a literature on suicide and occupation, but that is not specified to C-level executives. There is also very little anecdotal evidence. The reason is that people tend to hide these tragedies. Only the most prominent make it to the press."

    General suicide rates in the U.S. in 2010 are at 12.08 per 100,000 people, according to data from the American Association of Suicidology in Washington, D.C. The rate is on the rise, though: At the turn of the century, it was around 10.8 per 100,000. By comparison, suicide rates in Switzerland, where both Swisscom and Zurich Insurance are based, have actually gone down: from 17.2 per 100,000 in 2000 to 11.1 per 100,000 in 2010. In the EU as a whole, the rate has gone down as well from 11.8 per 100,000 people in 2000 to 10.2 in 2010, according to Eurostat.

    Suicide within the C-suite almost seems counterintuitive. "As a class of people, top executives tend to have better mental health than those on the lower rungs of an organization," says Caine. "They have more resources and less financial issues, more people to help them with the adversities in their lives, and their idiosyncrasies are often tied to their success, giving them an outlet for their creative needs."

    But it is no secret that pressure on C-level executives is mounting, says Manfred Kets de Vries, a management professor at INSEAD business school in Fontainebleau, France. The growing demands of the information age have stretched the workday to its limits. A few months before his death, Swisscom's Schloter complained about constantly having to be reachable. "The most dangerous thing that can happen is that you drop into a mode of permanent activity," he explained in an interview with Swiss newspaper Schweiz am Sonntag in May. "When you permanently check your smartphone to see if there are any new emails, it leads to you not finding any rest whatsoever."

    "You have to manage these devices very carefully, and many of us don't do it very well," says Kets de Vries, who also holds a degree in psychoanalysis. "I work a lot with CEOs, and in my classes, computers, iPhones, and iPads are not allowed. I have noticed a dependency on these devices, to the point where it becomes a disease. I had a student last year I suspected of having a weak bladder. In fact, he had to go out regularly to check his messages on his three phones."