Kalmia Records Blog

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a severe, chronic, disabling, and potentially lethal psychiatric condition. People who suffer with this disorder have extreme and long standing instability in their emotional lives, as well as in their behavior and their self-image. This is a common disorder affecting 2% of the general population. The best evidence indicates that about 11% of psychiatric outpatients and 19% of inpatients meet diagnostic criteria for BPD.

Despite the devastating nature of this disorder, it has not received the scientific and clinical attention that other health and psychiatric problems of equal, or even lesser, level of disability have received.

The Borderline Personality Disorder Research Initiative (BPDRI)is a non-profit organization that supports international research on the underlying causes, characteristics, and treatment of borderline personality disorder (BPD).

The Goals
* Defining BPD as an entity and refining the diagnostic criteria of the disorder.
* Understanding the genetic, biological, cognitive, emotional, and social processes that contribute to the development and manifestation of BPD.
* Developing and testing innovative and promising approaches to treatment.
* Attracting the best young scientists to devote their careers to the investigation of BPD.
* Educating the public about BPD.

The Approach
* An integrated, interdisciplinary approach is encouraged which includes biology, neuroscience, basic behavioral science, and clinical science.
* Collaboration between basic and clinical scientists is strongly encouraged.
* Cooperation with governmental agencies is facilitated.

This initiative was launched by Marco Stoffel

Have you heard this before? “I am the manager of a San Francisco branch sales and service office for a company with its head office in Atlanta. Overall, it is a good company to work for. The problem is that on many occasions we seem to be left out of the corporate loop. I have voiced my concerns to senior management and they always say that they will correct the communications gap and they do for a month or two. Then it goes back to the way it was. Is there anything that I can do get managements attention?”

You are not alone, mushroom farming in multiple facility businesses is more common than not. Most branch offices, whether they are part of a small or large company feel that they are the foster children of their parent organization. The vast majority of information disseminated by a company, especially a small business is done informally. In general, the staff finds out who is leaving, what changes to the organizational structure have been proposed, major capital investments and what orders have been received around the coffee machine or at the lunch table. Although memos may be written by management to advise the staff, employees are usually well aware of any announcements long before they are committed to pen and paper.

It’s not that they want you to keep you in the dark. In most cases, you are facing what I like to call the out of sight, out of mind syndrome. I know how frustrating this can be to you and the branch staff. It leads to a low moral that equates to reduced productivity.

Rectifying the communications problem is not an easy task and requires on-going effort. The first thing that you must realize is that although senior management is the group implementing change, in most cases they do not directly disseminate the information. That tasks falls to administrative assistants and secretaries. It is important that you cultivate that group of people. On your next visit to the head-office invest in some lunches and promote the need for inter-office communication with them. Make sure that there is a mail slot for inter-office correspondence and ask the person who is responsible for sending whatever is in that mailbox to you, to throw in copies of any general company memos that they get.

It is a two way street. You should also be aware, that the staff at the head-office feel that they have no idea what is going on at their branch offices. It is equally important that you keep the head-office advised of branch happenings. With some concerted effort, you may be able to convert the mushroom farm to a rose garden!

Robert Berman is a business consultant specializing in business development, strategic planning, acquisitions & mergers and international sales & marketing. He has been a columnist for the National Post Newspaper under the byline of “The Business Doctor” and he has authored “The Business Buyer’s Manual”. He may be reached at Robert.Berman@businessbuyersmanual.com or visit http://www.businessbuyersmanual.com