WORK AND LIFE

Learning how to handle and harness stress.

By the time most people reach the point in their careers when they decide to pursue an Executive MBA, they’re likely working far more than 40 hours per week. With their EMBA studies, they can expect to add anywhere from 25 to 40 hours of extra work to that.

“It’s like adding another full-time job,” says Chad Friesen, who graduated from Queen’s School of Business in 2012. What’s more, life doesn’t stop. In his case, not only did Mr. Friesen continue with his responsibilities as Network Manager at Telus Corp. managing a team of technicians who handle the telephone, IP and TV services in lower mainland, B.C., he also became father to his second child three weeks into his studies, bought a house and moved.

“You find out from the program how pressurized you can be,” he says. If there’s one piece of advice Mr. Friesen and other grads have for those about to begin the journey, it is to realize they will need a lot of support, particularly from their families, but also from their employers.

“My management team was supportive in not loading me up with additional tasks, but that said, I didn’t want to load them up with additional tasks either,” Mr. Friesen says. Allowing for a bit of flexibility is one way employers can support their employees through the EMBA process.

When Rachel Fabugais, human resources director for the Americas and Asia at Motorola Solutions, chose to pursue an EMBA at the Richard Ivey School of Business, her employer pared down what were typically extensive business-travel commitments.

Perhaps that’s why Ms. Fabugais describes getting an EMBA as a team effort, rather than a personal endeavour.

“I had an incredible amount of support from my family and employer and that’s made a big difference in doing my MBA and making the most of my MBA program,” says Ms. Fabugais, who has a 15-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son.

“My husband took on a lot of the family responsibilities. And he’s done an MBA before so he understood the workload.”

For this reason, it’s important everyone in a student’s family and support network be onboard and know exactly what to expect, says Mr. Friesen, whose extended family also helped out after the baby was born and whose wife played the role of super-hero.

Ultimately, no matter how much support they receive, students will face incredible pressure on their time and there’s no way to avoid the crash course in time management and prioritizing they will get. In fact, both Ms. Fabugais and Mr. Friesen say that was one of the benefits they gained from their studies.

“It is a really big commitment and it’s a very big challenge, but on the flip side of that I think people find the experience significantly more rewarding than it would be if they did it over three or four years. There is value to the intensity because once they’re through it, they realize they can perform at a whole new level,” says Ryan Stoness, manager of the Fit to Lead Program at Queen’s, which was introduced by the university a few years ago to help EMBA students learn the skills needed to manage stress in a healthy and effective way.

“We look at stress as a necessity to be successful in the EMBA program,” he says. “That’s why it’s done in a short period of time and they’re put into difficult situations throughout the academic process to replicate a high-level, real-world position. In order to achieve great things, great stress is needed, but from a health and wellness perspective, it’s all about how you manage that stress and use it in productive ways.”

The Fit to Lead program covers life coaching, including goal setting, healthy nutrition, fitness and wellness, all geared to help students achieve balance in their lives, not just through the program but hopefully throughout their careers.

“For example, we tr y to help people understand how just 20 minutes of exercise every morning will give them a higher level of energy and help them feel more productive,” Mr. Stoness says. Effective prioritizing is an essential skill for anyone, but far more so for those juggling as much as most EMBA students have on their hands.

“That was one of the great things of the Fit to Lead program. They’d send out newsletters with tips, like: spend time with your family, but make it a walk so you’re getting a little bit of physical activity and not losing touch,” Mr. Friesen says. “If you tally up the hours, you start to run out of hours pretty quickly so it’s pretty critical that you make those minutes count.”

Sometimes, Ms. Fabugais says, it’s a matter of looking for hidden opportunities. “You make things work during the program. There were times when the family would study together. We’d all be sitting in the same room, doing our homework.”

And when she completed her degree this April, as the family celebrated, her 10-year old son began to consider his future MBA studies, while her 15-year-old daughter declared she was going to go for her PhD.

PETER J. THOMPSON / NATIONAL POST Doing an EMBA is a team endeavour says says Rachel Fabugais. “There were times when the family would study together,” she says.