Business Fights Back: Crisis and Confidence at Ground Zero

In the thick of CMI's response to the attacks, Blythe is one minute on the phone negotiating with a financial-services firm over fees -- "we're slammed; if I have to talk to our people about accepting discounted fees, I have to chuckle" -- and the next, he is quietly advising an insurance company to cater lunch on the first day back at its offices near ground zero. "That's a nice touch," he says, "then you could use the cafeteria for debriefings."

Blythe has a penchant for overstatement. His estimate, quietly adjusted by Mary Cardin, was that CMI had 300 client companies after the attack, including 80 World Trade Center tenants. But his network of therapists is compassionate, his customers effusive, and he knows how to talk to executives: "If you are not ready to help your employees at the most difficult moment in your business, when will you be ready to help them?"

In the academic world, it is the lack of scientific support for debriefing, more than the mixture of motives, that troubles psychologists. "It's outrageous that billions of dollars are going into providing people with psychological services without any knowledge of whether it's cost-effective," says Edna Foa, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and director of its Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety. Foa has been impressed with the impulse of companies to address their employees' mental health but says that there is no peer-reviewed research supporting the benefits of crisis debriefing. Foa is particularly troubled by the emphasis of companies such as CMI on making sessions mandatory and the use of single rather than multiple sessions.

But for those in the midst of crisis, there is enthusiasm, relief, and a sense that the counseling allows them to reconnect. The corporate response to the events of September 11 may ultimately be a watershed for the importance of mental-health services in the workplace.

When asked how Mellon Financial will assess the cost-benefit ratio of CMI counseling, Mellon's HR managers were at first silent. "I don't think we're thinking in those terms at all," says Diane Doyle-Love, a senior Mellon manager for work-life programs. "This counseling is the right thing to do. One counselor called to tell me that an employee said, 'If this is what the corporation does in situations like this, you've got an employee for life.' These are priceless kinds of activities."

Charles Fishman (cnfish@mindspring.com) is a Fast Company senior editor based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Contact Pamela Porter (portplp@aol.com) by email, or learn more about CMI on the Web (www.cmiatl.com).