Food for Thought: A Weekly Column from Peter Vajda, PhD.
Burnout and Work
By Peter G. Vajda, PhD.
Nov 17, 2007 - 2:11:20 PM

Greetings,

This week’s “food for thought” is below.

I hope it piques your interest and curiosity about "who" you are, and "how" you are, in your role as a leader, manager or supervisor.

I also hope you'll share this with colleagues, post it on bulletin boards, use it to generate rich and rewarding discussions and learning in your formal and informal meetings, in your "lunch and learn" sessions, in your workshops and training sessions, and include it in your newsletter.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to share this information with you and I hope you find this reading insightful and rewarding.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Burnout and Work
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of the most common topics of conversation with coaching clients and colleagues these days centers around burnout. Interestingly enough, burnout happens as much to companies and businesses as it does to individuals.

New York psychologist Herbert J. Freudenberger, Ph.D., defined the term — a state of fatigue or frustration brought about by excessive devotion to a cause, a way of life, or a relationship that fails to produce the expected reward. In other words, the formula: expectations divided by a reality that does not meet your expectations, regardless of the effort you expend, leads to burnout. There is no direct correlation or relationship between hard work and burnout. There is, however, a direct correlation or relationship between hard work and little to no reward, and burnout. Many folks work to exhaustion and achieve recognition, acknowledgement and reward. For these folks, burnout is not a part of the equation.

Am I experiencing burnout?

Burnout is a slow burn. It never happens in the blink of an eye. It's tantamount to erosion. One day you see a boulder under the waterfall. One day, it's a rock. One day it's but a small stone, then a pebble. Burnout.

Early symptoms include a deep sense of fatigue, tiredness, or exhaustion that goes from the top of your skin, through the tissues, ligaments, muscles, and deep into your bones. Emotionally, you feel you are near the end of your emotional rope. Psychically, you live in a realm of negativity — experiencing a sense of dread, helplessness, hopelessness, negativity, cynicism or frustration. Relationships in and out of work suffer. Relationships become exhausting and are no longer fun and enjoyable. Work, itself, is an effort. Concentration is challenging. Focusing is formidable. You feel and become detached, maybe even unattached.

In the extreme, burnout manifests as an "uncaring" about life in general — work life, family life....life. In the extreme, there is even no energy of anger, or resentment, or frustration; there is no energy, period. No feeling on any level (mental, emotional, physical, spiritual). Just a numbness. Exhaustion. Life becomes a huge effort. Every aspect of life.

Curiously, burnout happens to those who were at one time alive, enthusiastic, excited, energetic, juicy, and hugely curious about life and living. The deal is that their intention and efforting to reach unattainable goals destroyed them in the process.

Organizations as the cause of burnout

All too often we believe that I am the  cause of my burnout — inability to achieve work-life balance, lack of harmony in the way I live my life, inability to plan, organize, prioritize, schedule and execute, or efforting to be a 10 on a scale of 1-10, in everything I do, or working for a manager whose expectations are exceedingly high and demanding. Sometimes, truth be told, this could be the case. But, not always.

In fact, research shows that companies and businesses are often the worst cause of burnout. Burnout today is often built-into the organizational structure. How so? Impossible goals, layers of bureaucracy and just-plain-stupid policies and procedures, lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities, foggy and confusing targets, endless and pointless meetings, and a pure "this is a business" mentality that focuses on people as functions while leaving the "human element" out of the equation.

At the end of the workday and work week, people begin to experiencing burnout as they begin to believe they're in a "no-win" environment — that they'll never achieve no matter how long and how hard they keep working. Burnout happens when the writing on the wall spells "impossible" and "irrational" — when there is no honest and sincere rationale for the way things are done, for the way expectations are defined, for the way goals and results are determined, for the lack of clarity and logic in the way roles are defined. When there is no connection between working hard and seeing actual light at the end of the tunnel ("light" as in "intelligence", "right action" and "meaning") folks become despairing, incredulous, and cynical.

What happens in organizations that leads to burnout?

One of the first behaviors that leads to burnout is when an individual does not know what is expected of them. When responsibilities change from day to day, week to week, or month to month, burnout ensues. Folks seem to be competing against themselves. They become confused, foggy, frustrated and unhappy. They feel like they are swimming upstream. Soon, the begin to feel hopeless, helpless and exhausted. Burnout.

Another circumstance that creates burnout is having unclear expectations — not having a clear idea of what expected of you and your role. From time to time, an employee and their boss are not on the same page when it comes to the employee's role and responsibilities. Sometimes, this is a blind spot — neither the employee or the boss is aware of the disconnect. Each assumes what they know to be true. Soon the boss sees his/her expectations not being met and assumes the employee is incompetent, lazy or uninterested; in turn, the employee accuses their boss of being unfair, capricious or, just an ogre. Either way, there is a major disconnect that leads to frustration, resentment, and ill will.  Burnout.

A third circumstance that leads to burnout is simple overload. Pushing added expectations, added tasks and added responsibilities on to an employee does not automatically mean the employee can handle the overload. The manager is making assumptions that should not be made. Often, it's the employee who takes on additional duties and becomes overloaded. In either case, the task load is not handled. The result is overload, resentment, and frustration. Burnout. Often, too, quitting or being let go.

The solution

If the issue is you and the way you work, the solution lies in your own hands. If it’s your organization and its culture, you'll need to consider whether anything is likely to change. If not, the only way may be out.

If you’re starting to experience any of the symptoms of burnout, your first priority is to slow down and take a long, objective look at your working life and what’s causing the problem.
 
So, our $10 food for thought questions are:

• Do you have a pattern of taking on more work than you can handle? If so, why?
• Does you boss continue to give you more work than you can reasonably handle? If so, have you spoken with your boss? With what result?
• Do you ever feel helpless or hopeless at work? Frustrated, resentful? Why?
• Is overload a cultural issue at your organization? Why? How did that come to be? Do managers and supervisors feel overloading is fair? How do they justify overloading employees?
• Are you and your boss on the same page when it comes to their expectations of you and your expectations of you? If not, have you had a discussion with your boss about the inconsistencies? If not, why not?
• If you're feeling burned out, are you aware that burnout can have serious, very serious, physical, mental, emotional and psychological repercussions........sooner rather than later? Is that OK? Are you choosing to let it be OK?
• Do you feel you work hard with little to no reward?
• What one or two steps can you, or your organization, take this week and this month to reduce the intensity of the burnout you may be experiencing?

In the interest of sustaining the life of your organization, which, after all, is not some nebulous entity, but rather, a living organism consisting of living and breathing cells, i.e., individuals like you.