Modern Mentor

Fixing burnout begins with understanding burnout

Episode Summary

Team challenges can feel overwhelming to tackle head-on. Here’s how leaders in a recent Activation Bootcamp found ways to infuse small but meaningful relief into their teams—without trying to fix everything.

Episode Notes

Team challenges can feel overwhelming to tackle head-on. Here’s how leaders in a recent Activation Bootcamp found ways to infuse small but meaningful relief into their teams—without trying to fix everything.

Modern Mentor is hosted by Rachel Cooke. A transcript is available at Simplecast.

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Episode Transcription

Hey, it’s Rachel Cooke, your Modern Mentor! I’m the founder of Lead Above Noise, where we help leaders activate strong performance while also humanizing the work experience. And these days, much of the work we’re doing with clients is coming down to burnout. And the thing is - we’ve got it all wrong. In fact, we’ve done ourselves such a collective disservice when it comes to our fundamental misunderstanding of all things burnout that I’m going to be dedicating 4 straight episodes to this topic. And today? It’s the first. 

If you’re experiencing burnout or seeing it around you? You’ve come to the right place. Hang with me today - and for the whole month of May as we are going to unpack this thing together. Leaving everyone feeling lighter, and empowered to create meaningful change.

First? A quick story if you’ll humor me. It’s got a point, I promise.

When my kiddos were little they played all the sports. And my husband coached every team they were on. He loved getting to relive his glory days, and of course having that time with his girls. I loved that I never had to be the parent who brought orange slices. It was a win for all.

My husband was a youth athlete himself. So his approach was to bring forth all the drills his own coaches had used with him - the ones designed to grow speed, agility, and skills. For some kids? Those drills worked like a dream. For others, though…not so much.

Over time, what my husband came to realize was this: When a kid isn’t having a version of success on the field or the court, it may be a skill or agility issue. But also? It may actually be something else. Some kids may need help with strategy - building their sense of where to be or when to chase the ball. For others it may be a confidence thing and the support they need is around mindset. Still for others, they may have amazing individual skills but the coaching they need is in being part of a team - working with - not against - the other players on their team.

I share this because I think it offers an insight into what we’re getting so deeply wrong about burnout. And how, as a result, we’re totally failing to fix it.

See, my husband thought poor performance at sports was a skill problem. And the way to fix it was with skill-building. But that turned out to be true only sometimes.

Likewise, leaders - or at least nearly all the ones I’m talking to - think burnout is a volume problem. And therefore the only way to solve it is by reducing volume. Which is wrong - but also a stressful belief since now more than ever we’re all being asked to do more with less.

In the first of this four-part series on finally resolving burnout we’re going to talk about what’s really causing burnout. Because if we keep trying to implement solutions to a volume problem when the problem’s not about volume? Well, that’s a sure-fire path to failure.

What does burnout feel like?

Before we jump into the drivers of burnout, let’s begin with the question of what actually is it? When I think about this, I chuckle because it reminds me of thereminds of the wacky thing a Supreme Court justice once said about the standard for “obscenity.” When he was asked what’s the actual definition of obscenity, he famously said “I know it when I see it.”

Slightly less obscene, burnout is a little bit the same. Like, there’s no test for it. And it’s not really a binary - like people aren’t necessarily burned out or not burned out. It’s more like an accumulation of symptoms.

If I ask you to do a word association with burnout what word comescome to mind? I’ve started asking this in my keynotes on the topic. And I consistently get answers like “frantic; harried; ripping hair out; exhausted.” And these are all fair.

But what comes up less frequently? Words like lonely. Bored. Going through the motions. Distracted. Always pivoting and never delivering. But they’re all fair and valid.

Point here is this: There is no singular definition - or experience - of burnout. And we all have good days and bad days. So for me? I think of burnout as a chronic experience of feeling unable or disempowered to do good, meaningful work. And it lives on a spectrum. Which is to say some people may literally struggle to get out of bed, while others may just feel like they’re working with some mental sludginess.

Far as I’m concerned, not every case of burnout is a five-alarm fire. But any experience of it deserves our attention. And correction. So if you - or your team - is feeling any of these things, let’s talk about what may be causing it.

Drivers of burnout

First. To start? There’s actually some good news here. Really good. See, when everyone thinks burnout is a volume problem - and if volume feels like the one thingthingy you can’t control - you’re likely to feel defeated. But if it turns out the real driver of your burnout is something else? Often there’s something within your locus of control we can change. And that’s a great thing.

OK, so here we go.

• Volume is real. I want to be clear. When I say it’s often not a volume problem that doesn’t mean volume’s not an issue. Leaders absolutely need to have an eye on the realities of humanity. Regularly pushing people to and even beyond the limits of their capacity is rarely considered a best practice. So friends and leaders please. Prioritize. Consistently, frequently, across silos. Be mindful of when you add to a plate, you check to see if there’s room or if peas and potatoes are overflowing.
• Connection is another one. As in, we all experience it differently. But having a community of people that we trust around us - that we get to collaborate with, to learn from, to have a shared lexicon and set of experiences with? It’s protective. And when organizations either don’t make time and space for building relationships, or worse, they try to mandate community through forced events? Well, burnout.
• Purpose is huge. As in - why am I spending hours every day in this spreadsheet, following this script with customers, building this dashboard…? Sometimes ensuring that our people can actually see a link between the stuff - the activity of their days - and an outcome that’s meaningful? This can put much needed fuel back in the tank.
• Inanity. As in - when the stuff of our days is bureaucratic. Inefficient. Pointless. When we’re wading through process that hasn’t been updated since the 80’s. When we’re doing things manually that could be automated. When we’re putting on dog-and-pony shows instead of doing the meaningful work? Burns. Us. Out.
• Excessive change. Listen. I talk a lot about change. It’s the new normal and we need to have resilience for it. But also? Sometimes we need a minute to catch our breath. In some organizations I’m finding leaders who change their mind daily. Turn left today and right tomorrow. Now this is a priority. Tomorrow it’s that. Change is here to stay. But it should be in response to strategic needs. When it’s constant because our leaders aren’t effectively talking or planning? It just creates chaos that’s exhausting.
• External forces. As in hey. Have you noticed the world is low-key on fire these days? People are struggling just to get through. It’s taking energy from our tanks that we’d otherwise have to give to our work. And we need to honor this. Not ignore it. Not tell people to leave that stuff at home. We carry it everywhere. And it needs to live in the conversation we’ll have about solutions.

OK. For today, I’ll stop there. If you’ve been feeling the burn - and also disempowered to do anything about because volume’s out of your hands? I hope you’re feeling hopeful.

In episode 2 of this series, we’re going to focus on managers. Because they’re feeling it doubly hard. And we need to talk about resetting expectations around what’s their burden to carry and what isn’t. But I promise you, there will be good stuff in there for managers as well as individual contributors.

If your organization - or team or self - is struggling with burnout? Please head to my website leadabovenoise.com. Fill out the contact form and tell me more. I would love to come in and give a talk or run a heavy-on-the-action-planning workshop for your leaders or team. I promise you’ll leave feeling lighter.

Join me next week for another great episode of Modern Mentor. Until then, visit my website at leadabovenoise.com, and follow Modern Mentor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Thanks so much for listening, and have a successful week!

Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. It’s audio-engineered by Dan Feirabend. Our Director of Podcasts is Brannan Goetschius. Our Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist is Morgan Christianson. Our Digital Operations Specialist is Holly Hutchings. Our Marketing Contractor is Nathaniel Hoopes.