After any keynote or workshop I do, I always provide my direct email address. In my line of work, I get that not everyone wants to ask their questions publicly. And I want to make sure people have the opportunity to feel supported after the session.
Questions always vary, but I thought this one was a bit of doozy after a recent keynote… “Is the corporate system so flawed that we are fundamentally all doomed to burnout?”
Wow. That’s some black and white thinking right there. And in reality, I doubt this person was the only person to ever have this question. And this kind of thinking has very significant implications for leaders of people who are thinking like this.
So what was the basis behind the question?
Given the barrage of emails and messages coming at us constantly, expectations of instant responses, tight turnarounds to meet client demands, meetings in various time zones with people in global offices, we can start to feel like we are working around the clock with few opportunities to catch breath.
Oh and not to mention dealing with the demands of life while we are at it!
Sometimes it just feels like – there is a LOT going on.
And fair enough. There is a lot going on, but having a mindset that there is nothing we can do about it will only add to the problem.
And all too often we are seeing people with this black and white thinking which isn’t helping themselves.
Too often people are thinking that if they can’t control everything, then they can’t control anything. And therefore what’s the point in trying? And therefore basically there is every external reason under the sun why they are doomed for burnout. It’s the system, it’s the boss, it’s the company, and the list goes on.
What do we do as leaders to help stamp out this way of thinking?
As leaders, there has never been a more important time to help people to help themselves. It’s just like the way that interest compounds: success is the compounding of the small parts which are done well.
Even if we can’t control everything we there are always small steps which can be taken to save a few energy credits as we go.
So as leaders we often need to be explicit about giving people permission to take some small steps to feel like they are more in control in optimising their performance and cognitive energy.
Emails and messages just keep coming at me – Suggest that it’s ok to have some focus time where they switch off notifications. Simple. I’m not saying they should never respond to another message ever again. Start small, maybe they try every 15 minutes as a starting point while they work out that the share price didn’t drop because they didn’t respond to a message instantly. When your people feel like they are going to the messages instead of the messages attacking them, they will feel way more in control.
Expectations of instant responses – This kind of relates to the previous point. So many people think that others expect an instant response from them. Instant responses perpetuate the mindset that people need to give instant responses. Many leaders agree that instant responses aren’t necessary and yet aren’t doing anything to let their people know that this is the case. As leaders, if it makes you feel better to have an urgent way to contact people when required, then hash a plan for this.
Tight turnarounds to meet client demands – At NEP we have plenty of accountability frameworks to help people to determine appropriate timeframes for client work. In our experience, sure, some client demands might be super urgent, but most people are promising tight turnarounds even when it’s not necessary, putting unnecessary pressure on the people involved in doing the work.
Meetings in various time zones with people in global offices – Leaders can help just by saying it’s ok to go a bit easier during the local time zone, if the team are also doing early and late meetings, especially if they need to save energy credits for those later meetings.
Constantly having a mindset of not being able to cope – This one is last for a reason. Ideally as leaders we want to keep our people out of the unproductive stress zone. Remember this is the zone where people are overestimating the problem and underestimating their ability to cope. If you provide the environment for people to do all of the above – they will probably feel a lot more in control and therefore spend way less energy credits.
As leaders we need to coach people to be very careful of their language. The more that your people say that they are busy, tired stressed, etc, the more they are essentially telling themselves that they are overestimating the problem and underestimating their ability to cope. So helping your team with other language can be super helpful here.
For example, when I worked in financial services, I would always ban the word “busy”. As a leader busy doesn’t mean anything to me. Do I genuinely need to go and fight for more resources, or is the person just not being as effective as they could be? There is a big difference to the brain if someone asks you how are you and you say “busy” versus something like “I have a lot on but it is all good stuff.” The latter is sending a message to your brain that you can cope and therefore increasing your tolerance to stress.
So as leaders we really need to coach what kind of language is appropriate to use so that we aren’t perpetuating the tiredness and busyness with our people?
The longer people are thinking along the lines of the original question, they will continue to get even more set in their learned helplessness. This reduces their productivity and brings them closer to burnout. The quicker we can give people a feeling of control, and that they can influence their situation, the better.
So overall, as a leader, be explicit about allowing your team to have some control over how they work, every day. If you are wanting to increase productivity and decrease burnout in, helping them to systemically tweak the way they work with have may more impact than offering a free yoga class and a fruit bowl.
Of course, if you’d like to find out more about how to improve performance with less effort why not either book a Performance Call or sign up for our next 20/20 session or one of our open workshops here