The High Burnout Organization - Part 2

The High Burnout Organization - Part 2

Yesterday, I shared the first 4 patterns from our research about organizations that burn out their people. Today I’ll share the rest. No organizations have all of these. But the more you have the higher the risk of burning out your people. Starting with....

5. Lack of support from above

A recurring theme was that people could handle a lot of pressure at work as long as they felt they were supported by their boss. But when that relationship soured or they got a new unsupportive boss the dam would burst. (Nick’s note - the boss was often in the same position as the Direct Report. And so was the bosses’ boss. There are no villains here.)  

  • I couldn’t get time to speak with my boss about the challenges I was facing. The issues that were on my agenda were no longer on hers. She’d say, “You have to figure this out, this is your job.”
  • I had a conversation with my boss about how I was feeling and my current state. He seemed to take it all in. Then after he just completely loaded me up again like we had not even talked. It felt like the opposite of support. 

6. The talk doesn’t match the walk

It is unusual these days for companies not to talk about how important their people and their wellbeing is. In the high burnout organizations the common theme was how little the action and decision making in the organizations matched the words.

  • The CEO paid lip service to ‘we really care’ and here is a wellbeing program. But then we’ll still run you into the ground and you’ll work 60 hours and over the weekend. 
  • The walk never matched the talk
  • We were quite good with physical safety but not psychological safety

7. People don’t talk about Burnout around here

It is extremely common for the system to be burning people out but individuals feeling they are only one. People in organizations are hiding what they are experiencing from others. In many of our minds and org’s, burnout still has a stigma attached to it.

  • “After I burned out, I wrote a linkedin post about it. I had so many people I knew contact me to say they had also experienced burnout. I would say, “But I thought you left because you got a great career opportunity. You never said it was because of burn out.” I realized people weren’t talking about it because it had a stigma to it. I now realize burnout is way more common than we all think. People just aren’t talking about it yet.”

We shouldn’t continue to create organizational conditions that burn out good people. The organizations above didn’t start out like that. Their goal was high performance, but over time they neglected the health of the organism and became toxic. 

A lot of people have said, it must have been depressing hearing all these stories. It wasn’t. I felt inspired by the people and their courage. They lifted me. Partly because of their courage. But partly because of what these people did to turn their situation around. In upcoming posts I’ll share positive examples about what individuals and organizations did to move from toxic performance to healthy performance. Hopefully it will inspire you too. 

The research is still in process so if you have ideas, thoughts or stories to share we'd love to hear from you. Just add a note in the comments or email nick@nicholaspetrie.com  

We looking fwd to connecting.

Nathalie Faure

Agente de développement et d'intégration

1y

I can recognize most of the point that drove me towards burnout in 2018. Lack of personnel, (personal emergency and systemic emergency) not talking about burnout, and I went down when my manager withdrawed her support. I felt on my own, struggling to stay afloat. I didn't see or heard the warning signs. This plus a personal story around performance as my grades were "never enough" put me down. Thanks for this info. Trying to help people now not to fall into this rabbit' hole

Rune Stuvland

Daglig leder Senter for Stress og Traumepsykologi

1y

Your summary on this topic is excellent, and very much in line with what I have learned as a clinical psychologist who has worked with people and organizatons struggling with stress and burnout for 20 years here in Norway. So well in fact, that I have allowed me to summarize it, with reference, in a blog post on our own website. If I should point out one factor that really stands out, in my opinion, as especially toxic it is the non-supportive/non-available leader who never "sees" the employee.

Eike-Marie Eiting

Multidisciplinary Problem Solver & Coordinator | Creative Mind | Ayurvedic Cook & Artist

2y

I love that you say most companies do not want to burn out their people, I agree, I do not think any of this is intended. I also believe not all of these boxes need to be ticked. You can be offering mental and well-being support, and still have high workload and insufficient resources. You can have support from above and talk about burnout, and still a system designed for insecurity. The bottom line might be that the talk does not match the walk :D or that the people have blind spots in terms what moves the system instead of seeing the isolated events or initiatives. Also, what I have seen a couple of times, is with what mental model employees come to the company. If they only know high burnout organizations they will feel like expendable resources, feel insecurity and will look for queues that support this even if the company is okay. Lack of overcommunication, and the talk not matching the walk might also play a role here.

Dr Erin Evans

Experienced CEO | Entrepreneur- AR technology | Facilitator | Speaker | Systems Thinker, strategy and leadership

2y

Loved your interview on What's Next with Pete Holliday

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