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Articles
Avoiding Burnout
"There's simply not enough time to get everything done," reported a senior level executive from one of the nation's largest banks, "and just when I think I can get away from the office to go to a school concert to see my kids perform, I get another phone call and the schedule gets all reworked and there goes my evenings." Weekends? "I'm usually at the office," Robert added.
"I'm burned out, and I'm ready to put my brain on hold for a while," he concluded.
Maybe you have it, too. Not much was said about it for a number of years, but more and more executives and upper level managers are talking about it now, openly. It's called burnout and for an increasing number of executives it's a reality that has to be dealt with. The cause? Burnout seems to come from several sources: Long hours. No time off. Lack of a support group. Conflict of values. Too much to do in too little time.
Burnout is one of those things that if you don't have it, you don't want to get it. Based on the authors' more than twenty years experience working with people in career crisis here are seven actions executives can take to avoid burn-out.
1. Take Time To Play
Make certain you're taking time to play, to relax, to think about things other than work and the next organizational strategy. A major source of burnout, many executives report, is simply not having or taking time to play. To be with family. To be with a significant other. To do something other than work.
Two factors seem to impact: one is the increased pressure placed on executives, and the other is the executive's own hesitancy to physically leave the organization in someone else's care for even a few days.
Time off is essential.
"It wasn't until I was in a job search," stated Dennis Billings, now IS-VP at Briggs Corporation in Des Moines, Iowa, "that I realized how many long hours I was putting in. There wasn't time to get refreshed. Now it's part of the culture and we're expected to take time to play. After all, if we can't approach problems with energy then we can't make good decisions."
In Juliet B. Schor's paradigm-busting book The Overworked American (Basic Books, 1991) Schor reported that the number of hours worked by the typical American employee has steadily increased in the past decades. "If present trends continue," Schor asserted, "by the end of the century Americans will be spending as much time at their jobs as they did back in the nineteen twenties."
Sometimes taking time to play means executives have to give up the idea that they are next to indispensable. Too often executives hesitate to leave the company in someone else's hands, even for a long weekend retreat. Effective executives will have the people in place who can take over during their absence, so there is take time to get refreshed. Having time off to relax, think about things other than work demands and decisions, is essential for avoiding burnout. Creativity and fun seemed to be joined at the hip.
2. Match Your Values
The biggest contributing factor to burnout, stated Christina Maslach, University of California-Berkeley professor and co-author of The Truth About Burnout (Jossey-Bass, 1997) is a mis-match in values. "When there are value problems or conflict," Maslach stated, "you see greater instances of burnout."
For example, an executive may be pushed to state that "we treat our employees like family" and then implement a reorganization to eliminate all jobs held by people over a certain age or tenure with the company. Or perhaps the company says "we listen to our employees" and establishes focus groups for feedback and ideas, only to ignore the many suggestions by employees. Or maybe the company says "our focus is customer service," but doesn't give employees the power to provide good customer service.
Sometimes the clash of values is more dramatic and direct, and executives find themselves confronted with actions they consider immoral or illegal. To keep their job they find themselves doing and saying things which are contrary to their own value system. The pressure builds. The inner conflict increases. When personal values clash with company values, burnout can often follow.
3. Be Physical
If physical exercise is a major way to reduce stress, then it must be a significant factor in avoiding burnout. And it is! "Getting into a routine of physical exercise is essential for executives to effectively deal with daily stress," stated physician Jim Burke, MD, President, Scottsdale Health Care Family Care, Scottsdale, Arizona. "I've yet to see an executive as a burnout patient who was in good physical condition, exercised regularly, and wasn't carrying around a lot of extra pounds."
Exercise can be part of a daily routine, just like eating and sleeping. "The important thing to remember," said nationally recognized fitness expert Deby Harper (The Fitness Co., Scottsdale, AZ) is that you can do different activities all day long which help keep you fit." Harper suggests beginning with easy activities, such as being aware of how you move. "When you visualize yourself having broad shoulders and an elongated spine it's easier to walk and move in a way that produces physical energy," Harper recommended.
Harper's company interviewed over 50 CEOs about their physical fitness activities. "For many of them," Harper found, "they were thinking about the issues of the day while exercising. It wasn't reducing stress, it was creating it." The remedy? Think about things that you enjoy while you're exercising, she encourages.
Can't find time? It may not be a matter of finding time as much as it is a matter of taking the time to exercise so a person can function at peak performance. As an executive you know that too much weight slows a person down. Too little exercise slows a person down. A sedentary life-style is one that's on a collision course with disaster. Getting into and staying in good physical condition is one of the most important ways to avoid burnout.
4. Enjoy Your Support Network
Just as a network of confidants and cheerleaders is important when executives mount an aggressive job search, this supportive network is important to reduce the risk of burnout. It's important to have a group of friends who care about you and with whom you can relax.
These are people with whom you enjoy spending time, and can be open and honest. With them you can acknowledge that sometimes it's not always fun being on the top floor. You can count on these people to not be enamored by your title or position, who like you but who won't let you get by with irrational thinking just because you're an executive, or who insist you listen to their viewpoint when it differs from yours.
If you're an executive with the attitude that "I can handle anything and everything," or work by the slogan that "it's a sign of weakness to let our feelings show or to let our hair down, " then according to the authors' research findings you're on your way to burnout. Even executives don't live in isolation, but are humans who need others around with whom they can relax, take off their masks and share.
It's important to find the people, in and out of work, that you can candidly talk with. Who can lend an understanding ear. Who can laugh with you and sometimes at you. Your support network should include people both inside and outside one's family. They will be "friends" in the truest sense of the word, and people to whom you can turn for laughs, support, encouragement, and honest feedback. Warts and all.
5. Do What You Most Enjoy Doing
When people are doing what they most enjoy doing, which is usually what they do best, then burnout caused by overwork is usually non-existent. After all, if you're doing what you really like to do you can handle extra hours, or extra pressures because work is play and play is work and it's hard to tell when one ends and the other begins.
"It's essential to focus on what you like to do and do it with the people you like to work with," stated Minneapolis-based executive coach Bill Neher. "If your work involves what you most enjoy doing, it's easy to maintain energy and commitment, and to perform at peak ability." When people enjoy what they are doing, it's amazing how much they can do, and how long they can do it.
"But you also have to keep your life balanced between work and outside activities," Neher cautioned. "Otherwise you risk building total dependency on work activities for satisfaction. In effect you create a one-dimensional lifestyle portfolio that reduces your flexibility and your capacity to deal with changing career phases and respond to requirements of social relationships."
6. Keep Your Options Open
Both authors discovered early in their work with people in career crisis that persons who felt they had no options were the most stressed. These were the people who felt they had no alternatives to what was going on, and with no alternatives saw absolutely no way out. They got stressed. Demoralized. Depressed. Burned out.
The people who knew they had options, however, could deal with their situations with more energy and resolve. Knowing they had the skills to do something else or go to work for someone else they could more effectively deal with the pressures of the moment.
To avoid burnout you need to know your options and keep your options open. This means you know your strengths, you know how to talk about what you have to contribute to an organization, you know your leadership style and how you work with others, and you know the kind of company culture in which you can be the most successful and satisfied at the same time!
When association executive Jesse Smith, Burlington, Vermont, first realized he had stepped into a situation that wasn't going to work he didn't panic. "I knew I had options, that there were a number of places where I could make very significant contributions," he stated. For Smith, it was a matter of finding the right place: a place that needed someone with his skills and values. He found it.
Executives should keep their resumes current. They should be ready to talk about what they have accomplished in the past five years, and the kinds of contributions they can make in an organization where there is a value-fit. They should periodically review advertised openings, just to see the kind of opportunities that are in the open marketplace.
Keep your options open. When you know you have options, then and only then can you realistically evaluate the place where you're at.
7. Exit If You Must
Robert, the senior level bank executive, is getting ready to mount his own job search. He wants out. He see no immediate change in the work pace, and he's tired from having to do things he considers to be unnecessary and a waste of his major strengths.
If where you're at becomes too much to handle, and you're beginning to experience that thing called burnout, and you see no change coming, then take control and exit. On your way out be sure the right people know and understand the causes of your burnout and why you're moving on. They may not listen... but again, they might.
Can you do this? It's easier for some than for others. The importance of job security varies greatly from one individual to another. It varies depending on personal values, reactions by family members, how large the mortgage is, when the kids will be out of college, and whether or not you won last week's lottery.
People who place a high premium on job security are more likely to suffer from burnout if their other preferences are not met. They will stay in the stressful situation or career for an extended time hoping it will change for the better. Sometimes they stay, even when they know it won't change for the better but will only get worse.
Taking the initiative and exiting on your own is a frightening, self-affirming, confidence-boosting, and career enhancing action. But plan your exit. Know your strengths. Be ready to talk about where and how you can make the most significant contributions. Use your network. Take care of yourself.
Exiting on your own is an ultimate action affirming who is in control of your life!
Beginning to experience burnout? Maybe it's just because the pace is a bit hectic right now. Or, maybe, it's something more. Follow these seven actions and you can increase your chances of avoiding burnout and maintain control of your own life and career.
Richard Deems is author of Making Change Work For You! and president of Deems Associates Inc/WorkLife Design, headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. Brad Harper is president of Trigon Executive Assessment Center, based in Scottsdale, Arizona.
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