What makes YOU prone to burn out?
One Monday morning in an agency, a colleague came into my office, slumped, and cried.
And cried.
He’d been working for weeks—and all weekend—for a difficult client. He was, I now know, burnt out: suffering a collapse of physical and emotional energy. I should have seen the signs and intervened much earlier.
So, we sacked the crazy client, took three weeks off, and he’s once again thriving.
There is a lot of it going around. Recent reports suggest that between three and six people in any team at Goldman Sachs are off with either burnout or stress.
The questions to ask ourselves are:
Why is there so much of it around now that things are getting better?
Why it is hitting people who don’t “get these things”?
And, what can organisations do?
I spoke to vlog regular, clinical psychologist Dr Bill Mitchell (author of Time to Breathe) for advice:
Be aware: small changes have more impact than we realise, and can trigger a tip towards burn out—e.g. changes in exercise, relationships, or endless emails from a pissed off client or colleague.
Watch for: early signs of stress (e.g. poor sleep and concentration) are exacerbated by a tumble into unhealthy habits (drinking, food issues, skipping exercise).
Reframe: resilience isn’t something that some of us have and others don’t—it’s a skill set we have to practice.
Is it you? The people most likely to burn out have a high sense of responsibility and perfectionism.
Who should be responsible? Organisations can do a lot to help, but most important, is the pivotal role of the manager.
Failing all that, lovely piece in The Guardian this week about Martha Beck, Oprah Winfrey’s life coach, who says: “Get a dog. The truth is in that dog’s eyes.”
Next week?
The single best piece of management advice anyone ever gave me…
Christine
