Understanding and Preventing Burnout: Why Vision Matters and How to Reconnect Your Team
In this episode of Make Work Not Suck, co-hosts Daniel Steere and Ryan Hodges tackle one of the most widespread issues in today’s workplace: burnout. Especially relevant in a post-COVID world, burnout has become a struggle for employees and leaders alike, affecting productivity, morale, and overall job satisfaction.
Ryan and Daniel share personal stories of burnout, exploring its causes and offering practical solutions for employees, managers, and executives. They discuss how unclear vision, outdated processes, and lack of efficiency can lead to burnout and provide actionable steps to prevent it. This episode delves into understanding burnout’s symptoms, addressing them at every organizational level, and creating a culture of clarity and support.
This episode covers:
• [00:00] The Story of an “FU” Slide: Highlighting Inefficient Processes
• [01:22] Welcome to the Episode: Burnout and Why It’s Timely
• [02:09] Different Types of Burnout: Juggling Work and Personal Life
• [02:28] Creating Burnout as a Leader: When Vision is Missing
• [03:26] A Real-World Example of Wasted Effort Due to Lack of Clarity
• [04:23] Identifying “Busy Work” vs. Accomplishing Real Goals
• [05:08] Activity vs. Accomplishment: Why Vision is Essential
• [06:17] Diagnosing Burnout in Large Organizations with Legacy Processes
• [09:16] The Problem with “Sacred Cows” and Overly Complex Processes
• [11:53] Outgrowing Processes: When Your Company’s Growth Creates Burnout
• [13:30] Advice for Employees Feeling Burnout: Finding Efficiency
• [14:32] Importance of Personal Recharging: Don’t Leave Vacation Days Unused
• [17:27] Why Managers Don’t Want Their Teams to Burn Out
• [18:29] Managers’ Role in Understanding and Changing Ineffective Processes
• [20:15] How Executives Can Identify and Address Burnout Early
• [21:33] The Silent Killer: Indifference as a Sign of Burnout
• [23:34] Addressing Burnout by Providing Breaks and Support
• [25:38] Taking Ownership as a Leader: Diagnosing the Gaps
• [27:03] Asking for Input: How Leaders Can Drive Positive Change
• [28:18] The Importance of a Clear Vision for Effective Processes
• [29:30] Change Fatigue: Burnout Caused by Constant Adjustments
Through real experiences and straightforward advice, Ryan and Daniel discuss how burnout can be prevented by leaders who take ownership, managers who encourage input, and employees who communicate constructively. If you’re struggling with burnout or want to prevent it in your team, this episode is packed with valuable insights.
Key Takeaway: Burnout isn’t inevitable—it can be minimized with clear vision, supportive leadership, and proactive self-care. Learn how to reconnect to your work, reduce unnecessary “busy work,” and find meaningful ways to prevent burnout in your organization.
Tune in to discover practical strategies to make even the hardest workdays a little less exhausting.
Transcript
Alright. So favorite story from this one. I was part of a large organization that would do monthly business reviews. And so they tried to look at everything top to bottom in this business every 30 days. This one gentleman was kind of the GM of a particular line of business.
I think it was, like, over a $100,000,000 of revenue. So it was a big business, and he had to put everything onto one slide because that was the direction is I need a one slide update from your line of business for everything that's happening. So what he would do is he would write the whole thing out and then shrink it down to, like, 4 font. I mean, it was just, like, microscopic. And it was it was kind of an f u to whoever his manager was that he's like, I'm gonna do it, but it's not going to be helpful.
And then in the middle of this one PowerPoint slide, at 4 font, which was microscopic, I think I actually did get a magnifying glass out to read it, there's this line that says, I bet you haven't read this. And if you come to my office and point this out, I'll give you $20. And it was basically proving that nobody is really paying attention to these processes. Like, we were doing this, but we don't really know why.
[:Welcome to the Make Work Not Suck podcast.
[:Alright, Ryan. So let's talk about burnout. Man, I think that one's timely. I think there's a lot of people, especially in a post COVID world, the last 4 years, struggling with burnout. I know I've felt that at times.
How about we start with you? You got a story of burnout? You ever feel like you've been there?
[:I haven't. But I I I mine is the serial entrepreneur running too many companies and trying to balance, you know, work work and personal and kids and wives and soccer games and
[:Was that wives plural?
[:Did I say wives? Let me say wife.
[:We might need to ask our editor to fix that.
[:Singular wife.
[:Sing one wife.
[:Multiple kids, one wife.
[:You know, there's certainly burnout that can come from juggling too many things professionally and personally. Right? So maybe that's one category of burnout that we could talk about. But I don't know if that's necessarily what most people experience when we talk about burnout.
[:Let's maybe rephrase the question as, have I ever created burnout or caused burnout? And the answer is, oh, yes. I have.
[:Oh, yes. You have. Okay. I've learned from that mistake. Interesting.
Alright. So I wanna hear that story. Let's start there. Cool.
[:That story, it's which one. I know you put me on the spot and then my mind's going blank. I mean, I think it's just it's those times where you're, like, you know, end of the quarter, you know, big strategic projects, and it's just, you know, push push push for results results results. Honestly, every time looking back, it's when it was a lack of vision that it created a lot of just busy, and everybody was just wanting to get to the result. And so we created a lot of extra work.
And because we are only pushing for the result without a clear vision, we created burnout. Dozens of dozens of times, you know, in the in the earlier days did we create a lot of burnout like that.
[:So what would you say is the antidote to that?
[:Well, you know what? Let's just talk about the call we were on earlier today.
[:Okay. This
[:is probably good, you know, real example. You know, we're going through, you know, the story workshop for client success. Mhmm. For client onboarding for a particular company. You know, there was a lot of work put into it.
But when we got on the call, it was not clear what the vision was. And what did we do? We wasted 45 minutes trying to solve an unknown problem. Right?
[:Problem that has already been solved, actually.
[:It probably was already solved. Right? So the thing I think for us is what we did is we identified we didn't have a clear vision, and then we step back and said, okay. Let's reassess the journey here, regroup, you know, get everybody on the same page, right people, etcetera, etcetera, and then we'll have another story workshop. I think too many companies, they run into that problem because they don't have a clear vision, and they're anxious to get to a result.
I think they've just powered through the meeting, and they would end with the inferior or subpar product, or output or whatever, which then would have created even more work on the individuals down the line and then just cascades. Yeah.
[:And it's interesting. I had coffee with a founder CEO this morning, and he was telling me a little bit about his company and and kind of the transition and the growing pains that they're going through. There's a couple of employees that he's like, they keep telling me they're super busy, but I'm not entirely sure what they're doing or what the value is of it. I don't question they're working hard, but is it worth all of that time and effort? And he's like, I just haven't had time to really look at that.
And I wonder if that might be another kind of symptom of a lack of vision is you could have people well-intentioned working very hard, putting in a lot of hours and a lot of effort. But if we're not clear on why we're doing that, it could be a lot of wasted effort.
[:Oh, yeah. There's the stereotypical. You know, we all want to do good work. You know, most of our workforce are good people, and they wanna do a good job, and they wanna earn their paycheck, but it's activity at the expense of accomplishment. They're not really accomplishing anything.
They're doing a lot of activity that keeps them busy. And then when they're you know, because that doesn't actually achieve the result, then when the accomplishment has to come, then that's spent in extra innings, if you will. Right. And that leads to burnout. And I think sometimes as, you know, managers and and executives, you know, we're kind of at the as long as the person's getting the results, you know, we don't care, but we don't often see the burnout because of the lack of vision.
If the vision or the definition of the role is not clear enough and and what is it? I forget the phrase. You'll probably catch it when I say this. Is if you don't give them a plan or guidance or a framework or whatever the the the parameters, they're going to come up with their own parameters to get the job done. And if it's unclear, then that's where it's it leads into activity.
If you don't provide that vision in that level of and a little bit of journey to guide them, then you're gonna have an exorbitant amount of activity to achieve the same goal, which leads to burnout.
[:Let's say as I look back on my career, I've experienced burnout in a couple places. I think for me, primarily, it would be trying to juggle too much personally and professionally at the same time, not the Ryan Hodges, I'm running 12 companies at the same time problem, but just, you know, kind of a a a lot on multiple fronts. But I've also felt the burnout from, I would say, like, a very inefficient organizations. Like, being part of a larger organization, things are just so much harder than they need to be to get done. I'd be curious as to how you would diagnose this one because I don't think it was as much a lack of vision, although it could be.
What it felt like, though, was a lot of legacy processes. Like, we've just always done this, and so we continue to do it, but we don't really know why we're doing it. And so there's a lot of work that has to be done, but nobody can tell me why. And maybe it was important a while ago, but, like, we're not allowed to ask if it's still important.
[:Where processes are either sacred cows or know, we don't wanna offend somebody because they invented this process, you know, 10 years ago. Or Mhmm. My favorite is I was in a meeting once, and I was asking why the process was 37 steps, and I was promptly corrected by one of the founders jokingly. And then as he was saying it with tears in his eyes crying, he says it's not 37 steps. He says it's 37 pages, and I don't know how we got to 37 pages of steps to do this process.
And we need to fix it, but all we know how to do is the 37 pages.
[:Yeah. Alright. So favorite story from this one. I was part of a large organization that would do monthly business reviews.
And so they tried to look at everything top to bottom in this business every 30 days. This one gentleman was kind of the GM of a particular line of business. I think it was, like, over a $100,000,000 of revenue. So it was a big business, and he had to put everything onto one slide because that was the direction is I need a one slide update from your line of business for everything that's happening. So what he would do is he would write the whole thing out and then shrink it down to, like, 4 font.
I mean, it was just, like, microscopic. And it was it was kind of an f u to whoever his manager was that he's like, I'm gonna do it, but it's not going to be helpful. And then in the middle of this one PowerPoint slide at 4 font, which was microscopic, I think I actually did get a magnifying glass out to read it, there's this line that says, I bet you haven't read this. And if you come to my office and point this out, I'll give you $20. And it was basically proving that nobody is really paying attention to these to these processes.
Like, we were doing this, but we don't really know why.
[:Okay. I got it. Alright. Here's what we're gonna run with. So I agree with that, and that's funny.
That's like the M and M rider that's in the contract for I can't remember which band. I'm gonna be ridiculed for not remembering the band because it's a famous one. It's like Rolling Stones or something like that. Yeah.
[:Yeah. The green M and M's.
[:Yep. There you go. Oh, that was brown.
[:It was green? Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's brown. Maybe it's brown.
[:Anyways, it's funny because I think so many times we get into an IQ mindset, and we think very logically, and we're like, this is the ideal process. And if but the issue is is, like, we invent this theory in our head that this is what it's gonna be. And then the second that the the employees on the street, they're, like, looking at the it's like looking at the the the map, and then looking at the roads. And it's like, this map does not match reality here, and I have to go down this road. And so then what do they do?
They just throw it out the window because it's useless. Right. And then then what does somebody do? We duct tape another component onto it, and then we duct tape another component on it. We duct tape another component because we didn't count for the journey we are trying to go on, and that's how it ends into 37 pages.
[:Right.
[:Because we didn't actually understand the vision or the destination we're trying to get to. And, yeah, that's that's the the the was it Booksmart, StreetSmart? Too many processes are invented and created in the Booksmart mindset because we envision this perfect world. And the reality, they fall apart in in the street, and that's why they get tossed out by the everyday employee. I'm sure you can ask anybody in any organization, how much do you follow the processes by the tee?
And you're probably gonna get, you know, 10 out of 10. Like, what processes? I don't What processes? They don't make sense.
[:Yeah. I think another reason for burnout that that I've experienced, and this is maybe a different way of saying what what you're saying is, is that processes have kind of a lot of of gravity to them, a lot of, like, inertia. Right? So once somebody's done the work to establish a process, nobody wants to go back and fix it or or update it. And the problem, especially in fast growing organizations, is the processes, get outgrown.
And so we're still doing I've seen this with with organizations where we got to 10,000,000 and we established all these processes, and they were great for a $10,000,000 company. But now we're a $50,000,000 company, and everything is just excruciatingly painful to get done. And it's because you have $10,000,000 company processes and $10,000,000 company tools, but you're a $50,000,000 company. That creates incredible burnout amongst the people because they don't have the tools and the processes and the systems and the decision authority that they need to operate the business as it exists today.
[:A 1000%. You know, like every every I can't remember the exact milestones. You know, like, like, 1,000,000, 3,000,000, 5,000,000, 10,000,000, 20,000,000, 50,000,000, 100,000,000. You have to reinvent yourself every time. Right?
Right. And and, again, too often, even though those processes, it goes into the systems when you get larger. The Mhmm. The system is designed, you know, with using the book smart analogy. And then people don't use it because it doesn't make sense or it adds too much complexity, so then they skirt it.
And then you get, you know, you get the the nagger coming back in. You're like, well, you didn't submit your TPS report, and I need you to do that. You're like, what's the point of this? And they're like, I don't know, but it's my job to make sure you do it. Right.
I've got a a a buddy. He's, it was actually a company I worked with a few years ago. We rebuilt one of their divisions. The whole philosophy I got with the management team is, like, they they were micromanaging hours. They paid everybody's salary, but they micromanage the hours, legacy, billing mindset, etcetera.
And I said, if we've if we've got customers paying premium dollar and they are satisfied and the work's getting done, why do you care how many hours somebody works in a day? Well, yeah, we really don't. We built the entire model around it. Sold the company. And then the new company coming over, they said, we love everything about what you're doing, and we don't wanna mess with it.
Then what did they do? They took their processes that were designed in a vacuum
[:and tried to apply it.
[:And what did you do? You burned out the 3 key employees in the organization because they were, you know, oh, you didn't put your time in.
[:You didn't put your tickets in.
[:You didn't follow-up with this. You didn't do I mean, it's not it's not that they weren't following process or being belligerent or anything like that. It's that the process is worth the expense of the productivity of the employee so that somebody else can watch a dashboard and feel happy. Right.
[:Let's say you're you're an employee and you're feeling burnout. You've been with this company for a little while, and you're just kinda over it. What advice would you give to somebody in that situation?
[:I would ask if the burnout is due to following process well, I think it's a couple of ways. If it's due to following process that are create is creating an exuberant amount of work. And if that's the case, then I think I would go back and say, what is the vision for this, and what is the outcome that's needed? And then ask your manager, can we find a more efficient way to achieve the same goal? A lot of time, a how is dictated down from the top and really what needs to be dictated from the top as a what and why and let the team figure out the how.
Because I guarantee you, they can come up with a better how with some guidance. Not not saying it's gonna be perfect, but you wanna figure out how to move warehouses in a box faster? Why don't you ask how the forklift driver, the most efficient way to drive the forklift through the warehouse, then you can figure out how to organize your stuff, not organize it in a vacuum, and then have the forklift driver crisscross the warehouse 37 times on on you know, unnecessarily.
[:Yeah. That's good. I would add maybe a a kind of a coaching angle to this for people that are at lower levels of an organization. I think it's important to take care of yourself. And so having a good understanding of what you do to recharge your batteries, I don't mean the batteries of your forklift.
I mean, like, for you personally. Right? Whether that's spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically. Like, what do you need to do to recharge so that when you do come to work, you can bring your a game? I find many people do not know how to recharge.
That leads to this cycle of burnout where work takes a lot out of me. I go home, home takes a lot out of me. I go back to work, work takes a lot out of me, and and there's just constant drain and nothing kind of pouring back into you. And so on an individual level, I think it's very important for us to understand what I need in order to bring the best that I have to contribute to work. And honestly, early in my career, I did not take advantage of vacation days.
I left a lot of vacation days on the table. And looking back, I think that was dumb. I think I should have gone for a hike or, you know, laid in bed and read a book or something. Like, whatever it is that that really helps you recharge the batteries, that's gotta be on your schedule on a regular basis.
[:Well, what's funny with that one is I'm willing to bet, at least for the American audience. They're too afraid to do that because it'll lead to further burnout. And so it's like, I can't take a vacation because if I take a vacation, the backlog is gonna go even further, and then I'm even more burned out. Okay.
[:So That's
[:a whole that's a whole different problem.
[:Is that a different episode?
[:That's a different episode. Let's hit a different angle for a second. So if there is a process or you're feeling burned out and you're an employee, I think the thing is you gotta step back and ask, do I understand this process? There's sometimes, there are processes that are designed for a reason. They're good processes, good systems and tools, and you don't understand the connectedness to it.
And so you spend more time fighting it. And then what you actually do is you burn yourself out because you fought the system as opposed to understood the value you're creating behind it. So I would ask, you know, if you're facing that, one is, like, what's the vision of this process? Right? Like, why does it exist?
What's it for? Who does it benefit? What's the result it creates? Is there a more efficient way to do this, or is this the best way to do it? And then what is in my way of getting this done?
Like, what other work is on my plate or what other work is getting in the way? Because there's a percentage of it where you're creating the work. You think you're doing work to add value, and you're you're burning yourself out. So the real question is is, like, if you're an employee and you can't control everything else around you, the real question is, are you creating your own burnout, or is this a problem of the system? And so that self identification process, I think, can see because at the end of the day, if the company expects you to follow a process and it does actually do the job efficiently once you understand it, then anything you're doing beyond that is just waste.
Now if it's an extra project for you know, if you're trying to go for a promotion, you're taking on extra work like that, that's a different topic. But if you're just doing, you know, work because you think it adds value, you're actually contributing to your own burnout.
[:I would wanna remind people who don't know this that your manager is not trying to burn you out. Your manager, you know, I think about every management situation that I've been in, man, if I lose somebody, my workload gets worse. Right. If somebody quits, somebody burns out, somebody has to take sick days. Right.
Everybody else has to bear that load. And so it would be the rare manager who would not want to hear from their employees ways that things could be done better. Because I know as a manager that if I burn through my people and they quit or they get sick or whatever happens, I've got bigger problems now. And so most managers want things to happen as efficiently as possible. So I would encourage any employees who have ideas of how to make things better, have that conversation with your manager.
Don't be afraid to have that conversation because the only person who doesn't want you to burn out more than you is your manager.
[:Yep. Oh, a 1000%. I think if you're a manager and then I've got a good question that I wanna raise after this. I think if you're a manager, if someone comes to you with this, you really have to look. Was this process invented in a vacuum, and does it conflict with reality, or is it the right process, and do they need coaching to understand the vision of it and how it does contribute to the organization?
So for you as a manager, it's your job to, you know, not just well, Bob thinks this process sucks, so let's change it.
[:Right.
[:If the process really does suck and you understand it and it doesn't make sense, then that's where you can take on the responsibility of trying to get it changed. Of course, if it's several tiers above you, then, again, that that's gonna hit the next one. And it's, you know, how can executives identify the signs of burnout, and then what can we do to prevent it?
[:Alright. Before we go to the executives, I comment on the managers. I think some managers are very attuned to their people and know when somebody's suffering burnout. Some managers are not. For those that are attuned, I think they've got a little bit of an advantage, right?
Knowing when somebody's not doing well, being able to read the pulse of how their people are doing and try to prevent that, right? Try to head that off, give them a day off, ask them if they wanna talk, provide resources. You know, maybe there's some stuff happening at home that they need somebody to talk to, you know, professional counselors, things like that. I would say for those managers that are not as attuned to that thing, we need to be reminded of that's super important. These are people.
They are emotional creatures. They are not robots, at least not yet. We're not all robots. So find a way to check-in on your people, or you will be you will pay a very high price when you get surprised by their burnout. That's my manager advice.
What about the executives?
[:Okay. So how can executives identify the signs of burnout? You get one chance to answer this correctly. There is one correct answer. See if you can nail it.
It's a trick question, by the way. Yeah.
[:I was gonna say, I I could think of a couple of things. I could, you know, see hours rising. I could see margins shrinking. I could see morale dipping. I could see resignations increasing, 6 days increasing.
I could see a lot of ways that I would know, but but those would all be lagging indicators, and it would be too late at that point to prevent it. So I don't know. What what are you thinking? How how do you identify burnout? It's easy
[:with the Oracorp Pulse. You got real time analytics. You know, you can see it. You can see the dip in the performance, and you can get ahead of it.
[:Shameless plug. Funny. Shameless plug. But I was talking to somebody, a former, user of that. They had they left the company that they were with, but they were the ones who had brought oracle in.
And that was the story that he of why he brought it in in the first place. He's like, my people were burned out. I knew it, but I didn't know who was, like, still bought into the vision, and they were willing to push through and who was just like, I'm done. And he actually said that that tool really helped. Yep.
[:Okay. On a on a less seamless plug note, how do you identify signs of burnout? I think everything you said, right, those are all lagging indicators, you know, dip in culture, efficiencies, you know, margins, etcetera. But I think one other one I mean, it it's usually, we're pretty good at seeing when a culture is going negative or you can see the negative behaviors, but the silent killer is the indifference. Because the employee, when you see people go indifference, you've got a really big problem.
It means they're they're not engaging, but they're enough there that they're working through their job. They're they need a paycheck. At the end of the day, they're there to earn the paycheck. You know, it's it's not that when you have a tough problem inside the organization or a project and everybody works tireless hours, you can come out on the other side of that jazzed up and, you know, winning. And, you know, maybe some people take some vacation or whatnot.
But when it's that continual grind, when people start to kinda you you kinda see them check. Maybe when they they first started or before this whole burnout happened, they were coming up with ideas. They're very engaged. And when you see that start to slow down and you see them start to just get quiet or not respond or just, yes. That's okay.
I'll do it. I'll just do whatever you tell me to. I don't wanna fight the system. It's the indifference that's worse because, usually, those are good, hardworking employees that are looking for another job because, you know, what's the the standard rule? Right?
It's either the company, the opportunity, or the boss. Right? And they may love their boss,
[:and they may like to pay. But if the business vision and direction is leading to burnout, they're gonna jump ship. And and it's I've heard those people called the employees that quit but don't leave. Yeah. Yes.
And you're right. They are they are probably the most dangerous employees to the culture. So if you if you had somebody like that, if you're an executive and you see somebody, maybe, you know, maybe employee level, maybe manager level, maybe even a fellow executive level who looks like they've quit but not left, how would you try to engage them and repair the burnout?
[:So this is where I'll take your, your PTO advice earlier. I think sometimes this this is where you gotta suck it up as the leader. Let them have a break.
[:Yeah.
[:This isn't let them have a, you know, 2 or 3 days off and then put them right back in the same grind. And and this is not an overnight fix either. So, you know, one day off doesn't solve all the problems. But sometimes you just need a little bit of a disconnect from it. And so I think if you see those signs of burnout, take a take 2 or 3 days off, take a Friday, Monday off, have a long weekend, and I wanna address this problem with you when you come back refreshed.
I want you to think about how we can solve this and how can we reduce the burnout. Like, what is causing the burnout? What's causing this indifference? The loud ones, the noisy people, I hate to say this, you know, the complainers and all the the stuff, you know, throwing out the display of emotion, they'll tell you everything that's wrong, but it's all symptom level. Right?
Usually. Yeah. It's that silent person that if you can get them disconnected from the issue, you know, give them the breathing room; one that shows you care. Because if you show that you care and genuinely care about and wanna solve the problem, when they come back, they will give you an exuberant amount of information that will act I mean, a lot of times when this happens, I look at it. I'm like, wow.
I can see. Like, we can cut this entire section of the process out and bypass it, and it's better. Let's just do that. Right.
[:Yeah. I think I'd agree. I would add if I saw somebody who is really struggling with burnout, I think from a diagnostic standpoint, I would probably start with how are they doing personally? Is this a problem I can solve or not? If this is a personal issue and you need time or you need some kind of support and resources in your personal life, I may or may not be able to help with that, but that's kind of one one path of addressing burnout.
I think the other path is what am I doing as a manager, leader, executive to possibly be creating this? And if this is more about your work that's burning you out, then let's talk about how we fix those processes. And so I think you you've kinda gotta figure out if it's personal or professional before you start diagnosing.
[:Yeah. Let let's assume the burnout is not the employee's fault. So then how can the leader identify the gaps causing the burnout? I mean, step 1 is leadership taking ownership of the problem. Right?
Right. Leadership has to own that this is causing the burnout. Gotta look in the mirror, do the self reflection. You know, whether they inherited this process or problem or, or they created it. 1st step is admitting you have a problem and owning the problem, then now what?
What's next?
[:I would agree. I've I've worked with a lot of executives who won't acknowledge the problem, and you can't fix something you won't they they won't acknowledge. And I think that starts at the top because if everybody up to the senior leadership team knows there's a problem, but the senior leadership team won't admit it, it's not gonna get better.
[:Yeah. If you're if you're an employee manager in that case, I mean, it is your right. Good good, good friend of ours has, always said, he believes what every employee has the right to choose their or the freedom to choose who they're led by. I probably butchered that. I'm sorry.
But close enough. Right? Everyone has the right to choose their leader, which means if you're stuck in this position and and leadership is not gonna own it, find another opportunity. Don't let yourself continue to be burned out, disgruntled, disconnected. It's not healthy for you.
It's not healthy for your family. So if that's really the case, find a better opportunity. But if if the leadership team acknowledges it, if you're a leader and you acknowledge it, you look in the mirror, you understand, the cause and you're willing to work with the team and you got buy-in, what's next?
[:I would say I would ask. I would ask for input. I would ask the team, where do you where are you doing things that you don't think are valuable? Where are we doing things just because we've always done them? Where are there opportunities for us to get more effective at what we do?
Because we know that more is gonna be demanded of us. Just because I'm the CEO founder doesn't mean that I'm going to know where all the problems are. So we need your help. Right? That's a cultural let's help one another find the ways that we can be more efficient, more effective together.
[:I would challenge you to go one step before that. Okay. I think I think that's journey. I think that's the journey you should take. But I think first and foremost is you should probably define the vision of what the process needs to be or what the solution needs to be.
Because I think at the end of the day,
[:what it is, it comes down to a how problem and not a
[:what and why problem. But without understanding the what and why, we send to I mean, just on that that story workshop we were on earlier. We were all over the place on the how. Yeah. And that's where we said, time out.
We got a what and why problem. We got a vision problem. Let's reset. Get clarity on that before we try to solve this how. And I think that's where the if you can define the what and why or the vision of the process or problem or, you know, whatever area it
[:is it's creating it, then you take that, and your very next step is what you just said. What are the things that are slowing us down? What is this?
[:And you throw that what and why, the vision up there, and go, okay. How what is this even needed to get to there? No. It's not. Okay.
Let's put that in the let's figure out how to get rid of it bucket.
[:Or make it as small as possible.
[:Or small as possible.
[:Right. And and so I think then you're starting to work through the journey of what needs to happen. And then once you get on
[:the other side of that, once you kind of identified it, you, you know, you gotta test it a little bit, etcetera, etcetera, then it's if we make all those changes as everybody bought in to committing these changes in trying it out, it may not work. It may it may we may not have solved the problem. But the the other killer is is when you go through the effort to make it a process change, and then everybody goes, well, I'll use it when I see it work by everybody else.
[:See it working. Right.
[:No. Everybody's got everybody's gotta be all in same page and give it a shot because it's the only way it's gonna get fixed. And then you can you check you check the results, and then you check that against the vision and see if you're there. And you might have to iterate through that 2 or 3 times. But if you go through that process, then as a leader, as a manager, or as a as leaders, managers, and employees together, you can work together to reduce the burnout.
[:Yeah. I think that's a different episode of kinda the change management. How to how to do change management well? We'll have that conversation some other time.
[:That's another episode. Yes. Change management. Because that's that's a whole another topic of of pain is when people just make It's suffering. Change change change change.
Well, the change fatigue that creates burnout
[:It sure does.
[:Where you just keep editing a process with no vision to it. Right. What does that create? Creates change fatigue. So here's a question.
How can employees bubble up problems that are causing burnout in a way that doesn't seem like whining? Yeah. So I think this is twofold. I think this is 1, how can if you're an employee, how can you do this proactively going up? And if you're a manager or a leader, how can you kinda correct this a little bit but still get the input?
[:I think a lot of this comes back to really a question of why. Like, why are we trying to make this better? It's not a bad thing to try to make your job easier. However, it is work. They pay you to be there.
Right? This isn't Disneyland where where you pay them for the privilege of of walking through the gates. Right? What I have found is that when when employees or even managers and leaders are thinking first about the vision and first about the customer and say, would it be better for our customers? Would it be better for our vision to try things this way?
Could we be more efficient? Could we be more effective? And, oh, by the way, it also makes my job easier. I think that's a much easier sell than leading with a selfish mindset, which is like, this is hard. I don't like this.
I wanna change it. I think it really it's really kinda how you frame it and what's the focus. If the focus is the vision and the customers, it's usually well received. If the vision is making my life easier, harder to sell sounds more like whining.
[:I think you can do that to say I'm trying to make my job easier. Because if you come back in and say, look, I'm only supposed to be working 8 hours a day and I'm doing it in 12, like, I'm trying to make my life, you know, more real the the job more realistic. I I don't think a manager would have that. It's if the person's like, I'm working too many effing hours in the day, and this is BS, and f all you know, I mean, exaggerating, but there's a the burnout, it creates emotion, and the sometimes the only way it's like, it's like the the toddler when they're young, like, they can't communicate, so what do they do? They cry.
When you can't understand problems, sometimes it comes out in frustration. So from the of course, you wanna you wanna try to check the emotional use, facts, and logic. You know, don't be a robot, but it's okay to say this is to my burnout. I am feeling this way. I'm looking for a solution.
As long as you're approaching it in a positive intent, You don't have to be all happy bubbly and all happy
[:and, hey. I've got a problem. Let's solve it. You can you can be real, but I
[:it's what is your intent? If your intent is negative, you're gonna get shut down. If your intent is positive, I for the team to be more efficient. I wanna find a way to do my job more efficiently so that I can get more responsibility because I want a raise. I want to, you know, stop working 12 hours a day because I'm missing time with my kids at home.
I think there's if you all those are Mhmm. Viable reasons, and you can even I think you can even with with some of the pains and frustrations or what it's caused because at the end of the day, you you said in the beginning, we're all human. And so, you know, if if you problem and the managers in this, like, you know, employee focused thing, and, I mean, if if an employee came up to you and said, look, I'm working at 12 hours a day, and I have a, you know, a 1 year old and I'm coming home after they go to bed, I would really like to find a way home, you know, by 6 o'clock as opposed to 9 o'clock so that I can spend time with 1 year old child. Like, can you help me out? Oh, get back to work?
Like, if I was their executive, I'd fire them. Right. But I think on the other side with the executive going down,
[:you know, it it this is where I kinda use the toddler example. Sometimes whining is gonna be come out. I think what you have to do in this case is you have to, lead the horse to water, maybe a bad example, but it it's it's you wanna get them in from an emotional state to an IQ state
[:by just asking some good questions that kind of flip that paradigm as in to say, what what would this if we do if we go through this so I understand you're upset. What value would this bring to you, if we go through this? Like, I understand there's a problem. You're frustrated. You're very upset.
I I hear you. 1st, I hear you. I acknowledge it. What value would this bring to you? Right there, you're stopping the emotional side of it.
You acknowledge it. You stop it, and then you get them into a an an IQ or more, you know, human intelligence based conversation. And a lot of times, they're like, woah. Will it be able to do this or that? Or, you know, sometimes you'll get smart Alec responses like, well, I get to play more golf, which may or may not be a bad thing.
But I I think it's I think it's don't be curious. If they're coming to you with a problem and they're they're struggling to express the the pain, be curious and seek to understand. Use a Stephen Stephen Covey one right there. Right? Seek to understand before being understood.
Yep. Don't don't just assume the whining. Seek to understand, and you might find the real problem.
[:Alright. So I like that. So to to wrap up, if you're an employee struggling with burnout, I would say communicate to your manager. Keep the emotions in check. Communicate the problem.
I would recommend thinking through some recommendations or potential solutions. Don't just go to your manager with problems. Go to them with a problem and some ideas of how to fix it.
[:Or even even pain points or data points. And I would say this Mhmm. You said a bit, a minute ago, you know, come without leave the motions in check. I'd say it's okay to have about 20% emotion into it. You're still human after all.
You don't have to be the robot. Just don't be 80% emotion and 20% logic.
[:Yeah. By in check, I meant not out of control. Alright. At the manager level, recommendation there, seek first to understand, listen to your people, and then to be understood, invite recommendations, suggestions for improvement. The recommendation at the executive level is important.
[:Yeah. Yes. Oracorp Well, yes.
[:All of
[:it. Well, Beth, the managers real quick. You know, if the process and stuff is above you, then take what we're saying from the employee perspective to work further up the chain. Right? But if if you're a manager with a level of power, I think it's it's,
[:Also the opportunity to like, if the manager has the authority to change the process, that that they could actually kind of take that on and not just pass it up the ladder, but actually try to work cross functionally to change that process?
[:The vision. If you and if you don't understand the vision of the process, then it you should go seek to understand the vision and the what of the process, the output, so that then you can take it to your people. Right. And if you are the one that created the process, it's important that you get clear on what is the vision for this process and what are the expected results. And then so when that stuff comes up to you and people are bringing it, what you'll often find is there's that disconnect.
So before you start solving how's, start working in the journey, make sure you have the the vision and the expected outcome defined and use that as the litmus to bounce those changes off of. Because sometimes it's a lack of clarity of why, and other times it was the how was created in the absence of why. And I think that goes for both manager and executive.
[:Right. I'll give one practical application. We'll close here. One of the more frustrating jobs I've ever had was part of a kind of a channel marketing group that really struggled with their identity. Like, why do we exist?
And when we would ask that question, we would go up the ladder. The answer that came back down was, well, because it's in the contract. Like, we have to spend this money on these channel partners. And so that was the why was we have to spend x amount of dollars every year with these partners. And I would lay that one at the feet of the executives and say, that is true, but that's not good enough.
Like, I need a better why than it's in the contract. Right? And so part of the executive's job is to define success. Right? Like, okay, so we spent the money.
You just wanted to light it on fire? Like, what is it? How would we know if we've been successful? And I think that was maybe a practical application or an illustration of how the why was not defined clearly enough. And so the hows and the whats just got all over the place because the senior leadership team hadn't done the hard work to really define why is this in the contract and what would
[:success look like. And I think if you go for the final bid on the executive is the first step is ownership. Own own the fact that you are responsible for everything down the line of you. And if you don't take ownership and accountability first and foremost, then it's never gonna solve the problem down line.
[:Yep. Even if that problem is burnout.
[:Make work not suck. Our podcast, it talks about exactly that. Our process, vision, journey, culture, and results. We present real world business solutions that make the difference. Our goal is to make work not suck.
