"Burnt" employees: is there a way out?
You work in a good company. Around you are cool professionals, you get a decent salary, every day you do important and necessary things. Ilon Musk launches satellites, Sergey Semenovich improves the already best city of the Earth. The weather is great, the sun is shining, the trees are blooming - live and rejoice!
But in your team there is Sad Ignat. Ignat is always gloomy, cynical and tired. He is an excellent specialist, has been working in the company for a long time and knows how everything works. Ignat everyone wants to help. Especially you, because you are his manager. But after talking with Ignat, you yourself begin to feel how much around injustice. And you start to feel sad too. But it is especially scary if sad Ignat is you.
What to do? How to work with Ignat? Welcome under the cut!
')
My name is Ilya Ageev, I have been working at Badoo for almost eight years, I lead a large department of quality control. In my submission are almost 80 people. And today I want to discuss with you the problem that sooner or later almost everyone in the field of IT faces.
Burnout is often called differently: emotional burnout, professional burnout, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc. In my article, I will only talk about our professional activities, that is, about professional burnout. This article is a transcript of my report , which I spoke at the Badoo Techleads Meetup # 4 .
By the way, the image of Ignat is collective. As they say, any coincidences with real people are random.
Something like this usually looks like a burnt man. We have all witnessed this many times and we don’t really need to explain who these are burnt. Nevertheless, I will linger a little on the definition.
If you try to summarize the thoughts that such a burnout, you get the following list:
Today, the ICD (International Classification of Diseases) definition of professional burnout is presented as part of a wider category - overwork. In 2022, WHO plans to move to a new edition of the ICD, the 11th, and in it the professional burnout is defined more clearly. According to ICD-11, professional burnout is a syndrome recognized as the result of chronic stress at work, stress that has not been successfully overcome.
It should be noted that this is not a disease, but a medical condition that can lead to illness. And this condition is characterized by three signs:
Before proceeding further, we clarify the concept of norms. In fact, to constantly smile and be positive is also not normal. Laughter for no reason is known to be a sign of a fool. Sad from time to time - normal. It becomes a problem when it lasts a long time.
What usually causes professional burnout? It is clear that this is the lack of rest, constant “fires” and their “extinguishing” in an emergency mode. But it is also important to understand that even measured work in conditions where it is not clear how to evaluate the results, what is the goal where we are moving, also contributes to professional burnout.
It should also be remembered that the negative is contagious. It so happens that entire departments and even entire companies become infected with a professional burnout virus and gradually die.
But the dangerous consequences of professional burnout are not only a drop in productivity and deterioration of the atmosphere in the team, but also real health problems. It can lead to mental and psychosomatic disorders.
The main danger lies in the fact that the work head - energy-intensive. The more and more often we use something, the more likely it is that in this place there will be problems in the future. Professional athletes have problems with joints and muscles, knowledge workers with their heads.
To understand how the human brain works, you need to look far into history and see how it evolved from the point of view of evolution.
The brain is similar to something like cabbage or flaky pie: new layers, as it were, grow into older ones. Three large parts of the human brain can be distinguished: the reptile brain, which is responsible for basic instincts such as “fight or flight” (fight or flight in English-language literature); the midbrain, or animal brain, responsible for emotions; and the neocortex are the newest brain regions that are responsible for rational thinking and make us human.
More ancient parts of the brain emerged so long ago that they managed to undergo an evolutionary "polishing". The reptile brain originated 100 million years ago. The brain of mammals - 50 million years ago. The neocortex began to develop only 1.5-2 million years ago. A mind homo sapiens generally no more than 100 thousand years.
Therefore, the ancient parts of the brain "stupid" in terms of logic, but much faster and stronger than our neocortex. I really like the analogy of Maxim Dorofeev about a train that travels from Moscow to Vladivostok. Imagine that this train is going, it is full of demobels and gypsies. And here, somewhere near Khabarovsk, the bespectacled intellectual comes in and tries to reason with this whole crowd. Submitted? Heavy? This is how the rational part of the brain often cannot call an emotional reaction to order. The latter is simply stronger.
So, we have an ancient part of the brain, which is fast, but not always clever, and the newest part, which is clever, is able to think abstractly and build logical chains, but very much too slow and requiring a lot of energy. Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel laureate and founder of cognitive psychology, called these two parts "System 1" and "System 2". According to Kahneman, our thinking works like this: the information first gets into System 1, which is faster, it gives a solution, if it exists, or sends this information further - to System 2, if there is no solution.
Demonstrate the operation of these systems in several ways. Take a look at this picture of a smiling girl.
We only have a quick glance at her to understand that she is smiling: we do not analyze every part of her face separately, do not think that the corners of her lips are raised, the corners of her eyes are lowered, and so on. We immediately understand that girl is smiling. This is the work of System 1.
Or, a simple mathematical example, which we can also solve on the machine, using the mental rule “take two zeroes from the hundred and add them to the first number”. Even it is not necessary to count - the result is immediately clear. This is also the work of System 1.
And here, despite the fact that the number 7 is much smaller than the number 100, we will not be able to give a quick answer. It must be considered. And everyone will do it in their own way: someone is in a bar, someone will multiply 3255 by 10, then by 3 and subtract the second from the first result, someone will immediately give up and get a calculator. This is the work of System 2.
Kahneman described this experiment with another interesting detail: if you go with a friend and ask him to solve this example on the fly, it is very likely that he will stop to make calculations. This is because the work of System 2 is VERY energy consuming, and the brain cannot even execute the program for your movement in space at this moment.
What follows from this? And the fact that this is a very powerful mechanism by which training works is the acquisition of automatism. This is how we learn to type on a keyboard, drive a car and play musical instruments. First, we think over every step, every movement with the help of System 2, and then gradually push out the acquired skills into the area of ​​responsibility of System 1 for efficiency and faster response. These are pluses of our thinking.
But there are also disadvantages. Because of automatism and the desire to act on System 1, we often act thoughtlessly. This complex system also has bugs. They are called cognitive distortions. These can be cute oddities that do not particularly interfere with life, but there can also be obvious implementation bugs.
Generalization of special cases. This is when we draw large-scale conclusions based on insignificant facts. We noticed that they brought crushed cookies to the office - we conclude that the company is no longer a cake and is falling apart.
The Baader phenomenon is Meinhof, or the illusion of frequency. The phenomenon is that after the occurrence of any event, if we meet the same again, it is perceived as unusually frequent. For example, you bought a blue car and with surprise began to notice that there are a lot of blue cars around. Or a couple of times they saw that product managers were mistaken - and subsequently you see only that they are mistaken.
Confirmation bias , when we pay attention only to the information that confirms our own views, and do not take into account the facts that contradict these views. For example, with negative thoughts in our head, we pay attention only to bad events, and we simply do not notice positive changes in the company.
Fundamental attribution error : all Gascons, and I am d'Artagnan. This is when the mistakes of others we tend to explain them with personal qualities, and achievements - with luck, and in the case of ourselves - the opposite. Example: a colleague who put in production is not a good person, and if I put it in, it means “there is no luck, it happens”.
The phenomenon of a just world , when we believe that there is some higher justice in the name of which all must act.
Noticing anything? “Yes, this is the typical thinking of the burnt out!” - you will say. And I will tell you more: this is the typical thinking of each of us.
It is possible to illustrate the work of cognitive distortions in the following way: we look at this picture. We see a smiling girl. We even recognize actress Jennifer Aniston. All this tells us System 1, no need to think.
But if you turn the picture, we see something very scary, System 1 refuses to understand this.
Nevertheless, we made far-reaching conclusions, looking at the first picture.
There is another example illustrating the wrong perception of reality at the moment when we are focused on one thing. So imagine two teams: white and black. White players throw the ball only white, black - only black. Participants in the experiment were asked to count the number of passes made by white players. At the end, they were asked how many passes there were and asked a second question: did they see a person in a gorilla costume? It turned out that in the middle of the game a man in a gorilla costume came out and even performed a little dance. But most of the participants in the experiment did not see him, because she was busy counting the passes.
Similarly, a person aimed at a negative sees only negative around himself and does not notice positive things.
There are a lot of cognitive distortions, their existence is confirmed by the results of experiments. And they were discovered by the scientific method: when a hypothesis is formed and an experiment is conducted, during which it is confirmed or refuted.
The situation is greatly aggravated by the fact that the life of a modern person is fundamentally different from the life of our ancestors, but the structure of the brain is not. Each of us has a smartphone. Every free minute we check out what's new in the virtual world: who uploaded what on Instagram, what's interesting on Facebook. We have access to all libraries in the world: there is so much information that we can not only digest it, but even absorb it. Not enough human life to master it all and assimilate.
As a result - overheating kukushi.
So, a burned-out person is a person who is constantly in a depressed state. Negative thoughts are spinning in his head, and cognitive distortions prevent him from getting out of this vicious circle of negativity:
There is such a wonderful joke. A man in a new car is driving past a mental hospital, and her wheel is falling off. There is a reserve, but the trouble is that together with the wheel flew into a ditch and bolts. A man stands and does not know what to do. Several patients are sitting on the fence. They tell him: “And you take the bolt from the other three wheels and fasten the spare tire. Not quickly, but still you get to the nearest service. ” The man says: “Yes, this is brilliant! What are you all doing here, since you know how to think so well? ” And they answer him: “Dude, we are crazy, not morons! With logic, everything is in order. ” So our burnt out guys with logic are also fine, do not forget about it.
It should be especially noted that the word “depression” that has become popular today is another. Depressive personality disorder is quite a medical diagnosis that only a doctor can deliver. And when you feel sad, but after the ice cream and the bath with candles and foam everything went away - this is not depression. Depression is when you are lying on the couch, you understand that for three days we have not eaten anything, something has been burning in the next room, but you don't care. If you see something like this in yourself, consult a doctor immediately!
How to support the workflow and simultaneously raise from the bottom the motivation of a burnt-out employee? Let's figure it out.
First you need to understand for yourself that we are not professional psychologists and it is impossible to educate an adult - he has already been brought up. The main work on the exit from the state of burnout should be done by the employee himself. We should focus on helping him.
To get started, just listen to it. Remember, we talked about the fact that negative thoughts make a person focus on the negative? So, a burnt employee is the most valuable source of information that your company or department does not work optimally. Priorities for you and the employee may be different, as well as ways to improve the situation. But the fact that a person can bring you all the shortcomings on a platter that you can and should work on is a fact. So listen to such an employee carefully.
Consider changing the setting. This is not always and not always possible, but a brief respite and time reserve can be provided by transferring a burned-out employee to another type of activity. This may be a transfer to another department. Or even to another company, it also happens, and this is normal. It should be borne in mind that this, by the way, is the easiest way, but not always effective, because in most cases this is only an apparent change. If, for example, a person made sites on Joomla, and the new company will make sites on WordPress, almost nothing in his life will change. As a result, he will do about the same, the effect of novelty will quickly disappear and burnout will occur again.
Now let's talk about how to deal with the daily tasks of a burned-out employee.
Here, my favorite situational leadership model from Hersey and Blanchard, which I mentioned in the previous article, will come to our aid. She postulates that there is no single ideal leadership style that managers could apply daily to all employees and all tasks. On the contrary, the management style should be chosen depending on the specific task and specific artist.
This model introduces the concept of level of working maturity. There are four such levels in total. Depending on two parameters - the professional expertise of an employee for a specific task and his motivation - we determine his level of working maturity. This will be the minimum value of these two parameters.
Accordingly, the management style depends on the level of working maturity of the employee and can be prescriptive, mentoring, supportive and delegating.
It is clear that burnt employees, even if they are experts in their tasks, cannot work at a working maturity level higher than the second, because they are not willing to take responsibility.
Thus, the responsibility falls on the manager. And we should strive to transfer burned-out employees to higher levels of working maturity as soon as possible, increasing their motivation. About this and talk further.
Emergency measure number one: reduce the requirements. Before you is not the brave and courageous Ignat, who could rewrite the entire project into a new framework overnight and work without it. You have a chance to return it, but now it is not him.
Emergency measure number two: divide tasks into parts. So that they can be solved "on a small burden." We remove from the definition of the tasks “study, find, analyze, convince, learn” and other words implying an indefinite set of actions that should lead to the completion of the task. We set smaller tasks: “install, run, call, assign”, etc. The mere fact of completing clearly formulated tasks will motivate Ignat and pull him out of procrastination. It is not necessary to break tasks independently and bring a ready list to Ignat - depending on his expertise and your relationship with him, you can divide the tasks into parts together.
Emergency measure number three: we denote clear criteria for completing the task and assessing the quality of work. How do you both understand that the task is completed? How will you evaluate its success? This must be clearly stated and agreed in advance.
Emergency measure number four: use the carrot and stick method. Good old skinner behaviorism. But it must be borne in mind that in the case of a burnt-out employee, the gingerbread, not the stick, should prevail. This is called “positive stimulation”, and the method is widely used both in animal training and in raising children. I highly recommend reading Karen Pryor's book “Don't growl at the dog!”, It’s about positive stimulation, and the approaches described in it can be useful for you in life more than once.
Emergency measure number five: focus on positive. I do not mean at all that we should approach the sad Ignat more often, clap him on the shoulder and say: “Smile!”. As I mentioned, it will only make it worse. My thought is that often, when sorting out completed tasks, we focus on problems. We are all logical and pragmatic, it seems to be right: we discussed the mistakes, thought about how to prevent them in the future, and dispersed. As a result, the discussion of successes and achievements is often overlooked. You need to shout about them at every corner: advertise them, show everyone how cool we are.
We dealt with emergency measures, we go further.
Required:
What is desirable to do:
Well, the last admonition: talk with your staff. But remember that words must be followed by deeds. One of the most important qualities of a leader is the ability to answer for one's words. Be the leader!
It so happened that you became sad Ignat. You yourself began to suspect it, or colleagues and relatives said that you have changed recently. How to live on?
The easiest and cheapest way is to leave. But the simplest does not always mean the best. After all, you will not get away from yourself. And the fact that your brain requires changes does not always mean that it is the work that needs to be changed - the way of life must be changed. In addition, I know a lot of times when leaving made it worse. In fairness, I must say that the opposite cases are also known to me.
If you still decide to leave the company, do it in an adult way. Pass the case. Part well. There is an opinion that it is easier for companies to part with burned-out employees than to work with burnout. It seems to me that it came from the times of the USSR, when burnout was observed mainly in professions whose representatives work with people: doctors, teachers, cashiers, etc. Probably, then it was really easier with this, because there were no irreplaceable ones. But now, when companies are fighting for talented employees and are ready to offer a bunch of benefits, if only they would go to them, losing good specialists is unreasonably expensive. Therefore, I assure you, a normal company is beneficial so that you do not leave. And if it is easier for an employer to part with you, it means that your concerns about the “goodness” of the company are correct and you need to leave it without regrets.
We decided to try to fight burnout? I have news for you, both good and bad. The bad news is that your main enemy, who has driven you into this state, is yourself. And the good thing is that your main friend, who is able to get you out of this state, is yourself. Remember that your brain is shouting about changing life? So do.
Open dialogue is the key to solving any problems. If nothing is done, then nothing will change. And if you show the head of this article, it will be even easier.
First of all in private life, out of office. No one except yourself knows what is good for you and what is bad for you. Do more things that make you happy, and get rid of things that make you sad. Do not read the news, remove from your life policy. , . , : , , . « - » ( !).
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But in your team there is Sad Ignat. Ignat is always gloomy, cynical and tired. He is an excellent specialist, has been working in the company for a long time and knows how everything works. Ignat everyone wants to help. Especially you, because you are his manager. But after talking with Ignat, you yourself begin to feel how much around injustice. And you start to feel sad too. But it is especially scary if sad Ignat is you.
What to do? How to work with Ignat? Welcome under the cut!
')
My name is Ilya Ageev, I have been working at Badoo for almost eight years, I lead a large department of quality control. In my submission are almost 80 people. And today I want to discuss with you the problem that sooner or later almost everyone in the field of IT faces.
Burnout is often called differently: emotional burnout, professional burnout, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc. In my article, I will only talk about our professional activities, that is, about professional burnout. This article is a transcript of my report , which I spoke at the Badoo Techleads Meetup # 4 .
By the way, the image of Ignat is collective. As they say, any coincidences with real people are random.
Burnout - what is it?
Something like this usually looks like a burnt man. We have all witnessed this many times and we don’t really need to explain who these are burnt. Nevertheless, I will linger a little on the definition.
If you try to summarize the thoughts that such a burnout, you get the following list:
- this is an ongoing fatigue;
- it is emotional exhaustion;
- it is rejection of work, procrastination;
- this is irritability, cynicism, negativism;
- this decrease in enthusiasm and activity, lack of faith in the best;
- this is black and white thinking and one big thing.
Today, the ICD (International Classification of Diseases) definition of professional burnout is presented as part of a wider category - overwork. In 2022, WHO plans to move to a new edition of the ICD, the 11th, and in it the professional burnout is defined more clearly. According to ICD-11, professional burnout is a syndrome recognized as the result of chronic stress at work, stress that has not been successfully overcome.
It should be noted that this is not a disease, but a medical condition that can lead to illness. And this condition is characterized by three signs:
- feeling exhausted or exhausted;
- increasing negative attitude to work, distancing from it;
- decrease in labor efficiency.
Before proceeding further, we clarify the concept of norms. In fact, to constantly smile and be positive is also not normal. Laughter for no reason is known to be a sign of a fool. Sad from time to time - normal. It becomes a problem when it lasts a long time.
What usually causes professional burnout? It is clear that this is the lack of rest, constant “fires” and their “extinguishing” in an emergency mode. But it is also important to understand that even measured work in conditions where it is not clear how to evaluate the results, what is the goal where we are moving, also contributes to professional burnout.
It should also be remembered that the negative is contagious. It so happens that entire departments and even entire companies become infected with a professional burnout virus and gradually die.
But the dangerous consequences of professional burnout are not only a drop in productivity and deterioration of the atmosphere in the team, but also real health problems. It can lead to mental and psychosomatic disorders.
The main danger lies in the fact that the work head - energy-intensive. The more and more often we use something, the more likely it is that in this place there will be problems in the future. Professional athletes have problems with joints and muscles, knowledge workers with their heads.
What happens in the minds of burned
To understand how the human brain works, you need to look far into history and see how it evolved from the point of view of evolution.
The brain is similar to something like cabbage or flaky pie: new layers, as it were, grow into older ones. Three large parts of the human brain can be distinguished: the reptile brain, which is responsible for basic instincts such as “fight or flight” (fight or flight in English-language literature); the midbrain, or animal brain, responsible for emotions; and the neocortex are the newest brain regions that are responsible for rational thinking and make us human.
More ancient parts of the brain emerged so long ago that they managed to undergo an evolutionary "polishing". The reptile brain originated 100 million years ago. The brain of mammals - 50 million years ago. The neocortex began to develop only 1.5-2 million years ago. A mind homo sapiens generally no more than 100 thousand years.
Therefore, the ancient parts of the brain "stupid" in terms of logic, but much faster and stronger than our neocortex. I really like the analogy of Maxim Dorofeev about a train that travels from Moscow to Vladivostok. Imagine that this train is going, it is full of demobels and gypsies. And here, somewhere near Khabarovsk, the bespectacled intellectual comes in and tries to reason with this whole crowd. Submitted? Heavy? This is how the rational part of the brain often cannot call an emotional reaction to order. The latter is simply stronger.
So, we have an ancient part of the brain, which is fast, but not always clever, and the newest part, which is clever, is able to think abstractly and build logical chains, but very much too slow and requiring a lot of energy. Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel laureate and founder of cognitive psychology, called these two parts "System 1" and "System 2". According to Kahneman, our thinking works like this: the information first gets into System 1, which is faster, it gives a solution, if it exists, or sends this information further - to System 2, if there is no solution.
Demonstrate the operation of these systems in several ways. Take a look at this picture of a smiling girl.
We only have a quick glance at her to understand that she is smiling: we do not analyze every part of her face separately, do not think that the corners of her lips are raised, the corners of her eyes are lowered, and so on. We immediately understand that girl is smiling. This is the work of System 1.
3255 * 100 =?
Or, a simple mathematical example, which we can also solve on the machine, using the mental rule “take two zeroes from the hundred and add them to the first number”. Even it is not necessary to count - the result is immediately clear. This is also the work of System 1.
3255 * 7 =?
And here, despite the fact that the number 7 is much smaller than the number 100, we will not be able to give a quick answer. It must be considered. And everyone will do it in their own way: someone is in a bar, someone will multiply 3255 by 10, then by 3 and subtract the second from the first result, someone will immediately give up and get a calculator. This is the work of System 2.
Kahneman described this experiment with another interesting detail: if you go with a friend and ask him to solve this example on the fly, it is very likely that he will stop to make calculations. This is because the work of System 2 is VERY energy consuming, and the brain cannot even execute the program for your movement in space at this moment.
What follows from this? And the fact that this is a very powerful mechanism by which training works is the acquisition of automatism. This is how we learn to type on a keyboard, drive a car and play musical instruments. First, we think over every step, every movement with the help of System 2, and then gradually push out the acquired skills into the area of ​​responsibility of System 1 for efficiency and faster response. These are pluses of our thinking.
But there are also disadvantages. Because of automatism and the desire to act on System 1, we often act thoughtlessly. This complex system also has bugs. They are called cognitive distortions. These can be cute oddities that do not particularly interfere with life, but there can also be obvious implementation bugs.
Generalization of special cases. This is when we draw large-scale conclusions based on insignificant facts. We noticed that they brought crushed cookies to the office - we conclude that the company is no longer a cake and is falling apart.
The Baader phenomenon is Meinhof, or the illusion of frequency. The phenomenon is that after the occurrence of any event, if we meet the same again, it is perceived as unusually frequent. For example, you bought a blue car and with surprise began to notice that there are a lot of blue cars around. Or a couple of times they saw that product managers were mistaken - and subsequently you see only that they are mistaken.
Confirmation bias , when we pay attention only to the information that confirms our own views, and do not take into account the facts that contradict these views. For example, with negative thoughts in our head, we pay attention only to bad events, and we simply do not notice positive changes in the company.
Fundamental attribution error : all Gascons, and I am d'Artagnan. This is when the mistakes of others we tend to explain them with personal qualities, and achievements - with luck, and in the case of ourselves - the opposite. Example: a colleague who put in production is not a good person, and if I put it in, it means “there is no luck, it happens”.
The phenomenon of a just world , when we believe that there is some higher justice in the name of which all must act.
Noticing anything? “Yes, this is the typical thinking of the burnt out!” - you will say. And I will tell you more: this is the typical thinking of each of us.
It is possible to illustrate the work of cognitive distortions in the following way: we look at this picture. We see a smiling girl. We even recognize actress Jennifer Aniston. All this tells us System 1, no need to think.
But if you turn the picture, we see something very scary, System 1 refuses to understand this.
Nevertheless, we made far-reaching conclusions, looking at the first picture.
There is another example illustrating the wrong perception of reality at the moment when we are focused on one thing. So imagine two teams: white and black. White players throw the ball only white, black - only black. Participants in the experiment were asked to count the number of passes made by white players. At the end, they were asked how many passes there were and asked a second question: did they see a person in a gorilla costume? It turned out that in the middle of the game a man in a gorilla costume came out and even performed a little dance. But most of the participants in the experiment did not see him, because she was busy counting the passes.
Similarly, a person aimed at a negative sees only negative around himself and does not notice positive things.
There are a lot of cognitive distortions, their existence is confirmed by the results of experiments. And they were discovered by the scientific method: when a hypothesis is formed and an experiment is conducted, during which it is confirmed or refuted.
The situation is greatly aggravated by the fact that the life of a modern person is fundamentally different from the life of our ancestors, but the structure of the brain is not. Each of us has a smartphone. Every free minute we check out what's new in the virtual world: who uploaded what on Instagram, what's interesting on Facebook. We have access to all libraries in the world: there is so much information that we can not only digest it, but even absorb it. Not enough human life to master it all and assimilate.
As a result - overheating kukushi.
So, a burned-out person is a person who is constantly in a depressed state. Negative thoughts are spinning in his head, and cognitive distortions prevent him from getting out of this vicious circle of negativity:
- the brain of the burnt-out employee hints to him in every way that it is necessary to change his usual way of life - hence the procrastination and rejection of his duties;
- such a person hears you well, but does not understand you, because he has other values, he perceives the world through another prism;
- it is useless for him to say: “Smile, the sun is shining! Still, it's good that you are! ”- such a conversation, on the contrary, can immerse him even more deeply into the negative, because with logic he is all right and he remembers that the sun and everything else pleased him before, and now he did not;
- it is believed that such people have a more sober view of things, since they do not have rose-colored glasses, they perfectly notice all the negative things around you. While people aimed at positive, such things may simply not notice.
There is such a wonderful joke. A man in a new car is driving past a mental hospital, and her wheel is falling off. There is a reserve, but the trouble is that together with the wheel flew into a ditch and bolts. A man stands and does not know what to do. Several patients are sitting on the fence. They tell him: “And you take the bolt from the other three wheels and fasten the spare tire. Not quickly, but still you get to the nearest service. ” The man says: “Yes, this is brilliant! What are you all doing here, since you know how to think so well? ” And they answer him: “Dude, we are crazy, not morons! With logic, everything is in order. ” So our burnt out guys with logic are also fine, do not forget about it.
It should be especially noted that the word “depression” that has become popular today is another. Depressive personality disorder is quite a medical diagnosis that only a doctor can deliver. And when you feel sad, but after the ice cream and the bath with candles and foam everything went away - this is not depression. Depression is when you are lying on the couch, you understand that for three days we have not eaten anything, something has been burning in the next room, but you don't care. If you see something like this in yourself, consult a doctor immediately!
How to build work with burnt
How to support the workflow and simultaneously raise from the bottom the motivation of a burnt-out employee? Let's figure it out.
First you need to understand for yourself that we are not professional psychologists and it is impossible to educate an adult - he has already been brought up. The main work on the exit from the state of burnout should be done by the employee himself. We should focus on helping him.
To get started, just listen to it. Remember, we talked about the fact that negative thoughts make a person focus on the negative? So, a burnt employee is the most valuable source of information that your company or department does not work optimally. Priorities for you and the employee may be different, as well as ways to improve the situation. But the fact that a person can bring you all the shortcomings on a platter that you can and should work on is a fact. So listen to such an employee carefully.
Consider changing the setting. This is not always and not always possible, but a brief respite and time reserve can be provided by transferring a burned-out employee to another type of activity. This may be a transfer to another department. Or even to another company, it also happens, and this is normal. It should be borne in mind that this, by the way, is the easiest way, but not always effective, because in most cases this is only an apparent change. If, for example, a person made sites on Joomla, and the new company will make sites on WordPress, almost nothing in his life will change. As a result, he will do about the same, the effect of novelty will quickly disappear and burnout will occur again.
Now let's talk about how to deal with the daily tasks of a burned-out employee.
Here, my favorite situational leadership model from Hersey and Blanchard, which I mentioned in the previous article, will come to our aid. She postulates that there is no single ideal leadership style that managers could apply daily to all employees and all tasks. On the contrary, the management style should be chosen depending on the specific task and specific artist.
This model introduces the concept of level of working maturity. There are four such levels in total. Depending on two parameters - the professional expertise of an employee for a specific task and his motivation - we determine his level of working maturity. This will be the minimum value of these two parameters.
Accordingly, the management style depends on the level of working maturity of the employee and can be prescriptive, mentoring, supportive and delegating.
- With the directive style, we give specific instructions, orders and carefully monitor every step of the performer.
- In the case of a mentor, the same thing happens, but we also explain why we should act one way or another, sell the decisions made.
- With a supportive leadership style, we help the employee in making decisions, coaching him.
- When delegating - fully delegate the task, showing a minimum of participation.
It is clear that burnt employees, even if they are experts in their tasks, cannot work at a working maturity level higher than the second, because they are not willing to take responsibility.
Thus, the responsibility falls on the manager. And we should strive to transfer burned-out employees to higher levels of working maturity as soon as possible, increasing their motivation. About this and talk further.
We help the burnt employee to increase motivation
Emergency measure number one: reduce the requirements. Before you is not the brave and courageous Ignat, who could rewrite the entire project into a new framework overnight and work without it. You have a chance to return it, but now it is not him.
Emergency measure number two: divide tasks into parts. So that they can be solved "on a small burden." We remove from the definition of the tasks “study, find, analyze, convince, learn” and other words implying an indefinite set of actions that should lead to the completion of the task. We set smaller tasks: “install, run, call, assign”, etc. The mere fact of completing clearly formulated tasks will motivate Ignat and pull him out of procrastination. It is not necessary to break tasks independently and bring a ready list to Ignat - depending on his expertise and your relationship with him, you can divide the tasks into parts together.
Emergency measure number three: we denote clear criteria for completing the task and assessing the quality of work. How do you both understand that the task is completed? How will you evaluate its success? This must be clearly stated and agreed in advance.
Emergency measure number four: use the carrot and stick method. Good old skinner behaviorism. But it must be borne in mind that in the case of a burnt-out employee, the gingerbread, not the stick, should prevail. This is called “positive stimulation”, and the method is widely used both in animal training and in raising children. I highly recommend reading Karen Pryor's book “Don't growl at the dog!”, It’s about positive stimulation, and the approaches described in it can be useful for you in life more than once.
Emergency measure number five: focus on positive. I do not mean at all that we should approach the sad Ignat more often, clap him on the shoulder and say: “Smile!”. As I mentioned, it will only make it worse. My thought is that often, when sorting out completed tasks, we focus on problems. We are all logical and pragmatic, it seems to be right: we discussed the mistakes, thought about how to prevent them in the future, and dispersed. As a result, the discussion of successes and achievements is often overlooked. You need to shout about them at every corner: advertise them, show everyone how cool we are.
We dealt with emergency measures, we go further.
What to do to prevent burnout
Required:
- Clearly articulate long-term and short-term goals.
- Stimulate employee time-outs: chasing them on vacation, reducing the number of jobs, processing, etc.
- Stimulate the professional development of employees. They need a challenge. And in the conditions of measured development, when the processes are built, the challenge is to take a bit like nowhere. Nevertheless, even an employee who has visited a regular meeting can bring a breath of fresh air to the team.
- Avoid unnecessary competition. Woe to the leader who confronts his subordinates with their heads. For example, says the two of them that they both are candidates for the post of his deputy. Or the introduction of a new framework: whoever shows himself better, he will get a tasty morsel. To anything other than undercover games, this practice will not lead.
- Give feedback. I do not even mean a one-on-one formal rally at which you, gathering your thoughts and clearing your throat, try to tell the employee what he did well and what did you do badly. Often, even a simple human thanks - this is what is so lacking. Personally, I prefer informal communication in an informal setting and I think that it is much more effective than formal meetings under the rules.
What is desirable to do:
- Become an informal leader. As I said before, this is very important, much more important and cooler than formal leadership. Often the informal leader has even more power and methods of influence than the formal one.
- Know your employees: who is interested in something, who has what hobbies and family relationships, when someone has a birthday.
- Create a positive environment - it is a pledge of creative work. Engage in self-promotion, show everyone what cool things you are doing.
- Do not forget that your employees are first and foremost people with their own advantages and disadvantages.
Well, the last admonition: talk with your staff. But remember that words must be followed by deeds. One of the most important qualities of a leader is the ability to answer for one's words. Be the leader!
What if sad Ignat is you?
It so happened that you became sad Ignat. You yourself began to suspect it, or colleagues and relatives said that you have changed recently. How to live on?
The easiest and cheapest way is to leave. But the simplest does not always mean the best. After all, you will not get away from yourself. And the fact that your brain requires changes does not always mean that it is the work that needs to be changed - the way of life must be changed. In addition, I know a lot of times when leaving made it worse. In fairness, I must say that the opposite cases are also known to me.
If you still decide to leave the company, do it in an adult way. Pass the case. Part well. There is an opinion that it is easier for companies to part with burned-out employees than to work with burnout. It seems to me that it came from the times of the USSR, when burnout was observed mainly in professions whose representatives work with people: doctors, teachers, cashiers, etc. Probably, then it was really easier with this, because there were no irreplaceable ones. But now, when companies are fighting for talented employees and are ready to offer a bunch of benefits, if only they would go to them, losing good specialists is unreasonably expensive. Therefore, I assure you, a normal company is beneficial so that you do not leave. And if it is easier for an employer to part with you, it means that your concerns about the “goodness” of the company are correct and you need to leave it without regrets.
We decided to try to fight burnout? I have news for you, both good and bad. The bad news is that your main enemy, who has driven you into this state, is yourself. And the good thing is that your main friend, who is able to get you out of this state, is yourself. Remember that your brain is shouting about changing life? So do.
1. Talk to your supervisor.
Open dialogue is the key to solving any problems. If nothing is done, then nothing will change. And if you show the head of this article, it will be even easier.
2. Focus on what brings joy
First of all in private life, out of office. No one except yourself knows what is good for you and what is bad for you. Do more things that make you happy, and get rid of things that make you sad. Do not read the news, remove from your life policy. , . , : , , . « - » ( !).
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/458792/
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