Episode 21 · 13 January 2023 · 1:07:24
How to Prevent Burnout: Recognising the Pandemic You Didn’t See Coming (Part 2 of 2)
How to Prevent Burnout: Recognising the Pandemic You Didn’t See Coming (Part 2 of 2)
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How to know if your team is burnt out
Leanne's personal burnout story
Al's burnout story and bankruptcy
The commercial impact of burnout
Recommendation 1 — Reflect on your behaviour as a leader
Recommendation 2 — Invest in your own well-being
Recommendation 3 — Think of yourself as a manager
Recommendation 4 — Fix the work environment
Recommendation 5 — Start the conversations
Resources and final thoughts
Show notes
How to Prevent Burnout: Recognising the Pandemic You Didn't See Coming (Part 2 of 2)
Truth, Lies & Work — In Part 2 of our burnout special, Al and Leanne dive back into their conversations with burnout experts Cait Donovan, Dr. William Hasek, and Sally Clarke to answer the question every leader is asking: how do we actually prevent burnout?
From spotting the early warning signs in your team to the commercial case for well-being, this episode is a practical toolkit for protecting your people — and your business — before it's too late.
🧯 How to Spot Burnout in Your Team
Burnout doesn't announce itself. It creeps in. And as Leanne explains, it can look different on different people:
- Cynicism first — someone becomes detached, sarcastic, or dismissive before they ever show signs of exhaustion.
- The "Office Space" moment — Leanne references the classic movie scene where Peter stops caring entirely. When you see that shift around one person repeatedly, pay attention.
- It's often the high-performer — the people giving the most are often the ones running on empty.
Leanne shares her own story of burnout from 3–4 years ago — and the breakthrough moment when she finally saw it in herself. The lesson? Even the most self-aware among us can miss the signs.
💰 The Commercial Case for Preventing Burnout
This isn't just a "nice to have" conversation. The numbers are stark:
- The US loses $322 billion annually to turnover and lost productivity linked to burnout.
- Latest Gallup data shows burnt-out employees are 63% more likely to take a sick day and 2.6x more likely to be actively seeking another job.
- Disengaged teams mean unhappy customers, lower productivity, and a culture that quietly bleeds talent.
As Al puts it: "I think we're building the business case to manage stress and to look out for burnout."
🛠️ 5 Recommendations to Prevent Burnout
1. Reflect on your behaviour as a leader. Be honest about your own stress levels and how you model rest and boundaries. If you're running on fumes, your team will think that's the standard.
2. Invest in your own well-being. Watch for resentment — it's the key tell. If you used to enjoy being of service but now feel bitter about it, that's a red flag. Your body needs to feel safe to recover. Show up for it.
3. Think of yourself as a manager. Great managers are one of the most effective burnout prevention tools you have. Ask your people: what can we take off your plate?
4. Fix the work environment. Organisational interventions matter. Look at workload, recognition, and psychological safety. Data is only useful if you act on it.
5. Start the conversations. Simply asking people how their mental health is doing — and meaning it — normalises the discussion and catches problems early.
🧰 Resources
- Read The State of Burnout 2023 Report: infinite-potential.com.au/the-state-of-burnout-2023
- Cait Donovan: caitdonovan.com/speaking · Request a conversation · Fried: The Burnout Podcast · Fried Facebook Community · Cait's Speaker Reel · Instagram: @friedtheburnoutpodcast
- Dr. William Hasek: LinkedIn
- Sally Clarke: salcla.com · Twitter: @salcla · LinkedIn · Instagram: @salcla
- For more on psychological safety — The Secret to Building Great Teams with Stephan Wiedner: Listen here
- For more on the RX7 — book your free consultation at oblonghq.com/book
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
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Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. I had 2 car accidents in 9 months, I think.
Leanne ElliottI don't know this. Tell me this. Hello and welcome back to the Truth, Lies and Workplace Culture podcast, where we help you simplify the science of people. My name is Leanne. I'm a business psychologist.
Al ElliottAnd my name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd welcome back.
Al ElliottHello.
Leanne ElliottHi. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, after you.
Al ElliottNo, no, please.
Leanne ElliottNo, no, please.
Al ElliottI was just gonna say that if you've listened to part 1, then you'll know it's all about burnout. And we had a chunky episode. It was almost an hour, I think. And we still had a good amount of material left. Couldn't leave it out. So I think as, I think it was Kate who said, good interviews are when you can't leave things on the cutting room floor.
Leanne ElliottMhmm.
Al ElliottSo that's what we're doing this time. So we're gonna go back through the rest of the material that we got through these amazing interviews. Anyway, sorry, Leanne. I felt, felt like I did interrupt you a little bit there.
Leanne ElliottNot at all. I think you, you said what I was thinking. So, yeah, we are gonna pick up on, on the topic of burnout today. And I think actually it's split. And I'll be honest, accidentally. I wish we'd had this foresight. Maybe we did unconsciously. But I think the first episode kinda fit quite nicely into kind of an individual perspective. How do I know if I'm burnt out? What is burnout? How do I recognise it? And this episode, we're starting to look a bit more widely at an organisational level, so how you can recognise in your teams what it means for your business, and what we can do as business leaders and owners to prevent it. To help us do that, and again, if you— and I love this, I love it when people start listening to the podcast at part 2. I think rebel. And it always pleases me when I just see kind of part 2 take over part 1. I'm like, you guys are crazy. But yes, if you didn't listen to part 1, that's okay. You can go back, but I'd like to reintroduce our amazing expert guests, um, that make up our panel on burnout. First of all, we have Kate Donovan, who is a burnout coach, keynote speaker, and host of Fried: The Burnout Podcast. We also have Sally Clarke, who is a burnout and wellbeing expert and researcher, and one of the researchers behind the State of Burnout 2023. And finally, we have Will Hassek, a board-certified clinical psychologist.
Al ElliottYeah, 3 fantastic guests with very different, well, not very different, but quite, quite different ways that they approach the burnout with different stories. In fact, I think all 3 of them have experienced burnout. It's just that they, they've kind of come from different angles of it. So we're gonna kick off with Will just reminding us of the 3 early signs of burnout, and then you'll hear back from me.
Leanne ElliottSomebody can become very cynical without yet feeling the kind of emotional and physical exhaustion, or somebody might start to have a kind of diminished sense of personal accomplishment before the cynicism sets in. I personally, I think that's something that workplaces have to be very careful about, because those can be early warning signs of burnout, right? If you start seeing, you know, just a kind of pessimism setting in among employees, they might not be burnt out yet, but they're probably, you know, on the path to burnout.
Al ElliottIt's funny, because now I hear this, I think back, I haven't had many jobs, because I started my first business at like 25 or something. But when I was in working in offices or teams or whatever, there was always someone like Angela in accounts who always just seemed really grumpy. And now I look back and, and use this, this lens that Will's given us. I'm like, she was probably just burnt out. Or she could have just been a miserable bugger anyway.
Leanne ElliottBut a little bit from column A, a little bit from column B. Yeah. I think, you know, just to kind of recap there, the, the 3 components of burnout: emotional and physical exhaustion, cynicism and pessimism, and a diminished sense of personal accomplishment or lacking meaning in our work. Usually burnout is talked from the perspective of exhaustion, and the point Will is making there is that not— is not always the case or not always the first sign. Um, so if you're trying to figure out if your team may be experiencing burnout, um, then those changes in behavior, um, are gonna be, uh, a sign of, of burnout risk. So, as Will said, a bit more pessimism, a bit more cynical, um, and just lacking that, that energy and enthusiasm in your work. I think, uh, One other kind of big warning sign, you know, that shows this isn't just sort of a transient stress state, but that a person is getting burnt out, especially if you're dealing with a high achiever, kind of star employee. If they start to get very passive, that can be concerning. And it might look like a positive thing, like, oh, they're just, you know, they're learning to be a little more laid back and accept things. But actually, that's because they're detaching. It's not a good thing. It's they no longer are emotionally invested in their work anymore. Are you familiar with the movie Office Space?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottIt's a great movie, but the main character, Peter, he's definitely burnt out at his job. And anyway, in the middle of the movie, he kind of starts to go into work and he's really laid back and people think, oh, this is great. He's changed. He's learning to deal with the stress more. And actually, he's given up, right? That's what's happened. And that's a very bad sign, even though on the surface it might look like something good. So, as Will mentioned there, changes and shifts in behaviour. If you've got someone who is, let's just straight talk, who's just a pain in your ass, who's always coming to you with ideas and problems and solutions and different ways of working, and who the intent is pure and wonderful, but is a pain in your ass. And then you have a quiet week from them and you think, oh, this is nice. It's not nice. It's not nice. That is a sign of something that may be wrong. So, even the most subtle shifts, 4 obvious shifts in behaviour can be a sign of burnout risk. Let's hear a bit more from Kate. The first thing that you'll want to see is a change in attitude. So if you have a person who is typically upbeat and was fairly upbeat and fairly positive for 3 years, and the past 3 months they've been on edge, something's not right. If you had someone that was always willing to take the extra shift and always wrote back emails at 10 PM and always— and now all of a sudden you can't catch them after 3 PM and their productivity has dropped drastically, Something's not right. So you should be looking at productivity levels, not because you need to change them necessarily, but because they are an indication of, of how people are functioning. You should be looking at emotional levels. So how people are showing up in the workplace, you should look for especially interrelational conflict. So if somebody was really pretty cool with everyone for a long time, and now all of a sudden you're sort of hearing whispers from everyone that so-and-so is a pain in the ass and can't get any work done with Steve, and Susan is never showing up on time.
Al ElliottHmm.
Leanne ElliottAnd, oh, I've got to do this thing for Sally again, because when you see that happening a lot around one person, be worried.
Al ElliottSo you might be listening to this and thinking of someone in your life, or maybe a friend or a family member that you think is experiencing burnout. What do you do? Well, Sally's got some advice on this.
Leanne ElliottIt's really difficult. It's one of the questions I get most often when I speak about burnout is, I think I know someone who's in burnout, what can I do to help? And unfortunately, because when we're in that heightened state of alert when our sympathetic nervous system is engaged, which happens when we're in burnout, our vision literally becomes more focused and narrowed. We are less capable of being objective and seeing what's actually going on. So we can often respond quite poorly when people might suggest that we're not doing so well. I certainly was that snarky, mean person often when people would try to, you know, ask with genuine kindness whether I should maybe be working that much. But I think, you know, anything that we can do to become more clear on our own values, on what matters to us as individuals. Also, so the way I frame it in my first book is self-compassion, self-knowledge, and self-awareness. Self-compassion, really believing that you are intrinsically worthy and not— that's not connected with your productivity. Your value is just you as yourself as you are now. Secondly, self-knowledge. So knowing your values, understanding what your needs are, what your priorities are as an individual. And self-awareness is creating practices and daily habits so that you can really tune into the signals from your body, your emotions, and your environment to really be checking in on, am I living in accordance with my values? How am I feeling now? And rather than pushing the emotions away or the uncomfortable truth that we're not feeling so well away, having the courage and the energy, I guess, also to be able to course correct and make— continue to make healthy decisions for ourselves. I don't know, Leanne, whether I would have listened to that 12 years ago, but I certainly hope if someone's listening right now and feeling like perhaps this resonates for them, I really encourage you to, to act on it now.
Al ElliottSo this is something which I've experienced with Leanne, my co-host and wife. About 3 or 4 years ago, you were working on a contract that wasn't exactly what you want to be working on, if I remember. And it came to New Year and we sat down, we're having this nice little meal and stuff. And I said to her, so let's, let's talk about our goals for Mm-hmm. The, the next 12 months. And I think you basically said to me in the nicest possible way, go away, Al. I think there were a few more expletives than that. Mm-hmm. Um, and it was just so outta character cuz Leanne's normally quite, quite optimistic, not nearly as, as stupidly optimistic as I am, but she's certainly very realistic and optimistic. And at this point it was just, I, I think I acted like a petulant child at the time because I was like, oh, well, you know, if you don't wanna talk about it, don't worry about it. It, that was the sign, I think, that I didn't know back then, possibly. You hadn't— you hadn't actually appreciated it, but you were burnt out.
Leanne ElliottI hadn't— I hadn't seen it fully until that point. That was my breakthrough moment. Really was. 'Cause I remember the exhaustion was kind of there, but I still felt able to keep going and keep working. I was definitely very pessimistic, very cynical. And I think that's what came out in that moment, which is cynicism. I remember saying to you something really horrible, like, who do you think you are to ask me questions like this when I'm just trying to get through from one day to the next? And on it, and we've had this conversation before, haven't we? And quite shortly after that conversation as well, thank goodness, otherwise she might have left me. Um, but it just, it was that out-of-body experience of, of kind of going outside myself and thinking, who are you? I don't like you right now. And that for me was like, enough is enough. I'm not sacrificing who I am and who I love for a job. It's just not worth it.
Al ElliottYeah. And I think because Leanne is Very self-aware. She was able to see that. But sometimes it would need, like, if that continued for a few weeks, it would need some kind of intervention. I'd need to sit her down and go, look, I think something's not right.
Leanne ElliottMhmm.
Al ElliottSo I think that burnout happens when we experience long periods of stress. Because, I mean, let's be honest, stress is a normal part of our lives, and we do have coping mechanisms to better manage stress. A job that is rewarding will, will always have challenges. So you always can have stress. But the problem is that over time, when you are coping with continual and relentless stress, Then these coping mechanisms are gonna be less effective and often are gonna mask the reality of the psychological and physiological symptoms of burnout that we're experiencing. Let's hear a bit more from Kate about this.
Leanne ElliottSo if you are feeling overly stressed, that's the sign. Burnout is a result of chronic stress that's gone unmanaged for extended periods of time. So if you're feeling stressed on a regular basis, you are at risk. For you, it would be these things, but it, I think prevention is so difficult and recognising it is so difficult because we are all so accustomed to our problems. And the way our own bodies react that we don't always pay enough heed. I first, for instance, am a migraine sufferer. So if I have a headache for a week, I don't really think that much of it because that's normal for me. But that should be a sign. And it's really easy as stress builds up in your life and as time passes for you to create coping mechanisms to deal with things so that you don't even realize that they're happening anymore. You're tired, so you have an extra coffee. Your hurts, so you've gotten a new keyboard tray that goes underneath your desk, and now you're working at a standing desk. And now there's so many ways to shift what you're doing to change your symptoms that it's really, really easy to have all these things pile up over time and have you really not notice. I think Kate paints a really clear picture there in terms of as individuals, how we can develop different coping mechanisms. In extreme circumstances on the road to burnout use these to mask what's actually going on. The trouble with burnout is that it's often discussed as an individual, um, an individual level. Like we mentioned in, in part 1, is it the snowflake generation? Can they not just hack it? Maybe they don't have the stamina. Maybe some people just, just can't keep up with the pace. Overwhelmingly, research is showing us that the dynamics of the work environment that we operate in, it's not us as an individual, our environment, that environment is most like, is the most likely cause of burnout. So let's hear from Will to sum up the research findings. There's a lot of research on what are the larger, you know, organizational factors that predispose people toward burnout. And I've, I've got a whole long list in front of me here that I could go through, but I, I won't bore you. They basically fall into 3, you know, big categories. I mean, one is, you know, when people lack any kind of meaningful control over their job, that makes them much more prone to burnout. When people lack resources to do their job, that also increases risk of burnout. So, and I mean, that can include a department being underfunded, not having the proper tools. I mean, it can also be time, you know, just being asked to do things and not having enough time to get them all done.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd the last is, I guess I'd say, a kind of broad category I'd call like chaos and ambiguity at work. So, I mean, that can include working in just a physical space that's very chaotic, like noisy and, you know, not a lot of natural sunlight and just an unpleasant kind of place to be, but also kind of lacking clarity around your role can be a big burnout factor. I'll tell you a funny thing. This is an issue that comes up in therapy so frequently. And it's not something I think a lot of people would expect, but I have so many people come to me stressed, depressed. We're kind of getting into what's— why is that? And a big factor, I go to work, I don't actually know what my job is. Like, I'm not sure. I've talked to my boss, no one's telling me what I'm supposed to do. And that's really overwhelming for people. So Will highlighted there that it's often the organisation or the environment that we're operating in that will have the biggest influence on whether we are experiencing burnout. One of the largest studies on burnout is from Gallup, and And they found basically 5 main sources of burnout within the workplace. The first was unfair treatment at work. The second was an unmanageable workload. The third, unclear communication from managers. Fourth, lack of manager support. And finally, unreasonable time pressures. Those 5 causes have one thing in common. Management is so So crucial to supporting employee wellbeing. And we said this in our predictions for, for 2023, and it's more of a hope, is that this is a year the penny will drop, that there's one thing you get right in your business to enable growth, to enable employee wellbeing, to enable both your people and business to thrive. It is investing in great managers. Environments where people are ignored, disrespected, not supported, Environments like that make people miserable. And what we know is a manager's effect on a workplace is so significant that it can predict up to 70% of the variance in team engagement, which is very closely linked to employee wellbeing as well. It doesn't matter if you have the best interventions, the best wellbeing programmes, the best development programmes. You could get everything else right in your business from a people and culture perspective, If you don't have the right managers, it won't work.
Al ElliottI think there's also something to be said for this case of, of, of not being able to own up, which, again, I think is probably down to the culture of, culture of the business. So, for example, if, if you are worried about putting your hand up and saying, I'm really stressed, then you're naturally gonna not put your hand up and hide it. If burnout is a sign of weakness, and particularly amongst men, I think, and I don't think I'm being sexist. I'm, I'm talking about, you know, we do, We do tend to be a bit more like, oh, kind of thing. We can deal with it. But if burnout is a sign of weakness, then the last thing we're gonna do is, is, is to disclose it, particularly in some high-pressure environments. Um, you know, if it's very male-led or is very ego-led or very high pressure, I'm thinking of Wall Street and Wolf of Wall Street sort of thing. Um, you know, that's gonna be— you can't put your hand up and go, I'm stressed, because you're just gonna be laughed at by your peers and by your managers. So clearly, I mean, that is the workplace of old. That, that film was, was based like 20 years ago, I think. So clearly the solution is more honesty and more acknowledgement. And also, as Leanne said, from the top down, a manager being able to say to you, it's okay to tell me you're stressed. It's okay to tell me you're burnt out. And I think that's probably the way that things should be going forward. Let's hear from Kate.
Leanne ElliottAnd the more people within your company that know what the risk factors are and what people can do, the easier those conversations will be and the more creative problem solving will happen around When something pops up. So I think really, when I first started speaking on burnout, it was in 2019. And a lot of people said to me at the time, oh, can we talk about resilience? Can we not use the word burnout because it's negative? And we don't want to like make people burnt out if they're— and I was like, that's not really how it works. Like, nobody's going to suddenly be burnt out just because we said the word. But people are afraid of that. We're afraid of that. Then the pandemic happened.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottPeople are no longer afraid of it. They're like, our employees are talking about burnout. We need to talk about burnout. My bestselling keynote is titled Resentment Is Your Superpower, and people are buying it, you know? So people are not afraid to have the conversations anymore. And I think this is key to unlocking the whole culture around burnout and, and what we need to do as a society to shift out of this. It's funny, I've, I've seen a lot of backlash recently about resilience training, cuz I think it is, it has been this this kind of plaster that organisations have used to mask burnout and not actually address the problem. So, I think Kate is bang on. We need to, you know, using the word burnout is not gonna create burnout. We need to, we need to have honest conversations about it with ourselves as leaders and with our people. So, just to recap on that very briefly, how do you know if your team is burnt out? Look out for any early signs of exhaustion, cynicism, or just that, that lack of positivity, lack of energy, lack of contributions within, within the workplace. These changes in behaviour could be an early sign of burnout. Why does burnout happen? Whilst it's easy to put that on the individual, overwhelmingly the research shows us that burnout is a result of toxic work environments. And finally, the way to start to address that, really invest in managers in terms of supporting people, nurturing wellbeing, and as Kate said, let's start those open honest, and transparent conversations about burnout.
Al ElliottThis is brilliant. Now, now, as someone who runs businesses and has always run businesses, then I'm really keen to see what the business case is for, for burnout. Because, I mean, I started my first business in 2002. I know that I was burnt out. I, God, I, I think I almost died. I went bankrupt. Well, no, I didn't. But, well, actually, no, I had 2 car accidents in, in I don't know this. Tell me.
Leanne ElliottI don't know this. Tell me this.
Al ElliottWell, this isn't like, you know, they were like going into the back of someone. It wasn't like, you know, huge, like, you know, sort of 999 thing, but it was just 2 car accidents when in about 9 months. And this was when I was running my beer business. And so I was working, basically I lived in the warehouse. Um, I would work from, um, I'd basically start work about sort of 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and then I'd work through till about 7 in the morning. Then I'd go to the cash and carry for 2 hours, go and get all my beer for the next day, come back, take it out the van, put it in the refrigerator, stop at about 11, and then usually have a bit of a sleep and then get up at 3 and do the accounts and stuff. And I was doing this sort of 7 days a week. And, and I remember distinctly, I mean, these 2 car accidents, it was, it was, I was just thinking about other stuff. And I went in the back of someone twice in 9 months. That's clearly like I wasn't thinking about what I was doing.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottAnd, and I ended up going bankrupt because of that business. And it was almost like a relief that it was like, thank God I don't have to do this anymore. I don't wanna do it. So, so I think there is a business case for burnout from leadership. So there's also a business case from burnout from your employees, from your teams. I'm gonna talk to— we're gonna talk to Will, and he's gonna tell us the big problem and why it is bad. Burnout is bad for business.
Leanne ElliottYeah. So, I mean, first of all, you know, I'd say burnout's Yeah. A huge problem. The United States, I mean, I can't speak to what the stats are in the UK or in other countries, but I know Gallup did a poll. This was in 2018, like pre-pandemic. I've got some notes here I'm referencing, but about 44% of employees said they were feeling burnt out, which, I mean, that's almost half the workforce. And around like 23% were saying they were just chronically just burnt out all the time. So it's a big issue. And obviously, I'm sure you're aware it's bad for business. I mean, it leads to turnover, absenteeism. It certainly hurts the reputation of businesses. I think we're seeing that right now a lot in healthcare in the United States. There's a lot of turnover, particularly among nurses, but also places are having trouble hiring doctors, hospitals, and larger healthcare systems have really burnt out some of those employees so much that at this point, you know, many of them have a bad reputation and are having a hard time attracting new talent. So Will covered some of the statistics there from the US, and I have dived into the recent stats for anyone who is in the UK. And typically, we see quite a lot of synergy between the UK and Europe as well. So what we know, and the these statistics are taken from the back end of 2022. We know that 1 in 5 British workers feel stressed more days and months than they don't. So high levels of stress within the British workplace. We also know that almost half of UK employees are close to burnout. According to research conducted by Westfield Health, 46% of UK workers are close to burnout. And if we're looking for that commercial case as well, it's estimated 13.7 million workdays are lost every year in the UK alone due to work-related stress, anxiety, and depression, costing an unbelievable £28.3 billion in lost productivity.
Al ElliottThat's a lot of money. So I think we're building the business case to manage stress and to look out for burnout.
Leanne ElliottWe are. And Kate was also very clear on the commercial case for preventing burnout. Here's Kate. Latest Gallup Gallup poll showed that disengaged workers are costing the global workplaces $7.8 trillion a year. If that's not reason enough, I don't know what is. The first thing you do when you are overly stressed and burnt out is disengage. You quiet quit. You pull yourself out of everything that you possibly can, and you do the bare minimum because that is quite literally all you can handle. On top of that, I think we have another 3.7 billion being spent on mental health issues in the workplace. Burnout is related. So I just think that the basic cost of not dealing with burnout is so, so high, and it's been calculated a million times over in a million different ways. So to me, there's like nothing left to talk about. It's a financial issue as well as a health risk and everything else. But the people that are doing it well are people that just remember that the people that work for them are human.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAt the bottom of all of this, putting aside business rules for a moment and saying, hey, what's going on with you? You okay? So, at a macro level, we can see very clearly a commercial case for helping our employees with their wellbeing, creating environments in which people can thrive. But let's make that a bit more tangible for business leaders out there. What does it actually mean for you and your business? These statistics come from our guest Sally and her research, The State of Workplace Burnout 2020. What they found is that people who are not burnt out, so people who are experiencing positive well-being, are 49% more engaged. That means lower turnover and less quiet quitting. They feel 50% more psychological safety. That means increased innovation and creativity, better problem solving. 30% have a higher sense of belonging. That means not only are they committed to your organisation, but they're going to advocate for your organisation. They're going to work. Proactively to get other great people into your business. 50% of people experiencing burnout also said that they're much less productive. So if you're seeing signs of productivity going down, efficiency going down, chances are your people are burning out. Asking them to work long— longer and harder is not going to make a difference. And finally, people who are experiencing burnt out reported 47% lower quality of work. So even if they are working harder, even if they are putting the hours in, the quality of work isn't going to be there.
Al ElliottAnd that means unhappy customers, less So clearly, this is a business case for managing stress. Yes, there are gonna be people who are gonna be trying it on and trying to get sick leave, but you know who they are. The real people who are genuine and just are overwhelmed, are burnt out, are stressed. We need to look after these people because it's costing us business owners, it's costing us money and a lot of it.
Leanne ElliottSo let's go through some practical things you can do as a business leader, as a, as a business owner to nurture wellbeing and prevent burnout within your team.
Al ElliottSo the first thing So firstly, you should reflect on your behavior as a leader. So just be honest about your own experiences in your earlier career. Deal with any sort of lingering psychological consequences. Just because you went through it doesn't mean others have to. But on the contrary, don't hide it. Just be honest about it. So you probably started your business to change, like, your life, the status quo. So you have the power to change change your teams and change your workplace environment. Let's hear from Will.
Leanne ElliottI think sometimes when people have struggled to get to a certain place in their career and maybe have had to put up with an abusive boss and put in the long hours, there's this, well, I did it, you know, why can't you? You know, um, maybe even a, a sort of defensiveness on their part of, uh, you know, maybe they don't want to acknowledge how damaging that was for them and have to rationalize it as Yeah. Oh, it was good for me. It helped me become the person I am now. I actually think this is a big problem right now in the US among law firms because lawyers, very demanding, intense job. I think a lot of the people at the partner level have had to climb a very vicious, difficult, competitive ladder to get to that point in their career, and then they see these younger lawyers coming in and they're just sort of like, well, yeah, I went through all that. Why can't you? At some level, I wonder too if it's— I think that can happen with leaders who have a kind of perhaps domineering streak to their personality and authoritarian approach to management that they Maybe don't recognize yet within themselves. I think if you find yourself shaming and blaming employees, it's probably a moment to step back and ask what's going on there, because that's never worked as a management strategy. I mean, if you're going to try to shame people into following you, good luck, but that's not going to work.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottI definitely encourage anyone who's having that kind of response to talk to a coach or therapist and really kind of look at what's coming up within themselves that's making them feel that, that disgust toward, toward the people that, you know, frankly are keeping their company going. Building your own self-awareness as a leader is one of the most powerful things you can do to better manage yourself, your behaviors, and support your team in the most positive way. Think about engaging a coach, think about going through some psychometrics to really understand and reflect on your own behaviour. Equally, understanding your own relationship with burnout may also prove really important to reducing your own risk, especially if you've been burnt out in the past. Let's hear from Kate. I think so, yes. So, I think that once you've burnt out, you're— it's kind of like being an addict or an alcoholic. Like, you, you always have to be on the lookout for it. The fact of the matter is, my stress management system doesn't necessarily work as well as other people's. So if I don't meditate and exercise and eat well, I'm going to be at risk. So I have to— my basic self-care has to be a little bit higher probably than your average person's because of my previous burnout.
Al ElliottSo this is point number 1, is to reflect on your behavior as a leader. And these are like the ways we can prevent burnout. Number 2 is to invest in your own So you need to think carefully about your own psychological state or your own feelings of burnout. Like Leanne always says, you need to put your mask on before you can help others. Now, Kate has worked with leaders as a burnout coach and an expert, and she has one key emotion to look out for that may mean you're at risk of burnout.
Leanne ElliottOne of the things that I do ask people to look out for is high levels of resentment. This, to me, is the key to everything. If you are getting an email from a particular person, and every single time you get an email from that person, you roll your eyes and you sigh really loud and you think, oh my God, this person again? What else could they possibly need from me? If everything that happens during the day is the straw that broke the camel's back and just sends you into it, you had your to-do list and somebody put one extra thing on it, one extra thing that's literally like you have to write back Tuesday at 2 o'clock, but it throws you over the edge.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottThat's a really bad sign. If you are someone who typically enjoys service and being of service to people, but you're mad at everyone, can't get out of your own way, and really don't feel like helping people right now, that's a bad sign. And all of those things are rooted in resentment. So if you find yourself feeling really resentful and feeling that you are giving much more than you're getting, Yeah. You are at very high risk for experiencing burnout soon if you're not already deep in it. We're in the middle of some research at Oblong at the moment on the relationship between leadership behaviours and employee wellbeing. And an early finding that's really surprised me that employees are really, really keen to see in their leaders is that are their leaders investing in their own wellbeing, in their own mental health? Not only is it going to be beneficial for you to invest in your wellbeing, invest in your own self-care, that's also going to reflect really well with your employees. That, that's what they want to see in their leaders. That's what's going to help boost their engagement and their wellbeing as well. It all comes down to being that great role model. So if this resonates with you and you want to start investing more in your own wellbeing, Kate offered some advice as a starting point. I think the steps are Number one, foundational self-care. When I say self-care, I don't mean pedicures and baths. What I mean for foundational self-care is pee when you need to pee, drink when you're thirsty, eat when you're hungry, move when you need to move, stand when you need to stand, sit when you need to sit, rest when you need to rest.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottThe basic thing that you need to be put— that needs to be put into place in your life for you to recover from burnout is a sense of safety. When your alarm system has been going off your whole entire life, it's convinced you that every situation that you're in is unsafe.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottWhen you are recovering, your job is to increase your body's sensations of safety. Your body is going to feel safer If you give it what it needs when it needs it. So I think the very— and people often want to skip this step and ignore these things. We laugh about it on my podcast all the time. My podcast listeners will walk around the world saying, pee when you have to pee. You know, it's like, it's, it's a sort of an inside joke that we have with one another, but it is one of the truest things that I've ever found and something that no one is talking about when it comes to burnout.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottIf you are not telling your body that you are going to show up for it, it is not going to feel safe. If you don't feel safe, your brain cannot recover the way that it needs to. So this is number one, foundational self-care. Kate's raised a really important point there. Foundational self-care is so important. She also talked on part one with her own experience of burnout, how she engaged a coach and a therapist. So here's Will with some advice on identifying which type of support what you need. I think with a coach, if somebody's starting to feel kind of burnt out and they're just noticing a kind of listlessness setting in and they're really just kind of not feeling like themselves and no longer seem like they have the same passion or excitement about work, but more or less they're doing fine, they're still functioning, they're getting things done, Yeah. I think that's where coaching is more appropriate. And I think when somebody's getting burnt out to the point where they're really struggling to get by, that's when looking at therapy is better, right? So I've seen people where they're kind of burnt out to the point that they're not sleeping well. Their health is starting to suffer. Their family's just noticing you're not the same person you used to be. That's when it's like probably your mental health is suffering at a level that you really need to talk to a mental health professional. I mean, there's a lot of discussion of different, whatever, coping strategies, cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness.
Al ElliottWhatever.
Leanne ElliottI think those are all important. But for me, the core issue is that this person is having a crisis of meaning, that they have sort of lost the thread. They no longer have this vision for their life and for who they are and for where their life is headed. And kind of tying that back in with what we were talking about earlier, This is why I think the kind of cynicism piece from a mental health angle, I think, is one of the most important to look at with burnout. Because if you've lost hope, you've lost everything, right? I mean, there's no point in even getting into how do we meditate or whatever if you just feel like there's no—
Al ElliottHope.
Leanne Elliotthope for your future, right? So for me, I think one of the first things I really look at in therapy with a person is reattaching them with their sense of purpose, right? And this can be not just with work, but with life more generally. So we'll look at their strengths, we'll look at their values, and I'll Yeah. I like to ask people about when did you feel most alive? When you look back, what were these peak experiences in your life and in your career where you just felt like, I'm doing what I was meant to do? And I like to kind of break those down and really look at what was happening in those experiences and how can we kind of restore that? How can we bring What was going on then into the present moment. And from there, kind of once we've identified what was happening in those kind of peak moments, that's when I might get into more of, you know, starting to get into, you know, coping strategies. Let's start developing a plan to sort of put some of these factors back into place for you.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottUh, but, but for me, I think the question of meaning is, is what's most important and, and really kind of helping that person feel a sense of hope for, for their career and, and just for themselves.
Al ElliottThat's some really good advice there for investing in your own wellbeing. Let's go on to the 3rd point.
Leanne ElliottSo our 3rd recommendation is to think of yourself as a leader, as a manager, or if you're a business leader, to help your managers in, in this type of development, managers as coaches. This is all about open conversation, not coming with the solutions, but coming with the questions. Discuss with your team what burnout is as a starting point. Improve their understanding and create this shared vocabulary so you can talk about it openly and honestly as a team. Then you're a manager, you're a leader. You wouldn't have got there and you wouldn't be doing such a great job without your emotional and political intelligence. Use that to approach individuals in a way that will resonate with them. In a way that they'll hear your concern and respond to it. Kate explains more. You have to just have a conversation. I think the biggest issue, one of the big issues, and one of the things that I like to do most in companies is go in and just explain what burnout is, the ins and outs, the ups and downs, so that everyone has language to talk about it. It's really hard to have this conversation with somebody. A lot of people that burn out are very high achievers. So going to them and saying, hmm, it seems like you're burnt out, is probably gonna make them defensive. So your job in that case is to be more curious and say, hey, it seems like you're not yourself lately. Is something going on? Can I help in some way?
Al ElliottIs—
Leanne Elliottdo we need to take some things off your plate? Then this is when we go to the list of things that Christina Maslach and her team have deemed to be behind burnout for, you know, the past 40 years. And we go through that list and say, Which of these things can I give you more of to make your life easier? Did you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. And you're not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil.
Leanne ElliottUh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work.
Al ElliottAnd we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom. And how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is, it's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back.
Leanne ElliottDefinitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this, so come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in.
Leanne ElliottAs we've said, having great supportive managers in place is one of the, the most effective things you can do to nurture wellbeing and prevent burnout within your business. Having these open conversations creates psychological safety, which we know has so so many benefits, both for us as people and for our businesses. If you want to hear more about psychological safety, go back a few episodes and we'll link it in the show notes. So on to our 4th recommendation in terms of preventing burnout in the workplace: measure it. We can measure it. I've said this before, I'll say it again. As a business, how can you possibly plot a route forward to where you want to be if you don't first take the time to understand where you are. And if you won't listen to me, listen to Sally. This is it. You know, I'm a big hiker, and I just always think of when I'm like, I'm out hiking, I've got my maps. It's like, I don't— in order to go where I need to go, I need to know what my starting point is. And so measuring and knowing that starting point and being honest about it, which can be quite uncomfortable, um, often, but it is so important because only then when we really acknowledge what the current situation is with honesty and humility, can we change anything? So, in terms of measuring burnout or measuring wellbeing within our businesses, there are a few different tools that you can use. Kate mentioned earlier Christina Maslach, who's an American social psychologist, and she created the Maslach Burnout Inventory. It's a widely accepted tool for measuring burnout, but as always, choosing an assessment, any assessment like this or a psychometric, it's important to consider the objective behind it and the context it's being used in. in. No tool is perfect. Each is going to have its advantages and disadvantages. So my advice would always be to speak to a professional, or even several, to help you decide. Um, but yeah, to give you a very brief overview as a starting point, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, um, or the MBI, is a 22-item survey that covers 3 areas. It looks at emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a low sense of personal accomplishment. So very much embedded within the definition of burnout. From a scientific point of view, its reliability has been found to be good, and since it was created, various versions have been created to improve its validity. By looking at the 3 dimensions of burnout separately, the MBI can also help you to understand how people are experiencing burnout within your organisation. As Will mentioned earlier, there can be a tendency for organisations to focus on the exhaustion aspect of burnout, whereas using the MBI is going to help you look at a more broad and holistic view of burnout within your business, as Will explains. The other problem with just focusing on emotional exhaustion is I think it leads to solutions that are only gonna be partially effective, right? So, um, I, I mean, you know, a big thing now is like mental health days, right? You know, take a day off, relax, recharge. Um, you know, for somebody who's tired and, and fried That's probably not bad. That could help with the exhaustion component potentially, but it's not going to make them feel any less cynical. It's not going to help them feel attached to their fellow employees anymore. It's not going to help them feel like they're moving toward their goals. So, I mean, the mental health days strategy is one I've seen a lot of organizations embrace, but it's missing a lot of components that could be playing Um, that need to be addressed when, when fixing, uh, burnout. So as we've said there, the MBI is a really good tool to measure the 3 core components of burnout. My only observation would be that the results may be somewhat narrow in terms of application, and I think this really depends on whether or not you have other assessments within your business currently. If you already have an employee engagement survey or a being a survey within your business, the MBI will, will no doubt offer some really interesting insights and depth into the state of burnout within your organisation. If this is your first time gathering employee data, I'd recommend looking at something a bit broader in terms of its measurement of employee wellbeing, and something that's also going to measure the aspects of the environment your employees are operating in. If we understand the environment and how employees are thinking and feeling, we can start to make connections. between what might be causing the stress or the reduced wellbeing within the organisation. That could be work demands, it could be relationships, it could be managers. If you're looking for a free tool, the HSE Management Standards Tool is really useful, as it does measure various psychosocial risk factors within the business that are related to stress and burnout. Or, of course, you have Oblong's RX7. That's our personal tool that we've developed to measure employee wellbeing and engagement within the context of culture. So the RX7 measures 7 foundations of workplace culture that are essential to positive employee wellbeing and engagement. So those 7 areas are reason, role, recognition, resources, relationships, resilience, and remote. To find out more, you can get in touch with Al or I through LinkedIn or visit oblonghq.com.
Al ElliottAnd of course, the reason why it's called RX7 is because there's 7 of them and they all begin with R. That pleased me greatly.
Leanne ElliottIt did, didn't it? Your little marketing smile. So, yeah, so I think that the point is, you know, data is only as good as the method you use to collect it. Um, I know, I know you want a simple answer, and Will and I laughed about this. You know, you, you kind of, as a psychologist, your immediate reaction is, well, it depends. And it does depend. Um, but, you know, the, the thing is that if you, if you want to make that investment in your organisation, in your employees' wellbeing, gathering this type of data is really going to help you you understand the investment that you need to make, where you need to make it, and how it's gonna have the most impact. This might sound a bit cold to think about the commercial aspect of, of wellbeing and, and mental health, but it's also the only way to make sure we're actually helping the, our employees in the best possible way. One of the issues I've seen now, I see it a lot on LinkedIn, you know, you'll see these posts, you know, whatever, here's 10 strategies for dealing Yeah. With workplace mental health. And it's not like the strategies are wrong or bad, you know, but I think they're so abstract that I question how effective they're going to be. I think one of the first things for any leader who wants to start addressing workplace mental health, one of the first things they should do is get very, very clear on like what exactly is the mental health problem that's Yeah. Because otherwise you're just going to be throwing solutions at mental health days, EAP, manager training on how to recognise mental health and refer. I mean, and again, all of those might be somewhat helpful, but they're not targeted in a way that I think is really going to go in surgically and make sure you're really addressing that root cause.
Al ElliottSo clearly what Will's saying is that you need to understand the specific problem in order to address it. You can't just say, oh, I'll throw— we'll do, um, like Leanne's thing, Pizza Friday, Sushi Friday, or, uh, or we'll have— why don't we have a team open day? That's like doing advertising and just— and your adverts aren't working, so you go, all right, well, I'll just put some more money in and I'll just put my logo bigger on it. It's just a sticking plaster. It's not going to work. You need to think about what actually is the root problem and fix that.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottSo talking of the work environment, number five is focusing on the work environment. We talked about this no fancy interventions. You just increase the control that your team members have. You provide the right resources. As Will said earlier, people don't know what they're doing at work. They're not clear on their roles. You need to reduce ambiguity, and also this you need to empower employee voice. These sound like fancy sort of terms. that, you know, companies with 2,500 people would bandy around. But the fact is that if your employees feel psychologically safe and able to talk about things, then your creative— creativity is going to go up, your problems are going to be out in the open straight away, and you're just going to feel so much more empowered.
Leanne ElliottYou know, I think organizational interventions that target those are going to be really important, finding ways to give people an opportunity to participate in decision-making, to have some control over their schedule, to have some influence on the decisions management is making. Checking in with people about, do you actually have what you need to get your job done? What are you missing? Do you need more support from me? Do you need more funding? Are all the tools present?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd really, I mean, almost just from a basic HR safety, occupational safety perspective, making sure the work environment is safe, is just a reasonably pleasant place to be, and that people have a clear job description and a manager who knows what that job description is, clear performance goals. That those all make a huge difference. Kate also has some thoughts on aspects of the workplace that may be contributing to poor employee wellbeing, and in some cases, burnout. So if the workload is too heavy, take some workload off. This is very simple, right? The next one is lack of community. So if your team doesn't work well with one another, people might need to be moved to other teams. There might need to be some personnel adjustments because if there's no community in your They're not going to feel safe. The next is a lack of fairness. So if you haven't dealt with a pay gap, or if so-and-so always gets more attention from you because you like them better, or we're at basic, basic, basic levels of, is it fair? Are the things that are happening fair? And if you say, well, too bad, you're an adult, deal with it. I'm sorry, basic fairness has been shown for years and years and decades.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliottto be important when protecting people from burnout. The next is a lack of recognition. Are people being praised specifically for things they are doing well? Are people being recognised for their work? You can't just give it an attaboy, pat somebody on the back and walk away. It has to be, hey Elaine, I saw that last week you wrote an email to that one customer we were really struggling with. It really seemed to smooth things over, great work. It's gotta be real specific to be useful, right? So positive feedback in the workplace is, is important. The next is a mismatch of values. So the mismatch of values can happen on 2 levels. The first is between the company's spoken values and values in action. So if the company says, we have a mission too, la, and then on a day-to-day basis they do the opposite, Right. That's gonna be problematic for people. This, sometimes the managers cannot do, or, and leaders cannot do much about. This is a, that's a really difficult place. The next mismatch of values is between the person and the company. When we have a mismatch of values situation going on, I think that really the only true thing that you can do is get into a situation that suits your values better. This is what leads to moral injury and other problems. And it's just, there's, if the values don't match, you're not gonna make them match. It's not gonna just match magically at some point. And the last thing is a lack of autonomy. Do your people have enough say in how they're getting their work done, what hours they're getting their work done within, what kind of tools they use, et cetera? So if people have no autonomy, And a heavy workload, the job strain will be really high, and that leads to high levels of burnout. So you have to know those things and then sort of work your way through them.
Al ElliottSo all really good stuff. Another recommendation to help prevent burnout comes from Sally and her colleagues. When they— remember that we said she did the State of Workplace Burnout Report 2023? Now, they claim that leaders can create a competitive advantage by adopting people-first policies. So we asked Sally to explain a bit You know, there's some—
Leanne ElliottI think having the starting conversations, so talking to people about how their mental health is doing. So sort of having these opening up conversations about how we're actually doing as human beings and not segmenting our lives into sort of professional and personal. I think it's, you know, encouraging people to be their whole selves, their full authentic selves at work. I think also looking at things like the very basic things like how is email used, how are tools like Slack or other communication devices used? How much time are we spending in meetings? And asking people also, I think, to sort of, for example, to take stock of what their tasks are for the day. And then at the end of the day, having a look and saying, what impacted me? What stopped me from being able to do what I needed to do? And really looking at work in a very sort of basic way and seeing What is stopping the flow? Where are we having interruptions? And how can we reconfigure work to be more effective and efficient? And that can be— that might be workflow, that might be decision-making hierarchy. It sort of really depends on the size and the nature of the organization. And I think also, we touched on this in the study as well, the importance of creating an environment of psychological safety. That is a space at work where people feel that they can comfortably take interpersonal risk without fear of consequence is a really big one as well. So, you know, that obviously has implications for the willingness to take risks and innovation and really beautiful things that can happen in the workplace. But I think it also really directly contributes to our capacity to thrive at and through work and thereby avoid burnout as well. We've presented 5 recommendations there for you in terms of how you can help prevent burnout within your organisations. 1, reflect on your own behaviour as a leader and think about investing in leadership development. 2, invest in your own wellbeing. You need to put your mask on before you can help others. 3, develop your managers as coaches. Have those open conversations. Discuss with your team what burnout is and how you're going to address it. 4, measure it. Measure the state of burnout within your organisation. Measure the state of wellbeing. If we know where we are, we can plot a path of where we want to get to. And finally, number 5, focus on the work environment. Forget these fancy interventions— sushi Fridays, mindfulness at lunch, meditation Mondays. They're not going to work if your work environment is not nurturing wellbeing and supporting people to thrive. Start by focusing on the work environment. So, what can leaders expect to see if they adopt these recommendations? What turnarounds have others experienced in terms of employee wellbeing and performance? Sally provides us with an example. So, I've been working with a couple of companies in, um, the Netherlands, and, um, one has, uh, gone through a shift where they've actually shifted to a 4.5-day working week. And the recommendation— so they'd seen our study and they really wanted to sort of change the way they were working. And it takes really evaluating, I think, their own sort of company values that they had espoused. And they were starting to see that they were drifting away from these company values. They'd set them probably 5 or 6 years earlier, but the lived experience people were having just wasn't correlating with the values. So they've seen, you know, an uptake in in quality of work, they've also seen an uptake in employee wellbeing, and even just sort of morale in the workplace. So it's, it is something where I think that it's surprising, actually, how fast you can start to see results in these kinds of situations.
Al ElliottSo in a second, we're just going to go through some resources with you. But just before we do, I want to go back to Kate, who's got an important message about the role of self-compassion and awareness when you're managing and recovering Give yourself some grace.
Leanne ElliottThis is not your fault. No matter what's going on, there is a combination of internal and external factors that brought you here. And even the internal factors are likely based off of coping mechanisms that you created before you were conscious of what a coping mechanism even was. So give yourself some grace, number one. Number 2, talk to someone, anyone. Talk to someone. I really often recommend that people see their GPs, their doctors first. Do blood work, do a urine analysis, make sure that you're not just iron deficient or vitamin D deficient because you can have a lot of the symptoms, the fatigue and the irritation because you don't have enough B12. So go find out that your nutrients are okay before you jump down a whole gamut of like fixing your mindset, which is not going to do anything if you need vitamin D, right? So go to your doctor, figure that out. And then after that, find a community of people where you can talk about this, where you don't have to be ashamed of what you're going through, where you can find out more, where you can learn, where you can grow with people that understand you. The first resource we'd like to offer you is the State of Workplace Burnout 2023, the report Infinite Potential. Uh, our guest Sally is one of the researchers behind that report. We'll include the link in the show notes, but it really is a nicely presented and digestible view of the current state of burnout. Awareness is always a really great place to start, so we suggest starting with that. The second resource is offered by our guest Kate. She is host of Fried: The Burnout Podcast. Let's hear a bit more about that. Fried: The Burnout Podcast has been around almost 4 years now, and we have a Facebook group that's dedicated to discussing the podcast episodes, but Really, it's about anything that you're going through with burnout. There's currently about 1,300 people in the group, and I try to answer a lot of what goes on in there. I try to stay really active in the group, but the other people in the group that have gone through burnout and recovered are so helpful toward one another that often they have said what I would say anyway before I even get there. So there's a ton of interpersonal support.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliottthere that I, I find really inspiring and really helpful. Somebody wrote in just this week that without this group, she would have never recovered. A really great community offered by Kate there. If you haven't already, the links are in the show notes. Go and check it out, Fried: The Burnout Podcast, and the link for her Instagram and Facebook are in there as well. Our 3rd resource comes from Sally, and she has written 2 books on burnout. The first, Protect Your Spark: How to Prevent Burnout and Live Authentically, and her second book, and more more recent Relight Your Spark: How to Heal and Evolve After Burnout. Sally shares some insights and techniques. The 2 books— so Protect Your Spark is really about identifying, you know, we spoke to the fact that individuals really can't empower themselves fully against burnout because so many of the causes are extrinsic and very subtle. Um, but it's the kind of book that I think I would have liked to give myself a couple of years before I went into full burnout to maybe give myself some of the practices and some of the, um, the, the self-care tactics that can actually empower us to retain some level of objectivity and to really focus on our own self-worth, um, and, and sort of build some healthy self-awareness as well. Because the problem with burnout, um, as you well know, is we— it narrows our focus because we're in a heightened state of alert, and it means we very quickly lose the ability to see with objectivity what's happening to us. It also means we lose the capacity to make healthy decisions for ourselves. So it's almost like I wanted to, you know, give myself that book a few— I don't know if it would have changed anything, but that was the thinking. And Relight Your Spark was kind of inspired by my own healing journey and then a great deal of research into what it actually takes to heal and evolve after burnout. I tend to try to avoid the word recovery because I do believe that burnout can have a really, a positively sort of impactful effect on us. And that's not to reduce or to ignore the fact that it is a really debilitating experience as well. But my experience was that through being mindful about my healing journey, I was actually able to grow through burnout and shift to a place place of, of, of a much more profound sort of, I think, self-love, basically self-compassion, um, and self-awareness. So the 3, the sort of 4 things that I identify in the book in terms of healing, the 4 steps are, um, if you take the vowels out of the word burnout, you're left with B-R-N-T. So that's breathe. And that's about really using our breath and other techniques to engage the parasympathetic nervous So that we can really engage the wisdom of our bodies to start the healing process so that we can, you know, start to restore some of the systems and the physiological damage that we've done as a result of burnout. The second is R for rest. So that's really about restoring our systems and again taking a break from work if that's feasible, making sure that we're getting breaks as often as possible at and in between work to again just allow our bodies to restore. We're not meant to be, we're not built to be in a constant state of heightened alertness. The third is N, so that's nourish. And that's, of course, what we eat and drink, but it's what we consume more broadly as well in terms of the information that we take in, the news that we read, even down to the people that we surround ourselves with. So when we're nourishing ourselves on these sort of multiple facets, that also really enables us to, to have to start to rebuild the energy that we need in order to sort of shift out of burnout and into a place of healing and And the last one is T, which is talk. And I think this is actually the most important step in burnout healing. It's about firstly acknowledging to ourselves that we're in burnout, that something dire is wrong. And it's also about talking to either a trusted friend or a professional and saying, I'm not okay and I need support. And that can be very difficult, I think, for particularly those of us who are high achievers and used to just always is being able to get away with everything. And at a certain point, the most, the most wise thing we can do for ourselves is acknowledging the truth of the situation and reaching out for help from someone else. In terms of reaching out for help, Sally and Kate both offer coaching services for people who are experiencing burnout or recovering. So we'll leave their contact details in the show notes as well. Our third guest, Will, as you know, is a board-certified clinical psychologist, and he offers therapeutic services, a whole range of therapy services to people who are experiencing high levels of stress, mental health challenges, and potentially burnout as well. So if you feel you need more of a therapeutic intervention, we'll also leave Will's LinkedIn details in the show notes. And finally, if you're a business owner or leader listening and you'd like to know more about how to measure wellbeing or the current state of burnout within your organisation, get in touch with us through the podcast or through oblonghq.com. If you go to our website, oblonghq.com, you can also then book a free consultation to talk about everything culture and wellbeing.
Al ElliottAlso, if you haven't subscribed yet, then please consider subscribing if you've enjoyed this. Next week's episode is with the amazing Jim Young, who is— he calls himself the Centered Coach. He's men's burnout coach. He's written a book called Expansive Intimacy. And he's just a really down-to-earth, Really nice, amazingly brutally honest guy. The kind of person who I think if we were in the same country, I'd definitely go for a beer with him. So check him out next week. And this is but thank you again for giving us another hour of your time. And I hope if you've got any feedback, then go to well either oblonghq.com or you can go to our actually dedicated website, which is truthlieswork.com. In fact, it's not; it's truthlies. And work.com. I think both of them get you there.
Leanne ElliottThank you so much to all of our expert guests who contributed so much value to these 2 episodes and to our listeners. You are awesome. We really appreciate you. And yeah, go, go check them out on socials, on LinkedIn. Uh, the conversations that are already happening are really inspiring.
Al ElliottSo we'll see you next week.
Leanne ElliottBye.