Friday, August 23, 2013

Burnout: The Disease of Our Civilzation

 

Burnout: The Disease of Our Civilization



Since launching our Third Metric campaign -- to redefine success beyond the first two metrics of money and power to include well-being, wisdom, and our ability to wonder and to give back -- I've been seeing things through a Third Metric lens. And what I see is a split-screen world. On one side, we have endless examples of how the business world and the American workplace still haven't changed and continue to glorify an approach to measuring success that leads to burnout and a culture enraptured with technology to the point that tools meant to give us greater control of our lives have, instead, taken control of our lives.
On the other side of the screen, there are more and more examples of companies, large and small, prioritizing well-being. And even at companies that haven't yet learned why encouraging well-being is good for both their employees and their bottom line, there are more and more examples of individuals applying Third Metric principles in their own lives to help themselves cope with the negative effects of a retrograde workplace atmosphere.
One of the primary things keeping many businesses from adopting more sane and sustainable metrics of success is the stubborn -- and dangerously wrongheaded -- myth that prioritizing health and wellbeing is incompatible with a healthy bottom line -- and that there is a trade-off between high performance and taking care of ourselves. As countless studies show, this couldn't be less true.
Indeed, all across the country, more and more businesses are realizing that the long-term health of their bottom line is directly tied to the long-term health of their employees. Right now, about a quarter of U.S. corporations offer some sort of stress-reduction program. And those that do are starting to be recognized for their efforts, especially by employees. Glassdoor.com, the social jobs and careers community, recently released their third annual list of the top 25 companies for work-life balance. "Companies that make sincere efforts to recognize employees' lives outside of the office," said Glassdoor's Rusty Rueff, "will often see the payoff when it comes to recruiting and retaining top talent."
This year, among Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For, several stood out for their commitment to well-being. At number 19 was Salesforce.com, which offers free yoga, a $100 benefit for wellness, and 48 hours of paid time to volunteer. At number 4 was the Boston Consulting Group, which flags employees working too many long weeks with a "red zone report" and allows new hires to delay starting for six months and get $10,000 to volunteer for a nonprofit.
Last month, HuffPost's Peter Goodman wrote about Promega, a biotech company in Wisconsin. Employees have access to on-site yoga classes, fitness centers, healthy meals, offices filled with natural light, and "third spaces," which are areas that are neither work nor home, like cafes and lounges. "You create a culture of wellness," Promega's chief medical officer, Ashley G. Anderson Jr., told Goodman. "If you create a culture in which vibrant physicality is an admired thing, you've achieved a lot. A healthy workforce is a productive workforce."
The Minneapolis staffing company Salo has enlisted the best-selling author Dan Buettner for help. Buettner is an expert in so-called "Blue Zones," regions of the world with the highest life expectancy, and is helping make Salo the first certified Blue Zone workplace. By adding meditation rooms, adjustable-height desks, cooking lessons and "purpose workshops" to help employees follow their non-work passions, the effort is yielding results -- for both the employees and company. "There's a culture and developing reputation at Salo as a place that puts the well-being of its employees and partners in front of just profits." Buettner told the Minnesota-based Journal. "That's a reputation that will transcend our time with them."
Next up for Blue Zone certification is Google, which has already been a leader in prioritizing well-being, including a "Search Inside Yourself" course taught by Google engineer (and employee 107) Chade-Meng Tan. The class has three sections: attention training, self-knowledge, and self-mastery. More than 1,000 employees have taken it so far and there's a waiting list whenever a new one is announced.
But it's not just high tech companies that are discovering the importance of well-being. For example, at the nearly 100-year-old supermarket chain Wegman's, Danny Wegman, grandson of the founder, has seen the benefit of encouraging his 45,000 employees to get healthier. The company now offers on-site yoga and Zumba classes, nutritional counseling, and high blood pressure screenings.
Some of health insurance giant Aetna's stress reduction programs stem from CEO Mark Bertolini breaking his neck in a 2004 ski accident. While recovering from the painful injury, Bertolini discovered the health benefits of meditation, yoga and acupuncture. He proceeded to make the benefits available to his 34,000 employees and brought in Duke University to conduct a study on the cost benefits. The results? A 7 percent drop in health care costs in 2012 and 69 minutes of additional productivity per day for participants.
Third Metric practices certainly aren't limited to just yoga and meditation. Instead of creativity-deadening conference rooms, Farhad Chowdhury, CEO of the software development company Fifth Tribe, connects with collaborators during a four-mile hike. As Gregory Burns, author of Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently, writes, insight and discovery are most accessible to us when we break up our routine. "Only when the brain is confronted with stimuli that it has not encountered before does it start to reorganize perception," he writes. "The surest way to provoke the imagination, then, is to seek out environments you have no experience with." As he notes, chemist Kary Mullis landed on the principle of polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, not in a lab but on a northern California highway.
On the other side of the split screen -- well, we've still got a lot of work to do. Stress is still costing U.S. businesses an estimated $300 billion every year. Health care costs for employees with high stress levels are 46 percent higher than for lower-stressed colleagues. Over half of employees say that work stress has made them look for a new job, leave a job or say no to a promotion.
And then there's the ever-onward creep of technology -- into our lives, our families, our bedrooms, our brains. The average smartphone user checks her or his device every six and a half minutes, which works out to around 150 times a day. It's not easy to turn away from this kind of stimuli -- we're wired to connect. But the connection that often comes from technology is not only an unfulfilling, ersatz version of connection, it's a siren call (or beep, or blinking light) that begins to crowd out the time we have for real connection. Even worse, it begins to rewire our brains to make us less adept at real connection. One person who saw this happening in his own life and decided to do something about it is Grist's David Roberts. "I am burnt the f*** out," he writes in his memorable goodbye-to-the-Internet-and-his-job-for-a-year letter. He continues:
I enjoy sharing zingers with Twitter all day; I enjoy writing long, wonky posts at night. But the lifestyle has its drawbacks. I don't get enough sleep, ever. I don't have any hobbies. I'm always at work... I'm never disconnected. It's doing things to my brain.
I think in tweets now. My hands start twitching if I'm away from my phone for more than 30 seconds. I can't even take a pee now without getting "bored." I know I'm not the only one tweeting in the bathroom... The online world, which I struggle to remember represents only a tiny, unrepresentative slice of the American public, has become my world. I spend more time there than in the real world, have more friends there than in meatspace.

I wish him well on his year off. And he's not alone in feeling the overpowering effects of the deluge of email we've let into our lives. A 2012 McKinsey Global Institute study found that the average knowledge economy employee spends 28 percent of his or her time dealing with email -- over 11 hours a week. SaneBox, which makes email-filtering software, reports that it takes us 67 seconds to recover from each email that lands in our inbox. "At some point," SaneBox's Dmitri Leonov told New York's Jennifer Senior, "we have to understand this process is hurting us."
In fact, the science is already there. A study by researchers from UC Irvine and the U.S. Army found that avoiding your inbox -- taking an "email vacation" -- reduces stress and allows you to focus more. It can also have profound effects when an entire company decides to take an email vacation. That's what Shayne Hughes, CEO of Learning as Leadership decided to do, sending out an announcement that "all internal e-mail is forbidden for the next week." Employees were skeptical, but he says the results were unequivocal. "Our high-octane, stay-on-top-of-whatever-is-happening-via-e-mail mentality disappeared," he wrote in Forbes. "In its place we experienced a more focused and productive energy...The decrease in stress from one day to the next was palpable. So was our increase in productivity." The experience, he concluded, "reconnected us with the neglected power of human interaction." Similarly, in 2011, Volkswagen forced its employees to take mini-email vacations by deactivating employees' mobile email accounts after work hours.
The lure of technology is such that we often need someone to do an intervention to save us from ourselves (and thereby reconnect us with ourselves). Sometimes that intervention comes too late. In an op-ed in the New York Times, Erin Callan, former CFO of Lehman Brothers, wrote about the lessons she learned about burnout. "Work always came first, before my family, friends and marriage -- which ended just a few years later," she writes. She left Lehman a few months before Lehman left us all, and in the years since, she's learned the value of working, and living in a different way. But, looking back, she also realizes how counterproductive the overwork was. "I now believe that I could have made it to a similar place with at least some better version of a personal life," she writes. In fact, working to the point of burnout wasn't just bad for her and her personal life, it was also bad for Lehman Brothers. And that's the connection we need to start making if we want to accelerate changes in the way we live and work.
According to a Harvard Medical School study, 96 percent of senior leaders report feeling burned out, with a third saying the burnout is extreme. In fact, one of the defenses of Steve Cohen, CEO of SAC Capital, who was indicted last month, was that he missed a warning about insider trading because of the 1,000 emails he gets every day. And in 2011, after less than a year as head of Lloyds Banking Group, Antonio Horta-Osorio took a two-month leave. "[It was] physical, overwork, lack of sleep, sleep deprivation," Sir Win Bischoff, Lloyds' chairman explains.
"With the benefit of hindsight I should have gone a bit slower," Horta-Osorio said upon his return.
It's no surprise that CEOs are often found on the wrong side of the split screen. As psychologist Douglas LaBier wrote on HuffPost, power brings with it particular dangers of losing the very qualities that are most essential to lead. One study found that increased power lowers the ability to be empathic. Another found that power makes us "prone to dismiss" or misunderstand others' viewpoints. This makes any tool that can increase self-awareness and the ability to listen and be in the moment all the more crucial.
The biggest obstacle keeping our desperately needed redefinition of success from becoming more widespread is the misguided belief that overwork is the route to high performance and great results. One easy way to see the folly of this belief is to look at the world of sports, where performance is even more objectively measurable. Cheri Mah of the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic found that when athletes slept more (up to 10 hours a night for five weeks), their performance also improved. "Sleep is huge in my sport," said Olympic marathon runner Ryan Hall. "Recovery is the limiting factor, not my ability to run hard. I typically sleep about eight to nine hours a night but then I make sure to schedule 90 minute 'business meetings' -- aka naps -- into my day for an afternoon rest."
As Tony Schwartz, CEO of The Energy Project writes, it's no surprise that the same principles that apply to athletic performance also hold true for business performance. In physical training, he writes, "it's during rest and renewal that muscle growth actually occurs." Likewise, it's in periods of sleep and downtime that our minds recharge. The key is to have "the biggest waves between activity and rest." To challenge our minds intensely, but also have very deliberate and complete downtime. "The same rhythmic movement serves us well all day long, but instead we live mostly linear, sedentary lives," he writes. "We go from email to email, and meeting to meeting, almost never getting much movement, and rarely taking time to recover mentally and emotionally."
So, not only is there no trade-off between high performance and living a full life, the former is not possible in a sustainable way without the latter. And this applies to both companies and individuals. There is no company whose bottom line will not be enhanced by healthier, happier, less-stressed, well-slept, centered employees.
And, yes, there is a paradox here: what we're talking about, really, is what's ultimately important in our lives. And, as it turns out, the tools and practices that put us in touch with ourselves and make us present for what's really important in our lives also make us more successful at many of the very things that these practices make us realize aren't the most important things. In other words, these practices -- meditation, yoga, sleeping, recharging and renewing ourselves, etc. -- make us better at our jobs, at the same time they make us aware that our jobs don't define the totality of who we are.
If your entry point right now is only that you want to be better at your job, or that you want your company to have higher profits, that's fine. But along with that will likely come some added perspective -- and that's even better.
Writing in the New York Times about the Third Metric conference we held in June, Anand Giridharadas saw this paradox. "Of course, there is risk in this approach, too. To make the case for greater attention to well-being in terms of its effect on work performance may be to win the battle and lose the war. The victor remains the idea that what is good for work is good for us."
The optimist in me believes that we'll win both. One day there will be no more split screen. In the meantime, we should remember to regularly shut the screen off.




Alan Russell



  • Flag and HideLukeAleksander V.
    LukeAleksander V.
    Manging Partner&ChiefConsultant at BIONESTS.ENFINITY
    People just work, and now socialize through the I phones. I believe, some rather forget to eat even.Why the folks do not consider about the eventual results, of achievement of any sort, has to lead to the mental happiness and related gains. The Indian saints are believed to be taking to meditation for years, and then come out with knowledge and wisdom, that make them valuable teachers to the society. Keep yourself away from the daily routines of work schedules, and move out to the nature. Just sit there, and watch the life around. Nothing gained materialistic, could reward with peace of mind as desired by the person himself.
    3 minutes ago
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideAlejandro M.
    Alejandro M.
    Marketing /Strategy /Communications | Social Media | Systemic Thinking, Sustainability; GreenMBA w/ Wine Industry Focus
    This "Third Metric" sounds like the triple bottom line to me (profit, people, planet), which has been around since the mid 90's. However I wholeheartedly encourage any effort to address the "people" factor. And especially this "disease", which I fervently believe is also behind problems like the hordes of people out there "self-medicating" with prescription drugs to cope with work and family life (or lack thereof), coupled with Big Pharma over-prescribing, the "shooter" epidemic (and they seem to be almost monthly now), mass murderers, serial killers, sending kids off to wars (based on lies), and then pulling the rug out from under them when they return with PTSD, etc etc ad nauseam. No other country on the planet has the severity of these types of problems like the USA. We also are the only "developed" country with no national health care, the fewest weeks of mandatory vacation per year, we have one of the largest discrepancies between what our teachers are paid versus how much they work (which is representative of what we value over education), and we have the largest disparity in pay between those at the top of the corporate pyramid (CEO), and those at the bottom being the employees (and remember, all corporations are pyramid schemes). These are not disconnected issues. Only when the sheeple wake up and demand radical change, will this "disease" be dealt with. Until then, our society will continue to careen towards a pre-feudal state where there are a few "have-lots", and there are many many "have-nots".
    9 minutes ago
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideYvette P.
    Yvette P.
    Senior Account Manager at HHAdvertising
    If only it were a choice... Those of us who do not hold executive positions don't have the option of turning off the emails. Even while working on a project that requires concentration I can't ignore emails for 1 hour because people stop by my office asking "did you see my email". And once I get back to checking emails I'll have 60-70 waiting that piled up during that hour. And what about those of us who are REQUIRED to be connected 24/7? As far as "wellness programs" my experience has been that the HR dept develops them as something that exists "on paper" without allowing staff time to actually use it.
    22 minutes ago
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideWenshan J.
    Wenshan J.
    Ph. D., Professor of Intercultural Communication
    Daoism explains it all!
    23 minutes ago
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideSarah M.
    Sarah M.
    Social Marketing at Sprout Social, Inc.
    Thanks for adressing this issue, Arianna! Personally, dedicating time to non-work related activities isn't too difficult now, but I can see it being a significant challenge in the future. Getting enough sleep is another issue. However, I listened to something yesterday that was incredibly aspirational to get more sleep. If you need any further evidence that this article, listen to Russell Foster's TED talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWULB9Aoopc
    37 minutes ago
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideDonald J.
    Donald J.
    Owner, ranchonlittlecreek.com
    Very good article.
    37 minutes ago
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideAustin A.
    Austin A.
    Attorney at law at Star chambers
    It is really necessary to have sometime to rest. It enhances performance. And it is true that those who made the best of life do not put much into it.
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideDenise F.
    Denise F.
    Clerical Office Support/Volunteer at Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
    Unemployed - Out of work for over 4 years - Stressed and burnt out. I understand that this article is geared to the employed. Only I don't think that many companies or the employed themselves know the physical exhaustion one goes through being out of work. You can eat because your body is so stress out worrying about money and life's payments; bills, rent, utilities. I wake up in the middle of the night, sit up in bed and start crying because I am always thinking of money. I am down to nothing in the bank. I have been looking into Section 8 housing for more than 5 months, eventually my landlord is going to kick us out to the curb. I eat one meal a day because that is all that I can afford. My refrigerator is empty. I AM FAR FROM LAZY, I look for jobs everyday, everywhere; 5 hours a day. I worked for Morgan Stanley, Inc. - before they merged with Smith Barney for 20.10 years, they laid me off in January of 2008; it is now 2013 and I am still looking for work. I had one (7 month) data entry assignment in 2011. My age is a factor too, I am 56, NO company is giving back to the baby boomers, all companies are geared to the hiring of the YOUTH PILL society. College no: 30 years of guaranteed clerical and customer services experience, YES. I can't believe that companies are looking for four years of college to their open File Clerk positions. I learnt my ABC's and 123's in grade school; give me a break. In my resume my filing experience is as follows: numerical, alphabetical, alphanumerical, color coded, collated, invoice, cusip, regional, security number, container and custom house seal, vault security and underwriters insurance accounts policies; what else do these recruiters and companies want? I am totally worthless to myself and my family. I am not the only older job hunter going through this plight, there are many who just can't catch a break. If I don't get some help; real help, not just another website I am going to loose it. My son can't talk to me because all I talk about is getting a job and the money I have left in the bank; my husband and my son are collateral damage to me being out of work. This makes them stress out as well. Burnt out; I am scorched around the edges.
    1 Reply
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
    • Flag and HideColin Wilson
      Colin Wilson
      Working with leaders to turn ambition into action, and action into results
      Denise, thanks for your huge contribution to this debate. It's too easy to think about the third metric when you might be registering on the scale with the first two - money and power. You have reminded me that it is about balance across all three. I wish you every success in finding a job - and your post here might speed that along. In fact, you might want to think about different avenues too. You have a lot to say and others, I'm sure, would like to hear your voice - particularly those that share your situation but not your ability to bring it to life. Good luck
      10 minutes ago
  • Flag and HideGregg W.
    Gregg W.
    Manufacturing Engineer at Nintendo of America
    Fantastic article. More companies should adopt this approach when defining their workplace environments.
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideScott W.
    Scott W.
    Owner // hencil
    I'm a business owner and serial entrepreneur and have found that my most powerful counter-balance to work burnout is my "desire pack." I've identified my most earnest desires for my business, for my family, for my relationship with my wife, for my church assignments, and for my physical fitness. When I'm pursuing my most earnest desires in the various areas of my life I find that I'm balanced, refreshed and invigorated by what's next. I find energy and zeal flowing back into me as I close down concerted efforts in one category and look forward to starting a task or creative challenge in another. Letting my variety of desires bounce against each other, competing for my resources, gives me a really healthy balance.
    Jodie A.
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideMichelle W.
    Michelle W.
    Co-Author,The Orange Line: A Woman's Guide to Integrating Career, Family & Life, Company Director at JMK Publishing Inc.
    And because of the long term negative effects a work centric career affords, we developed a new career model; The Orange Line, where you live both and ...career, life...the difference? You choose your response to the noise/stimuli, you repel the addiction to busyness and feeling 'overwhelmed'. Not visa versa. It's a thoughtful approach where mind and spirit is slowed down, breaks are taken, sometimes daily! This is a sustainable approach to career, family and life...for the better good.
    Jodie A.
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HidePaul T.
    Paul T.
    Solar energy and conservation consultant
    It's why dog owners are happier.
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideArthur D.
    Arthur D.
    Professional Facilitator -- Assisting Trustee/Executor(s) with Their Responsibilities and Duties in Settling the Estate
    Good article. The focus on the North American model for work ('til you drop) is not a culturally beneficial model. hard work is good but time for re-vitalization and stimulation is necessary. I'm glad to hear that some American businesses are taking into account the metric of health to business success -- let's hope it keeps evolving.
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideIsabel G.
    Isabel G.
    President/Owner of Isabel Garreton, Inc
    Reading the article Burnout: The Disease of Our Civilization makes me wonder about that place where every person looks and hopefully finds life satisfaction in a more balanced use of their time. I have made the following remark in various presentations throughout my entrepreneurial life. My focus has been dedicated to perpetuating artisans skills that speak loudly of touch to a world that worships technology, but feels nostalgia for a time and a place, hard to experience, full of human content. I am with you Arianna, we need to learn when to turn the screen off to be more effective when we have it on.
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideKathy A.
    Kathy A.
    ERA Europe - Master Franchise Development Director
    It all begins with leadership and those executives who have the strength and vision to give thier team the space and time to succeed, fail and heal. It's a dual responsiblity on one hand to speak up and say I need time, and then for the management to listen. It pays on the long term.
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideBlake S.
    Blake S.
    NCC Financial Planning & Analysis
    There is quite literally an app for that: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.digitalvacay.dv&hl=en
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideTara R.
    Tara R.
    Healthy Habit Coach at theHealthyHabitCoach.com
    Love to see the word being spread on sustainable wellness in our world. What is success if not the quality of life to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Thank you for this post.
    2 hours ago
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideHolly J.
    Holly J.
    Information Developer at Hewlett-Packard
    Brilliant. Unfortunately, some have found that even taking a year off doesn't necessarily lead to happiness and fulfillment. http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/1/4279674/im-still-here-back-online-after-a-year-without-the-internet
    2 hours ago
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideTodd L.
    Todd L.
    Vice President of Executive Search - Talent Acquisition, Vistage International, CIR
    Great post, not sure why American culture is so against R&R...
    2 hours ago
    Adrien P.
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
  • Flag and HideBillie K.
    Billie K.
    Business Coach/Consultant. Maverick entrepreneur, Polymath, Huff Post Blogger, Making it happen.
    Excellent post. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/billie-kell/no-regrets-aka-live-your-_b_2301382.html Focus on living #life with #noregrets = #business benefits.
    2 hours ago
    Alan Russell
    
    
    
    
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