The Woman Who Discovered 'Burnout'
Professor Christina Maslach coined a term in the mid-1970s which remains utterly urgent: burnout.
It’s not just the exhaustion which comes from overworking, but a more fundamental loss of meaning from the work you do. It’s unhealthy work. There is a moral dimension too (which is central to our 7 steps to avoid burnout)
As Professor Maslach writes, “burnout is a psychological syndrome emerging as a prolonged response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job. The three key dimensions of this response are:
An overwhelming exhaustion
Feelings of cynicism and detachment from the job
A sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment”
We’ve been catching up with Professor Maslach to reflect on why burnout seems to be more pervasive than ever - and what we, and companies, can actively to do stave off burnout.
Watch our chat here
The Balance Between You and Your Job
As she mentions, central to burnout is the fit between you and your work - which she breaks down into six core areas:
Workload is the one that everybody thinks of first. It must be they’re working too hard. They’re stressed out. The imbalance between too many demands, too few resources to get it done. But there are five other areas that turn out to be just as important.
Control. In other words, how much autonomy you have in your work, how much choice, or discretion to figure out how to do it the best way or innovate in some way.
Reward. People think of things like salary, benefits, perks, et cetera. We’re finding in the research that social reward is sometimes more important, that other people notice that they appreciate what you do and let you know that you’ve done something that’s really meaningful.
Community. These are all the relationships that you have at work, with other colleagues, your boss, clients, whoever. Are those relationships functioning well? Are they supportive? Do you trust? Do you have ways of working out disagreements and figuring out how to move forward, work together well on teams, et cetera.
Fairness. This turns out to be a very important one. Is whatever the policy is, whatever the practices are, here in this place, are they fairly administered in terms of who gets the opportunity? Are there glass ceilings, or discrimination, or other things that block people from moving forward when they should have that chance?
Values. Which sometimes turns out to be one of the most important. This is meaning. This is why am I doing this. Why am I here? What do I care about? What is important to me, in terms of what I think is important for our society, the contributions I make, and so forth? With burnout, it’s not just about being exhausted and working too hard and being tired. It’s often that the spirit, the passion, the meaning is just getting beaten out of you, as opposed to being allowed to thrive and grow.
