🥇"Burned" employees: is there a way out?

You work for a good company. There are cool professionals around you, you get a decent salary, you do important and necessary things every day. Elon Musk launches satellites, Sergey Semyonovich improves the already best city on Earth. The weather is great, the sun is shining, the trees are blooming - live and rejoice!

But in your team there is Sad Ignat. Ignat is always gloomy, cynical and tired. He is an excellent specialist, has been working in the company for a long time and knows how everything works. Everyone wants to help Ignat. Especially you, because you are his manager. But, after talking with Ignat, you yourself begin to feel how much injustice is around. And you start to feel sad too. But it’s especially scary if the sad Ignat is you.

What to do? How to work with Ignat? Welcome to the cat!

My name is Ilya Ageev, I have been working at Badoo for almost eight years, and I manage a large quality control department. There are almost 80 people under my supervision. And today I want to discuss with you a problem that almost everyone in the IT field faces sooner or later.

Burnout is often called differently: emotional burnout, professional burnout, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc. In my article, I will only talk about what concerns our professional activities, that is, professional burnout. This article is a transcript my reportwith whom I performed Badoo Techleads Meetup #4.

By the way, the image of Ignat is a collective one. As they say, any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental.

Burnout - what is it?

This is what a burnt out person usually looks like. We have all seen this many times and we don’t really need to explain who these burnt ones are. However, I will linger a little on the definition.

If you try to summarize thoughts about what burnout is, you get the following list:

it is an incessant fatigue;
it is emotional exhaustion;
it is work aversion, procrastination;
this is increased irritability, cynicism, negativism;
this is a decrease in enthusiasm and activity, a lack of faith in the best;
it's black and white thinking and one big DON'T care.

To date, in the ICD (International Classification of Diseases), the definition of professional burnout is presented as part of a broader category - overwork. In 2022, WHO plans to switch to the new edition of the ICD, 11th, and it defines professional burnout more clearly. According to ICD-11, professional burnout is a syndrome recognized as the result of chronic stress at work, stress that has not been successfully overcome.

It should be especially noted that this is not a disease, but a medical condition that can lead to illness. And this condition is characterized by three signs:

feeling of energy depletion or exhaustion;
the growth of a negative attitude towards work, distancing from it;
decrease in labor efficiency.

Before moving on, let's clarify the concept of a norm. In fact, constantly smiling and being positive is also not normal. Laughter for no reason is known to be a sign of foolishness. It's okay to be sad from time to time. It becomes a problem when it lasts a long time.

What is the most common cause of professional burnout? It is clear that this is a lack of rest, constant “fires” and their “extinguishment” in an emergency mode. But it is also important to understand that even measured work in conditions where it is not clear how to evaluate the results, what is the goal, where we are moving, also contributes to professional burnout.

You should also remember that negativity is contagious. It happens that entire departments and even entire companies become infected with the virus of professional burnout and gradually die.

And the dangerous consequences of professional burnout are not only a drop in productivity and a deterioration in the atmosphere in the team, but also real health problems. It can lead to mental and psychosomatic disorders.

The main danger is that working with your head is energy-consuming. The more and more often we use something, the more likely it is that this place will have problems in the future. Professional athletes experience problems with joints and muscles, knowledge workers - with the head.

What goes on in the mind of the burnt out

To understand how the human brain works, one has to look far back in history and see how it evolved in terms of evolution.

The brain is like something like cabbage or layer cake: new layers seem to grow on top of the old ones. Three large parts of the human brain can be distinguished: the reptilian brain, which is responsible for basic instincts like “fight or flight” (fight or flight in English literature); the midbrain, or animal brain, responsible for emotions; and neocortex - the newest parts of the brain that are responsible for rational thinking and make us human.

More ancient parts of the brain arose so long ago that they managed to undergo evolutionary “polishing”. The reptile brain originated 100 million years ago. The brain of mammals - 50 million years ago. The neocortex began to develop only 1,5-2 million years ago. And the mind of Homo sapiens is generally no more than 100 thousand years old.

Therefore, the ancient parts of the brain are “sillier” in terms of logic, but much faster and stronger than our neocortex. I really like Maxim Dorofeev's analogy about the train that travels from Moscow to Vladivostok. Imagine that this train is going, it is full of demobilizations and gypsies. And somewhere near Khabarovsk, a bespectacled intellectual comes in and tries to reason with this whole crowd. Represented? Hard? This is how the rational part of the brain often fails to bring order to the emotional response. The latter is simply stronger.

So, we have the ancient part of the brain, which is fast, but not always smart, and the newest part, which is smart, can think abstractly and build logical chains, but is very slow and requires a lot of energy. Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate and founder of cognitive psychology, called these two parts System 1 and System 2. According to Kahneman, our thinking works like this: information first enters System 1, which is faster, it gives a solution, if there is one, or transfers this information further - to System 2, if there is no solution.

There are several ways to demonstrate the operation of these systems. Take a look at this picture of a smiling girl.

A quick glance at her is enough for us to understand that she is smiling: we do not analyze each part of her face separately, we do not think that the corners of her lips are raised, the corners of her eyes are lowered, etc. We immediately understand that the girl is smiling. This is the job of System 1.

3255 * 100 = ?

Or here is a simple mathematical example, which we can also solve automatically, using the mental rule "take two zeros from a hundred and add them to the first number." You don’t even need to count - the result is immediately clear. This is also the work of System 1.

3255 * 7 = ?

And here, despite the fact that the number 7 is much less than the number 100, we will no longer be able to give a quick answer. We must count. And everyone will do it in their own way: someone in a column, someone will multiply 3255 by 10, then by 3 and subtract the second from the first result, someone will immediately give up and take out a calculator. This is the job of System 2.

Kahneman describes this experiment with one more interesting detail: if you are walking with a friend and offer him to solve this example on the go, then it is very likely that he will stop to make calculations. This is because the work of System 2 is VERY energy-consuming, and the brain cannot even execute the program for your movement in space at this moment.

What follows from this? And the fact that this is a very powerful mechanism by which learning works is the acquisition of automatism. This is how we learn to type on the keyboard, drive a car and play musical instruments. First, we think through each step, each movement with the help of System 2, And then we gradually push the acquired skills into the area of responsibility of System 1 for economy and faster response. These are the advantages of our thinking.

But there are also disadvantages. Due to our automatism and the desire to act on System 1, we often act rashly. And this complex system also has bugs. They are called cognitive distortions. These may be nice oddities that do not particularly interfere with life, or there may be obvious implementation bugs.

Generalization of special cases. This is when we draw large-scale conclusions based on insignificant facts. We noticed that cracked cookies were brought to the office - we conclude that the company is no longer a cake and is falling apart.

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, or the illusion of frequency. The phenomenon lies in the fact that after the occurrence of an event, if we meet a similar one again, it is perceived as unusually frequent. For example, you bought a blue car and were surprised to notice that there are a lot of blue cars around. Or you saw a couple of times that product managers made a mistake, and later you see only that they are wrong.

Confirmation biaswhen we pay attention only to the information that confirms our own views, and do not take into account the facts that contradict these views. For example, with negative thoughts in our heads, we pay attention only to bad events, and we simply do not notice positive changes in the company.

Fundamental attribution error: all Gascons, and I am d'Artagnan. This is when we tend to explain the mistakes of others by their personal qualities, and the achievements by luck, and in the case of ourselves, the opposite is true. Example: a colleague who put the production down is not a good person, and if I put it in, it means “bad luck, it happens.”

Just World Phenomenonwhen we believe that there is some higher justice in the name of which everyone should act.

Do you notice anything? “Yes, this is typical burnout thinking!” you say. And I'll tell you more: this is a typical way of thinking for each of us.

You can illustrate the work of cognitive distortions in this way: look at this picture. We see a smiling girl. We even recognize actress Jennifer Aniston. System 1 tells us all this, there is no need to think about it.

But if we flip the picture, we see something very scary, System 1 refuses to understand this.

Nevertheless, we made far-reaching conclusions by looking at the first picture.

There is another example that illustrates the wrong perception of reality at the moment when we are focused on one thing. So imagine two teams: white and black. White players throw the ball only to whites, black players only to blacks. Participants in the experiment were asked to count the number of passes made by white players. At the end, they were asked how many passes there were, and asked a second question: Did they see a man in a gorilla suit? It turned out that in the middle of the game, a man in a gorilla suit came out to the court and even performed a small dance. But most of the participants in the experiment did not see him, because they were busy counting passes.

Similarly, a person who is focused on the negative sees only the negative around him and does not notice the positive things.

There are a lot of cognitive distortions, their existence is confirmed by the results of experiments. And they were discovered by the scientific method: when a hypothesis is formed and an experiment is carried out, during which it is confirmed or refuted.

The situation is greatly aggravated by the fact that the life of a modern person is fundamentally different from the life of our ancestors, but the structure of the brain is not. Each of us has a smartphone. Every free minute we check what's new in the virtual world: who posted what on Instagram, what's interesting on Facebook. We have access to all the libraries in the world: there is so much information that we cannot only digest it, but even absorb it. There will not be enough human life to master and assimilate all this.

As a result - overheating of the cuckoo.

So, a burnt out person is a person who is constantly in a depressed state. Negative thoughts swirl in his head, and cognitive distortions prevent him from getting out of this vicious circle of negativity:

the brain of a burned-out employee in every possible way hints to him that it is necessary to change the usual way of life - hence procrastination and rejection of one's duties;
such a person hears you perfectly, but does not understand, because he has other values, he perceives the world through a different prism;
it is useless for him to say: “Smile, the sun is shining! It's good, what are you doing!" - such a conversation, on the contrary, can plunge him even deeper into negativity, because everything is in order with his logic and he remembers that the sun and everything else used to please him, but now they don’t;
it is believed that such people have a more sober view of things, since they do not have rose-colored glasses, they perfectly notice all the negativity around you. While positive-minded people may simply not notice such things.

There is a wonderful anecdote. A man is driving a new car past a mental hospital, and a wheel falls off. There is a spare tire, but the trouble is that together with the wheel, the bolts flew into the ditch. The man stands and does not know what to do. Several patients are sitting on the fence. They tell him: “And you take a bolt from the other three wheels and screw on the spare tire. Not fast, but still get to the nearest service. The man says: “Yes, this is brilliant! What are you all doing here, if you can think so well? And they answer him: “Dude, we are psychos, not morons! Logically, we're fine." So, our burnt-out guys have everything in order with logic, don't forget about it.

It should be especially noted that the word “depression”, which has become popular today, is different. Depressive personality disorder is quite a medical diagnosis that only a doctor can make. And when you are sad, but after an ice cream and a bath with candles and foam, everything is gone - this is not depression. Depression is when you lie on the couch, you understand that you haven’t eaten anything for three days, something is on fire in the next room, but you don’t care. If you observe something similar in yourself, consult a doctor immediately!

How to build work with burnt out

How to maintain the workflow and at the same time raise the motivation of a burned-out employee from the bottom? Let's figure it out.

To begin with, we must understand for ourselves that we are not professional psychologists and it is impossible to educate an adult - he has already been educated. The main work to get out of the state of burnout should be done by the employee himself. We should focus on helping him.

First, just listen to him. Remember we talked about how negative thoughts cause a person to focus on the negative? So, a burned out employee is a valuable source of information about what is not working optimally in your company or department. Priorities may differ between you and the employee, as well as ways to improve the situation. But the fact that a person can bring you on a silver platter all the shortcomings that you can and should work on is a fact. So listen to such an employee carefully.

Consider a change of scenery. This is not always and not always possible, but a short respite and a margin of time can be given by the transfer of a burned-out employee to another type of activity. It could be a transfer to another department. Or even to another company, it also happens, and that's fine. It should be borne in mind that this is, by the way, the easiest way, but not always effective, because in most cases this is only an apparent change. If, for example, a person made websites on Joomla, and in a new company he will make websites on WordPress, practically nothing in his life will change. As a result, he will do about the same thing, the effect of novelty will quickly disappear and burnout will occur again.

Now let's talk about how to deal with the daily tasks of a burned out employee.

This is where my favorite situational leadership model from Hersey and Blanchard, which I mentioned in previous article. It postulates that there is no single ideal leadership style that managers can apply on a daily basis to all employees and all tasks. On the contrary, the style of management should be chosen depending on the specific task and the specific performer.

This model introduces the concept of the level of operational maturity. There are four such levels in total. Depending on two parameters - the employee's professional expertise in a specific task and his motivation - we determine his level of working maturity. This will be the minimum value of these two parameters.

Accordingly, the leadership style depends on the level of working maturity of the employee and can be directive, mentoring, supportive and delegating.

With the directive style, we give specific instructions, orders and carefully control each step of the performer.
With mentoring, the same thing happens, only we also explain why one should act one way or another, we sell the decisions made.
With a supportive leadership style, we help the employee in making decisions, we coach him.
When delegating, we completely delegate the task, demonstrating a minimum of participation.

It is clear that burnt out employees, even if they are experts in their field, cannot work at a level of working maturity above the second, because they are not ready to take responsibility.

Thus, the responsibility lies with the manager. And you should strive to move burnt out employees to higher levels of working maturity as soon as possible, increasing their motivation. We will talk about this further.

Helping a burnt-out employee to increase motivation

Emergency measure number one: reduce requirements. Before you is no longer the peppy and brave Ignat, who could rewrite the entire project overnight to a new framework and work without rest. You have a chance to get him back, but now it's not him.

Emergency measure number two: divide tasks into parts. So that they can be solved "at low thrust". We remove from the definition of tasks “to study, find, analyze, convince, learn” and other words that imply an indefinite set of actions that should lead to the completion of the task. We set smaller tasks: “install, launch, call, assign”, etc. The very fact of completing clearly formulated tasks will motivate Ignat and pull him out of procrastination. It is not necessary to break tasks yourself and bring a ready-made list to Ignat - depending on his expertise and your relationship with him, breaking tasks into parts can be done together.

Emergency action number three: set clear criteria for completing the task and assessing the quality of work. How will you both know that the task is complete? How will you evaluate its success? This must be formulated clearly and agreed in advance.

Emergency measure number four: use the carrot and stick method. Good old skinner behaviorism. But we must keep in mind that in the case of a burnt-out employee, the carrot should prevail, not the whip. This is called "positive stimulation" and the method is widely used in both animal training and child rearing. I highly recommend reading Karen Pryor's Don't Growl at Your Dog!, it's all about positive stimulation, and the approaches described in it may come in handy more than once in your life.

Emergency action number five: focus on the positive. I don’t mean at all that we need to approach the sad Ignat more often, slap him on the shoulder and say: “Smile!”. As I mentioned, this will only make things worse. My point is that often, when reviewing completed tasks, we focus on problems. We are all logical and pragmatic, it seems right: we discussed the mistakes, thought about how to avoid them in the future, and parted ways. As a result, discussion of successes and achievements is often overlooked. They should be shouted about at every corner: advertise them, show everyone how cool we are.

We figured out the emergency measures, let's move on.

What to do to prevent burnout

Required:

Clearly formulate long-term and short-term goals.
Encourage employee timeouts: send them on vacation, reduce the number of jobs, overtime, etc.
Stimulate the professional development of employees. They need a challenge. And in the conditions of measured development, when the processes are built, there seems to be nowhere to take the challenge. Nevertheless, even an employee who has visited a regular meetup can bring a breath of fresh air to the team.
Avoid unnecessary competition. Woe to that leader who pushes his subordinates head-on. For example, he tells two people that they are both candidates for the position of his deputy. Or the introduction of a new framework: whoever shows himself better will get a tasty morsel. This practice will not lead to anything other than undercover games.
Give feedback. I don’t even mean a formal one-on-one meeting where you collect your thoughts and clear your throat and try to tell the employee what he did well and what he did wrong. Often, even a simple human thank you is what is so lacking. Personally, I prefer informal communication in an informal setting and I think that this is much more effective than formal rallies according to the rules.

What is desirable to do:

Become an informal leader. As I said, this is very important, much more important and cooler than formal leadership. Often, an informal leader has even more power and methods of influence than a formal one.
Know your employees: who is interested in what, who has what hobbies and family relationships, when is their birthday.
Creating a positive environment is the key to creative work. Do self-promotion, show everyone what cool things you do.
Do not forget that your employees are, first of all, people with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Well, the last instruction: talk to your employees. But remember that words must be followed by actions. One of the most important qualities of a leader is the ability to be responsible for one's words. Be the leader!

What to do if sad Ignat is you?

It so happened that you became a sad Ignat. You yourself began to suspect this, or colleagues and relatives said that you have changed recently. How to live on?

The easiest and cheapest way is to leave. But the simplest does not always mean the best. Because you can't get away from yourself. And the fact that your brain requires changes does not always mean that it is work that needs to be changed - it is necessary to change the way of life. In addition, I know many cases where leaving only made it worse. To be fair, I must say that the opposite cases are also known to me.

If you still decide to leave the company, do it in an adult way. Hand over things. Break up well. There is an opinion that it is easier for companies to part with burnt-out employees than to somehow deal with burnout. It seems to me that this came from the times of the USSR, when burnout was observed mainly in professions whose representatives work with people: doctors, teachers, cashiers, etc. Probably, then it really was easier with this, because there were no irreplaceable ones. But now, when companies are fighting for talented employees and are ready to offer a bunch of benefits, if only they would go to them, it is unreasonably expensive to lose good specialists. Therefore, I assure you, it is beneficial for a normal company that you do not leave. And if it is easier for the employer to part with you, then your concerns about the “goodness” of the company are correct and you should leave it without regrets.

Thinking about trying to fight burnout? I have news for you, both good and bad. The bad thing is that your main enemy, who drove you into this state, is yourself. And the good thing is that your main friend, who is able to get you out of this state, is also you. Remember that your brain directly screams that you need to change your life? So let's do it.

1. Talk to your supervisor

An open dialogue is the key to solving any problems. If you do nothing, then nothing will change. And if you show the leader this article, it will be even easier.

2. Focus on what brings you joy

First of all, in my personal life, outside the office. Nobody but you knows what is good for you and what is bad. Do more of the things that make you happy and get rid of the things that make you sad. Do not read the news, remove politics from your life. Watch your favorite movies, listen to your favorite music. Go to places you like: the park, the theatre, the club. Put on your calendar the task “Do something nice for yourself” (every day!).

3. Get some rest

Go on vacation. Set a reminder on your phone, smartwatch, or computer to take regular breaks throughout the day. Just go to the window and look at the crows. Give your brain and eyes a rest.

The training of our capabilities - physical or mental - is to do as much as you can and a little more. But then you must definitely rest - only in this way progress is possible. Without rest, stress does not train you, it kills you.
The rule works very well: left the office - forget about work!

4. Change your habits

Walk outdoors. Walk the last stop to your home and office on foot. Plunge with cold water. Quit smoking. Change the habits that you have already formed: this is what your brain wants!

5. Get a daily routine

This will make it easier to control and stimulate change. Get enough sleep: biorhythms are important. Go to bed and get up at the same time (you will be surprised to find that you get better sleep this way than if you play tricks on the clubs until the morning, and then go to work).

6. Go in for sports

We have been familiar with the phrase “a healthy mind in a healthy body” since childhood, which is probably why we do not pay enough attention to it. But it's true: physical health is very much interconnected with mental health. Therefore, it is important and necessary to play sports. Start small: spend five minutes in the morning exercising.

Pull up on the horizontal bar three times, gradually reach up to five times.
Start jogging for 15 minutes in the morning.
Sign up for yoga or swimming.
Just don't set a goal to run a marathon or become an Olympic champion. You will definitely fill it up and throw it away. Start small.

7. Make a to-do list

This gives excellent results - starting with the fact that you do not forget anything, ending with the feeling that you are tired like a dog, although you seem to have done nothing.

Checkboxing is soothing in itself. A person in a state of burnout strives for stability. Seeing a list of things in front of you and gradually marking them as done is very motivating.
But again, start small: too large a list with too voluminous tasks will make you doubt your own abilities and quit what you started.

8. Find a hobby

Remember what you wanted to try as a child, but did not have time. Take up painting, music, wood burning, or cross-stitching. Learn to cook. Go hunting or fishing: who knows, maybe these activities will appeal to you.

9. Work with your hands

Get out of the apartment. Mark in the entryway. Pick up trash from the playground. Fix a locker door that has been dangling for a long time. Chop wood for a neighbor's grandmother, dig a garden in the country. Make a flower bed in the yard. Feel tired, and then get a good night's sleep: your head will be empty (no negative thoughts!) and you will find that along with the physical fatigue, the psychological one has also gone.

The stick and carrot method that I recommended to managers is called “stick and carrot” in English literature. The meaning is the same: reward for the right behavior and punishment for the wrong one.

This method has one big drawback: it does not work well when there is no trainer nearby. And in the absence of regular training, all acquired skills gradually disappear. But the beauty is that this method can be applied to yourself. You can think of it like this: intelligent System 2 trains unintelligent System 1. This really works: reward yourself for doing what was planned.

For example, when I started going to the gym, I really didn’t want to get up in the morning and go carry pieces of iron. I think this is familiar to many. So, I set a condition for myself: I go to the gym, and then I will allow myself to go to the bathhouse. And I love baths. I got used to it: now it drives me to go to the gym even without a bath.

If everything that I have listed seems to be an overwhelming task for you and you do not have the desire to at least try, then you need to immediately consult a doctor. Your condition has probably gone too far. Just keep in mind that the doctor will not give you a magic pill that will instantly make you feel good. Even in this case, you will have to work on your own.

For the future: Learn to say “no” and listen to what others have to say. Remember that cognitive distortions often prevent us from seeing the real picture of the world, just like everyone else. Forget about your hyper-responsibility and your perfectionism. Remember that you don't owe anything to anyone. But no one owes you anything.

In no way am I urging you right now to go all out and start doing game. The fact is that doing what you want is not the same as not doing what you don’t want to do. Just the next time you do something that you don't like, think: how did you even get into this situation?

Maybe at some point you should have said “no”?

Maybe you are trying to bring the problem to some ideal solution, which is ideal only for you, in the name of some ideals that you have created for yourself?

Maybe you're doing it because you "should" and because everyone else is doing it? In general, beware of the word "should". To whom should? Why should? Very often behind this word is someone's manipulation. Go to an animal shelter. You will simply be stunned by the realization that someone can simply love you. Not because you do cool projects. Not because you have time to do them on time. But just because you are you.

Sad Ignat is closer than it seems

You may have a question: where did you get all this, so businesslike?

And I'll tell you: this is my experience. This is the experience of my colleagues, my subordinates and my leaders. These are the mistakes and achievements that I myself have seen. And the solutions that I propose really work and have been used in different situations in different proportions.

Unfortunately, when I encountered such a problem, I did not have such detailed instructions as you have now. Probably, if I had it, I would have made much fewer mistakes. Therefore, I really hope that this instruction will help you not to step on this rake.

Dear Ignat!

We have come to the end of the story, and I want to address you personally.

Remember that this is your life. You and only you can improve it. You are the master of your own emotional state.

The next time they say to you: “Smile! What are you? All the same, it’s good!”, don’t get upset and don’t reproach yourself for not having fun.

Only you can decide when to be sad and when to smile.

Take care of yourself!

Books and authors I mentioned in the article:

Karen Pryor Don't growl at the dog!
Daniel Kahneman "Think slow... decide fast."
Maxim Dorofeev Jedi Techniques.

"Burned" employees: is there a way out?