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© Katarzyna Kloskowska-Kustosz
“You can’t burn out if you have never been on fire…” – Jeff Schmidt
We all wish our job was meaningful; we want the things we do to be
important and useful. We put plenty of time and energy into our work,
as long as we have the strength... When we start running out of energy
we lose our inner peace. Our frustration grows… Our professional
effectiveness drops. We are facing professional burnout syndrome.
Ironically, those who are strongly motivated, ambitious and really
engaged in their work are the ones most prone to this syndrome…
Professional burnout is a state of being physically, emotionally and
intellectually exhausted, resulting in chronic tiredness. It is
accompanied by a negative attitude towards work, people and life,
feelings of helplessness and hopelessness in their situation, and
frequently many psychosomatic symptoms. Moreover, professional burnout
is accompanied by an unwillingness to take any new action.
How to develop burnout workers
Traditionally, the development of employees in many organisations is
understood as acquiring new skills and knowledge with the aim of
increasing the employee’s effectiveness. Usually this is done through
various types of trainings.
However, it is worth remembering that for complete, rounded development
it is necessary to maintain equilibrium between all spheres of life
important for us. Thus, equipping workers with the skills to help them
regain this balance may be a good solution. These can be the skills
from the areas described below.
Managing stress
The inability to manage stress is one cause of professional burnout. A
typical working day is full of stressful situations, one after another.
If we do not learn to manage the resulting tension, the consequences
will be multiplied. An ambitious worker wanting to fulfil their tasks
well has every chance of getting caught in a vicious circle. So it is
essential that workers be taught how to minimise stress-induced
tension.
‘Me’ as the source of stress
An additional source of stress comes from increasing work pressure by
ourselves. It may result from unrealistic wishes and expectations
towards ourselves and others. For example, ‘I want to be better than
all of the others’, ‘I want to do everything perfectly’, ‘I want all my
employees to like and respect me’. We cannot fulfil such expectations,
of which we are even often unaware. It is good to exchange them,
through conscious work, with more realistic assumptions. What is
necessary here are the skills within the areas of assertiveness and
setting oneself goals.
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Cognitive paralysis
People working long within a certain profession or in a
certain post very often start to feel the state known as cognitive
paralysis – ‘I cannot think of anything new I could do to do my job
better’.
People with long practice sometimes face a situation where it is very
hard for them to reach the resources they have. Finally they do not
know what they do not know yet, what they cannot do and start behaving
like they did not know what they already know!
At this stage the techniques of creative problem solving and the ability to use them become extremely important.
Relations with others
We are very often subject to loneliness as a result of too
many purely professional relations, contacting all day long lots of
people with whom it is necessary to maintain professional business
relations. This great number of business contacts instead of bringing
satisfaction becomes a real burden. We do really miss true, supportive
relations.
In this case it is also advisable to strengthen the skills of being
assertive. Managing negative emotions, accepting criticism and saying
‘No’, these are skills that let you observe your relations with others
and introduce more equilibrium into your life.
Individual coaching for managers
Individual coaching with a holistic approach may be the answer
to the problems of professional burnout among managers. This is a type
of coaching involving not only knowledge and skills, but also the
system of views, values and habits of acting and thinking, the meaning
of balance between personal and professional life, the way the
relations with others are built, and managing emotions.
Each of these factors can influence the effectiveness of our work in a
stimulating or restricting way. The changes during this individual
coaching are introduced through discovering the causes of ineffective
behaviours and searching for new, more effective and satisfying
solutions. If we concentrate on the resources we possess, then with the
help of a professional coach the positive changes we observe have the
chance of becoming really permanent changes.
Summary
Professional burnout is characteristic of all professions having one
common trait – contact with other people. The more ambitious and
involved the employees, the more endangered they are by professional
burnout. It is good, then, to have a close look at yourself and your
people, recognise the symptoms early and counteract them immediately.
Otherwise, the costs of desisting may be very high.
I wish you all the very best in quickly spotting the earliest signs of burnout – and managing them well. ˘
The author addressed BPCC Academy morning workshop in January 2005.
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