111. Burnout Checkup + No Sway at Big Company

Transcript – Episode 111: Burnout Checkup + No Sway at Big Company

Joe:
It turns out there’s not just one kind of burnout. There’s actually six. We’ll tell you what they are and why understanding them matters. Plus, how does a small boss fish in a big company pond improve morale with little power to make change? We’re starting now on Boss Better Now.

Suzanne:
You’re listening to Boss Better Now. The show is sponsored by Joe Mull and Associates. Now here’s your host, speaker, and author, Joe Mull.

Joe:
Welcome back and hello again, BossHeroes. We are so thrilled to have you joining us here on this late May date. Hopefully, you are enjoying a long holiday weekend, as we’ve said a couple times. Happy spring. We’re thrilled to have you with us. With me today, as usual, HR advisor and executive coach Suzanne Malausky. Welcome back, Suzanne.

Suzanne:
Thank you, Joe. So happy to be here. I’ve had a wonderful month of May. I can hardly believe it’s coming to an end, but I’m looking forward to a three-day weekend, of course. But time is flying.

Joe:
It is, it is. And this is the first recording that we are doing since Employalty launched — since it hit the bookshelves. I’ve already gotten a couple of notes from folks on email who have said, so what happened, right? Is the book on a best-sellers list? Did you, did you hit your goals? And so, I thought we would take just a minute to give a little update on that since I know a lot of our listeners have been invested, and I know a lot of you have supported the book. And so sincerely thank you to all of you who went out there and pre-ordered a copy and you know, really did some great things. The <laugh>, we are actually recording this a few hours before the major bestseller lists come out. I think we’ve got a very, very low percentage chance of landing.

Joe:
I know what our numbers are. I think we’re gonna just miss, I’m okay with that. The book did a couple of wonderful things. It did become a number one new release in two categories on Amazon business management and workplace culture. And those aren’t like your easy-to-game categories, right? Like I’m number one in basket weaving, though <laugh>. Those are our big categories. We, wow. We ended up ranking higher than Seth Godin for a while. He’s a huge marketing guru at one point. All three versions of Employalty were in the top 20 in those categories. The e-book, the audiobook, and the print book. Mm. Wow. And the other cool thing that happened is that we did land on the bestsellers list for bookshop.org, which is a large site that you order that sources books for independent bookstores, right?

Joe:
So, it’s a snapshot of sales across independent bookstores across the country. So, we had diverted a lot of sales attention to them just to support small businesses. And it was cool to see for a while there that the book landed on their bestseller list. So that was pretty cool. So, we are thrilled with the response. Let’s give. Yep. There’s the applause. And really the other fun part of this, Suzanne has just been that so many people have, who have read the book, are gushing. The reviews have been really, really positive. And that’s the most important thing to me, is did I write a book that people connected with that had utility for them that they enjoyed reading? We’re getting a lot of positive feedback.

Suzanne:
Good. Joe, it’s great to hear that. And it’s been a delight to come along this journey with you. And I hope I speak for many of your listeners. It’s a, you know, peek into a world that we’re not that familiar with. And I know it was a big learning curve for you just in how to publicize and get the momentum and the interest in a book the way that you have. So, congratulations on that success. And as we said earlier, this is a long game for you. This book has tremendous opportunity to impact leaders and organizations. So, I think this is the first chapter in the, in the series of chapters about.

Joe:
The first chapter. I see what you did there. That was a pro level, well, well done. That was well woven through <laugh>. Well, and so now, like we have to shift into with, you know, kind of perpetuating the, the, the legs of the book and the sales of the book, and really going out and helping teach people about these three dimensions of a destination workplace, which is really a bit at the center of the training I’ve been doing. And it also means I have to shift my ask. That’s a s k shift. My ask. I, you know, I still want people to buy the book. If you haven’t ordered a copy yet, I would love it if you would go out and do so now, now that it’s available. But here’s what I really need. I need people to leave reviews. So, this is one of those insider things in the book publishing world reviews are insanely important to the quote-unquote algorithm right online.

Joe:
The degree of attention that a book gets, whether it gets shown as a comparison book, whether it gets covered in media, whether it shows up as a recommendation, has a lot to do with reviews. And so, the first level that we need to hit on Amazon is a hundred reviews. So, at the time of this recording, the book has been out for about a week and a half. And we are at 40 reviews, which is great, but that’s like my mom and you. Thank you, Suzanne. You know, my wife, my neighbor. That’s great. Yeah. I need all of y’all, all of y’all BossHeroes to go out there and just take 90 seconds, go Google Employalty on Amazon, go to the bottom of the listing, click write a review, and just say one or two sentences about me or the book and click submit. And that would be super helpful if you would do that. I’d be so grateful.

Suzanne:
<Laugh>, Joe, I think I can’t help but wonder how the heck did a, a book get on the top of any list before all this technology and data and algorithms and analysis. How did you get that in the 1960s or even in the eighties? It’s interesting. It’s probably very, like you said, there’s a deadline, you know, in a few hours about the list coming out. I imagine it took weeks and months because it was probably totally based on report out of sales after the end of the month, right? Yeah. So, to have this real-time data and almost some dashboards to watch is astounding, right?

Joe:
It, it’s crazy. And, and it’s a perfect segue to the first thing that we’re gonna talk about on the show this week, which is burnout. Because I’m going to admit to all of you right now, I am fried, and I have kind of been for a while. And I know that I have seen the release of the book as one kind of finish line, which is a little bit dangerous when you, when you write a book, because the first week, the launch week is not the end, it’s actually the beginning, right? There’s so much that you have to put into it. But spending almost a year researching and writing the book, and then another nine months trying to build all of the systems and the infrastructure and do all of the promotion that comes with trying to, to spread the word. I am, I am just kind of mentally toasted. And so, this, oh, I can imagine this article that, that we wanted to talk about this week, about this two-minute burnout checkup is so timely because I see myself in it in a lot of ways. I know you got a chance to peek at this. Did you, did you have any connection to this as well, Suzanne?

Suzanne:
I did. And I, I couldn’t decide, and maybe you could relate to this. First of all, it feels like you’ve just run two marathons Yes. Back-to-back. Right? So, you were exhausted the writing of it, and then you had to kick into gear and, and get it, figure out how to get it promoted. And you had this huge learning curve. So not to mention the, the energy you put forth just to activate what you did. It’s figuring out what to do. So I was, so, I was intrigued by the notion between the acute or chronic Yes. Stress. And I’m like, I don’t know. You know, I love reading this because I don’t know if I pay attention to it. And, and I think for many ambitious people certainly you and I in this entrepreneurial mindset and world, you know, it’s on us. We just keep moving through it. Yes. And, and when I thought about thinking when I get, you know, those little telltale signs of getting snappish, or I get really judgmental of everything I get, you know, down in the dumps where people usually count on me for my humor and my bright light or my energy. And then when you get around family, I’m like, I got nothing left. Sorry, people. Yes. Yes. Now, I, you know, I remember my family. I remember being kind of, I wouldn’t have called it burnout, but that high-level stress. Remember your junior senior year got very stressful for me.

Joe:
Yes.

Suzanne:
And I remember, and I understand it better now. I used to come home and just go to my room because I couldn’t be not, you’re not allowed to disrespect my parents, right? Yeah. So, I knew I couldn’t behave appropriately. I couldn’t roll my eyes or have a smart comment that comes so eloquently out of my mouth. I would go to my room so that I could just behave and not get in trouble. Hide in a cave.

Joe:
Yes. 

Suzanne:
Without hurting someone’s feelings, you know? And I think about it now, and I think of it, it was just a lot of stress not knowing how to, to deal with it, not recognizing it. And I remember my brother and sister, I don’t know which one said it, like, we can’t believe you have any friends. <laugh>. Cause what? Cause I’m like, wait, I’m quite delight. People, people like me. I have a lot of friends, people like me, I promise.

Suzanne:
Dang it. But they only saw me in that afterschool state that I’m, I’m out of, I’m out of energy, I’m out of juice, I’m out of care. Right? Yeah. I just go hide away. So, I, I thought that’s really interesting. As we show up as parents, leaders in our organizations, even to our customers and our clients, we’re probably giving, are we giving the right people the right energy all the time? Do our families suffer when we have burnout? Or our closest friends who have to take it on the chin while we push through? It is where all of that went for me. <Laugh>,

Joe:
I really relate to that. And especially, you know, someone who speaks and travels and, and this year especially, I’ve noticed that I, I have very much embraced the alone in my hotel room time that I get both before and sometimes after speaking engagements, because anybody who has worked with me behind the scenes knows that I am fanatical about trying to be wholly present with every conversation I have with anybody that I meet before, during, or after a speaking engagement. So, if I’m invited to be the keynote speaker at a conference when I step off stage, people wanna talk about what they’ve just heard, and they wanna tell you their story, and they want to ask you a question. And 99 times out of a hundred that is the best part of this job. Sure. But lately, right now, with all these other things happening, I’ve just noticed that I’m having to work twice as hard to stay in that moment with folks and to stay fully present. Indeed. Right. <Laugh>. Yeah. And so, when, when I finish all of that, and I’m, you know, I’m fully committed to, to bringing all of my attention to it. By the time I get back to my room, I’m a zombie. Right? And, and I just need that time to reset and to recharge in ways that I didn’t used to before. And so, yes, I can absolutely relate to that.

Suzanne:
So, question, I guess, will we get from the articles, when you’re feeling that difference in those signals, you’re probably getting more towards the burnout than that kind of acute or situational stress? Yeah. 

Joe:
Well, let’s run down this article. Cause this was really interesting to me in a couple different ways. So, the article that we’re talking about was published just a few weeks ago at the, the Harvard Business Review. It’s called A Two Minute Burnout Checkup. You can Google that, or you can jump over to our show notes, and we’ll have a link for you. And what this article does first is it breaks down the root causes of burnout, right? Burnout is caused by stress, that chronic stress that is unchecked, and it results in a lot of different kinds of symptoms and signs. One misconception about burnout is that it’s the same as exhaustion, but that’s not necessarily the case. Exhaustion is one experience that is a part of burnout. But there are actually three core attributes of burnout according to this article. The first is that, yes, we feel exhausted and as though we have no energy to do good work.

Joe:
The second is that we feel cynical or have negative attitudes towards our projects, or maybe we experience a sense of disassociation from those projects and or from the people around us, just like you described, Suzanne, from friends or coworkers or family. And then third, burnout makes us feel ineffective as though we’re accomplishing, you know, less than usual. And we can’t muster the energy to be productive. And so, if you are experiencing any of these, it might be a sign that you are experiencing burnout. And what Suzanne is referring to in the article about acute stress is that ultimately there is really only one thing in our work, in our life that causes burnout. And it’s an overwhelming amount of chronic stress. So acute stress is temporary, and it’s the article likens it to a tunnel that we have to navigate to reach the light on the other side.

Joe:
But chronic stress never lets up. And so, it might be come from at work falling behind on, on a never-ending stream of emails or ongoing drama with coworkers, or just a to-do list that doesn’t quit. But here’s the really interesting thing that stood out to me about this article. The research that is emerging lately is finding that chronic stress at work usually comes from one of six primary sources. And so really, these are six kinds of burnout. I’m gonna run these down, and then Suzanne, I’m gonna ask you to, to weigh in on maybe what you learned about yourself or your own experiences now that we have this framework. Okay. Okay. So, so workload is one primary source of burnout. How sustainable the amount of work on our plate is. And the more our workload eclipses our capacity, the more likely we are to reach the point of burnout.

Joe:
The second on the list here are values, right? What lets us connect with our work on a deeper level. The more our work aligns with what we value, the more meaningful it feels and engaged we become. And, but when that alignment isn’t there, we can experience burnout. The third is reward. This is related to the level of reward that we get from our job. And that might be financial, like the salary, the bonuses, et cetera. It might be the social rewards, right? Or the meaning that we derive from that work. If we are not getting sufficient reward from our work, we can feel ineffective, which, as you just heard a minute ago is one of the core attributes of burnout. Control is the fourth kind of burnout, and really is derived from whether or not we get to experience autonomy over when, where, and how we do our work.

Joe:
And the less control we have, the more likely we are to burnout. Fairness is the fifth type of burnout. The feeling that we’re treated equitably at work relative to our colleagues, has a lot to do with whether we experience burnout. It’s an important ingredient that promotes engagement. And when we are feeling like we are being treated unfairly, cynicism can creep in. And the final one on this list of six is community. So, the relationships that we have at work contribute enormously to minimizing burnout and boosting our engagement. And the weaker those relationships are, or the more conflict we experience at work, the more likely we are to burn out. And so, one more time. It’s workload values, reward, control, fairness, and community. This is really interesting to me, Suzanne. Where did you identify this? Or, or what did you discover once this framework or this context was put here around the different kinds of burnout?

Suzanne:
Yeah. I love the idea of breaking it down into these six areas, because you might be able to identify what’s worse, what’s better, what’s more important to you, where, you know, what kind of keeps you going, keeps you energized, or what takes it the other way. And Joe, and I don’t know if you thought this, you know, we’ve got leaders on the line listening, and when I read through them, my mind went kind of to, oh my gosh, this is kind of, if you flip this around, these are actually the tenants of things that need, people need to be motivated. And, you know, yes. I think even think about your book, these are yeah. You know, humane workload expectations getting aligned with what’s important to the organization. If we flip these as a leader, I mean, yeah, we think about ourselves, and I don’t wanna take us off that too much <laugh>, but my first notion was, as a leader, we have a responsibility, or what can we be doing to create the cultures and workplaces where these things, we have tremendous opportunity to influence these for others as leaders.

Suzanne:
Yeah. Okay. So, there was that, and then for me, I think workload, I, I need to be busy enough. There’s a tipping point I have found in working for myself that yeah, there are lots of days I can choose not to do nothing. And the only one holding me accountable, that is me. And then eventually, you know, my mortgage holder, <laugh> <laugh>. No. but I, I can get away with not doing a lot sometimes, but that means the long-term effect is what, you know, I, I own that, but I have found if I don’t stay busy enough, I lose motivation. And so, then there’s a tipping point. If I get too busy, then I get that to that overwhelmed point. Yes. And I couldn’t help when we were reading through those characteristics especially the part about feeling ineffective that you said that was first, we feel exhausted, then cynical, then ineffective to me, then it becomes cyclical. Yes. So, so, so what he was saying is you do this two-minute drill, you kind of take a look and assess where you are. I think it can help you break what could be a cyclical cycle for people where burnout then becomes, you know, I don’t know a breakdown, or, yes, you quit your job, or you physically fall ill. So, I thought there’s a lot of power in that one can perpetuate others.

Joe:
Yeah. That just becomes sort of this bigger multi-layered loop.

Suzanne:
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. We need to get, help ourselves or get help to get out of it or help others if we see it in them.

Joe:
Yeah. No, that’s, that’s amazing. And it’s a great insight, especially the part about when you flip it, it really does speak to the essential ingredients, the in essential psychological ingredients that we have to be fulfilled in our work and to be happy and in our work. And shout out to you for tying it back to the book. That was well done. I’ll give you like $10 or something.

Suzanne:
Yeah. We’ll talk about that later.

Joe:
Okay. So, I did this. So, the, the last part of this article talks about how really you can just take two minutes to do a burnout checkup and to track your burnout status. Right? And, and really the idea here is to, if you can get to the source, the root cause of your own particular flavor of burnout, now you know where to potentially make some changes or at least be more attentive. And so, the author here talks about a simple two-minute activity, which is really just to write down how much stress on a scale of zero to 10 you experience from each of those six factors of burnout. So, for example, if you’re finding it tough to connect with colleagues after a long period of working from home, you might score an eight on that scale for community. But if your workload is really manageable right now, and you find that it’s just right, you might put a two down for that.

Joe:
And so, a simple table where you write these six burnout types down and you score them can help you figure out where you’re at. And so, you can figure out maybe what you’re already doing well and where you can need to develop a, a sort of targeted plan to get better. So, I did this and mean it, it very clearly became, for me two things. The overwhelming source of my burnout was workload. Okay. was really, and I know that, and, and <laugh>, my friends and family who are listening to this right now, know that that was gonna be the answer. Because I’m the kind of person who says, well, I’m gonna do my homework on how you really drive a book out into the marketplace. And if I identify that there are 34 things you should do, I’m gonna do all 34 damnit, and we’re gonna do them all at the highest level of quality, hashtag ambition and <laugh>.

Joe:
You know, that’s absurd. It shouldn’t be that way. But that’s, that’s kind of how I’m wired and the second type of burnout that I think is the root cause of my own challenges was reward the level of reward we get. And it’s tied to workload because when you go out and you try to do 34 things and they don’t all work, it feels like a waste of time. But then you’re still committed to all the things that you have to do, right? So, you put a lot of time and energy into building something and trying to move people to action in a certain way. And then when it doesn’t work, it can be deflating. And so, I, I can see that for me as well. So, let’s flip this into the, the takeaways for me here, which is that I need to be viciously selective about what I say yes to and add to my plate because I know that I’m gonna be inclined to maybe overdo it. At the same time, I also need to do some of that mental reframing that not everything we do is gonna work and we need to know that’s gonna happen. And that experimentation is a part of learning and of success. And so, this little checkup exercise I think was interesting to remind me about some, some core thoughts, and ideas that I need to, to not allow to stray far from my brain.

Suzanne:
I like that Joe and I, I couldn’t one little bit of criticism. So, for those of you, if you get a chance to read it, basically you have a total score of 60 if you have a high of 10 on six elements, that makes sense. But I’m looking for, well, I wanna know my grade <laugh>. If I have an A.

Joe:
If you have an A in burnout?

Suzanne:
Versus 50 outta sixty, what point am I, what does the red light go off and you’re really at risk, or this is okay and manageable? I mean, we can, that’s okay. I think the beauty of it is he suggests you do it over time. So, Joe, imagine if you do this 30 days from now, 60 days from now the idea you hope by doing it the first time is you focus on the workload and then you start to see that score change. But you might see something else come up. And I thought this might be a way to avoid chronic. So, remember he said the chronic yes was where it keeps going. And we talked, we made up the whole cyclical thing. But if, if you do this once a month for six months, where are you not focusing? Where are you at risk of continuing and, you know, all those things? So, I think the power of just taking time to think through this and giving us the structure to do it, instead of going, am I stressed out? Am I burnout? Yeah. Yeah. What is this feeling? I don’t know. It gives you a way to like self-diagnose and then plan around it, and then do it over time and see if you’re trending <laugh>, you’ll

Joe:
Look like you, you landed Right, exactly where I was gonna go next, which was this idea that we can diagnose with more specificity, which has so much more help in actually creating recovery than just saying, well, I think I’m burned out. Like, I, I, so many people listening to this right now are like, no question. I’m burned out. I have been for a while. But for most people, they just sort of leave it there, which is like saying, I’m sick, but not having any idea what your symptoms are or what the root cause that might be if it’s a bacterial infection versus a virus versus psychosomatic. Right? If when you gotta, you gotta figure out the underlying cause. And so, right. The reason I wanted to bring this article to the show was to give the people listening to this, and so many folks were already exhausted or burned out before the pandemic arrived. And then Covid just took a, a burned-out workforce and broke it. And so, to be able to give all of you listening, this vocabulary that you can use around these, these source causes of workload and values and rewards, et cetera, really may be an aha for some people listening as to where they can make change. And just that awareness of those differences could potentially result in some improvement. And so that alone for me, makes it worth doing here on our show.

Suzanne:
Awesome. I think it’s very timely and, and helpful. So, I recommend it to everyone. Give it a try.

Joe:
Well, we’d love to hear what you think BossHeroes. Have you figured out the root causes of your own burnout? Are there some new ways of thinking about your own mental health and struggles in recent years that have been helpful to you, that might be helpful to share with other BossHeroes? We would love to hear from you. You can email the show at bossbetternow@gmail.com.

Joe:
And that brings us to the Camaraderie Question of the Week. And it feels like there’s a theme here, my friend. Well, let me first give you the description cuz people are used to that by now.

Joe:
We know that bosses build camaraderie on teams by making it easier for people to find things in common with each other. That’s why every week on our show, we give you a question that you can use at meetings to facilitate connection and build camaraderie. And yes, it does feel like there’s a little bit of a theme threading through our episode today, because here is our question. Tell us about a time when you had to adapt on the spot. What happened and how did it go? There’s definitely a theme with burnout here, isn’t there? Isn’t there <laugh>?

Suzanne:
Yes. you want me to go first?

Joe:
Yes.

Suzanne:
Okay. Well, I have a business one to offer, and it’s so funny as you were setting this up, I’m like, surely, I come up with a quick one, like when, you know, my soup burnt got burnt on the stove or when my kids did something, but I didn’t come up with another one, a good one…

Joe:
And don’t call me Shirley. Sorry. That was an old Leslie Nielsen. I joke.

Suzanne:
I get it. No sure if our listeners do.

Joe:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That’s gonna be over the head of anybody who is, who is like, not 40, sorry. <Laugh>.

Suzanne:
It’s ok. I, I, I get it. So, this one was so training background. I’ve got hired by a client to go do frontline supervisory training and a refractory, this was after Hurricane Katrina in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There were no hotels. We stayed in a really crappy place. And this company, I didn’t know it at the time, had hired us in because they were, it was part of their getting bankruptcy, recovery, whatever plan. So basically, I walked in with a group of people who did not want me there.

Joe:
<Laugh>

Suzanne:
You know, these are southern men who have been working in this industry, all men been working in this industry 30, 40 years. Most of ’em had just lost maybe their homes or family had lost their homes. They’re still trying to recover from the devastating experience. You know, we’re down to the hierarchy of needs of trying to survive and be safe. Right? I’m here, I am coming in to tell you how to be a great supervisor. And the leaders kicked it off the powers of the be kicked it off. We were in a hotel, you know, conference room, and then they left and left me with 20 guys. And in five minutes of me starting my spiel, one guy says, well, I do respect, ma’am. You don’t know anything about what we do, and we really don’t want you here.

Joe:
Yeah.

Suzanne:
And I’m like, well, you know what a… what a defining moment. Here I am up against the wall. I’m like, these guys, if I don’t figure this out, they’re gonna duck take me to a chair, and leave.

Joe:
Yeah. <laugh>,

Suzanne:
Right? So, I said, well, with all due respect I don’t know anything about your job and don’t, in fact, don’t intend to ever work as a supervisor in a refractory, but I do know how to train professional adults. And that’s what I’m going to do. And we’re gonna figure it out.

Joe:
Good.

Suzanne:
But I tell you what, I want you to look at the agenda and I wanna pick to any topic on there and tell me what sticks out for you. And then I’m gonna ask you what challenge you have with that topic, and then we’re just gonna talk it out. We’re gonna figure it out. I’m gonna see if I have content that makes sense to you today because we’re gonna stay in this room now. I got, we got a couple hour early hours early, lemme tell you. But we did.

Joe:
<laugh>

Suzanne:
We did, I had to figure something out. Yeah. And I was probably 32, 33 at the time scared. And but that was a big moment. And then those were those moments. You’re like, what, what am I made of? I’m like, I could have said, yeah, you’re right. Let’s go to the bar. Yeah. <laugh>.

Joe:
And there may be a time and a place for that. It just wasn’t Right.

Suzanne:
Right. Or I quit, I can’t work in these, I can’t work in this condition. I’m, I’m freaked out. Which I was a little freaked out. Yeah. It’s like, how do I make it work for them? And so many times in life just like you said, Joe, when you get off the stage, you’re, you’re there to do something for somebody else. That’s your calling. That’s the gift that you have. And that’s what I’m, I’m there to do, to serve their needs and their needs is shifted or we got it wrong, or life has thrown them a curve. Then I’ve gotta figure out what is it that I can do in my sphere of influence and knowledge that gives them what this needed in the moment. Yes. Welcome. And so, I did it

Joe:
And, and thank you. That’s why you are a professional, right? That you’re able to handle that kind of pushback or resistance, right? That you’re able to shift on the fly like that — that’s a great, great story. And I bet if you could go back in time, you’d give yourself a high five, right? You’d be like

Suzanne:
Good girl. Yes. that’s right. Good. Good answer.

Joe:
Nice. Nice. Your answer is similar to mine because really this question like a time you had to adapt on the spot. This is the story of my life as a speaker and trainer. Almost every single time I go somewhere to do something, some aspect of it doesn’t go as planned. I mean, I’ve just finished a 60-minute keynote and I’m getting ready to walk off the stage and the organizer says, the next speaker is not here yet. Can you do Q&A? And so, for 30 minutes, I’m just standing on stage taking questions. That’s happened more times than I can count, really. We’re travel plans, right? I’ve had to rent a car in the middle of the night and drive four hours because the airport closed from snow, but I gotta be there at 9:00 AM for a training. So, let’s find a car all the time. I a year or so ago had just landed in Kansas to do two days with an organization I had been with a couple of times. And my contact there called me that evening in the hotel and she said, I need to tell you what you’re walking into. Yesterday our CEO’s husband passed away and he was really adored across the organization. Our CEO constantly had people over to her house. Employees, like he, he worked in the hospital, he was very present in the organization. People are really down that it’s a very emotional time. And I’m, I’m coming in to do like some motivational leadership, mixed skill builder stuff. Rah. Yeah. And we talked about these people need a, an outlet to process. And so, I spent two hours that night just kind of revamping everything that I had planned in my hotel room and went in the next day and took it in a different direction and tried to be of service for those folks that were there.

Joe:
Right? Right. And I mean, the slide projector breaks halfway through. Oh yeah. Right. I was presenting once in South Dakota and the, and the lights went out in the building, and we were, yay. You know, I’m 50 minutes into a 75-minute keynote, and the announcement comes on and they say ladies and gentlemen, don’t be alarmed. There is construction taking place down the street. Apparently, they’ve had to cut the power to the block, but we’re hoping it’ll be back up within an hour. Fortunately, we have emergency lighting the hallways. Please just be careful. Well, that’s great if you’re just walking from point A to point B, but if you’re in a room with 160 people who are trying to watch your presentation, it doesn’t go so well. And I looked at everybody in the room and I said, I, I, I’ve got about 15 minutes left if you want to hear it.

Joe:
And they nodded. And I said, okay, do me a favor. Take out your cell phone, turn on your flashlight, and point it at me <laugh>, and we’ll get through it together and I’ll get to feel like a, a rockstar in the spotlight. Yay. And we, we had fun with it, and we got through it. So yeah, this is this, this is just the story of my life, but here’s the theme. I said that there was, I mean, we’re seeing a theme run through this. If you constantly have to adapt, that’s a form of chronic stress and it can lead to burnout. And so, I think this question was really interesting to put on this agenda today as we’re thinking about sources of chronic stress.

Suzanne:
Absolutely. Yeah. I think if you go back to that assessment and think over time if some things aren’t changing, maybe you’re in the wrong job. Right. Or, you know, I used to do workplace or counseling on people, and we’d find the source of their stress and we’re like, maybe this job isn’t for you. If you’re having to, I always say right with your opposite hand every day, you’re either gonna get better at it or it’s just gonna continue to cause stress. Yes. Yes. And so sometimes you’re in the wrong job.

Joe:
Or maybe there was a time in your life where that adaptation was really exciting and you loved the thrill that come, that came with coming into work Yeah. Every day and not knowing what was gonna land on your plate. But maybe you’ve reached a point where that no longer Yeah. No longer thrills. You bless you. And that’s okay. Right? That’s legit. You can think about that. But yeah, constant adaptation for some people is a source of energy. And for some people it’s a source of chronic stress. I think that’s a really interesting point. All right, folks, that’s the camaraderie question of the week.

Joe:
All right, folks, you’ve heard us say on the show multiple times that we welcome you to send us your questions, which you can do at bossbetternow@gmail.com. One of our favorite things to do on this show is to take the actual real-world circumstances that BossHeroes like you find yourself in day to day and try to help you sort through challenges and struggles. And as we always say here on the show, Suzanne and I don’t claim to have the answer. We try to sort through options and ideas, and maybe by helping you with some options and ideas, you can find your best answer.

Joe:
And so that brings us to a segment that we call Mail Time.

Joe:
Our question for this mail time segment, Suzanne, this is so cool, comes from Cape Town South Africa. The listener’s name is Claire, and she sent us a lovely note and I’m gonna read the whole thing. Hi Joe and Suzanne, I just wanna give you a shout-out and say thank you. I became a team leader seven short months ago. Boy, what a ride. I have really tried to build trust in the team and create a safe space for them. I’m a very direct and honest person. So, I really battle when it comes to being the mouthpiece for the higher powers when I fundamentally don’t agree with the decision, they want me to enforce. Here’s my question. How do I manage team morale when they are feeling pretty low from decisions that come from above me, no matter how I try to reframe it, they see right through and still feel demoralized.

Joe:
I work for a massive global financial company where I’m a pretty small fish. So, pushing back isn’t that effective. Many have tried. Ultimately staff turnover is low due to a lack of jobs in my country, and that is probably the only real indicator for them that something needs to change. I love your podcasts. I am munching through them as quickly as life allows. You guys are truly awesome. PS Joe, when will your book be downloadable on Google Books? Short answer, Claire is, I believe it is now, last week when it came out right before you, right? After you sent this question that came available. So hopefully you’re seeing that out there. Claire, so glad to have you listening from South Africa. That’s amazing. And love the question here. Suzanne, where would you like to start?

Suzanne:
I’d like to start with you, with your take on this right now. Let’s, let’s give you the chance to go first.

Joe:
I see you’re kicking it back to me. Okay. I’ll take it.

Suzanne:
Back to you, Joe.

Joe:
Yes. So, yeah, there’s no magic answer here, but I think that so many people listening are gonna relate to what you’ve just said. And the first thing I want to do, Claire, is I wanna give you permission to acknowledge to your team really what you just said to us, which is that yeah, you probably agree with some of their concerns and complaints and yeah, there’s probably not a lot that you or there are gonna be able to do to make change. That’s an act of empathy, right? Just being able to say, yep, if I was in your shoes, I’d probably feel the exact same way. And you know what? I acknowledge it. Like that acknowledgment is step one. That’s okay, you can do that. The second thing that I want to encourage you to do is to be explicit that you are passing that feedback up, right?

Joe:
That you, and, and, and so you do want to act as a conduit between the people on your team and the, and the people higher up on the organization chart where you are so that that stuff gets passed up. You can be a respectful updater. You can tell your boss or other leaders in meetings, hey, just so you know, here’s the buzz I’m hearing from my team. These kinds of decisions aren’t popular for this reason. Here’s their reaction. I know you rely on me to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on with the boots on the ground. And so, I’m gonna share with you what I’m hearing. I’m not validating it, I’m not telling you whether I agree or disagree, but here’s the conversations that are happening in real time. You can do that. And so, acknowledge their frustrations, be explicit that you’re passing that feedback up.

Joe:
And then yes, where possible try to do a reframe, but it’s not a reframe in terms of this shouldn’t bother you. It’s a reframe around what you can and can’t control. And so that conversation, everything I’m just describing to you right now could actually be a very quick conversation, which is Yep, I hear you. I find that frustrating too. Please know that I’m continuing to talk about that whenever I have the opportunity to talk about that. And I am passing your concerns up. But here’s the deal. In the meantime, we can’t change this. But what we can do is keep showing up and keep making a difference for our customers and keep trying to help, you know, x, y, z people with a, b, c problems. And please know that even though these things are frustrating, you are still having that impact on people every day.

Joe:
Even if there are other things about this job that are crappy, there are some things that you can hang your hat on and feel good about. So, let’s talk about what those are. And you know, maybe you have to acknowledge to people that you know, it’s not perfect, but no job is right. And you try to create that line of sight between the good things that they are able to accomplish. One more thought about this, and then I’m gonna kick it to you, Suzanne. Okay. that, that’s a great first line response, but you may have some folks who are really angry and frustrated about policies or structures or decisions, and they may continue to come back. And so, when that happens, you may have to sit down one-on-one with somebody and say, clearly there is a deeper level of frustration for you around this than most people.

Joe:
And what I, what I need to ask you to do is decide whether you can disagree but commit anyway. And so, this notion that, you know, I would love to make change around this, and again, I’m passing it up. We can continue to try and get your, our voices heard around it. But sometimes you’ve just gotta decide, I, I, I gotta, I disagree with how this is going or the decision that was made, but I need to commit to the work anyway or commit to the team anyway. And if they say that they can’t, that moves you into a different kind of conversation, which is really about mapping out their next step. It’s not about allowing for them to just stay and be miserable, because then you may have to have a conversation about how their misery is creating toxicity. All right, I’m gonna stop there cause I, I feel like I can keep going on that. All right. I think.

Suzanne:
We could, we can teach a class on this, Joe. Right? Right. There’s a lot to unpack here. So, congratulations, Claire. I think it’s fantastic. It looks like you’ve got a great mindset. They’ve made a good decision in bringing you along and congratulations for looking for help. Yes. Cuz it’s a lonely job out there. Sometimes you need that. Help. I wanna offer a couple of things instead of using the word being a mouthpiece for the organization. You are, you have a higher responsibility than that. You are a steward for what the organization is doing. Right? And the same thing that Joe just said, the employee, you’ve gotta find a way to maybe be okay with the decisions. Sometimes, you know, sometimes it depends on what they are. And if over time you hate all of their decisions, then you have a decision to make.

Suzanne:
Yeah. About are you in the right organization? So, I’d like to think of as a leader, we are a steward of the organization’s decisions. And so, in order to get to that mindset, I, I would say learn more about the decision if you can. Maybe the vanilla generic communication piece that they give you isn’t giving you everything you need to understand the why behind it. Great point. Or the how or the, the reasoning if you can go to your boss or somebody in the organization so that you can find a way to get a little bit more agreement. Cuz maybe you’ll be like, oh, I misunderstood, or, oh, that makes sense now I understand the pressure from the customer or data or whatever it might be. Try to get the information you need to be a little bit more okay with whatever that decision is.

Suzanne:
And again, some of them you might say forget about it, Suzanne, but I’ll challenge you with that and offer that. The next thing is with the team, do all the thing Joe said that empathy, you know, my reaction to this was tough, but tell them how you feel about it now. Tell your story around it and tell them that you believe they can do this, or we can figure this out. I know we can take whatever this is and make it our own. Right? Yeah. Whether it’s a new process, a new product, a new fee structure change is tough for many people. So, help them become part of the solution. Pull people in and say, let’s brainstorm. Here’s the, here’s the directive, here’s the new policy or decision. What can we sit down and do today to figure out how to make this part of our new norms or accept it?

Suzanne:
Or maybe there’s more information we need that I can go get for us to make this work for us. And that way there’s some, you know, we talked, one of the stressors in the article was lack of control. So, if we can help people find a way to control the response to the change or the way to implement the change that’s helpful to the team, then it’s gonna go a long way to the empathy and the trust building that you’re already doing with so many other things. And I’ll leave you this. The, the number one rookie mistake that a new supervisor can make is to take that memo or that email that comes down and says, this new policy says X, Y, and Z. And you turn around and say, they said we have to do this. Yeah. Because you are creating a complete divide between you and leadership. Yep. And you are all part of this organization. You can say, we’ve been handed a challenge. That seems a little off. I was concerned about it first. I’m gonna share with you what it is. I have an expectation. We all have the expectation to make this work, but we’re gonna figure out how.

Joe:
Oh man, do I love that? Boy, what a really, listen, if you’re struggling with it, with this kind of an issue, Claire especially hit rewind and go listen to the last 10 seconds. Cuz what Suzanne just said was a perfect way to support your organization when you disagree to acknowledge your own struggles or questions around the issue, but also level setting the expectation that sometimes we just gotta keep rowing forward. I love everything about how you frame that. You can, you can hit rewind back up the podcast, turn what she just said into a simple script that you can use for yourself. Great, great, great point Suzanne. And I think, you know, on the show we talk a lot about coaching as an essential leadership skill. And this is where coaching skills and coaching conversations can go a long way to help people like Claire with the interactions they’re having with their teams.

Joe:
Whereas people express dissatisfaction with something or frustration being able to, to not just turn around and tell people what they should think or how they should feel, but to instead say, okay, tell me more about that, and why are you feeling that way? And, you know, well that’s, that’s one reason they could have made the decision. Yes, you’re right. The people in the C-suite could be a bunch of trolls who don’t care about any of us <laugh>. That could be the story, but let’s look at it a different way. What if there was a perfectly good reason why this policy was implemented, what do you think it would be? Right? And so instead of telling people what to think, you’re engaging in some of those coaching skills that force them to unpack it from a different angle. And so instead of you telling them why it might be something they have to do, they may end up coming up with it themselves, which actually goes a longer way to shortening the runway to their, to their mental acceptance of it all.

Suzanne:
Good. Good. Joe and I if I could, I wanna go back and reiterate the point that we don’t have to accept the behavior of those people that can’t follow the process or the policy. That, that could be a whole other conversation. But I, I’d like to put a, you know, highlight over that comment as well that you don’t ha you wanna build a cohesive team. So that means sometimes you have to deal with behaviors that are eroding that opportunity. Yeah.

Joe:
I’m gonna give Claire one more piece of advice. Okay. Because one of the words that she used in her question, I think is important to really zero in on, and this is, that’s this idea of morale, right? Our, our morale is how we feel about our work and our environment and the energy that exists around it. And so, we’ve talked on this show before about stay interviews, which is what you, where you ask people, what do you like about your work? What, when do you feel the most energized at work? You know, you’re still here. Why do you stay? As you have those conversations with people, remember their answers. And when there are times when it feels like morale is low, your job is to shine a light on the very things that they tell you are the reasons they stay, are the things that give them energy.

Joe:
So yes, it could be really frustrating that we’ve, we’ve changed our supplier or we’re installing new software across the company, or we’ve made a decision to, to lay off members of a team. And we have to deal with those reactions with empathy, but we can also strategically ask people, hey, you know what? It doesn’t take away our opportunity to go make, to do this kind of work or make this kind of difference because I know that the, that those are the things that are most important to you and that’s why you’re here. So, you can’t, that isn’t a bit of that reframing there as well. But yeah, I think that’s a part of the conversation.

Suzanne:
Wonderful.

Joe:
Love it. All right, Claire. Well, I hope that’s helpful. If you try all of that and none of it works, then it’s not our fault. I mean, I feel like we tried our best, but <laugh>

Suzanne:
The disclaimer comes up on the screen.

Joe:
That’s right. We are not liable for any yes-right advice, but I’d love to hear from you again, Claire at some point as you continue to navigate this. And if you are willing to share either your successes or your failures or both, I have no doubt that would be of great learning value to other folks who are listening to the show. So, thanks for listening, and please keep in touch. All right, friends, that’s our show this week. If you liked what you heard, please take a moment to leave a review of the Boss. Better Now podcast right here on whatever platform you are listening on. If it’s one of those that takes a review. And if you don’t do that, then hey, hop over to the employee listing on Amazon and leave a review there for your friend of mine — Me. It would be greatly, deeply appreciated. It would be a huge help.

Joe:
In the meantime, thanks for listening and thanks for all that you do. BossHeroes to care for so many

Suzanne:
This show is sponsored by Joe Mull and Associates. Remember, commitment comes from better bosses. Visit joemull.com today.