How to help a team that burns out at work if you yourself are burned out?

As a manager, you must take care of your employees and support them during periods of heavy workload so that they do not burn out at work. However, this can be a difficult test if you yourself feel too much stress. How to take care of yourself so that you have time and energy left to support your team? What steps to take to reduce stress? What can be done to improve the well-being of your team members?

What experts say

It is difficult to find the energy within you to help others when you are at the limit. Burnout, unlike typical work stress, can make you feel “empty,” said Susan David, founder of the Harvard / Macklin Coaching Institute and author of Emotional Flexibility . And this condition “is able to penetrate into all aspects of your life. You are overly tired and do not do enough exercise; you do not pay enough attention to food and nutrients; you are excluded from any relationship. " However, not only you suffer from this. “Your team perceives your stress and things get worse,” says Whitney Johnson, author of Building the Perfect Team: Use Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve"So, for both your health and the health of your subordinates, you need to call on all the resources that you have to improve your situation. And here's how to do it.

Give priority to your own health

Before you can help a team deal with stress, you need to deal with your own. “Instead of going deeper and concentrating on work, you need to stop, look around, and understand how you are going to help your people get what they need,” Johnson says. A good starting point is taking care of your own physical and mental health. Eat healthy and wholesome food, exercise regularly, sleep a lot at night, “try meditation and find someone who can play the role of an outlet” - and preferably “not your boss”. Taking care of yourself is not a whim and a luxury; it is a matter of self-preservation. Johnson invites to share his rituals and technologies of working with stress with his team. “Say something like: This is how I deal with stress, how I live with it.”

Find a solution to the problem as a group

Even if you are not fully capable of managing stress, demonstrating a serious attitude to this problem can also help. You can even offer to take care of yourself as a team — learn meditation together or share tips on how to help reduce stress. You can set a team goal to keep stress under control, says David. “Tell your team: Even in the context of these changes, how can we control ourselves?” This will be useful to the group and will also make you responsible for taking care of yourself. But do not force anyone to participate in this. A sense of autonomy can counteract the symptoms of burnout, so you need people to feel that they are making their own choices.

Show empathy

No need to rebuke yourself or your team. “Burnout can be felt as a personal failure,” says David. But this, of course, is not so. We are all subject to it - and moreover, "our environment accelerates its advance." We "live in an imperfect world, but expect the ideal." Many organizations cultivate stress. “Ambiguity, complexity”, not to mention the round-the-clock nature of technology, brings many of us to “extremely high levels of tension.” Show empathy. Recognize, both to ourselves and publicly, "that we all do everything we can with the resources that we have." This does not mean that you can "be lazy and give yourself slack." Instead, you "create a psychologically safe place for yourself and others." Johnson recommends speaking with his team honestly but optimistically during particularly stressful periods. Yes, the load is serious. Yes, large projects with great importance scare us. Tell the team: “We are all in the same boat, and I know that we can do this.”

Set a positive example

You also need to “think about an example of what kind of behavior you are giving” to your team, says David. “If you are running from meeting to meeting, and you do not have time to breathe,” what message does this send? Set a good example, giving priority to rest. Show the team that you do not always work to the fullest in the office. “Return humanism to the office,” she says. Johnson agrees. When “your people are overwhelmed with work,” you need to “encourage them to take breaks regularly,” she says. “They need time to rest, regain strength, disconnect from work.” It is also important to establish the limits of invasion in the evening and weekend. Whatever you do, “don't send mail to your team members at midnight,” Johnson says. “You think: I need to talk. However, you are also throwing a grenade at rest of your employees. ”

Concentrate on the reasons

A typical symptom (and cause) of burnout at work is “the discrepancy between a person’s values” and his current job, says David. “You feel stressed and tired, and still continue to work, work and work,” forgetting about what attracted you to your career and organization. "It can be toxic." As a leader, you need to “develop a sense of reason shared by other employees” - for example, why do we want to implement our project? Your task as a boss is to motivate your team. Remind them of the purpose and why it is important to the organization and its customers. When people share common values, they are more likely to be positive about work.

Defend the rights of your team

If you and your team suffer from heavy workloads, it might be time to ask your boss for a break. It’s your responsibility to “fight for your team’s rights in the context of your organization’s goals,” says Johnson. She recommends talking with the boss about how stress affects morale and performance. “Say: 'My team is committed to this project, but people are tired. And the law of diminishing returnswe all know. ” Report the consequences of burnout to your superiors and describe why it is in the interests of your supervisor to take action. “The team will make mistakes, and labor productivity will fall. And it will cost money. ” Explain why you are worried about losing valuable employees. Then ask, “Is it possible to push the deadline away? Is it possible to simplify the task? ”Think about what you can do that can help your team, says David. It may be worth cutting or canceling some meetings. It is very “important that team leaders provide support” to their employees.

Be a source of optimism

When work boils and rages, try to spread the positive, Johnson says. It's hard to do when you're energized, but “look for the good,” she says. "Smile to people, be kinder." Make sure you regularly notice the work of people and thank them for it. “Say: I noticed that you did this. Thank you, I appreciate it. ” Cultivate a sense of community and social support. When your team reaches an intermediate goal or ends a stretch of hard work, celebrate this fact. Express appreciation for your achievements - yours and your team. "

What to remember

Necessary:

• Encourage the team to take regular breaks and look for opportunities to regain strength.
• Support the team with an inspirational vocabulary. You must inform everyone that "we are working on it all together."
• Join the team. If the load is too high, ask the boss to move the deadline or simplify the task.

Not necessary:

• Neglect health and well-being. Take care of yourself and share your favorite stress reduction strategies with the team.
• Consider burnout a personal flaw. Admit to yourself and admit publicly that people are doing everything they can with the resources that they have.
• Bind in the negative. Be a source of optimism and try to cultivate positive in the ranks.

Life example # 1: be an example for a team and celebrate achievements

A couple of years ago, Peter Sena, CEO and Creative Director of Digital Surgeons, a marketing and design company, was in a state of great workload.

“We expanded rapidly in all directions,” he says. - We doubled the size of the team, added customers and built new offices. We worked an insane amount of hours per day. The team of leaders was approaching burnout. ”

Stress took his toll on his team. “I saw that my team was tired,” he says. “People felt restless and annoyed.”

Another important sign of impending burnout: employees make mistakes.

Peter knew something needed to be done. He began by improving his own habits. “I wanted to set a good example for my team,” he says. “When you are stressed, you usually work too much and sleep little, and also do not eat right.” It had to be changed. In addition to adding exercise and regular energy sleep, Peter began to meditate. “It helped me become more conscious and in the present,” he says.

Meditation helped him so much that he introduced his team to it. “We invited a meditation expert to teach people 10-15 minute mindfulness exercises,” he says. “It makes people pause in the middle of the day.”

Peter also took steps to ensure that the team did not feel the urgent need to constantly stay in touch. “We use Slack, and I encourage people to use its Do Not Disturb feature in the evenings,” he says. “It has helped us become more effective in using email.”

Finally, he encouraged the team to take regular breaks as necessary. For example, one of his employees wanted to leave work early once a week to keep up with yoga. Peter supported him. When people are stressed, it’s important to “give them a level of control,” he says. “The more freedom and flexibility you give people to plan their own path, the more they are devoted to the goals of the enterprise.”

Peter loves how he and his team coped - and continue to cope - with stress and burnout. “People in this industry often work up to 20 hours and later, as well as on weekends,” he says. “But I wanted to create a more relaxed corporate culture.”

Digital Surgeons recently held another feverish quarter of rapid growth. To mark its end, one of the teams on Friday afternoon will go to the corporate party, where he will play laser tag. “The message here is: We worked a lot last month. Let's take a break and enjoy it, ”he says. “Such little things mean a lot.”

Life example # 2: Take care of yourself and focus on the organization’s major goals

Magdalena Muck, director of the International Federation of Coaches (ICF), the largest non-profit organization of professional coaches, says that when she begins to feel signs of impending burnout, she reminds herself that her employees are “watching” her.

“The team takes an example from the leader,” she says. “They take over my energy of nervousness, and that affects their effectiveness.”

She says she learned to “develop self-awareness” so as not to show tension and excitement. “Leaders are role models,” she says.

Nevertheless, periods of extreme stress occur in complex work. For example, ICF holds annual conferences for branch leaders. Such an event, which took place in Vancouver last year, requires large and complex logistics planning.

“We need to work many hours a day, because we work with people from all over the globe,” says Magdalena. “We also had a meeting of the board of directors on the eve of the event, which added even more stress.”

Needless to say, on the eve of the conference, emotions “rage among its employees,” she adds.

To cope with this, Magdalena decided to engage in some kind of physical activity daily. This helped her relieve stress. "Exercises clear my mind and give me time to think."

She also tried to focus her reports on the more general goals of the organization, and not on the items on the list of short-term tasks. “We all felt overwhelmed by this sense of responsibility,” she says. “We gathered our leaders for the holiday, and wanted them to not waste time in vain.”

Magdalena says she reminded her team of their organization’s mission. She wanted her team members to feel that they were “part of something bigger”.

“We believe that coaching is an integral part of the community,” she says. “We need to remember that in difficult times this fact eases our burden, which is exacerbated by long working days and a periodic feeling of disappointment.”

At the end of the conference, Magdalena took the time to celebrate the achievements of her team. She appreciated the hard work done by the team and thanked its participants. “We relaxed a bit and drank champagne for a good job,” she says. “An expression of gratitude is worth a lot.”