Burnout is on Fire
Photo by Christian Erfurt
Last week I received a text from a high-performing founder I work with. He fainted — for the first time ever — in line at Starbucks. In his subsequent visit to the doctor, he was surprised to learn that his heart rate had increased dramatically since his last physical just a year ago.
When we talked through what might be going on, some other details emerged:
— He had been extremely frustrated with his co-founder as of late.
— He was feeling less fired up about his business.
— He wasn’t sleeping that well.
— His wife had commented that he had become quite irritable
As we sat together, I could see him struggling to admit what we had been connecting the dots on…he was burned out. If his body hadn’t sent him an alert, he likely would have just kept pushing forward. On top of this, we had discussed concerns over team burnout in a previous session, yet he remained oblivious to his own condition.
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Burnout is not a new topic in startupland. Startups, by definition, are fast-moving, cortisol-inducing environments. Mix that with #hustleculture and you have a recipe for burnout. Add the pandemic as the cherry on top and you get a year where burnout is at all-time highs.
Indeed, burnout is a topic that just about every one of my clients has brought up this Fall, mostly in the context of, “I think my team is burned out. How do I know? And what do I do?”
The most direct way to suss out how your people are doing is by simply asking them. An anonymous survey is an effective way to get the pulse across the company, as it provides a safe format where people feel comfortable being honest about their mental and emotional health.
Today Burnout Looks Different
Recent Gallup research has discovered what it calls an “Engagement and Well-being Paradox”. Unlike pre-pandemic times where engagement and well-being were reciprocal and fed off one another, we are now living in times where workers are reporting both high levels of engagement and high levels of stress and worry. If you are like most companies FounderForward works with, you ran productivity and engagement surveys after switching to remote but have not done so since. If that’s the case, now is a great time to craft and send a new survey, one that speaks to employee well-being, not just engagement and/or productivity.
Management Are Your Eyes and Ears
Outside of surveys, your managers are your best lens into burnout. They should be trained to identify causes and signs of burnout. And they should also be trained on proper 1–1s and check-ins where — given they have built psychological safety and trust with their reports — they are having conversations about how employees are doing and how they are feeling. If you aren’t sure how your management team stacks up here, you are not alone. What many startups realized during the pandemic and the move to remote and/or hybrid is that they needed to uplevel their managers.
Below is a snapshot of the 6 leading causes of employee burnout along with assessment questions and potential action items for making lasting change.
Of course, you can make significant organizational changes that prioritize wellness and mitigate burnout, but if you, as founder, don’t prioritize well-being yourself, it will all fall flat.
Mitigating Founder Burnout
There are countless tools and tactics with regards to Self-Care and Time and Attention Management that can help you live a more sustainable life whilst riding the startup rollercoaster. Now is the perfect time to take stock of your current routine and habits and make (re)commitments for 2022.
While this work is by no means easy, the harder work is the deeper inner work. This includes being in presence, maintaining an optimistic mindset, and cultivating equanimity. It also means working on Emotional Intelligence to deepen awareness of our feelings — or muted feelings as is often the case with burnout. It’s also getting in tune with our bodies so we understand what is happening somatically — like our heart rate being through the roof.
Last, but certainly not least, you can mitigate burnout (and other physical and mental health issues) by consciously choosing not to tie your identity to your startup, but rather maintain that being a startup founder is just one aspect of who you are. This means being intentional about making time and effort for relationships and activities that are important to you outside of work. Yes, this can be a hard one (and a common coaching topic) but the payoff in mental wellness is huge.
With 89% of professionals reporting burnout, now is the time to look inward and assess your well-being and that of your team. With the New Year is just around the corner, we encourage you to ask yourself:
1.) What will I commit to in terms of prioritizing my overall wellness in 2023?
2.) What do I want my organization to commit to in terms of prioritizing wellness in 2023?