What can managers do to reduce the risk of burnout on their teams? Perhaps this story of O.W., who took over a team on the verge of burnout and turned things around, will give you ideas that will be useful in your own circumstances.
First, why does it matter? Around the world, people are worrying about burnout, a state of chronic stress characterized by physical exhaustion and emotional disengagement. Burnout is expensive. It can rob people of health and well-being while it robs companies of productivity.
Burnout often happens when organizations push people to utter exhaustion without allowing them adequate time to rest and replenish energy.
The following is a true story from my software engineering career. From it, I learned that human energy is elastic, but not infinitely so. Management behaviors can create environments in which workers feel drained and demoralized, but they can also create environments in which they are energized and excited by the challenges they face. This story involves a manager taking over when the energy of a team was about to snap like a rubber band pulled too hard.
Situation
O.W. was an experienced test manager who took over the management of a demoralized test team. The team fell short of their productivity goals every week. They were supposed to earn 4000 test points per week. It doesn’t matter here exactly what a test point was, just that it was a measurement of productivity. Their best week so far was around 1000 points. As a result, they had been on mandatory overtime working 7 days a week for several months. These were professionals, so there was no time-and-a-half compensation for the extra time.
Action
The first action O.W. took after learning about their performance shortfall was to rework the plan so that the weekly goal was 1500 points, more than the team was currently achieving, but a goal that he sensed they would see as a stretch within reach. Reworking the plan was not pleasant. It meant going to higher management and stating that either less testing would be done on the product or the ship date would have to move out. O.W. got a lot of negative pushback, but he stood his ground.
O.W.’s second action was to sit down with each tester every week and work out a goal for that week’s performance. The goal was challenging because the team now was committed to achieving 50% more per week. He also gave his people control over when and how they reached their goals. A person who completed the goal by noon on Friday could get an early start on the weekend. Someone else might finish at noon on Saturday and still have more weekend than during the last several months. Someone else might choose to work through the weekend as before.
Result
Within 3 months, the team was averaging 3000 test points per week. They met O.W.’s stated goal and exceeded it by a factor of two. How did this happen?
Insight
Here’s what I think happened, based on my own observations and conversations with the people in the group:
- Setting an attainable goal: The new goal was one that people felt they could meet. A goal that is within reach will stimulate people to work hard, while a goal that seems impossible will drain their energy. They will think, “We can’t make it anyway, so why try?”
- Treating people with respect: The process of setting the new goal involved conversations where their input was taken seriously. Previously they had told their management that 4000 points was too much, but the goal had been set anyway.
- Inspiring effort: They cared about O.W. and wanted to make him look good. Once they caught up with the new goal, they were energized to push further of their own volition, to show what they could accomplish and to help reduce the pressure on O.W. who was frequently asked to improve the date.
- Giving people a sense of control: Being able to decide when and how hard they wanted to work in a given week made a great deal of difference. When the project finished, people on the team wanted to stay for the next project.
O.W. had earned their loyalty by creating an environment in which their opinions were valued, their effort appreciated, and their need to live the rest of their lives respected.
Final Thoughts
I applaud the courage of managers like O.W. who are willing to take the heat to rework irrational plans and who treat their people with respect and consideration.
Human energy is not infinitely stretchy.
People can do incredible things for short periods, but then they need enough rest. They need to have time in their lives to think about other things besides work. They need some say-so in the way their time is spent at work.
As burnout prevention, what could you to protect the energy of your people?
