Fueling the Burnout Fires
Let’s begin with “The ‘Dirty Dozen’ of Dysfunctional Organizations.” (The following updates the list that first appeared in my book, Practice Safe Stress: Healing and Laughing in the Face of Stress, Burnout, and Depression.):
1. From TLC to TNC. People are always on call; there’s little boundary between work and home. Work environment is driven by “time, numbers and crises” not by “tender loving care.” Beware a philosophy that extols customers as kings while treating employees as peasants; it’s a formula for revolt, inertia or sabotage.
2. Rapid and Unpredictable Change. Both a constantly reorganizing or downsizing as well as an expansionary mode heighten stress levels. Also, unstable leadership and a revolving supervisory team/work force, and adjusting to new personnel along with a loss of institutional history and wisdom heightens pressure. Rules and procedures don’t appear to be operational; “the book” has lost some critical pages. Chronic uncertainty and mistrust from lack of timely information or from communication not perceived as genuine or accurate.
3. Destructive or Demeaning Communication Style. The norm is condescending, explosive or passive aggressive styles of communication; there’s excessive workfloor razzing or scapegoating. Managers are talking over employees; nobody is truly listening. Either defensive counterattacking or robotic groupthinking is common. You’re turned off from the repetitive, mindless mantra: “There’s no ‘I’ in team.”
4. Authoritarian Leadership. Rigid, militaristic mindset; “superiors” vs. “subordinates” or “inferiors” pollutes the ambience. Typical slogans: “You don’t get paid to think” or “My way or the highway.” Leaders blow up if challenged and break up any participatory decision-making or team building efforts. Often try to cloud the real problem by blaming, intimidating, or targeting others.
5. Defensive Attitude. There’s an overall dismissive attitude regarding feedback with little interest in evaluation of people and policies. Only numbers count. Not safe to give feedback; people quick to feel disrespected or rejected. Yelling and intimidation or, conversely, avoidance and minimizing are the preferred ways of dealing with conflict.
6. Double Standard. Different policies and procedures, bias in application, for management and employees, blue collar or white collar, racial or sexual discrimination – “Workfloor vs. Tower” dichotomy. Double standard also manifests as management gets substantial training or support for dealing with change processes and employees get minimal orientation and ongoing support.
7. Unresolved Grievances. No mechanisms or only adversarial ones – “us vs. them” – to settle grievances. Or, dysfunctional individuals protected or ignored because of contractual provisions, red tape, cronyism, or union cover, etc. Management has abdicated its leadership role; it fears or is or ashamed of having inadequacies, incompetence, or dysfunctional system dynamics exposed.
8. Emotionally Troubled Personnel. Management not actively assisting troubled employees get the help they need; no (safe/confidential) Employee Assistance Program (EAP) option. No coaching for supervisors dealing with dysfunctional personnel. “Good old boy” system turns an eye in the face of dysfunctional stress carriers and team killers. This gap can create a tumor for the work team – scapegoating, loss of respect for leader, apathy and lowered morale, etc.
9. Repetitive, Boring Work. Not just an assembly line syndrome. Also, “The Bjorn Bored Syndrome”: When Mastery times Monotony provides an index of Misery! Your niche of success becomes the ditch of excess and stagnation. There’s a lack of opportunity for job stimulation-rotation-transfer or not enough new blood is coming into the system. And in a bad economy, people who are feeling burnt out, and would normally make a job change, cling tighter to “the devil they know.”
10. Faulty Equipment/Deficient Training. Equipment or procedures (or lack of the same) that don’t allow people to work effectively or efficiently…and then workers are criticized for not being productive. Also, tensions rise when management rapidly inundates people with new equipment and operational standards while not providing sufficient time and resources for successful training/startup.
11. Hazardous Setting. Disruptive ambient work conditions – temperature, air quality, repetitive motion issues, overcrowded space, and problematic noise levels, excessive overtime, nocturnal schedule, and interrupted sleep, etc. There’s an inflated number of health claims and/or grievance procedures. Personnel shortage results in lack of backup resulting in potentially dangerous work expectations and conditions.
12. Culture of Violence/Abuse. There is a culture or past history of individual violence and abuse, e.g., family battering, gang membership, etc. The person has been exposed to violent or explosive role models often with a context of alcohol and drug abuse. There is also an abusive systemic culture. Leadership covertly uses peer bullying to keep certain employees in line. There is cultural tolerance for predatory or discriminatory behavior. The workfoor is dubbed “The Plantation.” Finally, under sufficient stress, employees with lingering Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI) can be set off.
This “dirty dozen” provides a slightly larger than life portrait of a hazardous work environment. While somewhat “blue” in tint, the “white collar” world also needs to pay heed. No matter the color, these dysfunctional workplaces both overtly drain and frustrate employees and generate a smoldering background. Now a seemingly trivial event can set off a chronically stressed, troubled individual. Of course, some folks are ready to go even in the best of environments.
