Burnout from an Organizational Perspective

Described by the WHO as "Resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed," burnout is characterized by "Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one's job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and reduced professional efficacy." But just as the early research on burnout showed it to be a fundamentally systemic problem-since the air traffic controllers being studied were extremely well-trained in coping with stress-more recent researchers also describe the causes of burnout as collective, and impossible for an individual to fix without a systems perspective. Beyond the physical implications of burnout, there are significant economic and social costs: Beyond the cost of treating burnout, research indicates severe consequences for burnout on relationships, especially our closest relationships. With a broader view of what burnout is-less like an off/on switch and more like temperature-taking-we can begin to measure burnout. There are various measures of burnout: the MBI, the CBI, and Freudenberger's 12 stages of Burnout. To do this requires organizational awareness from leadership and managers, and requires regular collection of data at the individual, team, and aggregate levels of burnout. With Entrepreneurs Organization we worked with a team of 150 people that completed full burnout and resilience diagnostics, which included 33 risk factors that contribute to burnout risk. Stanford Hospital staff members were given a two-minute quiz to better understand their resilience typologies as a group, helping them understand what might make them more or less at risk of burnout as an individual and as a team.