Transform Burnout into Monday Joy

Lora Cheadle was a corporate attorney who loved her work.

Then life happened:

• Two boys born twenty-two months apart.

• A company merger.

• Three out of four grandparents in hospice simultaneously.

• Her husband took a job out of state.

She became, for all practical purposes, a single parent still practicing law. She went part-time. Somebody forgot to inform the on-demand culture. She burned out. She walked away.

Lora told me on her Work Positive Podcast episode the precise definition of what happened to her: "The definition of burnout is stress that has been unsuccessfully managed."

Burnout is the result of a strategy failure rather than the volume of stress.

The T.H.R.I.V.E. framework coaches you as a people leader to strengthen your strategy to prevent burnout among your teams.

The V in T.H.R.I.V.E. is for Value: Clarity, Boundaries, and the End of Burnout.

The E in T.H.R.I.V.E. is for Engage: A Culture Where Monday Is as Good as Friday.

Feathers, Bricks, and Trucks

Mel Kettle, leadership communication strategist and author of Fully Connected, described the warning signs of burnout through this framework:

Feathers are the distracting, gnat-like things of work. Fatigue that goes one day too long. Irritability slightly out of proportion.

Bricks arrive harder to ignore: chronic sleeplessness, anxiety that interferes with daily functioning, cynicism that hardens from a passing mood into a worldview.

Then the trucks come. "Did anyone get the license number of that truck that ran over me?"

Most people burn out incrementally rather than suddenly. They ignore the feathers and push through the bricks until a truck takes them out.

Your role as people leader is to notice the feathers before they morph into bricks. The extrovert who went quiet. The high performer whose quality slipped in small ways. The person who was first in and now barely makes it on time. These behavior feathers deserve your attention.

In my Work Positive Podcast episode with Anne Grady, she recommended that we reframe self-care more precisely. She told me, "Self-care is not a bubble bath. It's a boundary."

Self-care is the capacity to say “No” to what drains you so you can say “Yes!” to what restores you:

• The meeting you decline.

• The phone you put down at 6 p.m.

• The vacation day you actually take.

“Yes, and . . .”

Joel Zeff brings the principle of improvisational comedy to work culture. "Yes" means I accept and respect what you just offered. "And" means I add to it and make it more.

Applied to your Work Positive Culture:

• "Yes" means positive support: appreciation, respect, gratitude, acknowledgment.

• "And" means opportunity: training, stretch assignments, mentorship, creativity.

• Together, they create the conditions where people bring their whole selves on Monday.

Joel told me on the Work Positive Podcast, "We want positive support and we want opportunity. When you put those two things together, it's amazing what people can accomplish."

Joy Engages the Brain

The neurological case for fun at work stretches past morale. Fun reduces cortisol, the stress hormone that impairs executive functioning. Fun increases serotonin and dopamine, the brain's mood elevators. A squirt or two of those and your people feel motivated, creative, and genuinely connected to their colleagues.

Anne Grady shared a simple practice with me for people leaders. At the start of any gathering, ask one question. "What is one thing that is right in your life right now?" It can be tiny. It can be silly. It can be huge.

Anne told me, "Just looking for what's right drops cortisol by 23%."

At WD-40, operating in 76 countries, 99% of employees say they are proud to work there. Ninety-three percent report active engagement. The leadership made one deliberate choice. "We don't have mistakes here. We have learning opportunities."

That is the lived experience of thousands of people going to work every day.

Your Value and Engage Do One Thing (DOT) Challenge

• Look for five things today you like, appreciate, or that make you laugh. Write them down.

• Ask yourself, "How do I help the people around me be successful?"

• Go do it.

Work Positive Bottom Line

Do One Thing today to let your people know you value them. That engages them more so you grow people and profits!

This post is from Dr. Joey Faucette's newest best-seller, T.H.R.I.V.E. @ Work: Mental Health, Culture, and the People You Lead.

burnout prevention, employee engagement, work culture, Monday motivation, THRIVE framework, mental health, joy at work, self-care boundaries