Burnout is one of the most widespread - and misunderstood - issues plaguing our society, and Jennifer Moss is here to peel back what we need to about something that's killing +750,000 people a year.
Tell the truth - how many times does the phrase “I’m so burned out?” show up around you?
Burnout is both more than we think it is, and much more insidious. Burnout has been defined by the World Health Organization as a workplace-centered phenomenon, and they calculate that it’s killing +750,000 people a year!
Jennifer Moss has dedicated a large part of her career to researching, writing about, and educating people on burnout. She is going to get us on the same page so we can understand EXASCTLY what it is, how it’s measured, and its real-world impacts.
Jennifer is a journalist, former start-up founder, and brilliant thinker on how our workplaces and our society is failing us. Her book, The Burnout Epidemic, is an excellent deep dive into the topic and, like so many of us, she came to this topic through her own experience of burning out.
Jennifer Moss’ site: https://www.jennifer-moss.com/
The Burnout Epidemic: https://www.jennifer-moss.com/books
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Episode link: https://www.tmstpod.com/episodes/65-jennifer-moss-on-the-burnout-epidemic
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Here’s the transcript:
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TMST Jennifer Moss final
[00:00:00]Laura McKowen: Hey friends, it's Laura, welcome to TMS T even before the pandemic, but especially during and after how many times have you said I'm so burnt out, we all kind of have this general idea of what it's like to be exhausted and at the end of our rope and fried and so on, and we kind of lump that into burnout, but did you know that burnout is a thing that's actually defined as a workplace centered phenomenon and it's studied and measured by the w H O the world health organization?
[00:00:39] I didn't know that.
[00:00:41] They have discerned a model for identifying burnout and the impact of burnout, which is pretty devastating. As we know, one of the ways we get power over an issue or a problem is to name it as an actual thing and put shape and definition around it. That's part of what we're doing in today's episode.
[00:01:01] Today's guest, Jennifer Moss has dedicated a large part of her career to researching, writing about and educating people on burnout. She is going to get us on the same page so we can understand exactly what it is, how it's measured and what the real world impacts of it are. Jennifer is a journalist, a former startup founder, and a brilliant thinker on how our workplace is.
[00:01:26] And really our society is feeling us, her book, the burnout epidemic is an excellent deep dive into this topic. Like so many of us, she came to this topic through her own experience of burning out.
[00:01:41] I know we walk around too often going on about how fried we are or sometimes make that a badge of honor, but this is really serious stuff.
[00:01:50] The w H O calculates that there are 750,000 deaths per year traceable to overwork. We have to do better even with this subject matter. I think you're gonna find this conversation with Jennifer Moss, encouraging.
[00:02:07] I know I did. All right, here you go.
[00:02:21] Hey, Jennifer, I'm so happy to have you here.
[00:02:25]Jennifer Moss: I'm really looking forward to this. It's gonna be great.
[00:02:28]Laura McKowen: I want to have you kind of introduce yourself and just talk about how you, what you do and how you got into this work and why, how you focus got to focus on burnout. It's such an interesting, juicy topic.
[00:02:43]Jennifer Moss: It is. And, and, um, I, would've never thought, you know, starting to write this book in 2019 that the pandemic would've unfortunately been, um, a boost to my career. I feel like Anthony Fauci and I are the only ones that are shocked by how [00:03:00] that impacted us over the last couple of years, but right. You know, I had a really circuitous path, um, wanted to be a journalist, started out as a journalist, went to school for it.
[00:03:10] And, um, but then got into corporate communications, sort of the, the other flip side of, of the, um, sort of the goal. I think I've always been really curious. And so that led me into journalism and then, you know, kind of through the process of working in corporate communications and in HR services, interestingly in HR services company, a big.
[00:03:33] Big one in California. Um, it, it sort of taught me about the research side and how much I love this kind of combination of, um, learning about what's happening in the industry, learning what's happening across the world and how it's affecting workplace, how it's affecting, uh, the, the place where we spend so much of our time, but it wasn't until 2009.
[00:03:55] When my husband who was a pro athlete got really sick, he became acutely paralyzed. [00:04:00] And through this west Nile and Gaon beret and all these really terrifying illnesses that our whole world changed it. Turned on its, you know, kind of on its side. And, um, we moved back to Canada and that sort of led us to really understanding psychological fitness and, you know, and social, emotional intelligence.
[00:04:19] And you know, why we study athletes so much and understanding why they develop some of these really, you know, high level of social, emotional skills. And a lot of it is resiliency and dealing with loss and having to work as a team. And, um, and that led me to, uh, really think about. Contribute that to the workforce.
[00:04:39] Um, but it was my own, um, burnout as the founder of a tech company that, um, played into why I wanted to start to write about it and understand it. But it was also that I was spending so much time with these companies, giving them strategy on, you know, building more fit workforce and realizing that we were really [00:05:00] failing.
[00:05:00] And I kind of felt like a fraud, you know, in that this was about telling, you know, your staff to be psychologically fit and, and prove their own social, emotional intelligence and prove their resiliency. But. You're still overworking them and you still have discriminatory behavior and there's no inclusion and you're disproportionately impacting women.
[00:05:21] And you know, all these things were happening that I came to understand that there was a way bigger problem at hand
[00:05:29]Laura McKowen: around. When did you start to feel like you were a fraud?
[00:05:34]Jennifer Moss: Well, so I was the co-founder of this startup. It was called plasticity labs and the concept was based on the, this neurosciences of happiness and this idea that it's about intentional, you know, slow process of building hygiene and habits that become kind of who you are, right.
[00:05:52] Mm-hmm conscious and culture being the same. And so I think what I came to understand is that there's a [00:06:00] place for this. This is really important for us to still optimize and self care is really important. And we need to, as leaders, model behavior of self care or else. You know, and then we're just constantly creating invisible pressures for people.
[00:06:14] So it's still necessary, but the way that we were tackling it, we were looking at it from a technology approach, you know, like how do we measure happiness and then create interventions and, you know, build it in that way. And, and that we tried and that wasn't working exactly. Cuz again, technology can't solve for everything.
[00:06:34] And we're constant. We were looking for this sort of solution that we realized we needed like a hundred components to create a product that would actually solve for it. And one of the biggest failures was that we had to make sure leaders were walking the walk and what we were only really doing was communicating to employees about how they could, you know, as individuals manage their own burnout [00:07:00] and.
[00:07:00] And it really was in 2019 when the world health organization finally identified burnout as institutional workplace stress left unmanaged, when it was actually, you know, defined as this occupational phenomenon. And it was based on their joint research with the international labor organization, um, that found that 750,000 people die per year of overwork.
[00:07:24] That it's like really catastrophic that I went, okay, this is not just a whiny millennial problem that was, you know, reported in the, the new Yorker. Like, you know, that there's just people wanting more work life balance or millennials and gen Zs are lazy. Like that, wasn't what it was. It was really that there's catastrophic impacts.
[00:07:46] And so I was like, I can't just keep telling. People to manage, you know, their own burnout through self care or handle chronic stress through self care, or that they're just not committed, you know, to their work, or we need to [00:08:00] infuse more passion and that's gonna solve for the systemic discrimination, or here's a, you know, technology solution, listen to rain for 15 seconds and that's gonna, you know, really make it so that there's better, you know, care and paternity and maternity leaves.
[00:08:15] I mean, like we're not, we're using the wrong instrument. Um, yeah. And that really changed for me. I
[00:08:23]Laura McKowen: didn't realize that it wasn't until 2019 that this was like a recognized phenomena that blows my mind because, uh, and, and, and it also, doesn't given our culture. So, um, can you talk about the definition? I was surprised that it.
[00:08:44] Specific to workplace. It doesn't include all areas of life. Why is that? Why is it specific to work and how is that helpful? Does it, is it also limiting
[00:08:56]Jennifer Moss: there's there's a reason why it took till 2019 to [00:09:00] come up with the, the definition. And a lot of it was that there was contention around, you know, burnout already has.
[00:09:08] Sort of ill defined nebulous brand and, uh, you know, people don't treat it seriously. And so therefore if we label it as a, as serious, you know, and we, we, um, try to reduce stigma by making it so clarified and make burnout specific to this one area, you know, is that gonna be beneficial or, or like you said, will it inhibit, you know, it from being, um, You know, realized and, and taken seriously across organizations because we kind of have made burnout seem like, you know, that it's not really important.
[00:09:47] And we, because it's been ill defined, people have taken on a whole bunch of different definitions, but it was Dr. Maslow and Dr. Michael Lider and Susan Jackson, who over the last 40 years have really been pushing for [00:10:00] this very specific definition so that we can start to move the needle and make more accountability for organizations and, and try to make sure that, you know, even if it takes 20 or 30 years, that we start to delineate it at the, you know, at work.
[00:10:16] There's policies that are built around it. There's strategies that we can start to follow there's standards and guidelines, there's laws. And if we don't make this choice, now we won't ever then make it something that we're working on in a very, you know, serious strategic way. And so that's why, and we still have lots of arguments around if people come and say, I, how do I describe my family burnout, then?
[00:10:40] You know, how do I describe burnout in my life? Because I do feel burnout in my life. And I don't think in 2019, they would've expected the pandemic where. You know, 4% of the global workforce was working remote. And then in a week it was 35%. I mean, that's a massive paradigm shifting [00:11:00] moment. So we've got more integration into work in life.
[00:11:02] And so there's some things that I think need to be addressed within that construct. And I, and it's why they, they started to name, label it sort of more broadly as institutional stress, cuz you can feel burnout in school and in, you know, academia and other places, but they've made a point to say, it's not life.
[00:11:21] We need to find another word. For the life stress, um, so that we can go on this path to make sure that we are really focusing now in the next century, um, on changing the way we think about burnout and making it, um, you know, making people understand that there are catastrophic consequences to, to mislabeling it.
[00:11:43]Laura McKowen: Yeah. That makes, that makes complete sense. Can you I'll I'll just read it. So folks can ground themselves in that definition. They w H O is defined burnout as a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic [00:12:00] workplace stress that has not been sufficiently managed
[00:12:04]Jennifer Moss: and it's
[00:12:04]Laura McKowen: characterized by three dimensions, feelings of en energy depletion or exhaustion increased mental distance from one's job and third feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job and reduced professional ethic.
[00:12:24] And this is an important, um, emphasis that burnout refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life. So that's the, that's where we're, we're grounding it. And then, um, the research shows that that burnout has six main causes.
[00:12:47] So I'm gonna read these two and then, and then ask you some questions. So the first is unsustainable workload. Everyone understands that. I think everyone feels that two [00:13:00] perceived lack of control,
[00:13:02]Jennifer Moss: third
[00:13:03]Laura McKowen: insufficient rewards for efforts, for lack of supportive community. And that's referring to one's whole life.
[00:13:13]Jennifer Moss: Is that right? No, this is lack of community inside the workplace. And if you go through them, I can go back and sort of like give a little. Descriptions. Yeah. So, well, let's
[00:13:23]Laura McKowen: do that. Yeah. Lack of fairness and then mismatched values and skills. So unsustainable workload, what, what would you wanna
[00:13:32]Jennifer Moss: comment on that?
[00:13:33] Well, that one's pretty self explanatory. That's for sure. I mean, it's the leading cause of burnout. It was pre pandemic. It is even more so now we're seeing, um, more, an increase in workload, more than ever in the pandemic. We were working about three more hours per day, about 30% more. That's a lot. It's a lot.
[00:13:54] And we were already working unsustainable before. And, and we're finding that, [00:14:00] um, and you know, Jeffrey FFA wrote a really great book dying for a paycheck. And, uh, he wrote that that overwork and, and actually medical, the, the sort of the medical illness or, uh, impact when we are overworking is the fifth leading cause of death in, in the us too.
[00:14:17] I mean, when you look at the symptoms of, of the impact of overwork, it's just unbelievable. It's leading to heart disease and stroke. And, um, so it's a very serious issue and it's increasing, we've also seen, you know, just Microsoft trends data. They said teams meetings alone in the last year. So we're not talking about zoom, Google meet like these, this is just teams.
[00:14:39] Meetings increased by 252% more meetings in this last year, which I mean, meeting fatigue was always a problem. And then now we've got more. So we're just working on sustainably more hours. Um, and so that overwork piece is obviously a big. Threat. I think the fact that there's six root causes, we only, you know, and [00:15:00] often only think about overwork as the leading cause, but there's these other pieces and the lack of agency, one is just what we're seeing right now is that, um, lack of right to disconnect where, you know, you're getting emails at 11, o'clock expected to have an answer by the next morning, or we have this huge attrition problem because of the great resignation.
[00:15:18] And you're all of a sudden, you know, handling four jobs at the same time, or, you know, you, um, you're being micromanaged. We saw a lot of increased micromanagement in the pandemic because managers are used to walking around and seeing you. And it's kind of like, oh, if I can see you, you're probably working.
[00:15:33] Whether you're, you know, playing Tetris, you know, on your phone, behind your computer, it's like, I can see you you're working. So this whole idea of remote work has made people feel like they have to control more. We've seen an increase in boss where people are watching you while you're working. So we have that lack of agency has played a.
[00:15:51] Big role and even just lack of autonomy in how you reach your goals. I mean, often managers will say, you know, I want you to accomplish this goal, but then they [00:16:00] follow you along then the process, instead of just saying, Hey, you know, get there as you get there. I don't care about your process. I just, you know, I'm just happy that you're gonna get there in the way you want to.
[00:16:10] Um, and then, so that lack of autonomy and boredom is playing a big role, um, in people's feeling of burnout. Uh, the lack of, um, and I'm not gonna go in any particular order, but like lack of, um, fairness is a big piece. That was, um, something that came out of this last year that, um, disproportionate impact on, on women and women of color and single mothers.
[00:16:34] Um, you had. People already, you know, in the family, it was mostly women that were taking on that role. And, and then in the pandemic, they went from about four or five hours of unpaid labor, typically on average per week to 20. Um, and so we lost, you know, we still have about 1.8 million women that are not in the workforce.
[00:16:55] So we need to get that many feedback that were before. [00:17:00] Um, we lost 3 million and then we gained back, you know, 1.2, but we're still missing 1.8 million from the workforce. They might not return. Um, so that's, you know, that's 30 years ago that we were at those same, um, female labor force participation. So that was impactful.
[00:17:17] Um, when we look at lack of community, that can mean we're feeling isolated and lonely, which we're seeing a lot in remote workers right now, kind of feeling disconnected from their groups. Um, it can also mean that they feel like othered or excluded inside of, uh, their workplaces. You know, there's, there's examples.
[00:17:34] And in the wellness space where I wrote in the book, you know, the, these fit challenges, you know, and I interviewed a lot of people that said I was excluded because I have mobility issues and you know, all these things that we think are good intentions. And we see that other ring, um, that is lack of community where you don't feel part of the group.
[00:17:53] Um, we also see that that mismatch values and skills that I was telling you that you mentioned, but where we feel [00:18:00] lately, that we really loved our job. Like we were really in this, we're connected to the mission. You see this with a lot of nurses and teachers and physicians and, and even people and impact roles like nonprofits, even, you know, senior executives we're, they loved going into the office and being with people, that's part of what they loved about their jobs.
[00:18:20] They just feel sort of distanced from that. You know, they're not feeling recognized or rewarded for the work. So that's a big part of it. Um, lack of pay. And recognition again, that piece it's pay is important. Yes. But we're finding it's less important. It's more about just feeling like I am valued that I'm doing, you know, really good work.
[00:18:39] That's the crux of those root causes. And so understanding, I think, where you might fit, you might be checking off three or you might have like one of those things. I think that really helps you understand, you know, how burnt out I am and how many causes are affecting me in my role.
[00:18:56]Laura McKowen: So I have to believe there are a lot of people that maybe hear that [00:19:00] list and think, well, that's just work.
[00:19:02] Like, that's just, how work is the pandemic, obviously sharpened people's awareness of what was going on, but has this, is this a new issue? Has it just creeped and become worse and worse and worse? Or
[00:19:18]Jennifer Moss: has it always been bad?
[00:19:21]Laura McKowen: When did this really
[00:19:23]Jennifer Moss: start and take root. You know, I think it's always been around.
[00:19:29] I wrote in the book and I kind of joke, you know, even, you know, the Egyptians, you had the workers about a half, their lifespan of those that, you know, didn't work that were of the aristocratic, you know, group, so, or the, uh, sort of the, the Kings and Queens and the gods. So it's, you know, I think when it comes to work, there's always been people that have, um, been forced to do extra versus those.
[00:19:53] Don't um, but I would say that, you know, we've had this relationship with work [00:20:00] that's really changed. It was transactional. You knew what to expect when technology came in, though, it really did blow up that relationship. It was no longer transactional because. Work was in your home now and work was, you know, you, it was infiltrating that life piece.
[00:20:19] There wasn't the same way of connecting with a factory worker, for example, outside of work or anyone really, unless you could call them, I guess there was some folks maybe in sales that were still on calls or faxing, right? That wasn't that speed of connection. That technology really then, uh, abruptly changed the way that we work and live.
[00:20:40] And then our contract became, went from transactional to a social contract that was different with work. And when that happened, we started to, you know, expect more, but it wasn't until we were really pushed and the pandemic did. Push people to a limit. And I think there's a bit of [00:21:00] revolution now, and now we're post pandemic and people are quietly quitting or they're resigning.
[00:21:07] And they're saying, okay, I'm at my limit. And so their behavior is saying, okay, that social contract with work is not the kind that I want. And I don't necessarily want this future because I've been exposed to my own mortality in the last two and a half years, and my career have changed. And so I don't want that thing that you say is the carrot that carrot doesn't matter to me anymore.
[00:21:30] And that is really disrupting, um, our workforce right now.
[00:21:36]Laura McKowen: What, when you say social contracts, I know what you mean, but can you explain that? So what does the social contract of work.
[00:21:44]Jennifer Moss: Well, I mean, it varies between what organizations and leaders want it to be versus what we expect it to be, but it's kind of the, the defined and the non-defined relationship that we have with our work and the expectations.
[00:21:59] And [00:22:00] so what we're seeing right now is that. People, uh, were working often in the non-defined places of that social contract, that relationship with work, where it became, you know, here is what you you're expected to do. And then there's the above and beyond, you know, expectation, which varies between teams and groups and managers, and whether a manager is really protective of your work life balance and or someone who is not protective of that.
[00:22:33] So, um, going above and beyond could mean for some answering those emails. Connecting with clients being on call basically twenty four seven. Um, you know, and, and it also varies by culture, the social contract with work in Japan versus what the social contract looks like, you know, in Sweden, I mean, very different and in north America, but we have [00:23:00] now said, and here is why I've had this real issue with this ti title of quiet quitting.
[00:23:06] Is that. You know, if you want someone to work, whatever it is that you want them to work above and beyond, you need to define what above and beyond looks like and say, if someone's working to sort of the letter of their law, you know, the, the sort of the construct of what you defined as their job, you have to let them know what it means so that they can do the extra.
[00:23:31] And that becomes their job, you know, stop having people, duke it out for, you know, for a promotion or a raise or acknowledgement, especially when it's. Very one sided and there's a pathway for only certain people to be able to get there. And when you're saying, okay, well, above and beyond means emails and responses at eight o'clock at night when disproportionately females are putting their kids to bed or they're in bathtime or they've just finished [00:24:00] lunches and made dinners, and now they're exhausted and you're saying, okay, well, after all of that extra work, you're supposed to be competing with someone who doesn't have any of those barriers to them being successful.
[00:24:11] Yeah. And so what we're seeing now is that that was the expectation. And even though it was invisible, you still sort of followed what was around you, the culture of the type of people working around you. And so you followed the social contract of, um, sort of the, the sort of the nebulous piece , you know, that was ill defining like the culture.
[00:24:36] And now people are saying, well, I don't. I want that back and I don't think that that's fair. And so people, when we say quietly quitting, they're not quitting. They're just, they're saying that I wanna have a future that like includes living longer and being a good. You know, parent to my children and you know, not working on weekends so I can [00:25:00] go watch my kid play, you know, baseball or whatever.
[00:25:03] I mean, how is that quitting? You know, and, and you hear people too, like Arianna Huffington was just talking about how it's quitting on life. It it's actually not quitting on life. If you're quietly quitting. What you're saying is. You need to create an environment that includes my needs as a human being and what my, you know, rights are.
[00:25:24] And, and you see, you know, a lot of countries now creating these right to disconnect policies. Canada has just adopted it, that makes it unlawful to connect with someone after working hours. So it means better establishment of what the expectation is, what the contract is, and then you're protected in those hours that are yours.
[00:25:45] Um, and I think it's actually a really good revolution that's happening right now.
[00:25:50]Laura McKowen: Yeah. I didn't realize that it just been passed in Canada. I can't imagine a universe where that would ever get passed in America. So this leads [00:26:00] into this discussion of sort of the players that contribute to this and have a stake in, in this phenomenon.
[00:26:07] And, um, Can potentially influence where it goes. I wanna talk about both employers and workers. Um, but there are other, we, you just mentioned, you know, that there's these other factors, the societal factors, the cultural factors, what would you say if you could imagine where the change would be led from, if it's possible to answer that?
[00:26:34] Who
[00:26:35]Jennifer Moss: is it? The employers, is it the workers. I've always said, it's an ecosystem problem of solving. We can't develop, learn helplessness because that's not even functional for our own lives. We have to still, especially as leaders, we need to model self care. So we need legacy to change. Um, employees need to, to begin to trust.
[00:26:56] So it's a, it's a trust building that has to happen over time, where [00:27:00] employees start to feel like, okay, I can participate in these offerings because, um, you've given me now time and I believe that you have my best interest at heart. So it's, it's gonna take a long time. And it does require, I think.
[00:27:18] Leadership and organizations to start, they need to realize that they've created this mess and that they have pushed it on the individual for a long time. And that's been beneficial to them to say, you know, too bad. Oh, you're not working. Above and beyond I'm gonna fire you. I mean, they have been able to leverage this for a really long time and it's now time for them to say, okay, I'm gonna start the process.
[00:27:44] And it's, it's just really about a talking about it, addressing it, making it open for people to talk. About their workloads and have conversations with their boss and their boss has to address it. And their boss's boss has to say, [00:28:00] okay, maybe this growth strategy isn't sustainable with my current workforce.
[00:28:05] Maybe I have to make sure I have staffed up in certain groups. To handle this next project that we wanna take on and realizing that, you know, it isn't just about innovation at all, costs or growth at all costs. And that there's a lot of companies that have made a lot of money and, you know, it's frustrating that their shares might be down or that their profits might be down, but maybe that's okay for a period of time for them to be able to get resourced up, not break their workforce because the cost of attrition, some companies I've worked with have turned over 50% of their teams.
[00:28:43] Like there are 50% of their staff. I have one company that just, they hired 6,000 new people this last year, but they had to replace 3000 of those people. So, I mean, there's a financial impact to that too. And if you're only looking at these [00:29:00] top line numbers and you're not really actually looking at. The consequences of that much attrition, you know, it ends up kind of being, you know, six half dozen in the other.
[00:29:10] We need to be thinking, okay, to be sustainable and to be profitable long term, it means taking a pause. And so that's something that we need to think about, but government too, I mean, the right to disconnect policy is really important. You know, that the. Right now has no standards on psychosocial, you know, policies, really it's safety policies.
[00:29:31] And we have standards around that, but when it comes to psychological or psychosocial policies, there's very little, there's no standards really globally. Uh, the U uh, Canada has really led the way there as well as Australia. Both of them have worked really together to come up with real standards around psychosocial, um, safety policies, but that needs to also change.
[00:29:53] So when you're looking at that part of it, it's government needs to play a role. And like, even like, um, you [00:30:00] know, words like paternity and maternity leave, we should have care leave. We should change the language around that. It shouldn't just be about whoever's birthing the child that has this different way.
[00:30:11] I mean, different way of thinking about that person, which is very exclusive and it makes paternity leave, uh, less. I don't know, less taken, which you know, and, and, and it's not reinforced, which then disproportionately impacts women in the long term. So these are very upstream policy, government, um, invested strategies that need to pair with what leaders are doing.
[00:30:34] And then employees, I think will get to a point where they, they, they built back the trust and then they can participate in a way that's engaged, inspired, and they don't feel like quietly quitting because the, the, the, you know, the strategy is there where they don't feel so left out of the decision, um, and left out of their lives.
[00:30:56] Yeah.
[00:30:57]Laura McKowen: And because right now, I mean, there are a lot of companies that [00:31:00] signal these wellness programs and I'm sure some of them are real, but the trust you're talking about is like, I trust that I AC I can actually do this. I can actually stop working at five o'clock and I'm not gonna be penalized. I can trust that I can take my unlimited vacation.
[00:31:17] You can actually take a vacation and not work during your vacation. Right. So that's the kind of trust you're talking about, right? Like that they, that they're heard. And also that the, the standards that are set and the strategy that is set is, is respected across the
[00:31:33]Jennifer Moss: culture and the leaders. That's exactly it.
[00:31:36] That's like you stated it perfectly, but, and that's gonna take a lot of time to rebuild. That relationship and legacy really has to change because what I see in a lot of organizations is leaders saying, okay, well, I'm gonna tell you not to answer your email on the weekends, on my, on vacation, but I'm going to, because it's okay for me, but not okay for you.
[00:31:57] And, and then, you know, people feel like, [00:32:00] well, if you're doing it, then I probably should be, or I should be responding. Um, and then just, you know, the cycle continues. Yeah. It's so
[00:32:09]Laura McKowen: tricky though. Having been a, a leader and an owner of a company and an employee, you know,
[00:32:16]Jennifer Moss: you're,
[00:32:17]Laura McKowen: the leaders are, are stuck too.
[00:32:19] They're not always sitting on high thinking. I'm gonna do, you know, I'm gonna do this as a, I'm gonna do this to my employees. I'm going to,
[00:32:28]Jennifer Moss: you know, it's, they're stuck too. It. And they have stakeholders and they have stakeholders and they're sandwiched often I did this talk throughout the pandemic, exhausted leaders, leading exhausted teams.
[00:32:42] And, you know, they were. They were just, they're so exhausted. And, and I kept saying like, we have to create this vulnerability to say where I'm at as a leader that I'm trying, you know, and that I've had a, I've had, you know, 25, the same age as you, 45, I've had 25 years of the [00:33:00] expectation being always on.
[00:33:02] And so to kind of rewire my brain, even to do that, I'm constantly trying to do that with my team and, you know, send later on emails and, you know, because I'm passionate about my work too. I have this thread of burning out because I don't know when to stop. And so there's all these things I'm I have to regularly intentionally work at it.
[00:33:23] And so you're asking millions of managers and leaders across the globe. Tens of millions to completely rewire their habits and their, the way that they behave. And so it's, it's this, this idea that we're gonna be able to solve it. Like I said, where I was, where I was a fraud, solve it with technology or solve it with some silver bullet solution.
[00:33:45] I mean, this is, we haven't been able to in the us get paid family leave. I mean, when I had children there, I mean, you have a, you have a disability check that you get, which is so bizarre. I mean, these are the kind of, it's so weird. And so [00:34:00] like, these are the kind of things that are gonna take, you know, a long time to, to switch off.
[00:34:06] Um, and, and there's a lot of other factors, you know, political factors and just so many other things that are creating barriers to solving this. So it's, I think it has to be that we intentionally take a couple things, you know, and leaders can do that really quickly. Like how, what if I just do one thing differently for now for the next six months?
[00:34:25] What is one thing like, like maybe as
[00:34:28]Laura McKowen: an, as an employer yourself, what is, or manager, leader, owner, what is one thing? Like if you had to just start from zero, what is one thing that you
[00:34:38]Jennifer Moss: would do? I'm a really big proponent of a data and, and that doesn't need to mean like an employee survey across the board.
[00:34:49] I always suggest a very specific one meeting a week non-work related check-in and asking people how they're doing, [00:35:00] what is one thing that was a, like a, you know, hi of this week, that was a professional hire non-professional high, whatever. It was like something that just lit them up this week and went stressor and, you know, share some of the things that are just really needling them or that are starting to frustrate them because you find that the.
[00:35:21] The burnout happens with these tiny little pebbles that turn into boulders. They're the like gradating things about work that you put aside, you put aside, you put aside, you're getting increasingly more and more frustrated, and then finally it's just, people are at over it and then you lose people. And so this non-work related chicken is just 30 minutes.
[00:35:43] It's supposed to be quick. You go around each other and then, you know, find out what is the language of motivation for people. I always love like learning this thing that lit them up, that we can be. That they went to New York and they're a huge Broadway buff. And they just watched, you know, three days straight of all the [00:36:00] shows that they could and, you know, or they talked about like going to, we have TIF going on right now.
[00:36:05] And it's all about like the movies that they're planning to see the festival and just, you know, you hear about that. Or, or if they repeatedly talk about something that really excites them as a leader, you can say, okay, that's a motivating thing for them. How do I incorporate that maybe into projects or, you know, or incentives or rewards.
[00:36:23] And, and then you can start to customize and personalize the way that you work with your teammates. And then the last one I think is really important. This third piece of the meeting should be okay, what can we do team, um, next week to make this a bit easier? What are some of those little tiny knowing issues?
[00:36:40] How do we solve it for Mary? Like, she's really feeling frustrated by this thing that keeps happening and she's feeling like she's running outta time on these projects. Like what can we do to, to help with that? How do we, you know, figure out a solution together. And as a team, you, you know, compassionately and empathetically solve problems week to week.
[00:36:57] And it's a very [00:37:00] simple way of adjusting the conversation. And a lot of people have non-work related check-ins, but they're not, um, they're not functional. They don't have an outcome, you know, you're just sort of talking and sometimes it leads to complaining. So I always say like, start off with like a stressor first and then talk about what lights you up after, and then come up with solutions.
[00:37:20] So there's this practical, intentional aspect to the meeting and people start to see over time. It's about. It's about consistency and frequency, so you never meet it. And then over time it starts to build trust and leaders have to get into the, the weeds too. They have to talk about their stressors and their vulnerabilities and their things that light them up too.
[00:37:42] Um, and not be worried that it's gonna make you less effective or, you know, um, viewed as a strong or, um, authoritative that I think what we found and we've done this intervention across lots of orgs. What we found is that people tend to really relate to their like supervisor or leader manager [00:38:00] at that point.
[00:38:01] Um, and then leaders get really a lot better at, um, at just understanding what people's needs are and catching them in time, you know, before they get to be the builders.
[00:38:11]Laura McKowen: Yeah. Cuz I thought one of the interesting, um, things about the report that you provided was that just being able to talk about mental health was such a big
[00:38:20]Jennifer Moss: factor, um, in people's.
[00:38:24]Laura McKowen: Uh, wellness satisfaction with work. Um, and
[00:38:29]Jennifer Moss: I, I,
[00:38:31]Laura McKowen: yeah, that I, if I think about it now, you know, I work in a, in a recovery commute space. And so we're always
[00:38:37] talking
[00:38:37]Jennifer Moss: about mental health. It's very open,
[00:38:40]Laura McKowen: but in my prior lives, no, we never did that. So, um, that that's helpful. That's super helpful. And that's even helpful for, for me and my organization, cuz we, you know, usually have the part of the, the weekly meeting where you just kind of catch up with each other.
[00:38:56] And, but that's like, oh God, we gotta get through this so we can actually [00:39:00] make the meeting, you know, do the, the thing we're supposed to do
[00:39:02]Jennifer Moss: at the meeting. Right. Yeah. And I think that peop that companies and, and even just, or some organizations do really well, you probably have that open space where people can communicate.
[00:39:14] And there are probably, you know, 20% of companies and organizations and nonprofits and groups, even teams and hospitals and other places that all do this well, like the culture just works for them, but there's not a there's, you know, and that's great, but a lot of people don't know how to define it.
[00:39:30] They're just doing this naturally. And so we need to give the people the tools that don't necessarily do this naturally. Like they're struggling to be able to figure out, okay, well, how do I. Figure that out because you know, it's great for those folks. And I've had com I've worked at companies where it's just the there's Xu.
[00:39:48] Like it's just, there's something in the air. We just all bond. It's really great. Like we love going into work. We're we're so into each other. And then I've been in places that are this polar opposite [00:40:00] and it's like, okay, what did this, what was the secret sauce over here? And you start to break it down.
[00:40:06] You realize it's just fundamentally, really high trust and good friends. Good relationships. Work is fun. There's levity. It's not you like three all the
[00:40:15]Laura McKowen: time.
[00:40:16]Jennifer Moss: Yeah. You like the people that you're interacting with it's same as school. You know, if you go to school, we were talking about this earlier, but if you go to school and you have no friends, like it's really a sad place to be.
[00:40:26] I mean, work, we sort of have to get that back. And I actually had someone use this sort of description and described, uh, work lately is like going to school with no recess, no art, no, no gym. It's just like all it's all work right now. And we stopped having fun. We've stopped hanging.
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[00:42:33]Laura McKowen: So workers, um, let's switch to that real quick. Uh,
[00:42:39]Jennifer Moss: You've
[00:42:39]Laura McKowen: interviewed people who make the case that burnout is never the worker's fault, but, um, it does have serious impacts on our physical and mental health. You spoke with someone who says that the key is getting what's called authentic rest as the most important step in the efforts to recharge.
[00:42:56] What is that? What is authentic
[00:42:58]Jennifer Moss: rest? [00:43:00] It is a big component for workers. Again, the self care piece is important for discuss as individuals and it's really important at work. Um, sleep is a big factor. I mean, like there's a lot of things that Arianna Huffington says that I agree with in the sleep. You know, the mission she's been on around sleep is really important.
[00:43:18] I was just doing commencement speech for a university yesterday, and I was noting that you have the, the difference between sleeping eight hours for in, in, you know, as you're a student, um, versus six hours is the difference of likelihood of graduation and higher GPA than those who sleep six hours or less.
[00:43:37] So there's like this real impact on performance. Um, and so we need to start thinking about, and this has been something I've been sort of really pushing is. We have become toxically productive, you know, this toxic productivity where now we don't mute. So now we just have to fill in the time and you know, they all, we always have to be doing things.
[00:43:58] I, I felt like at the beginning [00:44:00] of the pandemic, you know, I couldn't even barely get the dishes washed. And yet that people, Marie coning their kitchen and, you know, there. People baking bread every day with starter kids and learning four languages on duo lingo. And they're like, pushing me, like, what are you doing with your extra time?
[00:44:17] As you have three kids trying to like home school and write a book on ironically on burnout. So like, that's, what's sort of happened. I think out the pandemic too. We've in, we're in a state of urgency and emergency all the time, but, and we haven't let that slow down. And so we, it's so
[00:44:34]Laura McKowen: hard. It's so hard to let that slow down.
[00:44:37] Like, do you struggle with that?
[00:44:38]Jennifer Moss: Cause I do. Well, look at me like I'm even a person that like, you can't see or people what she's like, I'm like boiling over all the time. So, so yes. So yes, I have a, a real problem with that. I think personality type already. And then that's last year. And just ha [00:45:00] having to do more with less all the time and also being really bad at like the job of teaching my kids.
[00:45:05] I was terrible at it. I was awful. Not something I was good at. I never wanted to be a teacher ever like that. Wasn't when we played games, I played business like, like six. So, so I wasn't ever playing teacher. That was a thing that we really struggled with. But yeah, there's this toxic productivity and we need to start looking at.
[00:45:27] Rest as actually being productive. We don't look as at breaks. We look at that as a break from productivity, instead of looking at it as being productive. And I want us to start changing the way we think about rest as actually this part of productivity. And instead of using your commute time to work more, you know, use it as a way to.
[00:45:49] You know, improve your brain capacity, improve your ability to make simple decisions and make you less volatile when you're dealing with clients and staff. I mean, [00:46:00] that actually makes you a more efficient and higher producing person. If you look at rest as productivity, and we don't see that, we see that like as a break from it, and that really does need to change.
[00:46:14] We also, according to Dr. Dalton Smith, really interesting researcher did, did a great Ted talk, but also wrote a book. She talks about, uh, that we're in a global rest deficit and we're missing all of this rest, not just sleep, but we need creative rest. We need, um, social and emotional rest. We need spiritual rest.
[00:46:34] Um, which means we have to actually get outta nature to gain more spiritual rest. Like we need to get up, you know, we need all of these different types of rest that are. Really part of how we are more productive. And instead, we only look at it asleep, which we barely get, and we never give ourselves times away from our devices.
[00:46:54] We don't give ourselves time to focus on our hobbies. We're not as we're burning out, [00:47:00] spending, you know, time with those people that give us, you know, what positive psychologists call, um, effortless state of belonging, you know that, and I love that term, that effortless state of belonging. And we have people in our lives that give us that.
[00:47:14] But when we're working really hard, we tend to like, we know that there's loyalty there. We know that we have a history. So we just put those people off, knowing that when we have time, we'll bring them back in and it's like, Those are the people that actually feel us, like if we need them more than ever right now in this situation that we're in, where we're exhausted.
[00:47:33] We need people that feel like putting on the commies pair of track pants and, um, being yourself. And one of the things that's happened too, is that we're staring at ourselves so much in the mirror. We have this, this digital exhaustion, um, actually Botox, amazingly calls this, the zoom, boom, Botox has gone up 90%, their sales increasing 90%.
[00:47:59] I'm not [00:48:00] surprised
[00:48:00]Laura McKowen: because as I'm looking at you, I'm like, oh, there's the ditch in
[00:48:03]Jennifer Moss: my forehead. no. And I'm looking at how red my face is. I'm like, why do I look at them sunburn? You know, like, it's just, yeah. And we're
[00:48:11]Laura McKowen: not made to look in the, the mirror for eight hours a
[00:48:14]Jennifer Moss: day. Like no one hates that. It's, you're this self criticism.
[00:48:18] So now we have a zoom, boom, you know, or, uh, from in Botox, I mean, there's just all these. Things, these sort of freako trickle down impacts to that really should be telling us a lot about our behaviors that we need to pause and readjust. I mean, we need to readjust. Why, why bot, why is Botox saying this is zoom, boom, that's a problem.
[00:48:42] Maybe we should reassess how much time we're looking at ourselves and getting the rest we need and getting these breaks and looking them as, as productive, um, you know, recharging instead of breaks, you know, all of this language that we could be using to change the [00:49:00] narrative around our own self care, I think is really critical.
[00:49:04] I think that the
[00:49:05]Laura McKowen: thing that comes up for me around that is when you
[00:49:09]Jennifer Moss: are
[00:49:11]Laura McKowen: it's it's this catch 22. When you get, as I have so much validation and
[00:49:18]Jennifer Moss: identity and reward
[00:49:21]Laura McKowen: from productivity and what you put
[00:49:23]Jennifer Moss: out
[00:49:24]Laura McKowen: and success and achievement rest
[00:49:28]Jennifer Moss: actually doesn't feel good at first or
[00:49:31]Laura McKowen: for a while. Yeah. Like first of all, if you can even remember how
[00:49:34]Jennifer Moss: to rest yes, I have struggled
[00:49:38]Laura McKowen: with that.
[00:49:38] Like I don't, I don't, what do I even
[00:49:41]Jennifer Moss: do? What, what does rest actually
[00:49:42]Laura McKowen: mean? Am I just staring at the wall? Am I laying on the couch? Does reading a book count as,
[00:49:49]Jennifer Moss: as rest? I
[00:49:49]Laura McKowen: mean, I know it's different for everybody, but it, but there, I think people genuinely struggle with what does rest even mean? If I'm, if I'm running errands, is that rest because I'm taking care of [00:50:00] things.
[00:50:00] Um, is it traveling well, traveling stressful because ,
[00:50:04]Jennifer Moss: you know, like there's so much, we've like bled
[00:50:07]Laura McKowen: the joy out of so many things that we don't. Even know how to access it. And it's like this muscle that you have to rebuild and
[00:50:15]Jennifer Moss: like
[00:50:15]Laura McKowen: any rebuilding of any muscle it's not comfortable, it's it doesn't actually
[00:50:19]Jennifer Moss: feel good for a while.
[00:50:21] I, I love that you're describing it like that because that's how most people feel. And I get like that too. It, it, it's intentional. I really have to create a focus and it's hard and it's frustrating that I'm working so hard. I'm almost tired, uh, because I'm resting and, and it, it doesn't, you know, it's, it's because of the.
[00:50:43] Again, that the state of urgency, the fact also that we have to recognize is that we've had our brains in fight or flight and surge capacity for a very long time. And it's not even really over. There's still a lot of, you know, SOC societal and social unrest. There's. Triggers in [00:51:00] our day to day lives that are making us feel anxious.
[00:51:04] And, and we've also just depleted our capacity. Our brains are very tired. And so what happens is it's looking for excuses to, um, to not be thinking about what's going on in the brain. And so it's looking for stimulus, like our laptops, like our phones, it, it wants to kind of solve, scratch the edge. And we've stopped being curious about things that give us pleasure.
[00:51:31] And so like, and so there's this, uh, perceptual curiosity, which is what we tend to really focus on and that's, um, and it actually is described sort of in the, the neuroscience. And this is not in a, um, a medical definition, but it's like scratching a niche that can actually be scratched. Like, for example, A lot of us inside of the pandemic were constantly looking for new information about COVID.
[00:51:56] And even though it wouldn't change from day to day, or it just got [00:52:00] worse, we'd be, you know, three times a day, checking the news or watching the news. It was the background music of our lives. We were doomsday scrolling and there's social media stuff where all of a sudden you're. You know, in this huge time, suck on TikTok, cuz you just don't wanna, you know, think or Instagram or Twitter wherever you are that you're sort of in this place.
[00:52:19] But it's because you wanna seek information. You wanna feel better about that information and that never actually is what it doesn't give us the feedback. But when we do things like wander around a park or wander through an art gallery or we, you know, or we have what I call a frivolous 15 where it is like where you actually set a timer to give yourself 15 minutes where you can feel, you know, no guilt or you can stare at a wall or like we almost need timed space in the beginning because that makes us feel like we're off the hook of expectation on us.
[00:52:55] Like creating these primes in our brains so that we can commit [00:53:00] to it or setting again a prime in our brain to say at one o'clock every single day is my frivolous 15 and your body starts to produce hormones and chemistry. That actually gets you to relax. Once it starts to trust, it takes like a month or, or longer.
[00:53:15] But if you set a pattern response every single day at the same time, and at first it's tricky, but then over, you know, a month or two or whatever, once it becomes habit, you start to, you know, produce these resting, you know, hormones. Before you start to take your break, you have 15 minutes that's timed. And then that sort of translates after.
[00:53:37] But what I've heard people say is that they sort of started to extend it. Like they let the timer go for 17 and then they let the timer for 20. And so it's like rebuilding a habit and giving yourself. Time to not feel guilty and be off the hook from it, knowing that when the timer goes off, you can get right back into the zone.
[00:53:57] And that's what the expectation is, but you're [00:54:00] taking this guilt free time and, and intentionally, uh, solving this problem. But it's a it's work. It's like anything else, it takes a lot of work and intention, and it's frustrating. And it's frustrating that it takes work because we should just be able to, you know, rest, um, but doing what you're doing too and taking time off.
[00:54:21] I'm
[00:54:21]Laura McKowen: so glad you said all of that, because I think a lot of times, I mean, we can make ourselves wrong for everything. Right. And that's part of it. Like I'm, I don't even know how to rest anymore. This isn't restful. It should feel like this. And, and then we're just caught . Yeah. I'm a terrible person. I can't even rest.
[00:54:36] I'm no fun. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that's super helpful. So I wanna, um, respect time and we'll bring this to a close, uh, Oh, there was this percentage in the research at 22% of people who said their wellbeing did improve over the pandemic and the biggest factor, um, being
[00:54:59]Jennifer Moss: [00:55:00] better
[00:55:00]Laura McKowen: balance and boundaries and the benefits of no commute.
[00:55:04] Mm-hmm can you just talk
[00:55:05]Jennifer Moss: about that a little bit? Yeah. And I think, you know, it, me being an happiness expert and then an unhappiness expert, I've come to realize that they, the goal is always the same, you know, it's it's okay. Just starting, I'm starting a little further upstream, you know, I'm not coming at it for the people that are already feeling good.
[00:55:24] I'm coming at it from a little bit earlier, but the goal is eventually where people feel good. And I think I actually see a lot of optimism and hope out of what we've gone through. And I think that. One of the most incredible skills that we've built is this, um, this gratitude and this social, emotional flexibility, and this sort of cognitive optimism.
[00:55:46] And we don't, we don't realize we've built it. So we need to actually acknowledge it and label it because a lot of us have. And part of that is that, you know, when you go through this, this process [00:56:00] of having to be flexible, when you have been forced to be resilient, your brain actually starts to predict that future stress will be easier to handle because we now have a frame of reference.
[00:56:11] And so we, we start to think differently about challenges and we're more hopeful about it. We've also learned a focus on what we have versus what we don't have. I mean, you look at the signs of gratitude and that's really what it is. It's about saying that two things can be true at the same time. And I'm a big proponent of, and you probably familiar with this, but dialectical behavioral therapy and this idea of like, This idea that, and that you can have two things be true at the same time.
[00:56:37] And the one of them is that, was I tired? Was I tired and exhausted from my family? Yeah. There were periods of time where I felt really burned out, you know, from my family. And yet I wasn't traveling as much. We were eating dinner together, more. We were connected. And what we found is that there's a percentage of people, about [00:57:00] 20% of the global population that will experience post-traumatic growth out of moments like these, where they will actually increase their happiness set point because they see this as a, as a learning, you know, as a, as.
[00:57:13] Difficult and, and very stressful time and there's trauma for some and grief and all of those feelings can be true at the, at the same time as while we also developed this appreciation for our lives in a different way. We, we kind of got down to the basics, you know, Maslow's, you know, theories is that, you know, you, you, when you get down to those survival skills, like everything else seems just like a cherry on top of the cake of life.
[00:57:39] Right? And so there is a certain percentage of people that will immediately reframe that are just kind of dandelions in the sea of orchids. And they just know how to, kinda to think like that. And so there is that. That are gonna be like that. But I think if we are better at labeling, like what are some of the things that we would've never had if it [00:58:00] wasn't for the pandemic, you know, and, and take that forward and apply that, then it doesn't mean that the trauma, the grief, the pain didn't happen.
[00:58:09] It means we're choosing to, uh, bring a new narrative forward that might serve us better and, you know, serve the people around us a bit better.
[00:58:20]Laura McKowen: Yeah. And you really have to do it consciously
[00:58:22]Jennifer Moss: because we.
[00:58:23]Laura McKowen: We have the, what is it? The Haddon set point. You just, you get used to whatever is around and you get used to the sort of base level, you know, what, what was familiar becomes normal?
[00:58:35] So it's like, oh, I, I have a good, uh,
[00:58:38]Jennifer Moss: you can be grateful
[00:58:40]Laura McKowen: and, and experience all that gratitude. Uh, and then six months later, it's just, what's normal. And you're like find new ways to be miserable.
[00:58:48]Jennifer Moss: so,
[00:58:49]Laura McKowen: so you do have to, you really do have to remind yourself of, of this. I do
[00:58:55]Jennifer Moss: Lucy hone out of Australia. You might be familiar with her, but she did that Ted talk on resiliency [00:59:00] and she talks about resiliency and she was a researcher.
[00:59:04] And then her daughter died with her best friend and it was horrifying. It was just a really difficult thing. And all of a sudden she was being resilient. For real. And she, uh, gave some really good understanding from an academic side, but also from her research and stuff. But she realized that she threw a lot of that stuff in the air and came to understand what.
[00:59:27] It really is like to, to reframe and what that means to pull things that are even the most tragic experiences and change the dynamic of it. And I think we need to look at, um, you know, that everyone has their own experience of pain and grief, and, you know, it varies from one tragic event to maybe what others might not interpret as tragic, but all of our feelings are, you know, valid and recognizing that we can see, even in the worst [01:00:00] situations, you know, opportunities to do something better or we, you know, or we're wasting a crisis.
[01:00:06] And I keep saying like, we can't waste this crisis or then nothing was, there was no point to any of it. And I can't as a human be. I'm just, that's not my nature. Maybe I'm overly hopeful or rationally optimistic. I don't know. But I, I do think that, that it, I don't wanna waste this, you know, I want it to be.
[01:00:26] There needs to be a reason for it. And then we have, we have to do the work to make there be a reason for this.
[01:00:43]Laura McKowen: Thank you for being with us today. If you want more TMS T head on over to TMS T pod.com and become a member members, get access to the full uncut versions of these conversations. Opportunities to submit questions [01:01:00] for AMAs and invites to join me for members only events, we decided from the beginning to make this an independent project, we don't have sponsors and we don't run ads.
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[01:01:35] You could make a huge difference for as little as $5. Please head on over to TMS tpo.com. Right now, tell me something true is engineered and mixed by Paulo Michael El assessor. And I dreamed up this show and we're looking forward to joining you online and next time on tell me something true.[01:02:00]