2/ About a year ago, and I started digging into the burnout literature.
Our question was simple: burnout is common today, due to the global pandemic.
But how does it work?
After all, if you understand the mechanism, you might be able to prevent it.
Conversation
3/ The answer we found was surprising. It seems most researchers see burnout as a 'stress experience in a social context'.
The second bit of that is key.
It implies that burnout is NOT an individual's responsibility. You can't fix burnout without fixing the social environment.
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4/ Let's start from the top.
Burnout consists of 3 dimensions:
1. Exhaustion
2. Cynicism
3. Ineffectiveness.
These 3 dimensions make up the Maslach Burnout Inventory — the most widely-used test for burnout. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P
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5/ There are other tests, but all modern assessments for burnout test the exact same three dimensions.
This is actually useful to know!
It means burnout is not one thing — it's three things that may be evaluated at a more granular level.
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6/ The dimensions tend to show up in roughly that order.
First you get exhausted. Then you become cynical. Finally you become ineffective at your job.
This isn't EXACTLY true, but it's broadly true. Christina Maslach observed that this was the most common progression.
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7/ And it's also more useful! The MBI tells you how burnt out you are.
If you're exhausted but not cynical, it means things aren't bad. You're NOT super burnt out, and you can still recover easily.
Of course, if you have all 3, then things ARE bad. Recovery will take longer.
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8/ But it's not enough to have an assessment model of burnout.
If you want to prevent it, you must also have a *developmental* model — that is, some idea of how it develops in the first place.
These models are where things get really interesting!
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9/ There are two well established developmental models:
- The Jobs-Demands Resources model (JD-R)
- The Conservation of Resources model (COR)
Why are these interesting? Because — well, they tell you how to run high performance, high stress workplaces WITHOUT burnout.
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10/ The JD-R model basically says: "ok, you can have high job demands, but if you balance that out with good 'job resources', then you can ameliorate the effects of burnout.
Job resources can take on many forms! See:
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