By Blake DuBose and Mike DuBose
The idea of mojo—a passion or drive for excellence—is exemplified in some businesses, including Southwest Airlines and our family of companies. It took years for us to create the right culture, but our employees enjoy what they are doing, and the quality of work they produce reflects happiness with their personal and professional lives and a desire to excel.
For those who lack mojo, however, there is a flip side: burnout, which Marshall Goldsmith nicknames “nojo” in his book “Mojo.” Merriam-Webster’s dictionary calls burnout “exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration.” When stressed out, peoples’ enthusiasm eventually runs dry. They are apathetic or, at the worst, very negative. From a leader’s standpoint, employees with nojo cripple businesses. They are simply too burned out to produce decent products and services, much less the outstanding customer service that is so important in setting a business apart from its competitors.
Stress is a major cause of “nojo,” and thus is an enemy of business success. There are many potential stressors in life, including divorce, financial troubles, and illness, and the more that are activated, the greater a person’s stress level (and the lower their mojo). In fact, Dr. Mehmet Oz says that long-term stress can place our bodies into a long-term hyper-alert state, lowering immunity and increasing risk of disease.
There are many causes of stress, like outside sources, work, and personal issues. Goldsmith says that personal and work lives are inseparable. What goes on at home will find its way to work, and vice versa. When personal, home, spiritual, and work lives are balanced and things are moving in the right direction, our mojo is alive. Conversely, when one or more are out of balance, it impacts all aspects of a person’s life.
Most of us have experienced at least a few of the following stressors, which, if severe and plentiful enough, can turn into burnout:
Job insecurity: According to “The Wall Street Journal,” in September 2011, Bank of America informed its employees that 30,000 layoffs will occur over the next few years. Understandably, many of them are worried that their jobs are at stake, and they don’t even know when the danger will be over! Because job changes are a major cause of stress, job security worries can quickly snowball into burnout.
Excessive distractions: Technological advances have facilitated much growth, but at the price of increased stress. Many of us are surrounded by electronic devices that demand our attention—ringing or vibrating smartphones, computer programs that alert us to every message, e-mail, or appointment, and landline phones that sound throughout the day. Some people even read and write e-mails while driving, even though this makes them 23 times more likely to be involved in a car accident, according to the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute!
Doing more with less: Some managers push their staff (and themselves) beyond limits and prioritize work above their personal lives. Many people work every chance they get, taking smartphones and laptops with them even on vacation. When not working, they fill every moment seeing or doing something. However, insufficient rest is harmful to physical and emotional health.
Harried employees are left with no time to read publications or attend workshops that will stimulate creativity and improve their personal and professional lives, and the lack of growth opportunities leaves them feeling stifled and apathetic.
Feeling underappreciated: If their expectations are that every decision will work, all customer encounters will be successful, and their personal and professional lives will be mistake-free, people are bound to be disappointed. If instead of celebrating successes, managers agonize over disappointments, failures, and mistakes, they will burn themselves (and their staff) out.
All employees like to feel rewarded, cared about, and appreciated. Those who never receive praise for good work—only rebukes for mistakes—will eventually stop caring about producing even a decent product.
Micromanagement: Some leaders and managers want to be in every meeting and participate on every decision. The implication is that they don’t trust those around them to do things in a high-quality way. Micromanagers often find themselves mired in too many daily tasks, overwhelmed and unable to lead their staff into the future.
Employees, too, often find themselves frustrated by bureaucracies that come with micromanagement. In the movie “Office Space,” Peter Gibbons tells a consultant that he has eight managers. Peter, the quintessential example of a burned out employee, says, “Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.”
Picking the wrong staff and clients: Instead of carefully screening job candidates to find outstanding people, managers often surround themselves with those who think like them, so there is little debate. This leads to bad decisions, which generate stress and fires to put out. We spend enormous amounts of energy and frustration trying to “fix” the wrong people rather than firing them, and the rest of the staff has to work even harder to make up for the unproductive members, often causing resentment amongst them.
Customers can also be a source of stress. If a company lacks purpose above making money, it tends to end up chasing many labor-intensive, low-profit customers who consume great amounts of staff energy and make their lives miserable.
Poor planning: Many people come to work having put little planning into the things they wish to accomplish that day, instead merely reacting to the day’s events. They leave work exhausted and with no feeling of accomplishment. Even fewer have a clear plan for their lives as a whole.
This applies to businesses as well. If there is no vision, purpose, dream, and/or management plan containing the steps to take the business toward its goal, employees may feel stress over figuring out their role in the future. Many may not even know what the big picture is!
Allowing the past to drive the future: People with too manyunresolved conflicts from the past are often unable to move into the future. If they attempt to proceed without professional help, the repressed pain, tragedies, and injustices may catch up with them and cause them to come unglued.
So how can leaders avoid these problems and ensure a healthy, happy, and enthusiastic workforce? Read our next segment, “Putting Out the Burnout Fires,” to find out!
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Blake DuBose graduated from Newberry College School of Business and is president of DuBose Web Group. You can view our published articles at www.duboseweb.com.
Mike DuBose has been in business since 1981 and is the author of The Art of Building a Great Business. He is the servant owner of three debt-free corporations, including Columbia Conference Center, Research Associates, and The Evaluation Group. For more articles, visit his nonprofit website www.mikedubose.com.
Katie Beck serves as senior technical writer to the DuBose family of companies. She is a graduate of the USC School of Journalism and Honors College.
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