The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How to Fix It
Jennifer Moss
Harvard Business Review Press (September 2021)

Healthy workplace cultures should resemble gardens, not pressure cookers 

In her Introduction, Jennifer Moss refers to the earliest recorded reference in 1599 to burnout in a stanza within the seventh of 20 poems that comprise William Shakespeare’s  The Passionate Pilgrim: “She burned out love, as soon as straw outburneth.” Fire illuminates and provides warmth but it can also consume. The same is true of stress. If managed properly, it can guide and inform effort that is creative, focused, and positive.

However, stress can also be destructive, especially what Rob Cross and Karen Dillon characterize as [begin italics] microstress [end italics]: “the relentless accumulation of unnoticed small stresses in passing moments is what was drastically affecting the well-being of these people who otherwise appeared to have it all. We call these small pressures [begin italics] microstress [end italics].” Cross and Karen Dillon teamed up to “make sense of this phenomenon” and their book — The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up and Cceate Bib Problems — and What to Do About It — shares what they learned from wide and deep research.

If you doubt there is a global burnout epidemic, consider these facts from research conducted among thousands of respondents in 46 countries:

> 62% of those struggling to manage their workloads had experienced burnout often” or “extremely often” recently.
> 57% of employees felt that the COVID pandemic had “a large effect on” or “completely dominated” their work.
> 55% of all respondents didn’t feel that they had been able to balance their home and life work — with 53% specifically citing homeschooling as the reason.
> 25% felt unable to maintain a strong connection with family, 39% with colleagues, and 50% with friends.
> Only 21% rated their well-being as “good,” and a mere two percent rated it as “excellent.”

As her “Notes” correctly indicate, Moss includes a wealth of secondary sources in their research. Their authors share the results of their own research. This collective contribution to thought leadership can enable those who read The Burnout Epidemic to gain significant advantages when competing in a business world that’s more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, and more ambiguous than at any prior time that I can recall.

Two major benefits are worthy of special attention now. First, the material helps to prepare leaders in all organizations — whatever their size and nature may be — to avoid or recover from their own burnout; also, the material can prepare them to help others to do so. I agree with Moss

These are among the other passages of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to suggest the scope of Moss’s coverage:

o Burnout (Pages 4-8 and 17-68)
o Organizational hygiene (18-20)
o Workload issues (22-23, 25-28, and 106-107)
o Mental health (28-31)
o Lack or recognition (40-48)

o Unfair treatment (58-61)
o Health care professionals (77-88)
o Burnout issues: Teachers (89-93 and 93-101)
o Well-being (158-163)
o Good intentions (111-113, 125-132, and 132-138)

o Perks and benefits (113-119)
o Paid time off (119-125)
o Role modeling (122-123 and 160-161)
o Curiosity and leaders (167-185)
o Empathy in leaders (187-211)

o Grief in the workplace (189-194)
o Trust and empathy (203-207)
o Self-care for leaders (213-234)
o meaning in work (214-219)
o Well being: leaders (220-226)

The Burnout Epidemic is a “must read” for all C-level executives and especially for other supervisors who also have direct reports entrusted to their care. They share primary responsibility for establishing and then nourishing (as well as protecting) a workplace culture within which there is little — if any — burnout or early-warning indications of it.  Companies annually ranked among those most highly regarded and best to work for are also annually ranked among those most profitable and having the greatest cap value in their industry segment. However different these companies may be in most respects, all of them have a workplace culture within which empathy. compassion, and civility as well as mutual respect and trust are most likely to thrive.

In this brilliant book, Jennifer Moss thoroughly explains HOW to do that. Bravo!