In the fast-paced world we live in, burnout has become a common phenomenon, taking an epidemic status in the statistics. We sat down with Piia Kuosmanen, a tech startup founder and leadership activist, to tackle this matter. Piia has co-founded a tech startup, Velbi, fighting burnout in modern work life. She also has experienced burnout herself and openly shares the learnings and insights from her own journey.
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The Burnout Epidemic: A Modern Plague
In the fast-paced world we live in, burnout has become an all too familiar companion. With the constant demands of our digital age, burnout is not a rarity but a modern plague. Recent studies indicate that an alarming number of individuals across diverse industries report symptoms of burnout.
"Based on our studies, we constantly see people in moderate or high burnout risk, and it corresponds to 40% of the employees," says Piia Kuosmanen, "2.8 million people die every year of burnout," she adds.
Silent Invader: Recognizing Burnout's Sneaky Onset
Unlike a common cold, burnout can come without warning signs or a runny nose. It's a silent invader, gradually infiltrating our lives until we find ourselves grappling with its consequences. Kuosmanen reflects on her personal story in 2017 when she experienced burnout herself:
"I had worked a lot without setting any personal boundaries or paying attention to my needs."
Not noticing the early signs and disregarding personal boundaries can lead to burnout's sudden and unexpected onset, as it did for Kuosmanen. We also tend to underestimate the probability of crossing paths with burnout ourselves.
"Burnout can happen to anyone. If the circumstances are wrong enough for you, you will burn out."
Boundaries & Imperfection: Making Your Needs a Priority
"I always say, give 80%, don't give 100. If you give 100 all the time, you have nothing left for anything else." Kuosmanen states.
In a world that often glorifies overwork, it's crucial to establish and communicate your limits. Kuosmanen shares a personal growth journey: "I've realized that you need to be a person outside of work. You need to have something to fall back on if everything goes wrong."
She also adds an important insight about valuing yourself and your vulnerabilities, "I think for me, it was just accepting that I'm not perfect. Accepting that a lot of people will never like me the way I am, and that's fine."
Valuing yourself enough to put boundaries is not selfishness or weakness; it's self-preservation, a necessary step towards preventing burnout and sustaining a fulfilling life.
The Early Roots: Unpacking Childhood Beliefs and Emotional Spirals
Kuosmanen's personal history reveals the impact of childhood beliefs on our well-being, "I come from a family where my parents divorced quite early, and I had to grow up quite early on," Kuosmanen shares.
"I pulled the message of, like, my emotions don't matter. I just have to do everything perfectly and earn the love. I carried that with me for a very long time, which meant overperforming and putting my needs aside."
Many of us carry harmful beliefs about our self-worth, which can affect how we push ourselves to the limits. Preventing and fighting burnout often requires introspection and a willingness to challenge deep-seated beliefs formed in our formative years.
Also, understanding emotional spirals and how the past affects our interpretations of today is an indispensable skill in living balanced and sustainable lives, "One of the key skills that I only learned in my thirties is recognizing emotional spirals. So when something happens to me that reminds me of something that happened to me in the past, it triggers an emotional response that's not necessarily related to the moment at hand," she reflects.
"This opened up a lot for me because this helps me to go into a situation, have an uncomfortable emotion, and realize that I'm still fine."
Leaders, Take the Helm: Creating Sustainable Cultures
"Your personal resilience, self-reflection, stress management skills, they are important; they do matter," Kuosmanen emphasizes. "But the scientific consensus also is that environmental factors at the workplace are much more important and have a much more significant impact on it."
Leaders play a pivotal role in shaping the workplace environment. It's not just about individual skills; it's about fostering a culture that prioritizes well-being. Kuosmanen's insights underscore the need for a shift in perspective — a move away from viewing burnout as solely an individual problem to recognizing the role workplace structures play in the overall well-being of employees.
Kuosmanen demands the leadership take ownership in fighting back against the burnout culture. She lists down many company cultural factors that have a direct effect on burnout: Clarity of expectations, clear priorities, sense of belonging, psychological safety, sense of control and trust for the management...
"All these things are extremely important, but often we fail to build the kinds of environments that would help people manage stress because we fail to acknowledge how important the environmental factors are."
Outdated Workspaces and Constant Connectivity
It's also the whole construction of modern work that's not necessarily supporting our well-being nowadays. "The way we've constructed workplaces, we've constructed them around the idea of the physical labour of 9 to 5," notes Kuosmanen. "Honestly, our minds don't work that way, and most work is knowledge work these days. So we haven't really created rules for workplaces to protect people's mental health and capacity to perform sustainably."
The mismatch between traditional workplace structures and the demands of contemporary knowledge work contributes significantly to burnout. It's a call for reevaluating how we design and manage our work environments to prioritize mental well-being.
Our devices have become extensions of ourselves, blurring the lines between work and personal life. Kuosmanen notes the importance of leading by example and setting expectations:
"As a leader, you need to have very clear rules of when you expect people to work and respond and when you expect people to communicate on different channels."
The constant connectivity in the digital age drains our cognitive capacity, contributing to burnout. Learning to establish company boundaries with technology is a crucial aspect of preserving mental well-being in a plugged-in world.
Piia's Leadership Tips: A Recipe for Prevention
In addition to paying attention to the work environment and leading by example to prevent burnout, leaders must actively measure and manage well-being. Kuosmanen's tips for leaders include setting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), frequent assessments, and prioritizing people-first leadership.
- 1. Set KPIs: "If you don't measure it, you don't care about it," warns Kuosmanen. Regular assessment and measurement are crucial components of addressing burnout effectively. It's a call for leaders to actively monitor their teams' well-being and make informed, proactive decisions.
- 2. Measure Regularly Enough: Keep a pulse on the organization's health. Regular check-ins and assessments can catch burnout before it takes root. As Kuosmanen puts it: "If you're measuring your well-being quarterly, you're screwed."
- 3. People First Leadership: Ensure leaders are not just managers but supporters. "Make sure your leaders have the tools and the time and the peace of mind to focus on helping their team, leading them, and the ability to be very clear about what's expected of them," says Kuosmanen.
In conclusion, the battle against burnout requires a holistic approach — personal resilience, self-reflection, but moreover leadership commitment to creating sustainable cultures.
Piia Kuosmanen's journey and insights provide a beacon for those navigating this modern epidemic. It's time for leaders to heed the call and pave the way for a healthier, more sustainable future. And in the end, understand the importance of taking care of themselves. Because a healthy, balanced leader sets the tone for the entire organization.
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