Trending
There’s a specific blend of pleasure and heartache that comes with sifting through all your baby pics for Project Graduation when you have a kid preparing to launch.
Luckily we had the wisdom to snap only the moments of delight – you know, faces covered in ice cream and sunscreen and joy.
We were sufficiently strategic not to memorialize the moments of OMFG WE ARE SO LATE AND WE GOTTA MOVE PEOPLE!!!!
I mean, was that just my family? Ugh, that season of trying to get kids to move swiftly and quickly. Can’t say I miss it.
For a hot season we were late daily. We clearly had a time problem. So I “solved it” – you know – premade lunches, alarms set, shoes by the door. All the things to make us more efficient.
By “solved” I mean I successfully implemented a bunch of interventions. And also, we were still late every day.
I finally realized, this wasn’t a problem of setup and efficiency. At least, not totally.
Some days my kiddo with sensory challenges couldn’t get her toes right in her socks. Some days it was separation anxiety slowing them down. Sometimes they just needed 2 minutes to finish braiding their doll’s hair for the day.
This realization guided my parenting then. And it guides my guidance on burnout today.
Because burnout is burning hot. And yet everywhere I turn, I bang into assumptions that it’s a volume problem. And the solution, therefore, is to dial back the work. Lighter loads, more PTO, fewer meetings.
But this is incomplete. And it means we’re missing the opportunity to solve the whole problem.
And in some cases, we’re striving to implement solutions much bigger and more complex than the ones we actually need. Which means everyone loses.
See, burnout can be a result of overwhelm. Of too much volume.
But also? It can be triggered by boredom – just feeling underutilized. Or by loneliness and disconnection. It can come from a lack of understand the purpose of or in our work. Or from feeling unappreciated or unrecognized. Or from having to navigate a ridiculous amount of politics or inefficiency at work when the opportunity to simplify is right there.
Sometimes, when we fail to understand the true root cause of a problem, we end up trying to implement solutions way more complex than the ones we actually needed to solve the real problem.
And sometimes the solution to the actual problem is easier than the solution to the problem we think we’re solving.
These are all solvable—if we take the time to understand the real experience someone is having.
If you're a leader trying to prevent burnout—or even just keep it at bay? Here are a few spots you might start from.
- Don’t assume it’s volume. Ask: is the person actually overwhelmed? Or are they disconnected, unclear, underutilized, or stuck in friction?
- Get curious before you act. Step back and ask: what’s actually making the work feel hard? Where’s the energy going?
- Match your response to the real issue. If it’s swirl, bring structure. If it’s invisibility, bring recognition. If it’s isolation, create connection. If it’s misalignment, realign. If it’s overload—then yes, rebalance.
Burnout isn’t always a signal that someone is doing too much. It’s often a signal that something about the way work is happening needs to change.
When we default to narrow assumptions, we make solving burnout harder than it needs to be.
But when we widen the aperture, we see new, often simpler, paths forward.
The goal isn’t always to reduce the load.
Sometimes it’s just to make the work work better.
How are you are your team experiencing burnout? What solutions have served you?