There is a curious habit within most businesses that, the better you become at your job, the less likely you are to do it.
In law there is a common shorthand applied; that as you grow and progress throughout your career you will become a finder, minder or grinder.
Finders are rain makers, the bee’s knees at business development, whether they realise it or not. Minders are the managers, the team leaders. And grinders, well they just grind out the work. It’s a slightly demeaning title for the people who do what we all came here to do, what we all spent years aspiring to, but I think that that demonstrates the inherent prejudice that, if you are good at what you do, you will keep on moving.
What does that mean for most of us working in practice? That there is a distinct divide between the doers and the dolers. The doers do whilst the dolers dole out the work, the guidance, the leadership.
You can work in the most open plan of offices and there is still a distinct divide between workers and management, whether it’s delineated by seating arrangements, bigger desks and better chairs for management, more flexible work arrangements for the higher-ups.
We all work hard to get where we are and I would never take away the perks of success from anyone. But there are some key issues that can cause real problems in communication.
The higher you get, the further away from the ground you are.
Most of us work our way up a ladder and as we start to reach the top rungs, we believe that although we have climbed, we are also grounded, measured and understand other people, because we have been there. We all started on the ground after all.
What very few understand well is that, the higher you climb, the more likely it is that the ground has changed since you were last on it. The seasons have changed or the landscape has changed. As a result, the experience of those on the ground may well be completely different from how you experienced it.
The higher you go, the further removed from the ground you are and, whilst the air might get more rarified, it’s often thinner.
At one firm we would laughingly refer to the ‘management suite’ because all the upper managers and business development officers were on one floor that looked nothing like the rest of the offices. Point of fact, they were sat in a different building to approx 90% of the workforce, in a glitzier address. Whilst every office in the group looked uniform, with the same furniture, signs and set up, the management suite was like walking into First Class for the first time in your life. Honestly. I think I heard angel-song the first time I crossed the threshold.
Sitting in the management suite it can become an echo chamber, repeating the same idealistic claims and mission statements regardless of whether that message has truly been communicated and implemented by the grinders on the ground floor.
You cannot create a company culture from the top down; management can lead, inspire, motivate and model but they cannot mandate, no matter how close some firms might get to thoughtcrime.
The danger of the echo-chamber is that, whilst the intentions may be good, if they aren’t grounded in reality, then nothing that’s said really matters. Worse still, those communications are evidence to everyone on the ground that you are out of touch with reality, speaking about a world that never even existed for your workers.
Why does this happen?
Much of it comes down to the empathy-gap; the concept that we are unable to see beyond our own emotional perspective to empathise fully with others. This means that we expect others to think as we do, and struggle to reconcile why they don’t.
This is then amplified by the echo-chamber of people around us who think similarly and result in beliefs and thoughts being presented as fact and gospel.
You can understand people, have great empathy skills, but unless you have the time to sit with people and ask them to explain the reality of their life, and (this next bit is so important) listen to them without filtering, judging or telling them how [you believe} it should be, then you can never truly understand what is going on for them.
Until then, you are just two groups, yelling over the empathy gap and neither hearing the other.
So, how do we deal with this in a work-context? What if you know that your staff must be stressed but you have no idea where to start?
There are a couple of options
1 - change company culture to ensure that it goes beyond an ‘open-door’ policy, to one where everyone feels free to express themselves without fear of censure, judgement or punishment later down the line. However, this is a long-term strategy and one that, ironically enough, can only be achieved by disparate groups being able to communicate and diminish the empathy gap. Chicken, egg.
2 - engage in longterm qualitative enquiry, asking questions and canvassing opinions. Whether it’s extending appraisals, booking regular sit downs on a 1:1 basis with your whole team or requesting everyone fill out surveys and feedback forms, getting it from the horse’s mouth is your best bet. However, this takes plenty of time and energy and if you had this space in your diary, I’m sure you would be doing it already. Also, have you ever tried asking a stressed out and emotional person how they are? It gets messy, quickly.
3 - change the dynamic. Yes, this is where I’m going to pitch you. Bring someone in from the outside who is free from bias, affiliation or messy history and allow them to change the dynamic.
When I go in to businesses to talk about burnout, I lead with examples from my own experience, to help bridge the embarrassment that so many people can feel (I’m not good enough, how can I admit this) to demonstrate that what they feel doesn’t define them (well if she can go through and still be somewhat-sane, maybe I can too) and to give us as shared platform from which to speak.
From there, that’s where the magic happens.
With a changed dynamic and clear signal from management that they really do care (after all, you’ve paid me to be there and have identified a key potential issue), the floodgates start to open.
Teams who have received Burnout Prevention Sessions have gone on to:
communicate their needs in an effective manner, allowing real change to take place
sought further help and support within the company (this is so important)
been empowered to have more meaningful conversations with management
reviewed their own working practises and behaviours to create change on an individual basis
So far, Burnout Prevention Sessions have been delivered to more than 150 attendees with an overall approval score of nearly 90%. Attendees are given the opportunity to ask for more help and support, with more than half wanting to go further into how to manage and prevent burnout on an individual level.
Ordinarily, Burnout Prevention Sessions are carried out on-site to groups of up to 25; however, between now and the end of May, when you book a Burnout Prevention Session online you will receive:
Live workshop training for up to 50 attendees
Recording made available for all attendees to watch again, or for those who were unable to attend live
PDF workbook of slides
Feedback through an anonymised PDF overview
Recommendations for further follow up and support available.
Book your team for this one hour training between now and the end of May and save 40% - just £250. Click here to find out more and discuss booking for your team
WHO AM I?
My name is Leah Steele and I founded Searching for Serenity in 2016 following years of my own struggles with burnout. You can read more about my story here, but here’s the edited highlights:
I was a lawyer for nearly 12 years and specialised in mental capacity and contentious probate. I experienced my own issues with burnout, which came to a head in early 2015.
I set up Searching for Serenity whilst working full time as a Court of Protection solicitor and in mid-2017 I took an indefinite career break from law to expand my work with Searching for Serenity
WHAT DO I DO?
Whilst you will most often see me talk about burnout, imposter syndrome and resilience issues, my work broadly falls under two headings; why we struggle at work and how we can thrive.
I use a combination of my own lived experience together with the research, development and knowledge that goes into hundreds of hours of mentoring 1:1 clients to create engaging and meaningful talks
These are not dry, read from the slides and point kind of training events. I work with you to create the training that you and your team need, focusing on the pain points you have identified and offering real, pragmatic and immediately implementable solutions.