Workplace burnout manifests as a lack of enthusiasm and engagement, lower productivity, and job dissatisfaction. If you want to be a better communicator and continue to be an innovator, you will not be successful if you suffer workplace burnout, and the reasons have some value to both needs.

     It is not unusual to find that people looking for a job to seem burned out about what they have spent years doing. They often ask for help in making a career change, and in most cases, when they realize that their worth in the job market is determined most by what they have been doing. They then understand how much of a pay cut making an industry change, for the sake of boredom or burnout, would cost them they get over that idea and start to understand the roadblocks they had created for themselves to change.

     An example of this came when I talked with an old friend about his successful food service career. I have always admired this friend’s success. He had started with a small fast-food drive-in outlet and expanded it to a small chain. He had opened many new dining concepts and was considered an innovator.  As I mentioned these successes, he told me that he now felt his longevity in the industry and past successes were then seen as a negative, not as a positive, by some in the industry because he had been around for so long and he was old news.

Rather than taking pride in all that he had done, he said he felt trapped by the past, feeling his efforts to find new ideas just resulted in what were dated ideas. His response to his failed efforts was boredom, and his claim seemed to be just a deflection from the real problem of outdated ideas.

     His past experiences had led to success, but the process always included reading, listening to the market, trying something new, and then learning and trying again. His wisdom had come from trial and error, which he saw as a core value of being a true entrepreneur.  The same processes he had used would still work, but he had to listen to the market he was now in and see what he voice suggested. Expecting the past to tell you what to do today is not enough and is a key indicator of being burned out.

     Finding the right next step takes more than a gut reaction. It includes reading everything you can about your work and skills and talking to everyone in the same industries and marketplace, including those who supply, sell, and compete in it.  My friend’s pride in being an entrepreneur had overshadowed what it takes to learn and excel. Expecting the past to the past to tell you what to do today is not enough and is a key indicator of being burned out.

     Like many industries, the restaurant business is dynamic and customer preferences change, forcing the rethinking of what we “always knew”.  I told my friend that he needed to become a student of his industry again and think of new approaches or new ways to use old products and concepts. When you set out to learn something, renewed energy follows. Industry veterans often struggle to admit they can still learn, but their past should validate that a failure or setback becomes an opportunity. Of course, my friend already knew that, or he would not have had the successful career that he had, but he needed to be reminded that the process of finding new approaches had not changed.

     One definition of burnout is “the end of the powered stage in a rocket’s flight when the propellant has been used up.” With people like the rocket, a lot of energy pursuing various goals is used up, and when people are burned out, they can feel used up and complacent. Burnout is also blamed on job stress, affecting an individual’s physical and emotional state and causing mental exhaustion.

     When employees burnout, they lose relevance to their employers. No matter where you fit in an organization, there is value in being a student of your industry.

When we see changes coming, you can take steps to learn new things, but you need to be sure your management knows what you are doing. 

I reminded my friend of what Peter Drucker said:

"The best way to predict the future is to create it.”