The era of exhaustion (What’s the deal with Stan?)

In January, you had the opportunity to take the Juice Check, an online tool that identifies what’s depleting you and what’s energizing you at work.¹

The overall results from those who participated will be published in the April edition of Municipal World. This article sets the context for a series of articles to come and will help you understand why the energized brain is so vital to your success.

But first, there’s something you and I need to deal with. People are starting to talk about Stan:

• “He’s losing the thread in meetings.”
• “Why’s he so impetuous these days?”
• “Stan’s just not connecting the dots anymore.”
• “I’m seeing errors in judgment that concern me.”
• “He’s making some unintelligent trade-offs.”

The “Stan narrative” is making a lot of people squirm, none more so than you – and for three good reasons:

• Stan reports to you.
• He used to be a star performer.
• He still cares – and he’s working really, really hard.

So, what’s the deal with Stan? And, how might you change the ending to this story?

A decade ago, senior leadership teams would call our organization with one common refrain: “How do we get our disengaged employees more engaged?”

Today, it’s different. In CEO/CAO forums, the big question is often: “What do we do with good people who are engaged but exhausted, dedicated but depleted?”

Welcome to the Exhaustion Era

Our “Stans” are:

• negotiating more choices than ever before in history;
• digesting more information in one week than their grandparents did in one year;
• serving demanding populations who are more entitled than ever;
• dealing with an unprecedented pace of change;
• reacting to shifting/creeping priorities with exhausting regularity;
• extinguishing fires set by councillors gone rogue;
• grappling with complex adaptive systems that defy logic; or
• covering the duties of one and a half (or even two) people.

The Hay Group’s database of five million people worldwide reveals that 20 percent of today’s workers are frustrated.2 Our experience has shown something counter-intuitive; the ones who are most frustrated are the ones who are most engaged – the high performers who want to make a difference but face dysfunction in the culture.

But, maybe it’s not so counter-intuitive. It’s the high performer who is frustrated that underperformers are not held accountable (they end up shouldering the underperformer’s load).

It’s the high performer who is frustrated that one team member won’t talk to another – causing a bottleneck in the system that everybody has to work around.

It’s the high performer who sees a councillor making life difficult for fellow employees and feels compelled to step in and take the bullet.

So, the story of Stan is really the story of a thousand Stans who were star performers, but who have hit a tipping point – a depleting drawdown on their brain energy that is seriously affecting their performance.

The Depleted Brain

What happens inside the brain of someone like Stan who is engaged but exhausted, dedicated but depleted?

Your body’s number one job is to survive. So, when you get exhausted, your body becomes very judicious in its use of fuel. Its first priority is ensuring your brain’s survival systems – your immune, digestive, and fight and flight systems – have sufficient fuel.

The easiest/fastest place from which to grab this energy is your metabolically expensive executive function (E/F): the gas-guzzling part of your brain that powers up higher-ordered, future-based, self-actualized thinking.

This means that, when people are exhausted, the first thing they lose access to is their executive function – the very thing that makes knowledge workers good at their jobs.

Why do smart doctors make dumb mistakes? Why do experienced pilots make critical errors in judgment? Does their experience evaporate? Does their talent tank? No. They make dumb mistakes because they are exhausted and they’ve lost access to command central – their executive function.

What does your E/F do?

Your E/F provides all the functionality that Stan has lost.

It enables you to:

• focus your attention in the midst of distractions;
• regulate your emotions in high stakes situations;
• bring disparate bits of data together to create surprising connections;
• anticipate the downstream implications of any action or plan; and
• create integrative solutions out of competing points of view.

Let’s face it – these are the power-tools of innovation, value creation and high-performance. You + E/F = a productive day at work. You – E/F = a lot of messes to clean up tomorrow. Why? When deprived of their E/F, even the most dedicated, best-intentioned person will default to workarounds, duct-tape fixes, the path of least resistance, reactivity, and fire-fighting.

And remember, we’re not talking about a bad employee here. We’re talking about someone who used to be a high performer. But now they are depleted. If this happens to enough people in your department, getting things done can be very difficult. To put a finer point on it, without energy, all your best strategies are at risk.

If you’re a good leader, you know which dashboard dials require the greatest attention. It’s okay to watch the customer service dial; it’s fine to watch the employee engagement dial. But, these are lagging indicators. The leading indicator is the employee experience – it’s what delivers everything downstream.

And, the employee experience is largely defined by one thing: whether the E/F is depleted or energized. Managing time is good. Managing projects is even better. Managing energy is culture-critical.

Energy: Finite, But Renewable

There are two things we know about energy in human beings:

Energy is finite – No matter how motivated and committed you are, your body has a finite amount of energy it can put out in a 24-hour period.

Energy is renewable – You can have a depleting meeting that leaves you exhausted by 3 p.m. Then, you go out for a walk with a colleague, and before you know it, your energy has been renewed for the rest of the day.

Because energy is finite, it is vital to identify the things that deplete peoples’ energy. Because energy is renewable, it is vital to identify the things that release peoples’ energy.

In our work over the last 15 years, we’ve learned that there are five driving needs that, when met, energize peoples’ brains. But, when these needs go unmet, peoples’ brains can rapidly become depleted.

April’s edition of Municipal World will reveal your Juice Check scores; and my series of articles will follow, exploring these five driving needs – and how you can use this knowledge to not only reduce your depletion, but also to release your energy.MW

1    If you haven’t had a chance, visit www.juicecheck.com.

2    www.haygroup.com/downloads/gr/Workplace%20frustration.pdf.

Brady Wilson has a vision: organizations that pulsate with innovative energy. As the Founder of Juice Inc., he functions as a human energy architect, working with leaders to build the conditions in which innovation, value creation, and unforgettable customer experiences can flourish. He helps leaders step into life’s grittiest tensions, inspiring them to create a sustained approach to positive change – and better business results. MW

as published in Municipal World, March 2018