Hello we are live the burnout panel on quiet quitting. Welcome everybody to the burnout panel on quiet quitting and we are going to talk to you about this phenomenon that seems to be taking the world by storm right now um there are at least two definitions of quiet quitting one is the person who's saying I'm going to set some boundaries I'm not going on this like ride or die right kind of focus on my work anymore I'm going to say some boundaries around that but then there's another group of people who seem to be really disengaging and are much more likely burning out and moving into that place where they really aren't sure if they want to be in their workplace anymore that's the group we're going to address today sharing with you what we think is going on with that group of people and how you might help them so let's kick it off with our first speaker:
Hi my name is Audrey Holst I am the founder of Fortitude and Flow and the creator of the Perfectionist Archetypes and I help high achieving individuals and teams to rewire from toxic perfectionism into a culture of excellence and we can't talk about quiet quitting without talking about perfectionism these things are are linked together and in order to talk about that we have to talk about the body because we are bringing our bodies to work every single day there are two questions that the body is always scanning for. Am I safe? and do I belong? This combination of perfectionism within an individual and within an organization can create a bit of a survival situation where people are showing up to work their bodies are feeling like they are walking into a tiger's cage every single day. Their body is getting flooded with cortisol and everyday basis and that is bouncing off of co-workers and it's creating a really tough environment which is creating those people who are starting to disengage out of survival this is how they're going to survive this job so some things to talk about is unrealistic expectations that can be again within self and other this is something that is imperfectionism this feeling that it has to be a plus work or not at all it has to be above and beyond and these unspoken cultural rules. So you may not have it in your contract that you you know have to come in early and stay late that may be baked into the culture so that is again trying to follow these very specific rules and maybe they're written or unwritten and having this self-identification with your job as being who you are so not really having anything to identify yourself and your own body outside of your work. Therefore everything having a really really intense impact on you. So in order to deal with this new world we have to figure out okay where is this perfectionism where are these threads how can we come out of this survival situation and become more of our full selves in our work. We have to address those individual and organizational expectations and clarify them. So it's really important to get clear on these things and I think that Aileen is going to be do a really great job talking about the values and how clarifying those can really help us shift what's going on.
Thank you so much Audrey hello everyone my name is Aileen Axtmayer. I'm a career coach and corporate Wellness speaker. One on one I help my clients land work that they love and then I help employers retain that talent through providing customized corporate Wellness workshops all around Stress Management and helping employees restore their energy so they can thrive in their jobs and when I think about quiet quitting and burnout in the intersection here I think you know in my 15 plus years of working with people one-on-one seeing people leave jobs both quietly and loudly there's something really interesting that goes on so a lot of times people end up in their professional roles either in a happenstance way so they couldn't find a job right out of college and then they ended up just doing something temporary and then temporary lends itself to five ten years later or they land work that they love but then as they grow and change as in their personal lives and their professional lives their roles aren't reflecting those changes and values and interests in personality and in the skill sets that they want to want to use not just what they're good at sometimes they're good at something but you don't enjoy using it so I like to encourage people whether it be employers or the employees themselves to zoom out we don't really do these career Wellness checkups we have our annual physical exams we don't do this on the professional level so I I recommend that we do and the framework that I use to examine this is VIPs so what are your values your interests your personality and your skills and when you can create space as an employer or as an employee to really examine these parts of yourself and understand where you're at with each of them you can then use that framework to understand where your work might not be in alignment anymore and what you can do to really shift and feel like your values interest personality and skills are aligned with the work that you're doing so that's a little bit of my thoughts on how we develop personally and change professionally and how we can Tinker with things to really feel more engaged in our work I think Dr Sharon is going to kick us off into another angle to explore this phenomena.
My name is Dr Sharon Grossman and I am affectionately known as the burnout doc I work with busy Executives and entrepreneurs who feel burned out because their work and their lives feel like too much and they want more time for themselves and their families so what I would like to really shine a light on with regards to quiet quitting is let's take it back for a moment to the brain and when we're doing this quiet quitting thing really we're letting our primitive brain do what it does which is it tries to run away from pain and move towards pleasure but I think it's also important to look at the consequences of just allowing that to happen and not being involved on purpose in that process it's when you are giving up on your goals that you actually are giving up on yourself and why that's important is because you lose Integrity with yourself and we do this and then we justify it because it's uncomfortable because we're tired because we're unsure what I really would like to encourage people to do instead is to use your prefrontal cortex to manage your mind so all of the thoughts that create the stress that make you want to run away that you deal with that stress instead you deal with the overwhelm and make your decisions on purpose because achievement is what will allow you to feel pleasure once you've put in the work so rather than running away from things let's find a way to engage and find out how we can manage the stress rather than just try to take that other route and you know sometimes we do that because we're burned out which is understandable and one of the reasons we might be feeling burned out is because there's just a lot of things that are stewing in our mind and we end up feeling resentful and my good friend Cait Donovan is going to now take that angle and talk to us about quiet quitting and resentment.
Hi everybody my name is Cait Donovan. I work with organizations to reduce burnouts they can keep top talent and I work with people one-on-one to reduce burnout so they can stop hating their lives and I love resentment it's my favorite emotion and resentment and quiet quitting have one major thing in common and that is a feeling or perception of unfairness people quiet quit because things are unfair and they're pulling out they're disengaging right they're not getting out of this what they're put putting into it if we look at Merriam-Webster resentment is defined as bitter indignation at being treated unfairly so resentment and quiet quitting have a common root and I think we have to remember that so if we find a lot of quiet quitting in a corporate setting creating conversations around resentment with support please don't do this if you don't know how call me I'll help with support we can create conversations that allow resentment to be explored in a positive and beneficial way resentments turn into boundaries and boundaries help protect us and one of my favorite people who talks about boundaries energetically is Dr Sandra and she's gonna take over now and talk about boundaries in unresolved chronic stress.
Hello everybody um I am Dr Sandra Lewis and I am a clinical psychologist and personal energy strategist working with women organizations to reconnect them those resources that help them make the journey from burnout to sustainable leadership and an impact that brings them a lot of joy and satisfaction and the threat that I've been hearing us pull on today is This Thread about this nervous system of ours and how when that nervous system gets overwrought it's kind of like we go into survival mode so quiet quitting this this engagement that we see in quiet quitting is really an example of flight or fight right so we we're in this place of just we have disconnected because this thing hurts it's been unfair it's not people aren't recognizing me my talents are being utilized appropriately and now I'm in this situation where I feel like I need to escape so we disengage that's the flight response the flight response might be more of the person who is more cynical right so we're in this space of unresolved stress but when we disengage it's like we move we remove ourselves from the interaction with the stressor itself the lack of recognition or those kinds of things but but we still have the energy going in our body and our bodies stuck in that mode so one of the things that we have to begin to do is to reset our nervous system our nervous system is stuck in that place where we can't get anything we can't even access our mental capacity to make a decision that might bring us to a better place so the first thing is to start with regenerating and rejuvenating a nervous system so that then we can start to hear our creativity again we can start to think about building we can get to our mental energy that energy that allows us to think to what can I do in this situation what are my options we can get back to our emotional energy that ability that we have to actually navigate through stress and see a reasonable solution and to connect with those resources as Cait just mentioned connect with the resources that you need and we've talked a lot about the individuals but we also need the managers to help us so Vanessa's going to talk about how leadership can take apart in ending quiet quitting.
Yes yes yes and thank you lovely the panelists my lovely peers yes for those insights so these three R's that I'm going to share with you right now is from helping my clients reduce their turnover shut down their staff's nonsense and retain their employees while they have been able to lead their teams of employees in their brick and mortar shops and restaurants so these three are to ensure that you no longer have to deal with quiet quitting on your team because yes let's say you are that individual that you know has that require quitting for yourself but you might be watching also as a leader of a team where you're thinking to yourself how do I ensure that this doesn't happen again so three R's one being rewards so you want to ensure that you are acknowledging the great work that your employees are doing this doesn't have to be a five thousand dollar gift card to Best Buy though we would all appreciate that yes right absolutely um but this could even just be a simple thank you some of you love telling your employees what's wrong and you justify it by saying preparing them for a hard not life but really you're preparing them to quietly quit so let's ensure that you are at the very least saying thank you acknowledge them for their great work and doing those rewards number two refreshments and I don't mean appetizers but hey free delicious food let's go uh by Refreshments I mean hosting regular team check-ins they can be monthly they can be quarterly but team meetings where you are realigning with your team about your company's culture mission and vision and last but certainly not least the third are Recreation so Recreation meaning have fun help your employees have fun with each other right with you and the team a holiday party goes a long way but even my client recently hosted an end of summer celebration at the wine bar she didn't think anyone would show up and turned out only one person missed the other 11 employees actually came off the clock they weren't paid for it they came to work essentially to the workspace voluntarily just to have fun and enjoy so whether you're leading an entire business or you're leading a team in a department or you're about to become a leader and you want to do it better than your current boss is remember rewards refreshments and Recreation quiet quitting is preventable now at this time we would love to open the floor to any questions that you may have for us I see we have a question here in the comments that we would love to address at the moment let me pull that question up.
So Olivier asked us is quiet quitting the response of employees to cope to their job rather than to apply the great resignation um so let's go we can go around the room here who already wants to begin and start and we can just go around the room it's quiet quitting the responsive employees coping to their job rather than the great resignation Cait I write about this a lot because I thinkthat quiet quitting is a coping mechanism for Burnout when it is used not as a choice but as a natural reaction so I think we have to separate choosing quiet quitting to protect yourself and quiet quitting because you're so burned out that you have no other choice and you're just trying to make it through your day and not get fired so quiet quitting can be a coping mechanism if you are burnt out and unable to get out of your job at the moment or you think you're unable to get out which is a whole separate conversation we need Carol you know we need to talk about mindset there but yes I think that it can be anyone else on the panel want to address what are your thoughts on quiet quitting versus a great resignation Dr Sandra.
I would say uh yeah it can be and it's probably a more short-term solution it's like what we need right now just to manage to get through right it's just we are here now this situation is really awful and I've determined that in order for me to manage it I have to take a step back I have to do less than I usually do I'm not going to go 187 percent I'm just going to go now 98 to 100 and I'm going to take some time but then we still need to take that next step so what will it look like when my my work life is the one I really want to have and how do I get there yes love it love it look at us look at us yes and we have Audrey yes yeah I think that uh this is one of those things where it's like the all or nothing mindset either you're in it three billion percent or you're completely disengaged in it and there's this this inability or just this lack of skill for a lot of people to figure out how to exist in that middle space like people were talking about engagement versus disengagement or making a choice versus feeling like there is no choice like what's your body's perception of a situation which your mind's perception of a situation so um this is like the conversation of teaching people and giving people the skills in order to exist in that middle ground where you're not completely disengaged and fleeing but you're also not you know it's or not throwing yourself at your work 24 hours a day and feeling like you were identified with that so that's really the conversation we're having right here is how do we get more people exposed to this kind of work that exists in that in between space great question
Love it love it and let's see we have another we actually have two questions from Casey here uh she shares I'm gonna be too long for the screen but here we go I'm reading in some Global surveys that empathy is the number one most value leadership attribute at this time number one what are some actionable concrete steps that leaders can take that show they are empathizing with their team members and then two how can I as a stress team member find my own agency in this crazy world so I can address the first question and feel free peers to also add in and then we can go into number two as well from the individual perspective so in terms of Casey for your first question what are some actionable concrete stuff that leaders can take to show that you're empathizing with your team members and I would say in terms of I'll go back to the rewards perspective and also with the recreation so when it comes to the rewards it's acknowledging helping your team member being the leader that acknowledges your team member for the great work that they did right because it's very easy to say oh my God like you know they give you a piece of paper they finish some you know planning something out and you're like okay they planned that thing but in their mind they're they're saying to themselves I spent weeks on that I spend months on that how could you not give me a thank you how could you not give me a reward how could you not acknowledge me in front of the team for the work that I did right and so it's appreciating and knowledge the work that they put into all the steps that they did to you know get them whatever that they wanted to do that is going to go along with that empathy and the second thing is also you know people have lives so being a leader that understands that your employees have lives right and your employee just as you are perhaps a stress team member for your own leader Your Own Boss right they may be in that same position for themselves too right so how can you ensure that you know we're gonna go into my lovely friends here about to go you know drop some knowledge on how you as a stress team member can find your own agency but just being aware that your employees are people too just as you are and ensuring that you are just showing up and acknowledging and wearing and being aware of the work that they're putting in it goes such long way second question how can I distressed team member find my own agency oh Aileen and then Dr Sandra.
I think uh what a lot of one of us a lot of what we've touched on and talked in depth about today is that stress response and so I think most people especially when you're in that constant state where you're potentially burnt out and you just feel like you're wanting a sense of control you said we have more control over how we feel in our minds and bodies than I think many of us know and recognize so my recommendation is what do you already know that helps you turn that stress response down what helps ground you nourish you get you into that prefrontal cortex like we talked about and out of this survival mode I guarantee you for most people they know these things and that they just aren't doing them as much as they want to or could and it doesn't have to be you know this two-week vacation every month or whatever it might be although that sounds lovely and maybe that is the thing for you but sometimes it's truly just creating some space to be versus to do taking some deep belly breaths so all these simple practices can really be incredibly impactful for helping Center yourself and then the more you do that the more you realize you do have control and you can integrate some of these practice and practices anywhere anytime and then feel like you can see the world from a clearer lens so that's part of my take on that and I just think also the empathizing leader right this kind of empathy it's if that's really about this whole skill that people call emotional intelligence or you know again what our brain does right mirror neurons we see someone having an experience and we're able our brain actually responds as though we're having that experience so when a leader can know and read their own bodies and what how they're responding when they're in the room with someone and they can also notice what's happening with people then they can begin to be more empathetic they can also be more empathetic by just practicing mindful listening making sure that they're saying they're understanding what the person actually said to them because sometimes people answer a question for us and we already have decided what we think the answer is and we're running with that we haven't really listened to them so we want to First slow ourselves down enough to really hear what people are saying and hear those little clues that I'm burned out I really need some support I really need help, Dr Sharon.
So just to continue what everybody has been saying I think it's really important if you are a leader of a team until you work on your own stress it's going to be really hard for you to show up in your best form and the other thing I think is interesting is you know we're talking about empathy and how that's the number one most valued leadership attribute um and I think it's also important to consider the difference between empathy and compassion because sometimes when we're empathetic by definition we're kind of feeling other people's emotions and sometimes if they're stressed and we start to feel stressed and then we're not able to show up and lead them so as an alternative think about how to be more compassionate around what they're feeling once you've taken care of your own stress and that means that you understand that they're having a hard time but you're not necessarily feeling all of their emotions and that allows you to show up as that leader from a place of strength as opposed to now we're all in it together in this mess of stress you know so um it's just a way of kind of stepping back and maybe zooming out and I think a lot of this comes from working on yourself first and foremost and Cait throw in just one last thing Dr Kristen Donnelly who's a multi-time tedx speaker and a fellow speaker friend of ours of the groups did a huge amount of research into empathy into the definitions and the core of the word and what she found out was that underneath the word empathy actually all we're looking for is understanding the word understanding is the only commonality between all of the definitions of empathy so if leaders need to be more empathetic than they need to look to understand wonderful wonderful so we are we have Megan says really nicely said uh we have Kristen who mentioned this is awesome yes we have Casey who says y'all Rock oh well it's been our pleasure definitely to be here on the burnout panel we'll be here every month live on LinkedIn with different topics and I'm gonna pass it off here to Audrey to close us out.
It's it's so great to have to be able to hear everybody in like such a short little segment and basically you can take this as it's we're like a flight of tasters where you got to have a little tiny Taste of everybody's perspective and it was delicious for me just even being on this panel being having like these little tastes and there you can see where the commonalities and where the specific areas of expertise that everybody has and what a huge value that could bring to have all of these voices um be heard by your organization like imagine that your organization gets all of our voices and all of this information in like in a package together that's amazing like that's really an amazing thing like I'm excited just talking about it so we're gonna drop a link in the chat where you can check it out it is just a way to contact us gives your information your name organization need or if you are thinking of an organization you're like oh my gosh they need like they need this work they need this work let us know so we're gonna be doing this like I said every single month and when we can collect information that's also gonna help us like if you've got a topic that you want to hear us talk on to get a little taster whether you want to bring us on ask us about it we'd be happy to talk about it and that was the burnout panel on quiet quitting till next month foreign.
