Kandi Wiens on Helping People Build Burnout Immunity
On this episode of Redefining Work, I’m joined by Kandi Wiens, University of Pennsylvania senior fellow and author of the new book “Burnout Immunity.” In our conversation, we go deep on the topic of burnout — a trending and important topic in today’s workplace.
Kandi’s mission is helping people understand and overcome burnout — but to do that, we need to define the word. “It's a term that gets thrown around a lot, and sometimes even misused and overused,” Kandi says. “But the more we can understand what it actually isn't and isn't, then we're more likely to create interventions and solutions for people and organizations.”
Kandi describes burnout as a psychological syndrome caused by chronic stress at work, rather than just one very bad day. Burnout can come and go — it’s not necessarily constant. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be permanent. “I can do things to heal my burnout … and get back to a baseline state of equilibrium,” Kandi says.
Listen in to my conversation with Kandi Wiens to find out how you can build resilience to burnout and learn to thrive at work.
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Assess Your Burnout Risk
Kandi wants people to better understand their personal burnout risk factors and vulnerabilities. To do this, start by assessing what you want from work — and how that compares to your existing workplace experience.
“The greater the mismatch, the higher the risk potential that someone's going to burn out, or that they will burn out more quickly,” Kandi says.
To help people identify misalignment, Kandi created a burnout assessment to help people assess their risk. The assessment is only a starting point — you’ll need to use the findings to decide what changes to make. “Or you may need to work with your leader or your HR leader to find ways to make some changes in your work environment,” Kandi adds.
Learn to Regulate Emotions Under Stress
Burnout is caused by stress, which produces mental, emotional and physical effects. “When you feel your stress levels spiking, you feel your nervous system revving up really rapidly,” Kandi says. To cope with this stress, she recommends the CLCBE method — calculate, locate, communicate, breathe and exhale.
“What we’re trying to do with this particular strategy is to slow our thinking down,” she says. “Because when we're stressed … we have a lot of things going on physiologically that will basically set us off into fast-thinking mode.”
By calculating your stress level, locating where you feel it physically, recognizing negative self-talk and consciously breathing and exhaling, you can regulate your emotions and nervous system responses when stress starts to escalate. This goes a long way to preventing burnout development.
Begin to Recover, Reconnect and Reimagine
If you’re in the throes of burnout, there’s still hope. Kandi has developed a formula for overcoming burnout and restoring mental and emotional balance.
This formula has three “R’s.” The first is recover. Kandi describes an ER physician she interviewed during the pandemic. Like many emergency medical workers, this doctor suffered from burnout. “When she was able to take some time off and actually rest a little bit,” Kandi says, “something just hit her and she said, ‘You know, I just realized that I can't heal in the same place that's making me sick.’”
When burnout hits, you need separation from the work environment to recover. If you can’t step away for a prolonged period, Kandi recommends "micro-recovery practices," like taking breaks and time off to physically and mentally rest.
The second "R" is reconnect. The ER doctor eventually changed her work environment, and “she then was able to spend some time reconnecting to the people, places and experiences that brought her joy outside of work," Kandi says. To begin your reconnection process, try reflecting on your values. The goal is to regain perspective about what really matters.
The final "R" is reimagine. This stage helps people envision a healthier relationship with their job. “How do you want work to fit into your life? Not the other way around,” she says. “Reimagine the relationship that you want to have with work.”
People in This Episode
Kandi Wiens: LinkedIn
Resources
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