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 Whether
you are in your 50s, 30s or 20s, ‘supernova burnout’ can strike
any time. It often starts with dissatisfaction at work, lack of
motivation, irritability and constant tiredness, reports Perri
Capell
After
slaving for years to get to the top, many senior executives find
a cruel irony: They don’t like it there. At first, the job
may be rewarding, but then it doesn’t bring them the emotional
and psychological rewards they seek, and they begin to burn out
from the stress.
“The
executive gets to the top and there’s a letdown,” says
Steven Berglas, a Los Angeles-based clinical psychologist. “It’s
a feeling of ‘Is that all there is?’”
Dr
Berglas, author of Reclaiming the Fire: How Successful People Overcome
Burnout (Random House, 2001), uses the term “supernova burnout”,
to describe the career dissatisfaction that afflicts successful
professionals and executives. Such managers need to make changes
but feel trapped by their success. Often, they can’t explain
to themselves what’s happening because they’ve worked
so hard to get where they are and are stunned to find it doesn’t
bring them happiness. “We think that once we’re successful,
we’ll be happy, but we turn around and say, ‘Why aren’t
I happy?’,” says George Kaufman, vice chairman of the
Omega Institute, a holistic retreat centre in Rhinebeck, New York.
While
supernova burnout has many symptoms, it often starts with dissatisfaction
at work, lack of motivation, irritability and constant tiredness.
The problem is beginning to overrun older baby boomers, who are
now in their 50s and at the pinnacle of their careers. It also can
strike leaders of small companies in their 20s and 30s. And lawyers
and doctors are prone to its symptoms because of the intense demands
of their professions and a lack of psychological rewards, says Kaufman,
author of The Lawyer’s Guide to Balancing Life and Work: Taking
the Stress Out of Success (ABA Publishing, 2000).
The
economy’s effect
 In
the corporate world, the fixation on profits, which requires managers
to show a better bottom line every quarter, is especially debilitating
in the current economic environment. Executives are forced to deliver
“encore” performances, in which they have to exceed their
previous “bests” to be perceived as successful, despite
the fact that external forces are causing sales to dwindle and staffs
to be reduced, says Dr Berglas.
“It’s
hard to continue to better your best year after year,” says
Linda Pruitt, a former division merchandise manager for Federated
Department Store’s Bon Marché division in Seattle. “You’re
called on to have incrementally better sales, profits and results,
regardless of general trends and the environment.” After 15
years with Federated, six of them as a division manager, the then
43-year-old says she felt trapped and began to experience early
symptoms of burnout. She coped by walling herself off from family
and friends to get her work done.
Part
of what bothered her was that she’d struggled so hard to attain
the director’s job, yet didn’t feel satisfied. Federated
wasn’t able to offer her more satisfying career options, and
working for another retailer wasn’t the answer. Her solution
was to quit her job two years ago and pursue a long-held goal, enrolling
in graduate school fulltime to earn an MBA. With a freshly minted
degree, she started a new consulting role this month as a manager
in the retail practice in Seattle with Andersen, a Chicago-based
consulting firm. “I have no problem working hard,” she
says, “I want to work with smart, challenging people who are
doing great stuff.”
A
clash of expectations
The
clash between what you thought life would be like at the top and
what it’s really like is a leading cause of burnout, says John-Henry
Pfifferling, director of the Centre for Professional Well Being
in Durham. This difference in expectations vs. reality creates a
profound sense of loss, he says. Loss translates into grief, which
is a burnout symptom.
“It’s
always about loss. You expect this to happen and in reality, it’s
something else,” says Dr Pfifferling. In treating executives
and professionals with burnout, “I’m confronting loss
all the time,” he says.
At
age 34, Cameron Herold was a vice president for corporate development
for Ubarter.com, when it was acquired in 1999 by Network Commerce,
a technology and infrastructure services company in Seattle. After
the acquisition, the company mandate was to grow as fast as possible.
In a six-month period, executives oversaw 50% growth, working 14-hour
days without leaving the office, then heading to a restaurant for
dinner and drinks and more work discussions. “I lived a few
blocks from the office and would be there 20 minutes after waking
up,” says Herold. “We would eat lunch at our desks and
dinner a block or two from the office, get into the wine and Grand
Marnier and then talk business all night. I was working all the
time and never de-stressing.”
The
Internet bubble burst during this period, and the mandate changed
to cost cutting. Executives had to fire the staff they’d hired,
chop their budgets and cut essentials such as customer support.
Herold was still bringing in new business, and on the outside, seemed
the epitome of success. On the inside, he was angry and unable to
support the company’s new objectives. “It was an overwhelming
experience,” says Herold. “We were going 100 miles an
hour in one direction and then it turned 180 degrees. I became bitter
about the decisions and what was expected.”
Eventually,
the stress of his lifestyle and the mismatched expectations got
to him. “I cried myself to sleep a few times, and when a colleague
asked me how I was doing, I just broke down and started sobbing,”
he says.
Herold
gave notice at Network Commerce not long after and moved back to
Vancouver, where he began job hunting for a position that would
allow him to work a flexible schedule. He’s now vice president
of operations and franchise support for 1-800-GOT-JUNK, a franchise
company.
Solutions
that work
Executives
who feel burned out don’t have to reach the crisis stage before
addressing their problems. Neither do they always have to quit their
jobs, say experts. Sometimes, making internal changes can eliminate
the conditions contributing to burnout. Other executives can restructure
their lives so they can pursue more meaningful activities outside
of work. Here are some steps you can take if burnout is rearing
its ugly head in your life:
Regain
control of your time: The demands of a company or division may
begin to take over, making you feel you no longer control your destiny.
For Marley Majcher, chief executive officer of The Party Goddess,
a catering and event-planning company in Pasadena, California, this
happened in 1999, about six years after she started her company.
Create
a legacy: Some executives and professionals reach the top because
they’re an expert at a certain speciality, but then are expected
to continually repeat that speciality. The resulting lack of variety
can cause burnout. “Any career that builds in linear specialisation
has a pernicious way of making you vulnerable to burnout,”
says Berglas. “The unvarying expectations are a source of psychological
distress.”
One
way to address this is to view your primary job as a way to make
money, and then carve out time to use your skills oncauses you believe
in. For instance, a lawyer with a tedious
full-time
job can help an environmental or low-income group. “Find something
you’re angry at,” says Dr Berglas. Other professionals
might want to seek new jobs where they can apply their skills in
a different way, such as an accountant who joins a law enforcement
agency to help catch criminals. “People say they’re exhausted
and don’t have the time for causes,” says Dr Berglas.
“I say they’re exhausted because they’re bored.”
While earning her MBA, Ms Pruitt wrote a business plan for the glass
foundry, a nonprofit organisation in Seattle that wants to build
the first glass-casting foundry of its kind for studio art glass
professionals. She’s now on the founding board trying to raise
$3 million to build the foundry. “Andersen is a tremendous
opportunity for me,” she says.
Find
balancing pursuits. For some executives, it helps to find or form
a support group to talk with. “Burnout isn’t a subject
that’s discussed,” says Kaufman. “In law, it’s
a badge of honour to say you worked 36 or 48 hours (a week), but
in reality, it sucks. It’s good to have people who will talk
with you and give you feedback.” Pursue activities that can
help you to let off pressure, such as sports, meditation or music.
Also develop a set of long-term practices that can help you avoid
reaching burnout stages. This might include determining an ideal
number of hours to work weekly. If you work over that limit, consider
it a deposit in your account to withdraw from in subsequent weeks,
says Kaufman. Herold got married, and he and his wife had a baby.
He now sets the hours he works, sometimes putting in long days and
not coming to the office on others. Meanwhile, he resumed long-distance
running, reduced his drinking and lost weight. He’s now training
for the New York City Marathon.
-www.careerjournal.com
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