How to Avoid Becoming Disengaged From Your
Work
Being CEO means always
being on. But what happens when your passion for your company starts to dim?
Find out how to avoid "executive brownout."
Like most things in
this world, passion waxes and wanes as the years go by. But as the CEO, you
need to be careful of letting your passion slip. If you become disengaged from
your business, how will your star employees react?
"As a researcher
and consultant to executives across diverse industries, I know how common it is
for successful, high-performing people to lose their passion for work--and
their commitment to their organizations--over time," Michael Kibler, founder
and CEO of holistic coaching and development firm Corporate Balance
Concepts, writes in Harvard Business Review.
Kibler calls the
dimming of a CEO's passion "executive brownout." He says executive
brownout differs from burnout one key
way--a brownout is hard to detect and is not characterized by a major crisis.
"They seem to be performing fine: putting in massive hours in meetings and
calls across time zones, grinding out work while leading or contributing to
global teams, and saying all the right things in meetings (though not in
side-bar conversations). However, these executives are often operating in a
silent state of continual overwhelm, and the predictable consequence is
disengagement," he explains.
Kibler says his
executives are suffering from feelings of being "drained from 24/7
obligations"; "physical deterioration" of little sleep and not
taking care of themselves; "tenuous relationships" with their
immediate family; lack of close friendships with old friends; "atrophy of
personal interests," and the inability to focus on non-business discussions
with others.
These symptoms are a
serious threat to your business. If you're not careful, your own personal
brownout can spread throughout your company and infect your star employees--who
may already suffer from a few of the symptoms. If you feel yourself or your
executives slipping into a unenthusiastic state, you should know that
a fat raise won't solve the problem. "Bigger payouts will either make it
easier for these executives to leave," he writes, or "create
incentives to 'hang on' in a state of passive disaffection."
What you need is to
revitalize your own engagement as quickly as possible. To do so, Kibler
suggest trying "active partnering." The term refers
to creating a supportive relationship with your managers in which you
can speak honestly about your personal and professional life and the goals in
each sphere.
A good time to start
this is during annual reviews. "The point is to foster a
dialogue that allows bosses (and therefore businesses) to build true
partnerships with their most important people," Kibler says. The goals
might include starting a nonprofit, writing a book, or completing a
triathlon. Whatever your goals are, it's about actively working toward things
you want to do before you leave this world and enhancing relationships
with your employees and colleagues.
"When firms do
so, it dramatically increases the commitment and impact of its
stars," Kibler writes. "Think about it: If I'm your boss and, in
addition to helping you develop professionally, I also actively support you in
adopting a child, or becoming fit, or taking a service trip with your daughter
to Africa, I have profoundly changed the nature of our relationship and your
advocacy for and loyalty to our team and organization."
Kibler writes that
when a large professional services firm hired his company to create a year-long
holistic executive development program for its nearly 500 leaders, more
than 60 high performers were planning to quit the firm within 12 months. After
the program, which focused on mental and physical health, work, and family
through one-on-one coaching, only two left the firm within the next five years.
"These
professionals were revitalized in the ways that were most important to each of
them--and newly equipped to sustain high performance in today's
ultra-challenging business environment," he writes.
http://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/how-to-prevent-executive-brownout.html?cid=em01014week03e
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