1575 – Addressing Burnout to Become a High Performer (Again) with Jimmy Burroughes

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0:58with us right now jimmy burrows jimmy you are the founder of jimmy burrows leadership uh and uh you help build high performance leaders cultures uh you are also the author of the book beat burnout for ignite and ignite performance jimmy it's great to have you i should point out as well you're a podcaster your podcast to our friend that's listening right now just do a search right now for the ways of working hit subscribe uh because you if you like what you hear in this conversation you want more go find jimmy jimmy thank you so much for being here thanks for the invitation and the opportunity josh it's great to be here thank you yes all right so give us an overview of your work an overview of my work um we know the story kind of starts at various points and history, but if I rewind the clock about five or six years, I was that extremely busy GM in a very, very complicated role who went through a restructure of the business, who went through a transformation of the operating model of the business, and then was hit with a legislative change that wiped out half of our bottom line in one day.

2:05And so it was kind of expected, we were the cash cow division of the business, so we were expected to put that money back. and so I find myself working all the hours around the clock that God was able to provide to us. I was in meetings from seven o 'clock until seven o 'clock and then I would start my day job you know after that I was doing an MBA at the same time I was traveling overseas significantly we were working in 81 countries I was traveling to 20 of those regularly and unfortunately you know things come to a head and what I was finding was I was getting up in the morning saying hmm do I really enjoy doing this anymore am I able to make any difference is there any point to what I'm doing or am I just a hamster on a wheel I was finding there were more bad days than good days I was finding that I didn't really know where the business was going because it was in this massive state of flux and the people that I really trusted and liked were leaving the business so that was unfortunate anything we tried was just being closed down because it was a very conservative risk appetite based on all the other changes that were happening and I never never had any rest and so after doing that analysis of well why did i burn out why did i hit the wall and realizing there were lots of other people struggling with the same thing i thought well hold on there's a there's a thing that i can serve the world with here so i started jbl and that became a book and a podcast essentially saying well what are the things that cause burnout and how do we fix that so you can be a high performer again and you can take your team on that journey And as I've gone through the last five, six years, worked with seven to 12 figure businesses globally to essentially help their leadership teams go, maybe I'm doing too much.

3:44Maybe we're doing too much. And maybe we should do some different things that are going to be going to service more effectively and get better results. And that's what we want. We want better results, better engagement, happier people and able to go home at the end of the day and still have the energy for our families and our kids and all of the things that we love to do. as a leader and we want to be sensitive to our organizations. And I wonder how many of the principles of preventing burnout are going to be fairly applicable to all people versus, you know, we're going to have different personality types.

4:16We're going to have different levels of, you know, stamina or whatever, however you want to describe it, resiliency. You know, how do we, implement policies that I think are going to be a little bit more friendly to acknowledging our teams and our own mortality versus where we really need to customize policies and solutions for a wide range of people's capacities? How do we thread that needle? all yeah no that's a really great question and let me ask you a question in response and also all of the audience a question um are you a human josh last time i checked yeah and i'm guessing most of the people listening are probably humans and i'm certainly well according to reference points i'm a human and everything that we do is focused on human first so it's not about you know we yes we do have good level different levels of stamina we do work in different industries we have different backgrounds, different educations, but we're all essentially human beings.

5:24We're all wired the same way in terms of our brains' reactions to how we interact and act in certain situations. And what we found through doing the neuroscience that sits behind the book and all the stuff that we do is that actually what we're relying on as professionals in organizations is a very small step above the caveman. So we're running away from the saber-toothed tiger and we're trying to be part of a tribe. And when you start to realize that that's basically what's driving the majority of our behavioral patterns, you can start to interact with those in a more effective way. And so, you know, the stresses of have we got enough budget?

6:03Have we got enough resources to go around? Is there enough time? We're running out of time. There's too many priorities. I'm overloaded. People keep leaving my team. I'm really struggling to get my deadlines done. They're all what we call scarcity responses, which is the saber tooth tiger at the front of the cave and we all have to try and rally around and fight that um equally when we when we're doing something you know we're driven by that need to do something that's important meaningful and it's making a difference that's the purpose conversation so even though as an organization you might be saying well we've got different people from different backgrounds and different diversities groups and different ethnicities or whatever it is you want to say we're still all wired like cavemen.

6:44And so what we do is we get down to the neurological and the evolutionary responses that create behavioral change that sit below the education and the intelligence and all those things. And we work there. And that what we see is bubbles up into an impactful behavioral and significant performance change in organizations. And so you can go into an organization as a consultant and focus on revenues and margins and KPIs and productivity. But if people are burned out, it won't make that much difference. You might get a five to maybe 10 % change in your performance over the course of a year. What we're looking for is significant change, but over a period of time.

7:21So it's that 1 % change daily, which leads to a 38X improvement by the end of the year. And we're compounding change on top of itself. Yeah. Jimmy, when we're thinking about ourselves and maybe as a leader, we're at that point where we're just exhausted. How do we know that there are changes that we need to make to our day-to-day or maybe just where our focus is versus you just need a vacation. Yeah. Yeah. I often get asked this now, what if we just sign people off on sick leave, right? Or let's take a two-week vacation. And if we use the metaphor of you're standing outside in the rain and you come inside and you go outside and it's still raining you're going to get wet again right the reality is burnout and people who are struggling with it are in the same position and in the book and in our body of research downtime is the last chapter of the book because you know it doesn't matter if you come in and dry off briefly if you go out and it's still raining you're still going to get wet so we need to do all of the other things first and identify where am i sitting at and the the the other analogy we use is do you remember in the old 1980s ghetto blasters on stereo systems you had like the graphic equalizer uh and you better believe it so yeah you could die so the treble or the mid-level well so the book is laid out in in a kind of similar way if you're in the positive zone on that variable then you're moving towards high performance if you're in the negative zone in that variable you're increasing your likelihood of burnout if you're in the negative zone in three of those variables you have a very high chance of burnout and we've got five variables so yes downtime could be well actually i get a lot of time off to rest and relax but that's only one right so we've got another four that we've got to assess and look at so my recommendation on this is we'll have a look at yourself in terms of what's the level of purpose that you're working towards have you got an aligned sense of purpose across yourself your role your team your organization uh are you more abundant than scarce are you running scared all the time are you in the fight or flight reaction all the time is that that that challenge for you how well connected are you to your tribe, your team, your plan, your business, and your development?

9:35Are you exploring and innovating and creating, or are you the hamster on a wheel delivering and delivering, delivering? And do you get some downtime? And if we can look at those variables, then you might say, well, actually I am really, really busy. And no, taking two weeks off is not going to fix this. Yeah. And is there anything that you recommend doing? Like, let's say that, listen, vacation is not an option right now. We're on a big push. I feel I've been burning. The reality is historically, yes, I've probably been burning the candle at both ends a little bit too much, but here I am and I am just spent.

10:12Is there anything that I can do today so that I can get through the next couple of months or the next few weeks so that I can see this through all the way through? Is it a shift of focus? Is it something that we have just self-care, or things that maybe we could do throughout the day. I don't know if you get down in the weeds, you know, and too much of this, but, uh, you know, I'm just, I'm sensitive to someone who might be feeling a little bit of burnout today. Is there anything that they can do maybe today that might make the rest of the day work a little bit better for them? That's such a great question.

10:48And yes, um, I'll give you three because, um, I like threes for some reason. I think threes do work really well. Um, let's start at each end of the book and then we'll go on one in the middle as well. Um, so number one is, well, no, before I even get there, first of all, if you are really struggling with that, I feel for you. I've been there. I know it's painful. And sometimes it's really hard to see the wood for the trees. And so, yeah, let's try and help. Number one would be what we call a spotlight effect. So we tend to think as leaders who are highly driven, highly engaged, highly passionate and have high performance anxiety.

11:23So we're the ones that drive ourselves to burnout because we need to deliver. We have to deliver um and we see a sense of failure if we don't um actually people aren't thinking about you as much as you think they are and people don't care about you as much as they think they do as much as you think they do so the spotlight effect is like you're standing on the stage in the spotlight and you think all the attention is on you and so you have to deliver and i want to give you that permission to release that belief that actually people are far more concerned that everybody's watching them and thinking about them than they are thinking about you so you can just release that tension a little bit which really helps um the second one would be uh in the in the first piece of the book which is all about purpose and we actually give the first you think purpose is such an important thing for people to get right but it's a very simple exercise with um am i really clear on the purpose of everything that i'm doing and what we normally see is it falls into one of three categories yes i'm 100 clear and i know the difference it makes uh some the second one would be no i'm not really clear on the purpose of this and i'm not really clear on on the difference it makes well then there's a conversation to be had and the third category would be i have no idea why i do this and i'm not sure what difference it makes i just do it and to me they're they're the opportunities to go well what if i just stop doing that and let's see if anybody notices uh and a great example that i often use in sort of keynote speeches and things is when i took over the recruitment for a large bank in new zealand And we had a dashboard report that we would religiously produce.

12:59It took two days a month to produce. And we would send it out to all the business. And we knew that it was reasonably inaccurate, but it was the best we had. So I just said, we'll stop doing it and see what happens. And then I went round to all the senior leaders in the business and said, I stopped doing that. Does it make a difference? And they said, well, no, we didn't read it anyway. So it doesn't make any difference. So we were committing two days a week. That's 10 % of your working days of the month to a report that nobody even read. So what's the purpose of you doing it? And is it you're very clear and you know the difference it makes?

13:26You're ambiguous about it, have a conversation or you're not clear, maybe stop doing it. The last one would be something from the downtime chapter, which is taking a little bit of time out for working on the business, not working in the business. And often, again, when we're on the hamster wheel, we end up in a situation if we can't stop and think. And we did this with a very large organization, a couple of million employees. and we were working at the senior end of their organization. And we said to them, take 20 to 45 minutes once a week with a notebook, leave your phone, leave your laptop, go somewhere else, and just sit and see what comes up.

14:03And what we're actually asking them to do is access the subconscious TV channel in their brain. And the interesting thing about your brain is it can either watch the problem-solving, curious, innovative, intelligent TV channel, or it can access the daydreaming subconscious TV channel. and it's that same tv channel you access when you're in the shower and suddenly something comes to you or you're doing the dishes and suddenly you solve a problem or you've been wrangling with that problem and it bubbles up at three in the morning um and you suddenly go i know the answer so we want you to access that piece and what we saw with the leaders who we we challenged a lead a leadership group to do this and those who said no i haven't got time for that i'm super busy you know i've got 5 000 employees who report to me and i get 2 000 emails a day and i'm way too busy to take 20 minutes out once a week.

14:49Over the course of the 12 months we worked with them, those people burned out, they dropped off the program and they left the business. They also were ranked lower in the talent spectrum at the end of the year. Those who took the time out, made better decisions, were more engaged, had better health stats, were ranked higher on the talent matrix. And it was because they had those 20 to 45 minutes just thinking, what should I be working on right now? What are the things that are important? And which is the most important thing for me to get back to the office and do versus doing all the things? And over the period of the year, we really saw the difference start to that divergence of capability.

15:27It's very easy when you're really busy to stay busy versus going, let's just hop off for half an hour, 20 minutes to 45 minutes, and just take stock of the situation. And sometimes just sitting there with a notebook, doodling, thinking about nothing, just looking out the window, accesses that TV channel in your brain that allows everything else just to slot into place. And you see things that you wouldn't see when you're focusing on the conscious TV channel. Yeah. Jimmy, how do you work? Your website is jimmyburrows.com. And when somebody goes there, explain how you're working with individuals and leaders and organizations?

16:07Yeah. So we have two offerings that we share with the world. Number one is what we call our ways of working program, which is essentially a three module program for leaders to go through with their teams, which is bookended by a diagnostic. So we do a diagnostic, we work out what is going on in that team. And then we have three modules, align, accelerate, and sustain that we take the team through. They take three full days or six half days to go through those three modules. And during the course of those modules, essentially what we're doing is having facilitated conversations in a room or virtually that allow the team to build trust, connection, and purpose with each other.

16:44And that we see starts to grind the wheel of performance. So give you a very simple example. What is the purpose of this team existing? Let's get clear on that because when we know when everybody's clear on the purpose of the team, priority just set priority making decisioning resource allocation effort is more aligned and so that works really effectively one of the sustained conversations would be well what's what are the some of the barriers that we might have in terms of unconscious biases that are going to trip us up down the track so we have a conversation around that so they're all conversation led and then at the final end of the program we do a second diagnostic which is mapping the change of the team's engagement performance over the period of time.

17:25So that's the first way that's more of a B2B offering where we go into businesses and we partner with senior leadership teams. So tiers one to five normally in large organizations. And that's a large sort of anything over 10 ,000 people is generally where we play. The other offering we have if you're in a smaller business or you just want something for yourself is we run a global leadership mastermind. So on a month on a monthly basis for 90 minutes we pull in leaders from all of our b2b clients but also individuals who are just needing to connect into a network of people who are going through similar stuff to them and they can have a conversation about a typical problem so yesterday last last month we talked all around uh connecting with the person not the position first so it's like how do i actually connect at a human level versus with their job title we've talked about neurodiversity We talked about all sorts of things.

18:21We have, I think we're two years into the mastermind now. And the following is really strong because what normally we find is, you know, we've got somebody from the hotel industry, somebody from the insurance industry and somebody from construction going, oh my God, I have all these problems. I'm really rambling with it. And nobody else has these problems. And then they come along to the mastermind. They're like, oh my God, everybody's struggling with these problems, right? We can all help each other. And it's a really high value community because we try and encourage the people within the community to connect and support each other.

18:47So one of the things that in each of the mastermind sessions is a hot seat where people can go, oh, I've got this problem. What do people think? And we coach each other. So we answer each other's questions and we support each other. So they're kind of the two big things, the two ways that people can can can work with us, either B2B, you and your team will take you through it. The big advantage of that one is if you're doing great stuff, we validate you in front of your team and you have the conversations that are going to accelerate. great. If you're maybe not confident enough to lead those conversations, or you need a bit of support as a leader to enable those conversations to happen, maybe you're in a new team, or you've just restructured, or there's some cultural challenges, we support you.

19:25So we're going to build your capability by showing you a good example, but also showcase the moments where you can really shine. So they're the two advantages. If you're that leader who is feeling like they're just under pressure, they haven't got the support internally, maybe the mastermind is for you. Yeah. And your book as well, Beat Burnout, Ignite Performance, The Leader's Playbook for Building High Performance Team Culture. That's also available at your website. Jimmy, anything else? Obviously, we talked about the podcast as well, which you can hit subscribe. It's called The Ways of Working.

19:59Anything else we missed in terms of next steps for someone that's been listening to our conversation? Please reach out on LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn. I really enjoy a good conversation. I'm all about human connection. So if people are just wanting to find out more, they want to hop on a Zoom call, they want to chat and learn, I'm very open to those conversations because I think that's where the magic happens. And if nothing else, even if we don't work together, my goal is for you to walk off any conversation with me, having taken something of value away that you can walk back into your office and go, we should be thinking about this uh that's my goal in every conversation so i'm open to those chats open to the conversations and you know if we can uh if we can find a way to support each other through this and and stop people burning out and help people be high performers then i've achieved my life's purpose and that's the goal all right jimmy burrows again you build high performance cultures you're the founder of jimmy burrows leadership found on the web at jimmyburrows.com uh lest anyone think uh you know, not understand or appreciate your level of authority and influence.

21:04You've worked with leaders within Google, Samsung, Bank of America, HSBC, Lego, Dyson, many, many, many, many others. You could see quite an impressive roster of clients that you've been able to work with. Jimmy Burrows, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Josh. Really appreciate the time. Thank you.

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