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Home » Blanchard LeaderChat » Quiet Quitting: A Step Down the Path Toward
Complete Burnout?
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QUIET QUITTING: A STEP DOWN THE PATH TOWARD COMPLETE BURNOUT?

August 30, 2022 David Witt


Burnout is a response to chronic job stressors people deal with on a regular
basis. It’s a constant grinding that wears people away a little bit each day
until they find themselves in a state of exhaustion, cynicism, and
discouragement that is deep and pervasive.

It’s a condition many people have been facing lately.

One widely discussed technique people are using to ward off burnout is called
“quiet quitting.”  It involves scaling back on work commitments, the amount of
time spent achieving them, and their level of care and concern. This approach
may bring temporary relief but it does little to address the underlying issues
that trigger burnout. In fact, it might be an early warning sign of the
condition.

In an article for Positive Psychology, Alicia Nortje, Ph.D. points to research
pioneered by Christina Maslach, Susan Jackson, and Michael Leiter.  She writes:

Employees who are experiencing burnout initially try to distance themselves from
their work. They take longer to respond to work requests, go into the office
less frequently, and are less concerned with work. . . If left unchecked, the
second step of burnout is activated, where employees develop feelings of
negativity and cynicism toward their work. . .

In their research paper Early Predictors of Job Burnout and Engagement, Maslach
and Leiter report the same phenomenon. They write that exhaustion “. . .prompts
actions to distance one-self emotionally and cognitively from one’s work,
presumably as a way to cope with work overload.”

Both of these descriptions sound very similar to the objectives of quiet
quitting.

A better alternative to beating burnout is to take a second look at your work
environment. In an article for Stanford Social Innovation Review, Maslach and
Leiter outline six categories for individual or organizational focus to help
diagnose the causes of burnout and tailor solutions to the problem areas.

 * Workload. A mismatch between high demands and low resources. Lots to do but
   not enough time, people, tools, or information to get it all done.
 * Control. How much choice, discretion, and say you have over what you do to
   innovate or do something better or differently.
 * Reward. Not just pay and perks, but recognition for having done something
   well and the social and intrinsic rewards of doing a good job.
 * Community. Specifically, workplace community. Who are the people you are in
   regular contact and interaction with?  Are those relationships supportive in
   working out problems and doing things better?
 * Fairness. The basic human need to be treated fairly whatever the system,
   whatever the problems.
 * Values. The meaning of the work and the pride you take in doing it well and
   contributing something.

Maslach and Leiter recommend a dialogue that uses these six areas as a guide for
people and organizations to take well-informed action—first to identify
mismatches that may be leading to burnout and then to collaborate on methods to
target and find resolutions for the specific concerns.

Don’t Quit—Fix the Underlying Issues

Quiet quitting begs the question: What's wrong with the work in the first
place?  If you look closer, the root causes that lead to quiet quitting may be
deeper than just too much work.  Reducing your workload or level of caring may
stop the pain short term, but if you leave other environmental factors in place,
you’re merely tolerating the problems at hand—or worse, denying them.

There are a lot of great resources available today for addressing the root
causes of burnout.  Don’t settle for less. Looking for self tests? Check out
Warning Signs of Burnout: 11 Reliable Tests & Questionnaires. You can find
Maslach and Leiter’s “Quick Burnout Assessment” in their article Reversing
Burnout.


> ABOUT THE AUTHOR
> 
> David Witt is a Program Director for The Ken Blanchard Companies®. He is an
> award-winning researcher and host of the companies’ monthly webinar series.
> David has also authored or coauthored articles in Fast Company, Human Resource
> Development Review, Chief Learning Officer and US Business Review.
> 
> More Content by David Witt

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