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4 Relationship Traps That Lead to Burnout | Eric Quintane | TED - Video học tiếng Anh
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4 Relationship Traps That Lead to Burnout | Eric Quintane | TED
4 Relationship Traps That Lead to Burnout | Eric Quintane | TED
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0:03
I'm a professor of organizational behavior,
0:06
and as my students very well know,
0:09
it means that I study people in organizations.
0:14
Now I study them with a very specific perspective.
0:18
I focus on their relationships.
0:20
I focus on networks, the pattern of relationships
0:23
people build with each other inside organizations.
0:27
And when we do that,
0:29
we have a different image of organizations
0:31
that start to appear in front of our eyes.
0:34
So let me give you an example.
0:37
This is an organization I've studied.
0:39
You see people represented by circles,
0:42
and their colors represent departments that they belong to.
0:46
Now when we apply this network perspective to this organization,
0:50
we start to see another image of the organization that appears.
0:54
We start to see some things that were not visible at first
0:57
and they become obvious.
0:59
For example, these departments are much more interconnected
1:02
than what we thought before.
1:04
Or this purple department all the way at the top,
1:07
feels like it's almost completely disconnected from the organization.
1:11
Now the network perspective gives us many more tools,
1:16
mathematical, statistical tools to understand precisely
1:19
the position of individuals in organizations
1:22
and how those positions, the network that surrounds them,
1:25
actually affect how they think.
1:28
And this has been related in the world of organizations
1:31
to many important outcomes like their performance, their creativity,
1:35
their ability to be promoted,
1:37
or whether they're going to leave the organization.
1:41
And over the last 30 years,
1:43
we've accumulated a vast body of empirical evidence
1:47
showing that these networks matter,
1:50
and they matter across cultural contexts,
1:52
they matter across industries, across types of organizations.
1:56
And we've learned that there are two typical network structures
2:00
that particularly matter.
2:01
And I'll tell you a little bit more about them.
2:04
Meet Kelly.
2:05
Kelly is in what we call a cohesive network structure.
2:09
That means Kelly has strong relationships with her colleagues,
2:12
but also all of her colleagues know each other,
2:15
they trust each other,
2:17
they talk with each other frequently.
2:19
And without knowing anything else about Kelly or her colleagues,
2:22
we can actually know a few things about her.
2:25
We know that she can rely on support from her coworkers.
2:29
When there is a crisis, something goes wrong,
2:32
she can count on them.
2:33
And because people talk often,
2:35
they exchange information about each other's work,
2:38
they actually have a lot of recognition at work
2:41
and validation at work.
2:43
We also know that they talk frequently,
2:45
that means communication spreads quickly and effectively,
2:48
it means that Kelly is able to coordinate quickly.
2:52
She's able to solve problems fast,
2:54
and she is able to implement her ideas pretty quickly as well.
3:00
Alex is in a very different type of network structure.
3:04
Alex is in an open network structure,
3:06
which means that her colleagues don't know each other.
3:09
They don't talk to each other.
3:10
They have little awareness of each other.
3:13
What we’ve learned is that this means,
3:15
well, they come from different social groups,
3:17
different functions, different departments in the organizations,
3:20
they might work in different countries.
3:22
And that's important because what we've identified with this
3:25
is that Alex is exposed to very different information,
3:29
different perspectives,
3:30
different ways to think about problems.
3:34
What this gives Alex is a source of information,
3:37
but also it gives her skills that are developed over time
3:41
about how to think differently about problems,
3:43
how to translate a solution,
3:46
an idea, from one context to another.
3:49
She has translation skills that have been developed.
3:52
Alex also has control over that information,
3:55
which gives her quite a lot of power.
3:57
So with this network structure,
3:59
we know that Alex tends to be recognized for creativity.
4:03
She tends to be recognized
4:05
because she brings different solutions to the table.
4:07
She sees things from different perspectives,
4:09
and she's able to combine them together.
4:12
It's a very powerful position.
4:15
Now as mentioned, we’ve learned a lot about those network structures.
4:19
And there's a big body of work over the last three decades
4:23
that has accumulated evidence, mine included,
4:26
about all the positive benefits that we can get from belonging
4:30
to some of those structures.
4:32
But we have very little understanding of any negative outcomes,
4:37
problems that can be associated with them.
4:39
Now, it might [be] surprising, it's not a big leap.
4:42
You know, positive, negative.
4:44
But it took us, or it took me, years
4:47
to realize we don't know those negative aspects.
4:50
In fact, and it's interesting
4:51
because there were a few seeds that were planted very early on,
4:55
a long time ago, when I was doing my PhD.
4:59
And I did my PhD in management,
5:01
but I did my PhD at the same time as my wife,
5:04
and my wife did her PhD in domestic violence.
5:08
She was studying victims of domestic violence.
5:12
And unlike me, I'm a quantitative researcher,
5:15
that means I use large data sets.
5:18
I look at statistics, mathematics.
5:21
My wife actually talks to people.
5:23
She hears, she listens to the stories.
5:26
And when she was telling me about some of the stories
5:31
of victims of domestic violence,
5:34
what struck me
5:35
is that some of those victims will stay in abusive relationships
5:40
for years, decades, even.
5:44
One of the main reasons was that the family and friends
5:50
of the victims of domestic violence
5:52
had strong views,
5:53
in particular, views about what it means to be in a relationship,
5:57
about what it means to be married.
6:00
And they wouldn't let the victims of domestic violence
6:04
escape from the relationship and break free.
6:08
Now in the world of organizations, there are negative relationships.
6:12
We can have a difficult coworker,
6:13
we can have a bad boss and we can identify them,
6:16
but we don't know or we did not know about the potential negative impacts
6:22
of those network structures.
6:25
About six years ago,
6:27
there was a big rise in consciousness of burnout
6:31
as the next epidemic in the workplace.
6:34
In 2019, the World Health Organization recognized burnout
6:38
as an occupational syndrome.
6:40
It's characterized by exhaustion, by cynicism,
6:43
and it's typically caused by excessive stress at work.
6:47
There have been many surveys that have been conducted since then,
6:51
and this one shows that it's a widespread phenomenon,
6:54
with 49 percent of employees,
6:56
in this survey done by McKinsey,
6:58
reporting that they were experiencing some sort, some type of burnout.
7:04
One interesting element is that they identify
7:07
that a toxic work environment will typically cause this burnout.
7:13
Now what is a typical work environment?
7:16
How do you measure it, what does it actually mean?
7:19
That was vague, that was a bit ambiguous.
7:21
It's not very precise.
7:22
And so that's where I thought that network analysis,
7:25
with its ability to make visible things that are hidden,
7:29
to characterize networks very precisely, could be helpful.
7:33
So I started research projects.
7:36
And research projects, for the last 5 to 6 years,
7:39
we've been studying and working with seven organizations,
7:42
different sizes, different industries,
7:44
over 5,000 employees in total we've worked with
7:48
and we've been doing interviews,
7:51
surveys to capture their experience of burnout,
7:54
but also collecting email traffic to understand their positions
7:58
in social structures.
7:59
And we've tried to associate that, using predictive models, with burnout.
8:04
And we found that actually,
8:06
those network structures can predict the experience of burnout
8:09
with a fair amount of precisions, over 80 percent precisions.
8:13
Now this is still a work in progress.
8:15
Some papers have been published,
8:17
but a lot of them have not, and I'm still working on them.
8:20
But I wanted to highlight a few of the insights
8:23
that we've already been able to identify.
8:26
And these insights,
8:28
I’m calling them now the four relational traps.
8:33
So those four traps, they correspond to the two network structures
8:36
that we discussed before.
8:38
The cohesive network structure that Kelly is embedded in
8:42
has the characteristics that people know each other.
8:45
Kelly's coworkers know each other,
8:46
they talk with each other, they trust each other,
8:49
which means that over time,
8:50
norms of behavior start to emerge.
8:54
And those norms of behavior,
8:55
they start to say what is appropriate,
8:59
what is not appropriate to do or to think,
9:01
and the type of topics that you can raise in the context of the group.
9:05
And when those norms become too strong,
9:09
they can actually feel very binding.
9:11
And this is the example of domestic violence I was giving before.
9:14
These norms can become so strong
9:16
that when the interest of the person
9:19
diverged substantially from the interests of the group,
9:22
it becomes very difficult to break free and to escape from those norms.
9:29
The second trap is called emotional contagion,
9:32
or we call it emotional contagion,
9:34
and it's based on the research projects I'm conducting right now
9:37
with one of my former PhD students.
9:40
And we're studying communications and spread of emotions at the university.
9:47
And what we find is that when people communicate frequently with each other,
9:51
like in Kelly's cohesive structure,
9:54
well, they also share emotions.
9:56
They share how they feel.
9:57
And when they feel good, then everything's fine, no problem.
10:01
But when they start complaining, they feel frustration,
10:04
they start to have negative thoughts about the organizations,
10:08
then the cohesive structure acts like an echo chamber.
10:12
It amplifies those negative emotions, which generates stress.
10:16
It generates a fair amount of exhaustion and burnout.
10:21
So the open structure is very different.
10:24
You don't have strong norms in an open structure.
10:27
You don't have an echo chamber in an open structure,
10:31
but it's still subject to a couple of those relational traps.
10:36
The first one, we call it uncontrollable interdependencies.
10:40
And it comes from a study we did with a former student in a hospital.
10:44
In the hospital, we identified that nurses who were exposed,
10:49
or who had to rely on very different people,
10:52
in order to deliver their job, to deliver their care,
10:56
will actually experience higher levels of burnout.
10:59
That means when they need to coordinate between the doctors, the radiologists,
11:04
the legal experts, the administrative people,
11:08
they will depend on so many people to deliver the care to the patients,
11:12
that they ended up having no control about the quality of their work,
11:16
or when they could do their work.
11:18
And this led them to experience inordinate amount of stress
11:22
which led to burnout.
11:25
The last trap, we call it excessive demands.
11:29
And the idea is that here is not that they depend on other people,
11:33
but that many people depend on Alex.
11:36
And if there are many people who depend on Alex
11:39
in these open structures,
11:40
that means they come from different perspectives,
11:42
different departments, they have different requirements.
11:45
And this increases the workload on Alex so much that it can become excessive.
11:51
And we have a paper we just published
11:54
based on a research project where we demonstrate
11:57
that individuals who are placed in these positions,
12:00
where they are receiving those demands from disconnected individuals,
12:05
disconnected coworkers,
12:06
are significantly more likely to experience burnout.
12:12
Now what you need to realize
12:15
is that these traps are not easy to identify.
12:19
You can see that you have a bad boss,
12:21
you can see that you have difficult coworkers,
12:24
but it's not easy to identify if you are part of those traps.
12:29
You know, it can feel comfortable to be in Kelly's position,
12:32
surrounded by close colleagues.
12:34
You feel well in this group
12:36
until at some point you start to feel that it's constraining,
12:39
that it's a little bit too tight.
12:42
When you are in Alex's position, you actually feel great.
12:46
It's very exciting to be exposed
12:48
to all those different perspectives, these different ideas.
12:51
But at some point you might feel that you stretch too thin,
12:54
you're pulled into different directions,
12:57
and that's the moment where you might want to stop and think.
13:01
So what can you do about it?
13:04
Well, we have a simple recommendation,
13:07
which would be a first step,
13:09
is to do a regular relationship health check
13:13
every six months, for example.
13:14
And in that check, you ask yourself very simple questions.
13:18
If you want to identify trap one,
13:21
do you actually learn from your coworkers?
13:23
Are there new ideas that you're getting from them?
13:26
And importantly, can you discuss new ideas and perspective?
13:29
Can you propose something new
13:31
without fearing that you're going to be rejected or dismissed too quickly?
13:36
For trap two,
13:37
you want to ask yourself if people around you still energize you.
13:41
If you feel that there is a vibe that you're excited to go to work
13:45
and to meet your colleagues.
13:47
Or, on the contrary, do you feel that you’re exhausted
13:50
because there is so much gossip, so much frustration
13:52
that's swirling around you?
13:55
For trap three,
13:57
the question is, are you still in control over your work?
14:00
Or do you feel that your work depends on so many different people
14:03
that you can't ensure the quality or the timeliness of your outcomes?
14:08
And for trap four,
14:09
do you feel that you're actually constantly pulled
14:12
in different directions?
14:13
Are you stretched too thin by all the demands and requests
14:16
that come to your desk?
14:18
OK, so now if you have identified those traps,
14:21
the question is, what do you do about them?
14:24
If you are in traps one or two,
14:26
if you are like Kelly in that cohesive structure
14:30
and you start to feel the pressure that's coming to you,
14:33
what you need to do is diversify your network.
14:36
You need to identify new coworkers that you could interact with.
14:40
Simply having lunch or coffee once per month
14:43
with a new coworker is enough.
14:45
It gives you a breath of fresh air,
14:47
different perspectives that you can rely on.
14:49
You can also try to reduce the interactions
14:52
with your very close group of colleagues.
14:55
When you are in traps three or four, in Alex's position,
14:59
you start to feel stretched too thin,
15:01
well you need to refocus on your core group.
15:03
You need to actually build support in your group.
15:06
What this might mean is bringing those people together,
15:10
creating opportunities that they meet each other,
15:13
a lunch, an event where they can actually know each other
15:17
and start to build those connections,
15:19
because that's going to bypass you to some extent,
15:21
but create synergies
15:23
where you're not needed to satisfy their demands.
15:28
So as a summary, networks are great.
15:32
They are really powerful.
15:34
They are really important.
15:35
They have many strong benefits.
15:38
But there’s also a negative side that you should be careful with.
15:42
And if there are two things I want you to remember from this talk,
15:46
it's, one,
15:47
if you are in a position like Kelly, where you have a cohesive network
15:51
and it's starting to close in, you need to break free.
15:53
You need actually to identify new people, create new connections.
15:58
If you are in Alex's position
16:00
and you see that you have these disconnected contacts
16:04
that start to pull you in different directions,
16:06
bring them in, start to close,
16:08
and create a more cohesive network.
16:11
For me, that's not the end of the journey.
16:14
I'm still as I was when I started my PhD,
16:17
fascinated and excited by everything we can learn about those networks,
16:22
and I hope I shared some of the excitement today with you.
16:26
Thank you very much.
16:27
(Applause)
