Is your employer contributing to personal burnout??

Careers with high levels of stress, tight deadlines, and family issues are all just the tip of the iceberg when considering actions that contribute to burnout conditions. Some individuals even go so far as to show physical symptoms such as insomnia, depression, negativity, anger, or detachment from friends and family when stressors take over one’s life. Unfortunately, there are several factors that contribute to burnout and excessive stress situations. I will detail a host of causes that are often times correlated to an improper work-life balance.

Generally, employers have an innate sense to increase expected productivity levels. This increases the expected workload which eventually leads to longer hours and time away from home. Not only does this promote the inability to effectively manage one’s personal and professional work-life balance, but your expectations of co-workers and family can increase exponentially.

Furthermore, when your boss becomes reliant upon your “Can Do” or “Yes, Sir” attitude, the individuals who generally suffer are your family, friends, religious affiliations, or volunteer events that rely on your time. Unless you physically take a step back and look at your current situation, in an attempt to address and treat burnout, the effects will continue to erode away at your job productivity. Worse yet, the quality of your work will decrease; the attitude about your job will diminish; and in some cases could manifest into physical ailments or death.

According to the website, http://www.workplaceissues.com/arburnout.htm, “Studies have shown that more heart attacks occur on Monday morning than any other time of the week. The common factor here is that people are going back to work after a weekend off. What a shocking realization, that people are not dying to go to work but are dying because they are going to work.”

Personally, I enjoy the challenge of working a career that keeps me on my toes; however, I have taken a stance that there must be a clear work-life balance. All too often I have seen fellow co-workers, friends, and even family members lose focus of this and have fallen into burnout type of situations. Remember, at the end of the day, you must enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Dr. John Kotter’s 8 Steps for Leading Change

Drawing upon the April 26th class discussion, I was a bit intrigued to investigate Dr. John Kotter’s 8 Steps for Leading Change. The following 8 Steps within Kotter’s theorized process, includes the following key tasks (identified in order of completion):

I. Acting With, or Creating, Urgency
II. Form a Powerful Coalition
III. Develop and/or Create a Vision for Change
IV. Communicate the Vision
V. Remove Obstacles to Empower Broad-based Actions
VI. Generate Short-Term Wins
VII. Build on Changes and Gain Momentum
VIII. Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture

Derived from Dr. John Kotter’s website, http://www.kotterinternational.com/kotterprinciples.

With over 30-years of research and trial & error efforts to his name, Dr. Kotter has proved that nearly 70% of major changes within organizations FAIL. It is Kotter’s belief, with a high certainty of success that organizations who do not adapt to change will not prosper. Since technology and employee-bases are ever-changing variables, Kotter recommends that executive management teams implement a holistic approach to improve change. Without embracing the holistic approach, the team will identify the lack thereof of change, and management could be taking a one-way ride on a rollercoaster that has already been embarked upon. Remember, the end goal is to Lead Change and eventually Anchor the Changes into the existing framework of corporate culture. Resistance to acknowledge change is only a temporary band-aid to the problem which could ultimately pose negative results.

Five Innovation Principles

After reviewing the basic differences and similarities of Innovation and Creativity, I decided to dive a bit deeper into the Innovation Realm. What I have learned through visiting a host of websites and periodicals has been summarized below into 5 basic principles - obtained courtesy of www.studymarketing.org.

I. Must Be Approached as a Discipline
II. Must Be Approached Comprehensively
III. Includes an Organized, Systematic, and Continual Search for New Opportunities
IV. Involves Everyone in the Organization
V. Must Be Customer Centered

Granted, these 5 Principles are NOT the only means that prospective readers can enhance their innovation strategy; however, embracing the following five innovation principles into your own unique styles and various approaches will make you better-rounded.

Let’s first understand the difference between creativity (coming up with ideas) and innovation (using those ideas to promote top-and-bottom line results for a business or personal success).

I have been privy to instances when my employer will try to implement creativity by sending a group of individuals into a ‘think tank’ brainstorming sessions. Granted, our session did unveil several new opportunities and areas of improvement; however, not a single idea was authorized and moved into the implementation phase. Similar to any large corporation and firms with outdated organizational structure and management bases, I soon realized that any unnecessary changes that did not promote growth and/or additional revenue streams would be rejected. What was this whole process supposed to accomplish??

In this instance, nothing happened because innovation was not a discipline, and our newly thought up ideas, no matter how optimistic, were pummeled by the present necessities.

I do not have specific facts to reference; however, I would assume that most organizations today have new ideas that are directed in a top-down fashion. This severely limits the potential innovation and creative means of the ‘workers’ of a company. Furthermore, these established and iconic organizations do not even allow their best assets, employees, to innovate new ideas to actions and activities that they complete on a daily process! I feel that this process has caused the backup and lack thereof of new technology, business process improvements, and the initiative to propose new inventions in the marketplace.

High Altitude Leadership: What the World’s Most Forbidding Peaks Teach Us about Success

In this week’s blogs, I am going to further my examination into the elements (i.e. icebergs, mountain climbing, and extreme sports) and take a few pages from the book, High Altitude Leadership, by the extreme mountain climber, Chris Warner, and fellow scientist, Don Schmincke.

In the book, Schmincke and Warner reveal the secrets to becoming a High Altitude Leader, literally! In fact, according to the book’s official website, http://www.highaltitudeleadership.com, High Altitude Leadership is the travel guide for traversing the dangers on the road to success.

What drew me to blogging about this book were the immediate thoughts generated from a fellow colleague, Professor Tobin Porterfield. The professor drew references to several of Earth’s natural landmarks, such as K2 and Everest, and introduced the concept of leadership and teamwork to achieve a goal. What perplexed me most was Porterfield’s statement, “more people die on the way down K2, than those going up the mountain.”

As is the case with many mountain climbers, the exhilaration of scaling large rocks, the teamwork of working together to reach an intimidating peak, or mourning the death of a careless climber are all parts of the extreme sport. Furthermore, all of the advice provided in the reading is supported by Schmincke's research into team’s and/or group performance and correlates that information into the high failure rate of many management and leadership programs of companies.

According to the aforementioned website, "To thrive in the face of today's business challenges and tomorrow's unpredictable risks, you need to become the type of leader whose career, team, and company excels in the most extreme environments. With so much at risk, you have to be the High Altitude Leader who uses every bit of your talent and every ounce of your strength to guide your team to peak performance," say authors Schmincke and Warner.

Additionally, there are 8 specific ‘dangers’ that Schmincke and Warner elude to that can sabotage anyone – from locations ranging from 26,000 feet above sea level or the 26th floor suite of a corporate headquarters – that include: Fear, Selfishness, Tool Seduction, Arrogance, Lone Heroism, Cowardice, Comfort, and Gravity. By identifying these potential dangers, I plan on implementing a strategy to not only encourage decision-making, but empower team members to lead when leading is imperative.

K2 Climbing to the Summit Shared Summits Expedition from Chris Warner on Vimeo.

Reaction Blog to a Management & Leadership Presentation

This blog makes reference to a presentation that was conducted on April 11, 2011 (my birthday) at Towson University. The guest speaker, one Dr. Robert Hamilton, is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for the James F. Knott Realty Group, a commercial and residential real estate development company here in the Baltimore, MD area.

What really intrigued me by his presentation was not only the multitude of information that he provided regarding organizational behavior and leadership attributes, but specifically his excerpt on creating self-awareness. Dr. Hamilton broke down the basics of what his interpretation of self-awareness contained: 4 fundamental attributes that included Business Skills, Leadership Skills, Interpersonal Skills, and Intrapersonal Skills. Hamilton provided direct reasoning and ideas behind his ranking of importance of the 4 skill sets, along with real life examples (always a positive in a presentation).

What really struck me most was his reference to leaders and management figures in an awkward, but subtle fashion. Hamilton linked the two designations to an iceberg, ideally a large piece of ice that floats along in the Antarctica continent. As Hamilton explains, "typically, an iceberg only shows the top layers. A GREAT leader who really knows themselves reveals more of their iceberg to their colleagues and staff."

Taking a quick look at the picture, the viewer will notice that most leadership figures will present the highest points and valleys of their iceberg. The very rare leaders will have more of their iceberg floating above the water to expose their true leadership attributes. I'm not one who typically examines, rather describes, a physical reference made within a presentation but I felt this was fitting. Moreover, I am originally from Minnesota where after 4-5 months of a 'short' winter, the spring will emerge and the lakes will become floating mirages of what could be seen as "mini-icebergs" to those unfamiliar with the natural occurrences.

Management of Freakonomics

Deciding to explore other business dialogues, I had to satisfy my curiosity of a reading referenced to me by a fellow economist in my undergraduate studies. The first edition of the book, entitled Freakonomics, (Dubner, Levitt 2005) provides a redefined approach to how business persons and the general public view the modern world. I wanted to obtain a copy of something up-to-date, thus I ‘Googled’ the term and found the authors website: http://www.freakonomics.com/

Since my official blog specifically entertains concepts that pertain to management ideals, I decided to explore the website’s blog section for details. What I uncovered was a breadth of current events that deal with domestic and international occurrences, many that occupied by idle time. The article that really sparked my interest was titled, “Somali Pirates Practice Inventory Management,” and was written on March 16th, 2011.



Apparently, the Somalia Pirates have become more sophisticated in their illegal day-to-day business practices. In fact, a group of Somali pirates announced that “they’re cutting asking prices for hostages by 20 percent — to speed up the negotiation process, make room for more hostages and take in more cash…we want to free ships within a short period of time instead of keeping them for a long time and incurring more expenses in guarding them. We have to free them at a lower ransom so that we can hijack more ships.” http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/03/16/somali-pirates-practice-inventory-management/

This statement is rather bold, considering that the unidentified “spokes-pirate” is starting to apply modern business and economics aptitude into an otherwise psychological ordeal. Unlike ordeals that include kidnapping, hostages, or ransoms, the Somali pirates actually think that the western viewpoints of business will translate into large sums of money. I’m not sure where they obtained their education; however, I will say their ideas sound trivial, but more-or-less rather ludicrous!

Decision-Making Processes

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always utilized a less-than-common methodology involved with everyday decision-making processes. My close friends and family members all agree that I over analyze simple questions and everyday tasks that should take a split second to decide, but somehow turn into a “What if” fiasco.

I decided to research the decision making process and what the definition actually entailed. According to the book titled, Organizational Behavior: Emerging Knowledge and Practice for the Real World, decision making is defined as the conscious process of making choices among alternatives with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affairs (Von Glinow and McShane).

Typically, decisions are made by utilizing clear logic and applying the best available information to determine the best option at hand. Furthermore, our authors categorize the Decision-Making Process into one of 6 Rational Choice Options as follows (Von Glinow and McShane):



1. Identify the problem or opportunity; realize that some decisions may produce results that exceed and/or fail to meet current goals and expectations.

2. Chose the best decision process; determine whether you have enough information available or require the assistance of others to complete the desired process.

3. Develop alternative solutions; if necessary, search for the best solution or modify an existing strategy to help create the best outcome possible.

4. Chose the best alternative; field the possible alternatives with the best outcomes and make your decision based upon the highest utility.

5. Implement the selected alternative; this process is self-explanatory and should assume minimal, if any, problems to implement the alternative decision.

6. Evaluate decision outcomes; generally, the final step should involve information from predetermined benchmark metrics such that any final feedback is easily examined.

What I have realized over the past couple of years after completing my undergraduate and graduate studies is that the existence of too much information can be my problem. I have made mind-numbing efforts to better control my overactive brain stimulants; however, I should find an outlet to tap into this surprisingly beneficial attribute to increase my personal net worth. Or, better yet, provide assistance to others who would simply want additional alternatives to a common process that requires revamping.

Sources: Von Glinow, Mary Ann and Steven McShane. Organizational Behavior. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2010, Pages 198-200.