"Love alone is not enough to sustain people in a system not designed to sustain them." That's the diagnosis. The harder question is why we keep treating the resulting burnout as a wellness problem instead of a design problem.
The system is producing exactly what it was built to produce.
Redesign is possible wherever someone has the authority to change what gets counted as success and what gets absorbed as individual failure. That's a smaller set of levers than it sounds like, but it's not nothing. A team lead who stops treating coverage gaps as a personal resilience problem and starts treating them as a workload design problem is doing redesign. It doesn't scale automatically, but it's real.
The harder constraint: a lot of institutions have a vested interest in the current design, even if no one would say so out loud. High turnover keeps compensation flat. Framing burnout as a wellness issue keeps the locus of control on the individual and off the structure. Collective redesign requires collective diagnosis, and that's exactly what the wellness framing interrupts.
So, the question I'd push back with: who in your context has the authority to change the design, and what would they have to give up doing it? That's usually where redesign stalls, at the accountability stage.
As a person with deep passion and impulse control issues (thanks ADHD!!) I have had to train myself to say "No." I want to do it all, and in moments of excitement, I often take on too much. After burning myself countless times, I have finally learned to take a beat. To respond with, "Let me think about that," instead of an immediate agreement. The shift has helped tremendously. I don't have to do it all. In fact, I cannot.
Ha, I totally relate to the moments of excitement, taking on too much because we want to and we care so much!
I love your shift and it’s a great tip - ‘let me think about that’ - coming back to what is possible with our time and resources.
There is no point in continuing to run on passion to the detriment of our own wellbeing. Burnout does change the way we come at it and I’m always grateful for your experience and insights on this, @The Language Lab.
"Love alone is not enough to sustain people in a system not designed to sustain them." That's the diagnosis. The harder question is why we keep treating the resulting burnout as a wellness problem instead of a design problem.
The system is producing exactly what it was built to produce.
That's not a crisis. That's a signal.
I really appreciate your comment. @Christopher Dodge. Particularly your point that the system is producing exactly what it was built to produce.
As you say, when we frame burnout as wellness problem, we unintentionally place the responsibility back on the very people the system is exhausting.
With a system that is producing burnout at scale, I’m really interested to explore where redesign is possible.
Redesign is possible wherever someone has the authority to change what gets counted as success and what gets absorbed as individual failure. That's a smaller set of levers than it sounds like, but it's not nothing. A team lead who stops treating coverage gaps as a personal resilience problem and starts treating them as a workload design problem is doing redesign. It doesn't scale automatically, but it's real.
The harder constraint: a lot of institutions have a vested interest in the current design, even if no one would say so out loud. High turnover keeps compensation flat. Framing burnout as a wellness issue keeps the locus of control on the individual and off the structure. Collective redesign requires collective diagnosis, and that's exactly what the wellness framing interrupts.
So, the question I'd push back with: who in your context has the authority to change the design, and what would they have to give up doing it? That's usually where redesign stalls, at the accountability stage.
As a person with deep passion and impulse control issues (thanks ADHD!!) I have had to train myself to say "No." I want to do it all, and in moments of excitement, I often take on too much. After burning myself countless times, I have finally learned to take a beat. To respond with, "Let me think about that," instead of an immediate agreement. The shift has helped tremendously. I don't have to do it all. In fact, I cannot.
Ha, I totally relate to the moments of excitement, taking on too much because we want to and we care so much!
I love your shift and it’s a great tip - ‘let me think about that’ - coming back to what is possible with our time and resources.
There is no point in continuing to run on passion to the detriment of our own wellbeing. Burnout does change the way we come at it and I’m always grateful for your experience and insights on this, @The Language Lab.
This is a beautiful piece that really resonates with me.