How to Overcome Parental and Workplace Burnout with Dr. Jacqueline Kerr

or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.

Our guest on this episode is Dr Jacqueline Kerr, a behavior scientist and burnout survivor. She is in the top one percent of most cited scientists worldwide. Jacqueline left her position as a public health professor in two thousand eighteen and now hosts the podcast Overcoming Working Mom Burnout, where she interviews researchers, diversity experts, in leadership coaches. On this episode, Jacqueline and Eric discuss all types of burnout. Hi, Jacqueline,

Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, I'm excited to talk with you. We're gonna talk a lot about burnout, the different types of burnout, focusing maybe a little bit extra on mothers and burn out. But before we get to that, let's start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always

at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops, thinks about it for a second and looks up at their grandparents as well. Which one wins, and the grandparents says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what does that parable mean to you in your life and

in the work that you do. Thanks so much for that, Well, Interestingly, some of my first thoughts come around this whole good bad, positive, negative, and something that I've really tried to develop is less of a fixed mindset, and it's a label that I gave myself. I was a bad, bad wife, bad colleague, and it's one, unfortunately, that I do also see my teenage son giving himself, So I'm really trying to work with him to say, labels don't help us. It's the

behaviors we do and the choices we make. But I certainly also really relate to the one you feed. The stories we tell ourselves are so important, and I absolutely see those self fulfilling prophecies of when I'm lacking in self belief and self esteem and believing those old stories, I feed them and then I don't show up in in the same way. And again I'm also seeing it with my son when he believes he's bad in certain ways and then he acts in accordance with that, and

then yeah, bad stuff happens. So I totally think it's so important about these stories we tell ourselves. Yeah, it's interesting to make that distinction between good and bad in this case because a lot of burnout from a variety of different sources really comes from some degree of perfectionism, right of thinking that we have to really do it right. And so if we're really attached to being good all the time, then that can be a thing that leads

us into burnout. And I think a lot of it is beginning to rethink what does good mean and what is good enough mean? Right? And I think that was really an important part of my journey when I had the privileged to actually in the opportunity to go to therapy and the therapist said to me, what is good enough? Like? When will you know you are good enough? And of course it's almost an impossible question to answer, so it's

not a helpful criteria for us to work towards. And I totally agree that we bring our personalities perfectionism, ambition,

people pleasing to the workplace. But then there are also other situations in the workplace where our personalities don't fit with that environment, or if we're from a marginalized group who is always having to prove themselves not because of any personality type of theirs, but simply because they belong to a group that has been stereotyped, and that really on paper and from the research, we see they're constantly not promoted and they constantly assumed to be less competent.

So again, that's really the first stage of burnout, is this need to prove yourself. Now that can come from personal motivations, the family context you grew up in, or because you belong to a group who does have to work twice as hard to get the same distance, and then the environment in the workplace. So it's a bit mix of all those, and so it's really important to understand that person environment fit because there are things we

can do as an individuals to mitigate those tendencies. That's why I think it's so important to think of them as tendencies, not traits that are immovable, but things that we can really work towards and adjust. At the same time, realizing we do have power over work environments to it's challenging, but again I really feel like we have to really be comfortable saying I understand these barriers I'm facing and

I can overcome them. Yeah, and I think we'll get into that more about how you know, really burn out as a phenomenon, particularly in the workplace, needs to be tackled on multiple different levels. And it's not just what the individual can do, although that is part of the story. But before we go there, let's back up a little bit and talk about when we use the word burnout,

what does that mean to you. Well, I'll maybe start with the World Health Organization definition, and that's around workplay ace burnout in particular, and it's related to experiences of exhaustion, cynicism, and loss of productivity. There is also though parental burnout.

It's a newer area of research, and that has similar experiences in terms of shame in the role that you're playing, that experience of I used to be better at it and and now I'm not as good at it as I felt at one time or other, and then you know, just that negative experience of being a parent. But I think some of these definitions were one. I think lots of people have experienced burnout and not necessarily realized it.

I experienced it myself, but it wasn't until a couple of years later that I got into the burnout research and went, oh, that was what I was experiencing. At the time, I assumed I was having a mental breakdown or a midlife crisis. And then when I actually start to understand this specific experience of both parental and workplace burnout that I was experiencing, and so for me that kind of came out in tears on the way to work and tears on the way home because I just

was so overwhelmed by both the mains. I think a really good symptom people can look for is resentment and rumination. When you get into those stages, those are early symptoms because as to say, most people, they ignore the mental signals and suddenly their body breaks down. So some people can break down and not be able to get out of bed, or their hair is falling out, or they start to experience adrenal fatigue that can be very very

physical symptoms and can be dangerous symptoms. Or on the other side and the mental side, it can be experiences of suicide ideation. So it's really serious. It's more than just feeling tired and fed up. Some people experience brain fog and they really just struggled to achieve anything. I was more on the tired but wired, like I was so passionate about my work and really motivated to do it, so I was engaged and energized by it, but I

could not switch it off. And so that's a totally different feeling than I think when people try to understand, like the difference between burnout and depression, one people say, well, depression is in multiple domains, but so is burnout. Once she realized there's both workplace and parental burnout, but it is that lack of motivation, whereas actually burn out, you can have a lot of motivation, a lot of engagement, but you're just going around in circles and really exhausting

yourself and not able to stop in some ways. Yeah, I think when we get into these things like being really tired and really worn out, it's so difficult to tweeze apart what actually happening here? Right? Is it burnout? Is it depression? Is it a thyroid condition? That symptom of exhaustion can come from so many different places that

I know it's a hard one to figure out. Specifically talking about workplace burnout, you mentioned and I don't remember the researcher's name, who talks about four workplace conditions or maybe it's five workplace conditions, and then you can kind of pick one or two that you'd like to share.

But there's overwork, there's lack of autonomy, there's lack of reward, there's injustice and then there's value conflicts, right, and that is yeah Dr Christine Madslack's research, and she's been doing this since the seventies, so it's not a new phenomenon

from that perspective. And I think that's what's so important is for people to realize the World Health Organization definition is that it's an occupational hazard caused by the workplace, right, So it's really thinking about that because I think the other side of it that people often talk about is burnout is chronic stress, unmanaged chronic stress. And when you say that, it starts to make people think I have

to manage my stress better. And lots of people are really doing a lot of great stress management and still burning out because of these conditions in the workplace. So I think that's so important. Again, so much of the advice is about taking a vacation or taking a sabbatical, and the problem is you can, and you may be able to. For example, that I did that and it definitely reset my flight fight response because that's where I was at. But then when you go back into the workplace,

the stress then hits you like a truck. So that's when you really do start to recognize, oh, I've done everything I can to manage my own stress, but actually, when I go back into this situation, here's the stressor that is causing my stress. So, yeah, lack of autonomy is so important because it's really about all the things that we've been trying to do, particularly during COVID, where you know, we now do have remote and hybrid workplaces

and and so flexibility is really key. But I think to how we've gone about that has not been as an intentional as it could be. And there's this fantastic new book, How the Future Works, and it really is about how do you set up a remote workplace so that your digital office is as exciting and engaging as your Goldman Sachs Fifth Avenue head office that you just

spent millions of dollars on. You know, it's really intentionally setting it up to be flexible for everyone, so that everyone can turn up to a remote location that you haven't got meeting overload, that you have to find collaborative hours, and it's really, to be honest, more flexibility in the timing of the workplace, even which actually apparently has more

importance than the location. But there's this real disconnect at the moment between the people that want to go back into the office, which may be primemorily your sort of white male CEO s because they have had that lifetime of being in the office and that's the place where they function best. But that doesn't work for employees. So

that flexibility is really key. And with that, too, it is focused and that's one of the things I really talk about in my burnout work is if you don't give time for people to actually do focused work, if you don't have real purpose in your meetings, if you don't have real clear connection between somebody's job and their role and the company's mission their purpose, it is very hard to do impactful work. So that's really important part of it, you know, having that autonomy to actually do

the work and be productive. And then the other part that really also relates very much to mothers in the workplace is the lack of reward. So as I moved out from my academic job and started to read more about being a better manager, because that was what I was trying to do. How could I be a better manager? And then I started to read about all these barriers that mother's face in the workplace as as managers and as leaders, and so then I came across both the

maternal wall and the motherhood penalty. And the maternal wall is the point where mothers are not promoted as often, particularly as dad's. Then mothers are not paid as much as dad. So basically we go through this process where moms and dads become a parent and the dad is seen as more committed to his family. He's now got a family. Therefore that commitment to his family means he needs to have a better pay as a provider. He's going to be more committed to his job because he's

got a family to provide for. So then there's this like fatherhood bonus that happens. And at the same time, the mothers are considered committed to their families, so less committed to their jobs, so they won't want promotion opportunities, they won't want to travel anymore. There's these stereotypes and assumptions are made, which then results in mothers facing a maternal war for promotion and the penalty of less pay.

So and then if we think about equity and pay across racial groups as well, and lack of promotion across racial groups, the statistics tell at all, because we have so few women of color of CEOs. And it's not for lack of wanting or opportunity or skills, but really these barriers that are in the way across your whole career. And I think the motherhood penalties, that idea of women not being promoted as often because they're seen is being

committed to something else. I think that also reaches its tentacles into the home life, right because if there's not a good equity there, then indeed mothers pick up more of the slack for their home life, so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because they kind of have to be more committed there, which means they can't put in maybe as much in the office. And so we've got

to adjust the way workplaces view these things. But there's also the matter of you know, are there ways to shift the home based equity where women aren't the only ones who are always seen as they pick up What falls through the cracks, which is what I think often happens is that sure, the dad does X, Y and Z, the mom is supposed to do A, B and C. But then there is element o p that no one really says I'm going to do, which is all the

stuff that keeps arising that the mother then naturally picks up, right, and we call that that mental load of all the things that keep coming up and that have to be managed on a daily basis. And I think one of the statistics that really highlighted this to me is as you look along the leadership sort of growth progress, by the time women are senior leaders, percent of them also have the majority of the household care giving role, where

it's only of senior men. So exactly right, if you don't have this other major role in the home, then you can focus more on work. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of work being done now about trying to create more equity in the home, and that has its challenges, one in all the relationship issues that you have to be able to go through to create that equity. But also one of the big things is paternity leave, because in many of our European countries there's the potential for

paternity leave in like the first year of life. So often what happens in some European countries is, you know, the mom plays her role when she needs to play

it during those fundamental breaths, feeding, months and things. But then towards the end of that, that's when maybe in months twelve to eighteen or something, the father can come in and really play such an important role in terms of connecting with the child at that age, learning what this mental load is, so that they can appreciate it and value it and also come up with different rules for it if necessary to like, they can really have

input from an informed place. But I think that's what we see is when fathers are able to take maternity leave, it changes the women's career trajectory because they can go back at a different time, more refreshed, and also changes that burn out trajectory as well. So having dad's involved earlier, and you know, I interviewed you for my podcast this season is all about having dad's becoming more active participants

in the home. And sometimes as moms, we put barriers in the way of that this is our domain and we're trying to control it, and we're not open to receiving support necessarily, and and dads aren't the one that are given the opportunity to have some of the education that comes to moms through their moms or through you know, female friends. But dads don't necessarily have the opportunity to have those conversations at work or with their friends, or haven't had a role model in that way, so it

can be really challenging. And then I also heard the stories of dads who were stepping up, who were showing up, who were being the volunteer at the swim meet all the school and then being treated really badly by the

other moms there. M and so that there's a lot on both sides that can be done to reverse these stereotypes, because unfortunately do have this stereotype as the man as the incompetent krea caregiver, you know, right right somewhere in your work you write, you know, one thing we could do in the media is stop that portrayal of men as essentially glorified babysitters or bumbling idiots, you know, or

bumbling idiots. Yes, yes, that's another one. That mental load that you talk about is an interesting one because in a previous marriage of mind, and by previous we know that it didn't end well. So actually ended very well for a relationship ending, we ended on very good terms, but it obviously didn't work out. This mental load thing was really interesting because that's what she would often say. She would say, yeah, you do all those things, but I'm the one that has to worry about all of them.

And that became interesting because I think, yes, there was absolutely some truth in that at for sure, and I had a role in that. And she had a tendency to worry in ways that I simply didn't and that I saw as kind of unnecessary. Right and again in any discussion, I'm saying we both have our peace in that. But that was always difficult for me because I wanted to be like, well, yes, I don't want you worrying that much. And honestly, I think, here, look, ABC and D,

here's what we're doing, here's what the plans are. Like, it's okay, but there was a worry level. And I heard something the other day and I don't know if this is true at all, and maybe your research and reading you can verify this. I heard that mother's amygdala's change in a very dramatic way when they have children compared to father. Oh. I could totally believe that. Yeah,

so they're worry system is elevated. And it was interesting because the only thing that got a father's Amigdala to do that to some sort of similar degree was when he became the primary caregiver. This idea is very interesting because as it's the question of what degree of worry is helpful and useful, and to the extent that it is, where can the man step up and say, you know what, I'll just totally take X, Y, and Z off your plate. It's mine to think about. And where is a mother's

worry Perhaps not productive and constructive. Trying to stay out of trouble here um with this discussion, but I want to be honest about like my experience with it. Yeah, And that's so interesting to think of that amygdala, because that's why it's so important to have interventions like mindfulness to calm that a magdala, because it is we go into this flight or fight response and I totally experience that, and it is it's like parenting from a state of fear,

which is just so on healthy. I think the piece of it is the expectations on mothers that society puts on us to be the super month, to be available twenty four seven, and that's when you have that pressure of the ideal mother available seven and then the ideal worker available. So when they connect. That's to such an impossible scenario. But I think, yeah, these expectations of motherhood

from society have changed. And there was a great book around why Women Can't Sleep Anymore, and it was kind of explaining those things that you know, if you're in that sanguige generation two where you're caring for a parent and caring for a child, and then you know, expected to make all the right environmental choices in your products and expected to volunteer. I mean, this is not parenting

of the seventies. Come home when the street light comes on, right, This is, you know, And I'm not saying this is necessarily a better style of parenting now because it's between neglect and then helicopter parenting. But I think there are also so many added complications for children these So as a parent, for example, I have a son and daughter. My daughter's nine and my son's fourteen, and he's on the autism spectrum and has Asperger's and him trying to

understand how to use a cell phone safely. I mean, we didn't have those challenges as children. Issues with transgender relationships, we didn't have those challenges. And so that's what I feel in some ways is we're not that well prepared to support our kids in the world they're growing up in with COVID and the mental health challenges that have come from that. So I'd say that's one thing, is

we're under a whole different load of pressures. But I totally agree that, you know, taking our responsibilities too seriously to a point that it's not healthy because we are in a state of fight or flight and we're overworrying

and that doesn't help anyone. So one of my tips for that is very much that moms can have permission to have total breaks from children, and that's what worked best for my husband and I. We tried the sort of balancing the mental load, and like you described him taking responsibility, full responsibility from start to finish of a particular task, but that wasn't kind of how he wanted to operate. He wanted to do more shared tasks and I still ended up having to remind him of things,

so it didn't come off my place. So that just didn't work for us with his style and his brain. But what I could do is leave for a long weekend or do a week at a co working space where I really just said this week's my work week. I'm not going to think about kids at all. And then he got to parents in the way he wanted to do, and I literally said, I'm not thinking about any of those things. And the impact that had on me in terms of reducing my stress but also clearing

my brain. I could think again, I could write again, I felt confident. So I do think it's so important that we do have these periods to give that flight fight response system a total break from thinking about being a mother. Yeah. I think that's a great practice and idea, which is like I'm gone, not reachable, you figure it out. Because the thing that my X would say to me, and it was a fair criticism, was yes, you say you're taking that, but what if you don't, What if

you forget? And so she couldn't quite let it go because it was back to sort of what we said earlier that you know, we could define roles and make them more equal, but there's still that whole, messy middle of things that pop up that are unexpected. And so I think that's the mental load on mothers that we're talking about here, and that can be reinforced to for example, in the school system, where even if you do provide both parents telephone numbers. The mother is always the one

that's called. Um So, I definitely know of lots of dants that are frustrated by that. It's like, I'm the contact, Why do you she's the second contact? Why do you keep pulling it her? She's not available? I am so again, it's really challenging in all directions. Being consistent with your habits is the engine that drives your transformation and growth. Think about it. You can't feed your good wolf one

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doing just a little bit. To register for this free zoom session on February, go to one you feed dot net slash town hall. That's when you feed dot net slash town hall. I hope I get the chance to meet you there. I want to back us up for a second and then jump back in where we are. And what I want to back us up for for a second is did describe some different types of burnout.

We've talked about two of them, workplace burnout and parental burnout, but there's also caregiver burnout, and as you mentioned, there's a sandwich generation. Right. I am enormously grateful that my partner, Jenny's mom passed of Alzheimer's this early winter after about a six year journey with that. And you know, my mom has not been well. My dad has Alzheimer's and that's been really challenging. And it all really started after

my son graduated high school. And for that reason, I'm kind of grateful because I didn't have to do both. You know, I can only imagine, you know, when I think about having another child today and I think about it and it just feels like, WHOA are you kidding me?

You parent? It seemed difficult when I was doing it with a son was born, but now, as you mentioned, the pace of change is so fast in our world, you know, like you said, there's all these new scenarios that were constantly presented with more and more and more that we have to figure out how to respond to as parents. And so, you know, there's that caregiver burnout that we get. You mentioned another type and it's called

emotional burnout. What does that mean? Yeah, so, and really to potentially intersect that with that caregiver burnout in terms of if we think about the statistics too of the percentage of women of color who are also paying a caregiving role for an elderly relative and not necessarily disapparent, but it could be an on tour or even an additional sort of parenting role to another member of their family, that's so much higher in certain groups. So to me,

emotional burnout really is coming from ongoing trauma. So trauma that people can have experienced because of their racial group or ethnic group. Then that ongoing trauma. So whether that's trauma because of a shooting in their neighborhood, whether that's trauma through highly covered in the media events George Floyd's death, whether that's trauma because at work they're repeatedly being asked about their hair, their clothes, their accent, their intelligence, their competence.

So to me, that's constant questioning and constant experience of racism. To me leads to this emotional burnout where you're just exhausted of feeling upset how you're treated, upset about how your community is treated. And again, if we think about COVID and the higher death rates in certain communities, this is to us a lot of tragedy that certain groups.

It's really faced all the time. And there was this fantastic book by a journalist Dannie McClain called We Live for the Wee and she started that book because of the high maternal mortality rates and black women, and she was a journalist looking at that, but then she really delved into motherhood as a black woman, and she essentially was saying, is we are advocates in our communities because we can't afford not to be some like me, a

white woman. You know, I do a lot of advocacy, and I have a privilege to do that, but it's not because you know, my children are at risk every day. And I think that's such an important difference to consider. You know, when we have a school shooting, for example,

we can feel really fearful for our children. And we talked about this fear that mothers have, but the statistics show that it's really not likely to occur, but the statistics show that it is six times more likely to occur that a black child is part of a violent community experience. So there's a real risk there that women of color are afraid of and then have to advocate to try and work around because it affects their lives and their children's lives constantly. So I think that's so

important too. As we think back to workplace burnout, is when somebody experiences a microaggression at work. This was the thousands time that they've experienced this. They don't need to be told that the person didn't intend to do it or they're taking it the wrong way. This has been on top of all these other experiences. So I think that's just exhausting and that that definitely can lead to

that burnout of just being in that state. I mean, like we talked out, it is being in that state of fight or flight, but to a certain extent with good reason. Yeah. Yeah, So let's go back to workplace burnout for a second and talk about why is it so hard for the leaders of workplaces to see what is causing burnout and even see burnout. That's such a good question. Unfortunately, like I mentioned, the statistics are that the majority of senior leaders c suite CEOs are male,

white men. So I have these six different profiles of burnout, and one of them is overwork and people that are feeling the pressure to perform, to be the provider, and very ambitious driven. And so that is the type of burnout that a typical male white leader will have experience. And so then when they look at burnout in their employees, they're seeing it through that lens. And again, a solution for that type of burnout can be things like a vacation,

or could be better time management or better delegation. But it's not the same as an employee who is, for example, overworking and not being rewarded, or being marginalized and not being rewarded, or has no purpose because their job has not being related to the company. So these other experience of burnout are not the experience that the majority of leaders have been through. So I think that's one thing is they're just seeing it through a different lens. And

then I think also there's experience too. I like this one. This came from Megan Reets who did a podcast on this, and she also has leadership mindfulness exercises within the Calm app and basically she says that leaders are in this optimism bubble and they really think that part of their role is to be optimistic right for everyone else. But when are in that optimism bubble, it's really hard to see that the experiences that other people are going through.

I was reading recently in this book Inclusion Revolution by Daisy Alga Dominguez about the fear that women of color have about speaking up about the problems they're facing. And so when we have these fears, of course one it's not safe to necessarily speak up about them, but too it's very difficult, so we're not communicating our experience as well. And then it all comes back to that framework of

this is your individual problem. You're not coping with this stress well, so you have to do something about it. And so the shame and blame of that also makes

it very hard to speak up. And again, in some communities there's a stigma for reaching out and using mental health services, or there's not culturally appropriate mental health providers available, So there's so many barriers to us actually having conversations in the workplace for us to share the experiences we're having and That's what I think is actually really an important part of behavior change is you know, I'm the scientist, I've done all the data, and I can present research

data through the roof, But actually our experience of trying to change legislators and politicians was they needed to know it was based in fact, but it was the stories of their constituents that made a difference. And I think it's the same in the workplace. It's the stories of people's struggles or people overcoming struggles that we really need to be able to share because I think those stories are what motivates us to then have compassion and then

want to make changes. The data doesn't motivate us enough, unfortunately, if it's even available broken down save by race or ethnicity or caregiving status. So there's just this really big disconnect and it's now been very much measured. I know, Microsoft, Deloitte, other other sort of companies that bring out these reports. Is that the well being solutions that have been offered in the workplace and the caring that leaders are giving

is not being seen as caring. They've been seeing as not caring, even though they believe they're caring, and I believe they're caring too. They're trying their best, but the solutions and the attitudes are not matching what employees are expecting.

Employees are expecting the organization to change. And when you're then pointing your finger and saying, now you go take this mental health service, or you take a vacation, or you do more self care in the home after work outside of work hours, this is not resonating with what people now realize the workplace is causing the stress and they want that to change. And so that's really been the struggle that you know, leaders are going to have

to admit that they're part of the problem. I mean, there's a very difficult challenge here, which is that if you, as a leader, admit that that the culture is problematic and you want to be compassionate, you need to change that. At the same time, you know, I always think it's helpful to look at anybody and look at what are the pressures on them? Right, and you talk about this to some degree that until we make well being a metric that leaders are measured on, things won't really change.

Because even a progressive, enlightened CEO is going to have a board of directors and shareholders who are going to have a perspective, and they've got competitors, and the competitors might be going screw workplace well being, like I don't care, you know. And in the long run of workplace that has well being probably might win out. In the short term it might not, And that's what everything is measured on.

So I think it's this really difficult thing where even if you're a leader and want to make some changes, it can be difficult because as I just mentioned that challenges that are coming from all different kinds of places. Yeah, exactly, And again there's data showing that, you know, we're evaluated.

Most people in their promotional process evaluated on impact on corporate goals and so even their ability to help others with their professional growth, their contribution to the d I mission, their contribution to retention, and their contribution to well being a measured you know, less than fifty of the time, and it's more in the low twenties. So there is no reward system. And as you and I know, rewards

are so important. Ultimately we do end up becoming intrinsically rewarded, but external rewards are a major part of especially the promotional process. So there's no built in rewards. So that's definitely a big part of the problem, and I agree at that board level. But essentially, the business case is there that companies that are more diverse, and companies that can keep their employees whether they leave because they're fed up of the diversity or fed up of burnout, companies

that can have less turnover are more profitable. So the business cases there, but I agree it could be seen as more a long term case and that can be problematic. But I also think there can be this shift with the e s g S. So with these new expectations for companies that they have to have a social license as well as a business license, and so it's not just that they're doing right by their employees, it's they're

doing right by their customers. And if their customers are women of color, you know, they need to be able to have those people in leadership positions to best serve their customers. So, you know, as we go forward, there is this shift to saying that our social responsibility, the way our governance, and our rewards systems right because these are you know, if you can create key performance indicators

around these things, then yes, that's how change happens. But Unfortunately, I still see so much of it being these branding exercises where people say, I'm going to commit to the Thrive pledge to support mental health of work, or we're doing you know this for diversity, equity and inclusion, or you know our E s D has these plans, but

then it feels like a branding exercise. And that's where cynicism comes in amongst employees too, because if the investment isn't there, and if the commitment isn't there with those rewards systems, right, then change isn't going to happen, and it then becomes very frustrating for individuals within those organizations. So the investment is there, because that's the problem. Again. We have diversity inclusion offices now, but they are not

being given a team. Um it's not throughout the whole organization, and they're not being given the funds to actually make the cultural change that the organization requires. And you know that takes a lot of investment. Yeah, corporate change is difficult. Even when everybody in leadership is really bought in, it's still difficult, let alone if it's just sort of marginally bought into. These big organizations are really challenging to move

them in significant ways, right right, that's true. But I think too we talk about this in terms of how that can happen, and there's these different models where it starts in individuals, and then it starts in peripheral units, and then it actually becomes central to the organization, then core to the organization and one of the processes that we talk about doing that, and it comes from many different areas. So from the business side, there is definitely

cases for breakthrough innovation because of shared decision making. In global development there is where we have these changes because of learning collaboratives, and in healthcare we have it where we are implementing changes. So for example, in the medical system, there can be a lot of cynicism about new record commendations and not goodbye in for making all these changes.

So again that's when we use peer learning collaboratives. So it's this whole process where small groups start to actually experiment and work out what is the change process, what do we need to do, and then there's learning cycles from that where you learn from that cycle and then move it to another unit and test it in another unit, and you keep building it out by expanding it to

these other units. But because of the experimental and learning process, one you learn what works, one you learn what needs to be adapted. But there's also this resilience that comes in, not just because the end user has been involved in the process. That's where the shared decision making stories and business you know, or cases in business are examples of that. But it's also then that you have gone through these

iterations so you know how to adapt. So when new things like COVID hit us, if you have the processes in place, you already have the system to adapt to new challenges and that will make an organization more resilient. So that's definitely a tool and a process that, as say, comes from so many different fields of organizational development, from different healthcare, a global development, businesses. That I think is really important because it comes back to also understanding the

process of change. So so often as individuals we try to make change on our own, we get a bit stuck in that process in terms of not wanting to share that we've set a goal, We're afraid of failing, afraid of making mistakes. And actually the group process and social learning is the strongest form of learning we can have through imitation, through you know, the process of receiving feedback and positive reinforcement. That is the best way for

us to learn and change. But unfortunately, we're so stuck in the like isolated individual mindset that we don't even give ourselves the opportunity to have these dynamic group processes. So that's really where I'm coming from, trying to help individuals see how they can step out of that mindset and then see how organizations can use these processes to actually make the change contagious. Yeah, well, if I need to change a big organization, I'm going to be calling

you thank you. But to take this to the individual level for a second, you say that you know whatever we're going to do in our own lives to deal with burnout, and we can talk about what some of those things are. We know that organizationally we need change, We know that societally we need change, and we know that as individuals are, choices matter. They may not be enough to fully overcome it. But there's a role there

for for individual choice. And you say, whatever you choose, remember that half baked good intentions don't lead to action. You also need the recipe of behavior change guide. What will you change when? Where? How you practice, Who will be your role model, your accountability partner, How will you cue your new behavior, and how will you measure and celebrate your success? And that is a pretty good summary in a paragraph of what we know about how people

change behaviors. Is you need some version of all those things that you just listed, yes, yeah, And that's the way I have tried to put it into a stepped process and to create a plan. All comes from behavior

change science. And you know, over twenty years of us now actually discovering what are the key ingredients to that, because when we started our behavior change models back in the day, really we were studying the people who had changed successfully and said what led to their successful change. We weren't actually then studying what strategies to people need to have to change when they're not the person that just is already on this natural change trajectory. So yeah,

that definitely comes from the science. And I agree there is things in our own lives we need to do.

So in particular, when somebody is in a state of burnout, it's really looking at everything that is on that to do list you have and then really really looking and saying what are the major priorities, what are fundamental and particularly what we see and this came out to recently with a report that was called the Great break Up, and this was that senior women leaders are leaving organizations because they have spent so much time, unpaid, helping with

d I efforts and helping with well being efforts and the mental health of their colleagues without any recognition or reward for that, and those things can actually interfere with their ability to meet other performance criteria. You know, they're realizing, I can't do these things anymore. But they were deciding to leave the organizations because they realized if they didn't do them, nobody else was going to do them either, and those organizations were just going to be worse for it.

I do understand the difficulty of making those decisions of giving up those tasks that are unpaid and to be honest, undervalued, because if they're not being rewarded, the organization is not valuing them. And I've helped a number of women in different organizations and in academia where they are there on many many of these committees and I ask, Okay, are they being paid, are they being valued? Are they part

of their reward system? And they say no, and they're terrified to give them up because what that will say about them, again feeding into those stereotypes of women as being the volunteers and the nurturers and the care givers, and they think they're going to be penalized. And in some cases, we can be penalized when we're not the

one that steps up. But actually what they often found is when they stepped away, nobody noticed because they weren't valuing what they were doing in those committees anyway, that

wasn't part of the promotional process. This is kind of what we talk about as quiet quitting, which is that people basically are stepping away from all the tasks that they're not being compensated for or rewarded for, and just focusing on the basics of their work and trying to do the minimal so that they can reset and gain control of their lives and work experiences. Again, and that's the same as a parent, you know, over volunteering at school.

Now again, if those things light you up and bring you joy, of course you can keep doing them, but it's that process of going through everything you're doing and saying, what is this that is out of obligation? What is this that is actually contributing to an impactful goal that

that I know I'm trying to achieve. And I think we had an opportunity to do that as parents as well during COVID, where all the extra activities that we've been driving kids around too, they were stopped and actually we had quality family time for a while together, and I think that hopefully resets some families to go, actually, what does it mean to be a family and to spend time together? You know, is us striving our kids

or kids being involved in all these activities. Is that actually the family life and the goals we want for them and ourselves. So I don't know if we've all just gone back into those previous behaviors. Probably have to ascertain extent, but I think that's really what we have to do. And even the Surgeon General he has been

making a lot of statements. There are calls to action on burnout, and he talked about one organization which was basically saying let's get literally their initiative, what's called let's get rid of the stupid stuff. So it is going through an organization too and saying what is the stuff that we do as an organization administratively on in our work practices that is just stupid, Like what meetings do we all attend that are stupid, that are a waste

of time? So it is it's that really really focusing out on those core behaviors. And it's sort of one way to do that is looking at the obligation list, looking if you can rate things out of ten, and Greg McEwen's Essentialism book really talks to us about why would we be doing anything that isn't a seven out of ten. You know, when we were a kid and we were getting a grade, if it wasn't seven out of ten, we weren't happy with it. So why do we accept work that is less than seven out of

ten as an adult? And again, we don't all have those choices, So I think that's a big part of this is where are some people having very constrained choices? So we have to recognize that too. But often we can delegate something that isn't our superpower and it is

somebody else's. So again, really understanding that process and then really getting this handle of the yeses and nose And that was an exercise I had to do with an Excel spreadsheet where I just started writing down each day, everything I've been asked to do and did I say

yes or no? And um, one really help me realize how many new things each week I was being asked to do and I was like, no, wonder, I'm overwhelmed to you know, oh my goodness, all these times I've said yes, said yes, didn't realize they said yes, said yes when I wasn't asked to lead something, but did it anyway? And then all the nose, the guilt that I felt about those nose but really committing to say, Okay,

I'm not saying yes anymore. And I know when we're in a period of growth or building a business or having personal growth, you know, there is definitely a mentality to saying yes to opportunities. That is great, But if you're in a state of burnout, you have to recognize the opportunity costs of every yes and actually have a year of nose. And it will take you some time to practice those nose. And will you, as a member of a certain group be penalized for saying no potentially,

but you're being penalized anyway. So it's like you have to gain back control of your time and your choices. And that's so important because I know, like I felt like a victim of my choices, and that was so hard for me to like get my head around. I believed I was such a strong, independent person and to feel like a victim of my choices just didn't match with who I thought I was. But I really had become a victim to my choices and felt I didn't

have choices. So really gaining back control of my time and my choices, yeah, when you're in burnout, that is definitely step number one. Yeah, there's so much in what you just said there. I mean one is that I think for any kind of change, let's just keep it on the personal level for now. You know, when I work with coaching clients, they'll be like, I want to do X, I want to do why, I want to do Z, I want to do B. And I'll be like, okay, all right, those are all good things. Um, what are

we getting rid of? Because I'm assuming for most people, I mean for all of us, our time is filled with something. You know, everybody has twenty four hours a day and they fill it with something, And so really thinking about, okay, well, what am I going to do less of in order to enable me to do this thing is really critical. And you talk about this a little bit in that, you know, one of the roles that coaches can play for people is helping people reset

their expectations. So I often say, we may find out as part of this experiment that A, B and C that you say are important to you, We're just gonna have to jettison them. And that's gonna feel difficult, but it's better than dragging the expectation of it around all the time and feeling consistently bad that you don't do it, because really you can't do it unless you make some other really big changes that you might not be willing to or able to make. So I think that's a

really important thing. And I think a life well lived for any of us is a life in which we think very regularly about what is important. Very regularly, we're asking ourselves what is important? What matters to me? Am I living that way because we can do that kind of deep work, and that's really great to do, and we have to do it and then life changes. So

this is sort of an iterative process. You know. The other thing you mentioned there is that saying yes, And I remember, you know, I worked with some coaching clients on this, and a policy that we ended up with several of them was, anytime anybody asked you to do anything that's extra, your answer is, that's a really exciting opportunity.

Let me think about it. You cannot answer yes, you don't have to answer no. But what we need is time to think, because I think part of what makes it so hard, and this is for me, is when somebody asked me to do something, I'm looking at it in isolation and I'm like, oh, that sounds really awesome, that sounds really cool. Yes, I would want to do that, but I have to plug it into the rest of my life. And that's what we don't do in the moment. I think, at least I don't is I'm not seeing

it in context of everything else. I'm seeing it isolated. But that's not the way things are. And so that ability to say, well, let me think about it gives us the chance to go off look at the context

in our lives, our whole lives. Does it fit if it does, what's going away, and also gives us the ability to go back and say no from a place of strength and be able to really think about how we want to say no instead of just no. So that's something that I found really helpful with some clients of mine, is just no, matter what it is, you say,

that's really interesting. I'd like to think about that, right, And I think that's so important, even especially as like junior employees in an organization being able to come back and say I've done a time analysis or I've done an impact analysis. I love that word. I've done an impact analysis and I don't believe this is going to be impacting the goals that you've set for me, am I correct? You know? And so then it is it's that intentionality that's so important that I agree we often lack.

And that's the same for how organizations are set up. And like I mentioned at the beginning, when we're not intentional that well, what would this flexible worktime look like? And what are some of the potential negative consequences like proximity bias? Right, we have to think through things with more insight and time and detail and again really looking

at those potential downsides. And I understand. I'm also, like you, an optimistic person, and again I think we want optimism in so many places, but when it's like that blind optimism or that optimism bubble of the CEOs, then we really are doing a disservice to the opportunity cost that's there.

But I also think the other part of it too, because like you said, things change, but it's been like the frog in boiling water, like the water started out cool and then got hotter and hotter and we didn't notice. So again, how do you make those times to assess what is important? And and to be honest, like it's

those values reassessments too. I still find that really hard to do because I find it really hard to balance out some of those values as well and change them, because especially if they've been around, like hard work is a value of mine, and now I'm trying to have a value of balance, and it's like, okay, how do I even change my behaviors to have that value? And what do I do about that old value of hard work that is so ingrained and also has an upside

that there's important parts of that. So I agree, But back to the time being filled to there was recently I was hearing something on the radio and it was about these time use analysis and societal expectations that we always add. More so again when COVID hit it was like what new hobbies are you going to have? Like what are you going to do with all this time you've got? And of course people didn't have more time. Work hows went up, you know, online time, full work increased.

So suddenly we have this expectation we've got to do something better with our time. That's just coming, as I say, from this societal expectation that's there's really kind of destroying us at the moment. Yeah, And what you say about values work is really important because it is deeply uncomfortable work.

I mean I think it is deeply uncomfortable work because you have to make some very difficult decisions be you almost always are brought up face to face with the ways you're falling short of what you say you value, so you're seeing a gap. It's hard work, and so that's why I think a lot of us don't like to do it or overwhelmed right where you're carving out

time to do deep thinking. I always think I need to go away to you know, a out on top and have eight hours to journal, and that can be really helpful time, but also just very quick reflections, you know, like what am I doing right? Now and is it does it feel important? But again I think they are difficult, and it also points to we all have differing degrees of choice, our choices are constrained in certain cases, or the things we get to choose between none of them

are great options. This talking about, you know, living according to our values is a great idea and I think it is the heart of a good life, but it is incredibly difficult for so many different reasons, right exactly.

And I know that another tooler coach gave me was kind of the body scans as you look at your to do list and in terms of a code, which one actually makes you feel like this is something you want to do, and so being able to even connect to your body to make those types of decisions that intuition I felt like I had suppressed for so much of my life if as well, I'm now trying to tap into it differently, because again, when you're approaching life about who do I need to be for everyone else?

And I think that was one of the things. When you are a people pleaser and a perfectionist and trying to be the best mother you can be, you're really serving everyone else and your own needs and wants have absolutely gone out the window, and to then turn around and say, what are they one, it's like the shame of not knowing that and being able to tap into it.

But again, that message came to me so clearly from a book about parenting and it was called The Parenting Book that you Wish your parents had read, and it was basically saying, allow your children to feel emotions so that they can understand what they need, and from that need, they're then able to express their needs and communicate those needs.

And it made me realize how my upbringing had been very much in suppressing any emotions a little bit British style anyway, and so it's really helped me see, okay, no, I need to teach my kids to feel and express their emotions so you can understand what you want. So again, kind of that process along with these values, because the values are words that can be really hard to operationalize

as daily behaviors as well. One of my values was honesty, but I felt so uncomfortable giving candid feedback to people, so you know, it's like you're constantly questioning. And I had a value of honesty, but yet I would hide how hard I was working from everybody else. I do it at home in the middle of the night. I remember, even when a colleague pointed that out to me, that the dissonance in the shame I had that I wasn't being honest, you know, like you said, it's so uncomfortable.

It can be really, really devastating. But that's when we start to at least start to see, Okay, how can I make progress? Yeah, and I think some of this goes back to something that you said. When I read that quote about how we change, you know, one of the questions was who will be your role model, your accountability partner. I think this values work and the discernment that it needs for it to actually happen really needs

to happen in community. Even if by community that means, you know, you have two or three conversations with people that are around you. But these things feel very difficult to figure out on our own. It's why a coach can be enormously helpful for people who have that opportunity, But so can talking to a friend. I mean, there are other ways to get this help, but I think having other people involved so that this conversation isn't all in our head is really helpful. Yeah, very much agree.

And back to that process that I said, the social learning process is the best way to do it, and particularly for those reasons, we need role models. I mean, role models is such an important part of behavior change. It's not just that you have somebody that looks like you doing the thing you want to do, but it's actually a really important part of the learning process in terms of developing the skills and having the confidence. And

that's again the accountability side of this. It's not just you need an accountability partner to keep you on track. You need an accountability partner to tell you that you're doing the right things, or to provide the perspective we talked about, which is, you know, are your expectations really unreasonable?

So I agree we need this in community as one to one or particularly in groups, because I mean I've benefited so much from group coaching, where you know, I see some of the things that that other moms worry about and I think, oh, that's that's not my worry, that's not on my radar. Or I learned from how another mom, you know, communicated better with her husband. We can learn from each other so much, and I think

that realizing we are not alone. I mean, that's that's part of burnout, is you do go into withdrawing and the isolation that comes from that, and it's so important to know you're not alone. And and that's again why I do my podcast as well, so that other people can see that they're not the only one going through this. You're not flawed, there's not something wrong with you. We're all struggling. Well. I think that is a beautiful place for us to wrap up on that note of you're

not alone. Tell others real quick what your podcast is. Yeah, so my podcast is overcoming working mom burnout, so really focused on finding the solutions. I have a TEDx talk as well, how to stop burnout before it starts, and there's lots of resources on my website ww Doctor Jacqueline

Ker dot com. Like you said, I blog, but I'm also trying to develop a leadership course for women to to to women how to lead change by understanding the change process and by understanding you know, a lot of these topics we've talked about today in terms of focus, flexibility, fairness, purpose, but also having the right conditions for change, which is psychological safety growth mindset that we've talked about and well being.

So taking women leaders through that process of learning how to change and then learning what are the things, what are the behaviors that you can role model, and then what are the behaviors you can support, because I think that's the biggest thing about behavior change. We don't realize how much support we all need to change. And as a leader, you you can provide so much more support than you realize once you kind of realize, oh yeah,

that's why I've been struggling myself as a leader. I haven't had that support and so that course, plus I'm trying to develop small groups, these peer learning collaboratives that women can learn from each other about how to really drive change, and they're organized stations. So those are things that are on my goals. Well, we will put links in the show notes to where people can find your podcast and find all your work. And Jacqueline, thank you so much for coming on the show. I've enjoyed this

conversation and it's a really important conversation. So thank you. Thank you so much, and thank you so much for the work you do and the time and effort that it goes into supporting this type of work. Thank you. If what you just heard was helpful to you. Please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community. With this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits.

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