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Defence Health HubWorkload and burnout
WGCDR Caro Pezaro, Director of Psychology, on workplace stress, burnout, and workload management.
Workload and burnout
WGCDR Caro Pezaro, Director of Psychology, on workplace stress, burnout, and workload management.
0:26
and burnout is one of those topics that can be quite polarizing for some people
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uh so if you want to challenge or reach out or say anything during this session I really invite it I really I'm open to
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any kind of questions or things you want to lead unpack please feel free to do that just do so knowing that it has been
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recorded
1:01
so I'll just tell you a little bit more about myself so who am I well
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um for roughly about 17 years now it feels like a very long time
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um I dye my hair regularly uh this is my husband Dan who's also an
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Air Force um I found myself last week presenting
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with every presentation I do bring him up and shamelessly embarrass him but
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likely he's not here so this is Dan I also have uh two giblets this is that
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they are now 11 and nine and they're the bang slash Joy of my existence
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um and I've got a team of roughly about 33 psychologists across the principles
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so we've got an army team a Navy team and an Air Force team and operations
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team of projects team uh so we've got civilian and Military psychologists they are very attractive High performing
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bunches as you can see from the picture here and they're a joined to have as my team and um I am a big sci-fi geek which
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you're about to discover uh I don't want to make any apologies for that but I know some of the women would be groaning
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uh so I'll try and keep it to a minimum but I thought it was important to let you know a little bit about the way so
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my husband has leave me you've also go and work for in New Zealand yes I may pay for that uh daily because
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it's just loyalty but he did what we make as well and so I balance a
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full-time job with raising a couple of kids and a very needy border collie and
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I have a very busy hobby of watching a lot of TV right so that that sucks up
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all my time so it's a really cool life uh the reason I want you to know that is because I think sometimes when you have
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an academic as psychologists are often conceptualized they're standing up in front of me you telling you how to live
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your life you think what does she know um but I'm here to talk about
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and I will say that last year I was the director of psychology I was duplicating
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as one of the uh the lead teams that worked for me as reputable operational psychology I had two children and my
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husband was supposed to talk yeah so he was remote uh and posted unaccompanied and I nearly burnt out I really very
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nearly booked out and I actually did this workshop last year in the middle of that and I watched the recording of it
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and I saw myself and I was like I'm in this with you with you I can't stand up here and say
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you do this everything will be okay you should do that knowing that life is
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so I I'm here now here internet and I wanted
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to start with some realistic expectation setting so right where the word go I'm
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going to role model to you how to manage a workload and burnout and the first principle is the Scotty technique so I'm
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I'm guessing some of you know who this guy is some of you won't uh
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Montgomery Scott Chief engineering officer for the Starship Enterprise and
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his strategy was to always under promise I cannot do that Captain I don't have
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the power he would say that regularly and I'm not a magician Captain I cannot
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do it so he would constantly say I can't do this I can't do this and then I would
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behold the Enterprise would always get enough power to get out of danger just in time but he never overcomes he always
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so uh using that technique now I sort of want to come and think to myself what
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can I deliver a group of people in person and online and one and a half
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hours it's really going to make a difference in your life around managing workloading
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out the answer is probably not much right let's be real if you are on the
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bridge of burnouts or if you've got massive work overload or struggling with a lot of stress a one-hour resilience
5:11
listen is not going to fix that it is not going to fix that at all so I'm under promising right from the start
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what generally does fix it is not a scented part for a long weekend we've
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had a holiday
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the reality is what we talked about being asked and it gives us a little bit more detail it's
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about making some countries like so what I promise you that I will deliver is a bit of a tough tool
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I want you to stop and reflect on your life I want you to stop and click on what's
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important to you and I want you to start making some intentional decisions about
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how you spend your time in community that's what I'm going to ask you to do today then
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second part of the lesson so that's the first part looking at you the second part is thinking about how you as a
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leader can make changes or do things that tips your team so hands up who has
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stuff cool that's awesome so not everybody does but most people in this room do and
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I'm missing quite a few people online do because most of us in this organization are leaders right uh and even if you are
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the leader you probably have friends and family who are struggling with stress
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and so if you do and you're a leader in this organization you have some responsibility through next day and I am going to give
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you some ideas whether or not you make any changes for yourself personally whether or not you
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make any changes with a team that's that there'll be some stuff I say that
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doesn't resonate with you and feel free to dismiss not everything I say or do it's well received especially for these
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Star Wars fans in the room on Star Trek right but uh some stuff I hope you can
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take away so you can just pick and choose what you want and disregard the best
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right so let's get into this I'm going to take you through a bit of a hero's journey for those literary uh
7:22
enthusiasts on the road you'll recognize this as the common story arc in most of the Avengers movies uh and or most of
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the movies and shows and books that we um listen to and watch today so essentially the hero's journey is a
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story where it starts with the unwitting person at the top and a call to Adventure and if you think about
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yourself when you originally wanted to to come and work for defense that's a little bit of you I bet you were
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thinking regardless of your uniform or a civilian
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and that is the reason why am I supposed to join us so we get in the door uh and I'm not
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looking at anyone in particular but then you get in the door a new thing
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like most government agencies we have a massive agreement we are required to
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quite a lot for New Zealand we have got to patrol the waters we have got to
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respond to murders and disasters search and rescue not not to mention just actually potentially going to walk
8:35
defending our Shores deploying and support of other countries there's a whole lot of stuff we do and we don't
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quite have all the resources to do that so what happens is we get into this challenges and and tribulations and
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Temptation space when things start getting tough I think some of us might get down here
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right to the brink of the abyss and I'm going to say that burnout is the abyss
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now I did this presentation approximately a year ago we did a week hold and I said how many of you would
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say that you are sent of that last audience that felt
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like this time in 2022 they were in their best now I I'm not going to ask
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this room to pull because now we're in person and when we did the poll it was all online but I would suggest there is
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probably a similar portion that are here today and it might feel like you're in a bit but I'm really hoping that there's
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quite a few of you that are actually just in the phase of that challenges and things are getting quite tough and maybe
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some of the things I say or some of the things we think about today will stop you falling into that Abyss so I will be
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helping here on the hero's journey and like Luke's Skywalker
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I will be your daughter um and when I put that picture up originally I
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that looks strikingly too similar to how I actually feel inside so I've decided
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a little bit more useful a little bit more juice
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that's how I want to be it's really um really cute about that
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and I'm not going to do the Yoda voice but essentially I'm hoping that when we go through this
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presentation there'll be some things that you can think about or do inside internal work that will make a
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difference for you and it's not all going to happen today in the session but I do have some handouts and activities
10:32
that I've sent you and you can get all the slides after this so the slides are going to be sent out for you to take
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away and do some personal work if you need it you might actually be in a really great
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space right now but this might be some work that some of your team members might need to do and hopefully by the
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end of this you'll be armed with how to have a good conversation with friends family or team members that you might be
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concerned about in terms of their stress levels or their work cover lives so it might not necessarily resonate with you
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personally which is awesome because that means you're not stressed or burnt out but hopefully you will help somebody
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else do some good work and be their baby Yoda right so if we're talking about
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burnout we have to start with understanding stress and I might be schooling
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um schooling you here you might have already had the spread but I'll do it quickly because it's really important to reinforce that understanding
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is an evolutionary response so the old caveman the old story around about here
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back in the day out on the Savannah walking around with a spear uh he would see the beautiful Amber eyes through the
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grass and his brain would go hmm what's going on here and immediately it would
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trigger a series of physiological reactions in the body for the purpose of
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saving that person's life so those physiological reactions include increasing the heart rate pumping the
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blood around the body blood pressure increases your Crossing Factor increases because somewhere in your brain is a
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message you might bleed soon right your digestion system shuts down your immune
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system shuts down non-essential systems shut down to to boot energy to help you
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run away real fast because this this line is fast or gives you extra strength
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to fight it because you may need to fight your life right so stress response was designed to save your life a
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life-threatening situations it's it's absolutely good and it's still in our
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system today so the evolutionary response the amygdala which is in the oldest part of the brain right in the
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brain stem right deeper near it still triggers that same physiological response to get us out of danger
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but I guess you're kind of sitting there thinking I don't see many headlines around here Carol I don't see them even
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when I go to the Wellington zoo I don't see any cavelands I don't know about you but it's really hard to see the lines at the zoo
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why do we still have that stress response well this is a very busy diagram to say that what actually
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happens when we see a stressor in the environment whether it's a cave lion or
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our boss sitting in the front row watching a presentation that we're doing or somebody giving us a brownie face or
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that look how partner gives us when we're in trouble we've done something wrong whatever that stressor is
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an immediate process that goes on our brain which is what is the situation to
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me is it a threat is that a challenge is this an opportunity so we make an
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immediate assessment danger or threat the second thing that happens very quickly is our brain says do I have the
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resources to cope with it so the guy with the spear out on the Savannah you
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know he could be you know the young dude that's out there who's proving himself as a man and he might think this is my
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opportunity I've been trained I know what to do with the spear and while the lion is coming to kill him he's ready
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for it and he sees it as a challenge or he is not ready for it he doesn't
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have a spear with it and it's a it's a dangerous threat and that produces different responses and outbrain the
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same way that I might see delivering a presentation to 50 wonderful people in a
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room for an hour and a half and 100 people online I can't see and don't know if they approval disapproval what I'm
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saying as a real awesome Challenge and opportunity if I was ask a random person in the audience to take over from me
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right now because I don't feel well they might see that as a threat right so same situation different reaction based on
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the way that we immediately praise it so we have to stop and talk about the
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upside of stress because we we use it a lot especially in the context of burnout but stress is not bad stress is a normal
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part of life it's a normal part of functioning and we join the military because we like it right most of us
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suckers for punishment I'm going to come to stress that's why we're in defense we want Adventure we want action some of us
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even want to be in dangerous situations I mean who likes skydiving
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but in the military we actually do enjoy the challenge and we do enjoy putting
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ourselves in the line of danger sure we do it to protect our country but you can
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bit your boots people join up because they want to do it because they want Adventure because they want excitement
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and that is good the stress response when we're out in the field heightens our senses that allows us to see threats
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in the environment we wouldn't see if we were relaxed the stress related to this presentation got me out of bed really
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early this morning to go over and over my presentation so I knew I would say the right thing and I wouldn't stop it
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up okay so the stress has motivated me to prepare and motivated me to stay
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engaged and energized because nobody wants to talk to somebody who's like hey everybody we're going to talk about
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stress today nobody wants that so stress gives us energy gives us focus it pushes
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us it drives us it is good and we talk about it as bad for our health but
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large-scale research in the States has shown that high level levels of stress
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do lead to early death but only if you believe that stress is
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bad for you that's what the research shows that people with high levels of
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stress that don't believe stress is bad are no more likely to die than people with low levels of stress right so it's
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actually the perception that stress is bad for you that that's actually bad for
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your health not the stress itself so stress is good it's functional we
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need it to survive so what happens with the stress cycle is
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we have this stress a lot and it might be a contact in a military environment or it might be a deadline or it might be
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a big presentation or it might be me trying to get out the door and my children will not put their shoes on
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they're quick enough for me that might be my stressor and what happens is we get this release of a cocktail of
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chemicals if we believe that the situation is threatening to us for example my children are driving me crazy
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I can feel my temperature rising frustration going then I get a whole bunch of adrenaline and cortisol
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released into my body which triggers that reaction of heart beating feeling tense it's tense start getting neck pain
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I know that things are going wrong because my tummy is funny I always actually get a really funny tummy before
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doing his presentations that's the stress response right so that cocktail of chemicals is released
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then we have our reaction so right now I'm in vital flights right so I'm
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energized if you were a lion I'd be running really fast but you're not so I've got a lot of energy here and then
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at the end of this at the end of the session I will go somewhere and collapse in a little ball under a table
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I won't want to talk to anyone for the rest of the day because I'll be in a recovery period after having such a
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boost of adrenaline and expending it all with you here today I will have that recent recovery process this is how it's
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supposed to be the guy sees the lion hopefully kills the lion or runs away
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from it and then goes back to his cave there's mates are all around he tells them the story about a great lion they
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all really enjoy it they cook them a bead someone else stands guard and he gets a really good rest right that is
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what's supposed to happen being okay is a process we need this
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process and this process has to include rest and recovery so when you're
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experiencing a regular stressful job you're gonna be okay as long as you get
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that wrist and Recovery that's good you want stress in your life because it makes life exciting and interesting as
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long as you complete the process and get your recovery time so how do we recover effectively well I
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did go to university for five years to tell you this exercise I know it
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sounds like rocket science bear with me sleep social connection and eating well
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oh my God I wish it was more complicated because then you're like oh my God come to this listen just for this right but
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actually the reality is exercise is fundamentally a fantastic way to deal
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with the stress wines it really gets it out of your system and it doesn't have to be a run it could be whatever
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exercise you enjoy but if you exercise regularly on a regular basis because
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stress is a daily thing you are likely to be more well in your life
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sleep we know from our health and well-being survey in defense that a lack of sleep is the biggest predictor of
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mental health issues for this organization but just generally because if you're not sleeping
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you will not be able to function as well and stress will seem like it's more overwhelming so if you're waking up in
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the middle of the night to angst ever work that's a bit of a problem that means you're not getting recovery at the end
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of your day social connection is also fundamentally important
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telling you the basics here but we are wired for connection a hormone a stress
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hormone we don't often talk about is oxytocin when you have a flight or flight response you get adrenaline you
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get cortisol and you get oxytocinos and the intent behind that is to drive
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you to connect with somebody else for support because at an evolutionary level
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your brain and body knows you need people close to you who care for you to
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survive and thrive so social connection is fundamentally important for good Stress Management as is eating well
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right so it's a really basic why don't we do it what's going on like
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what's going on here but what I do see and all the work I do one-on-one with people in this organization is that
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stressed and burnt out people have a deficit generally and one or more of these areas in their life they're not
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getting that recovery they don't have that recovery process happening on a
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daily basis so say you do have a very busy job which I'm guessing a lot of you in this
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Workshop do as do I you've got lots of deadlines you've got lots of deliverables you've got family
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concerns and all the things happening at once and then you're not exercising because you don't have time to put that
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into your day and then you do wake up at two o'clock in the morning and then struggle to get back to sleep because you're angsting and thinking about their
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deadline or that Workshop you've got to do it oh my God so by the time it gets to 5am you're like oh my God I might as
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well get up anyway what happens then if life is supposed to be like a river
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ride excuse me metaphor we know we're going to hit Rapids I'm not here to tell you life should be
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smooth sailing I'm here to tell you life is full of Rapids that's normal and that's okay we get in our kayak and we
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pedal through the rough times and it can be pretty exciting and interesting sometimes they can be miserable and hard but we know that we have Rapids but then
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there's an expectation that you'll get to that period where you can just cruise for a bit that smooth same period but
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what happens if life is just one big Relentless rapid
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if you're not closing that stress cycle off with your wisdom recovery if you get home from A Hard Day's work and then
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you've got to cook dinner you've got two screaming children who are fighting with each other and pulling their hair and
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doing all the things and then you've got to do the washing and then they get to bed and by the time you actually get to bed it's quite late you haven't eaten
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your recovery and then you think I'm so exhausted you lie down and then
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and then you're in your head and you're not sleeping and it's 11 then it's 12. you finally get to sleep right that is a
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constant Relentless rapid and that's what we're talking about we're going to talk about burnouts
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burnout is just this constant Relentless Pace without opportunity for recovery
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so what are the components of burnout and you can do a bit of a self audit and
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like I said if this doesn't resonate with you because you're doing okay it might be useful to think about someone
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in your team who you could do the audit for just internally so there are three components to burnout
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and the first is it's just a deep emotional exhaustion right so I've experienced this this is where I
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was last year when I was double hetting and my husband was away a lot and I paid controlled through this as well right
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it's that deep sense of you are completely drained you have given everything you are emotionally wasted
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and exhausted you feel physically physically tired but also emotionally
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just completely rung out right so that's the first component but if you are
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emotionally exhausted it doesn't necessarily mean you are burnt out it can just mean that you're really really
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tired you've had you've given a lot of yourself but if you're still smiling you
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can kind of slot in that wrist in a recovery piece and you can stop yourself from falling into that abyss of burnout
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but this is a fundamental component is that deep emotional exhaustion the second component is cynicism and I
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have presented to quite a few defense audiences and I always get a bit of a chuckle here because we tend to issue cynicism when you join right it's kind
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of a fundamental part of being in the military is that since that this organization or other senior
24:45
leaders so we are naturally cynical here and we know from the post pulse survey
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we have slightly lower trust in our simulators than what we would hope so there could
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be a sign of our natural cynicism or it could be a sign of people are burning out because what we see is when we get
25:02
emotionally exhausted if we get to the point where I am giving everything to this organization and what is the effing
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point they don't care they're not doing stuff and it's that just general sense that nothing you do works and so it
25:16
doesn't really matter anymore you get to the point where just want to give up you find yourself railing against the
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organization it is at this point you download c-con to your phone if you haven't already got it and you start
25:30
looking for jobs because you've given up essentially you don't trust that the
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organization is going to do the right things for you because you've got into this very cynical phase regardless of
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how much you've lost all the organization does care for you when you're getting towards burnout you
25:47
believe that they don't care you get to that cynical point just giving up right
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so this is why it's really important process leaders to be tracking this because people who get cynical disengage
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from work this is the point where you start to disengage and you're there perhaps the
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wheel spinning but the hamsters actually off getting a long coffee at Mojo anyway the third one and this is kind of
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the most scary one when you've been in a burnout State and this is where I was
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trekking a little bit towards last year I didn't get cynical but I definitely got to hear imagine being very exhausted
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you're not sleeping at night usually which is quite a normal symptom of burnout so you are physically exhausted
26:31
and emotionally exhausted you are gonna start making mistakes and you're going to start dropping the balls think about
26:38
being in a role where you're double hitting you've actually got two full-time jobs that you're covering who
26:45
are unlikely to cover it all but you start seeing the things that you're missing and people are noticing you
26:51
start to feel incompetent like you can't do it the things I've heard people say when they've been in the state of
26:57
burnout there's I think they got the wrong person imposter syndrome is really similar to
27:03
this where they're like I don't know that I can actually do this job this is just this little sense that I'm not
27:09
making any progress I'm not getting anywhere and I can't do it if you've been in here where you've
27:15
experiencing burnout it can feel like a real brain fog like your words are coming out but they don't make sense to
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you people are talking to you but you can't quite understand what they're saying because you're walking through a
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fog so people who get to that phase can get a little bit pregnant can be quite scary to think but I've got to this
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point in my career and I I no longer function I can't do a good job that is what burnout actually looks like
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if you're operating heavy machinery it's a real problem because you can actually make legitimate mistakes
27:48
most of the people that I've dealt with are actually in people managery type mids to senior legal management roles in
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this organization and what I've seen happen is they either get out so they just leave
28:02
or they've gone sick leave for extended periods of time or they just continue on
28:08
in a state or below to no productivity just phoning it in right so there's lots
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of things that can happen now when people do take stress leave it can be incredibly difficult to come back
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so you get out of this kind of churn of the really high workload and then you
28:26
just get into a comatose state and the idea of coming back into work can be
28:31
really really difficult and overwhelming so what I've seen is for the people that I've worked with that have burnt out to
28:37
the point of stress leave is that one week's leave returns to two two weeks Luke turns to three they don't actually
28:43
end up coming back for three or four months right so what is that that's a huge cost to our organization
28:50
huge huge cost to the persons who now thinks that they are incompetent but to
28:56
the organization and lost staff hours so this is a real problem and the states they estimate that burnout is costing
29:03
them about one billion dollars to the economy per year so it does have a an actual cost to it
29:10
I have this tool which I have sent out to you all which is a validated questionnaire that you can do a bit of
29:17
it to Conflict for just to see where you sit so it's got the areas of exhaustion
29:23
and mental distancing cognitive impairment and emotional impairment so when you have time if you are interested
29:30
in where you're at or if you're worried about a friend you can go through and fill out this questionnaire
29:36
you might find that you're just really tired and you're not actually burnt out so you might be in the low range if
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you're in the medium range that would be the bet that I would say do something now you've got to make a decision to do
29:49
something different because believe you me getting into that full burnout stage is just a horrible place for anyone to
29:56
be and you want to stop that from happening if you get to that end of this this is not a self-diagnosis tool this
30:02
is to give you an indication of what to do next so low is like you know keep
30:07
going with your good self-care activities Medium as you need to change and do something different and high as
30:13
you need to seek help and there are many ways you can do that in defense getting help can be as simple as asking
30:21
a friend hey I don't I know what to do it can be connected with medical for
30:26
civilians there is our EAP system that you can get help for military people you can get help from your boss from a
30:34
psychologist a chaplain a social worker a medical center you can call oh 800 nzd
30:39
for you there are so many ways that you can actually access help if you've gotten yourself right into the office
30:45
that's what this organization is really good at is actually providing support to
30:50
people who are broken where I'd like to get us to as an organization is to
30:55
stopping people from getting broken in the first place um so we're going to get into that now just think about how we can actually
31:01
prevent getting to that full good night phase so what I have noticed in terms of the
31:09
narratives around people burning out and Stress Management in this organization is we tend to like to place most of the
31:15
blame on the individual so if somebody's having Stress Management issues you can conceptualize
31:21
it as an individual problem right who would we say would be most likely to
31:28
burn out any guesses from the room kind of individual features might lead
31:35
someone to burnout your personality you are being on and
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you know what that means somebody who is incredibly driven and incredibly hard
31:46
working will often do longer hours check in their email after work maybe put in
31:51
an hour or two on the weekend or after they get home oh take my personality well we don't want them in our
31:57
organization that they're going to burn out right right the people that are most likely to burn out are the people that work the
32:04
hardest in our organization the people we try to select to get in the door the
32:09
people that get done they're the people we want right so people who work
32:15
really hard in a highly conscientious and highly driven are more likely to burnout
32:21
but that's also a feature a characteristic that we want so maybe we should look at the person in
32:27
terms of the wider system an individual and a workplace is really
32:32
hard working is nested in their workplace which is nested in the wide open safety Youth and the culture of the
32:39
organization and let's be honest with ourselves which I love doing in defense we have a real can-do attitude right
32:46
from the top through to the bottom we say yes to that dress we want to say yes to government we want to serve this
32:52
country we want to do a good job we're always pushing ourselves further doing more with less
32:59
now I know we've started here do less with less but I'm not sure as an organization we
33:05
even know what that means or how to do it I it's just a throwaway line and if we
33:10
say that as Leaders without backing it up with any kind of action people are going to get increasingly cynical
33:17
because they think your answer to our workload problem is to tell us to do less with less
33:22
but you're not allowing us to actually do this with this or making the hardcore yourself as a leader around what that
33:29
actually means or looks like but our senior leaders are also nested in The Wider government right their
33:36
their feet are held to the fire and they constantly ask to do things that they don't want to do we can use our protect
33:43
as a really great example we got really angry at the organization but doing that but the country needed it and our senior
33:51
leaders knew that they knew that we could do it and do a good job and we did protect the country it sucked and we
33:58
didn't enjoy it but our organization has nested in a bigger system that required stuff of us and we stepped up right
34:05
the price we paid though was the high attrition that we have now so there's always a cost
34:11
so it's not to say that we can say yes or no to these things as we do so with eyes wide open knowing the price that
34:18
will pay at the end and then the government is in this wider New Zealand society and we're going to
34:25
be honest with ourselves whatever the government did during covert we would have crucified them regardless they let
34:32
the covet in we would have got a new killed us all when they keep it out we're like oh you've changed our economy
34:37
okay so we're in a wider system of issues and we're all responsible and all
34:42
contributing to the state that we have in our individual units right here in the defensible
34:48
so let's go back to this individual you can't control the wider
34:54
organizational control culture on your own you can't control the Defense Force the government The Wider Society so it
35:01
is focus on you and then in the second part we're going to get into what you can do as a leader for this system
35:06
issues but this is this is the dream right this is the this is the goal this is the end
35:12
game this is what we want we want work life balance and I just want to call
35:18
if I can say this excuse my French but on this it's not a reality it's
35:23
not real it's a thing that people want to aim for but we'll probably never really achieve because of all the things
35:32
right all the things going on our life it's very difficult to get at work-life balance perfect and the reason we want
35:39
it more and more now is because we've bombarded with images on social media about what work-life balance looks like
35:46
and if you Google success which I have done if you Google success
35:51
you will see multiple images of people standing on mountain tops going if you Google happiness same image
35:58
and then in this organization I can tell you what work with life balance success looks like that means you're killing it
36:05
at work and you also have 2.5 children and a loving partner who supports everything
36:11
you do and you're you're a great partner yourself to them and you are running marathons on the weekend right that's
36:19
what we reward and support in this organization you've got to be in a marathon or some kind of multi-sport and
36:25
if you do that you should also drive a nice car and get some good overseas holidays that is work life success
36:31
but it's it's not a reality for most people so I want to offer an alternative
36:37
metaphor from work-life balance and it's probably not going to be what you want to hear but you need to hear it so this
36:44
is the four burner metaphor that I've taken from a guy called James Clear
36:49
which you can Google he's a really good author he's got lots of good insights but essentially the metaphor is this
36:54
life is like a guest stovetop and your time and your energy and your
37:01
focus is the guess beating these four main areas of your life now I have oversimplified this I know there are
37:07
more things in life than these areas but these are kind of language you've got your work which takes up most of your working life or
37:14
your working day you have your family and whatever format that looks like for you
37:20
you've got health so that's your physical health and well-being and you've got your friends and you could
37:26
enter in Social or hobbies in there if you wanted so these are your four main areas and so what what social media
37:34
tells us is that we need to have all of these things burning hot to be successful in anything right to be a
37:41
successful person you need to have a great job great family you need to be healthy and fit and you also need to
37:46
have lots of friends that's what success looks like but the four burner series is that if you want to be successful and
37:54
any one of these areas then you need to turn one of them down or off
38:01
right so if you want to be successful in one of these areas you have to turn another area down or off
38:08
to be really successful in one of these areas you might have to turn two off
38:16
just let that sit for a minute if you want to be really successful at work
38:21
you might have to turn your family burner down sure is it bit these people in this room
38:28
that have turned our health burner down and favorite work or their friends burner
38:35
but just even thinking about that because most people say family is the most important thing to me and yet
38:43
they're spending most of their time at work and some of their spare time at home at work
38:49
so if you want to be successful in your job it's really difficult to go home
38:55
bang on time or to work less to reduce your hours to give time to your family the time
39:01
that they need right so what we do though is we do this without even thinking
39:08
right we've got a finite amount of time and energy and focus
39:16
and we spend it without thinking so if you can imagine that I'm holding like a hundred bucks to my hands here
39:22
broken into 20s I don't have a hundred bucks because Rim didn't turn out good for me so I think
39:29
jokes jokes about 100 bucks in my hand right if I'm at work imagine that if you
39:35
can conceptualize money because we love our money and we don't give that away freely if someone knocks on the door is like can you give money to
39:44
so we know we're very good at keeping our money but when it comes to our time and energy right you're you've got to
39:50
prepare for that deadline so it's been 20 bucks document really then someone wants to talk to you about something so
39:56
you have a meeting how many people spend all their time and energy and meetings
40:02
meeting meeting and then you've got that other thing and oh you've got to answer the emails and then you've got to do
40:08
that other thing and that document and that admin and that thing by the end of the day if you conceptualize your energy as
40:16
money you've spent it all and then you walk in the door to an absolute family member or a crying
40:23
child you've got nothing left you've got no money left to give that little kid five
40:29
dollars to buy some ice you you don't have anything left so what does that mean if you don't have any energy left it means your tolerance
40:36
is low and you're more likely to scream or yell or snipe or snap at the people
40:42
you're supposed to love the most and it's not that you don't love them it's that you've been careless with your
40:48
energy but that don't you've spent it all at work you haven't thought about it you've
40:53
cranked up that work burner and then you walked on the door with nothing left to give to your family
40:59
right there are other people who do the reverse who might have like I had yesterday I've
41:06
got a child with strict throat and he's a very needy child I'm so sick his
41:13
development blew very early for a uh for 11 year old but he's never been as sick
41:18
as he has before and he needs all this love and attention and instead of preparing for this Workshop which is
41:23
what I wanted to be doing I was having to take him to the doctor I know in the middle of the day and get a medicine and
41:30
sit down with them and give them cuddles and so I was spending my energy and time on him
41:35
instead of preparing for this Workshop I have a half done handout that didn't
41:41
make it onto that list that I sent out to you right half done handout so if I was truly successful at work I would
41:48
have just said here's TV watch it I hope you don't get sick and die of some kind of infection but I've got a handout to
41:54
do so to be really good I would have had that handout finished for you but instead I was spending my time and
41:59
energy on my son and did I do it intentionally no I was fighting the fire that was closest to me
42:05
and spending my energy willy-nilly as I did what I want you to do is actually to
42:11
think about what you want to do with your time and your energy and your focus
42:18
this is a quote I've found and admittedly I stand up here as a
42:23
representative of the organization but essentially it says work is a rubber ball and if you drop it it will bounce
42:30
back the other four walls Family Health friends and integrity are
42:36
made of glass if you drop one of these it will be irrevocably scuffed next and
42:43
perhaps even shattered and we know this we know this in defense that people lose relationships through
42:49
deployments being away unaccounty postings or just simply working too hard and not giving enough time to their
42:56
family we know that we Outsource some child rearing stuff or we know that we are
43:03
being average in mediocre in our jobs which is the reverse of that right but we're giving all our time and attention
43:09
to our Ironman competition at the expense of being in the workplace
43:14
neither is right or wrong but the message is you can't have it all you cannot have it all that's the take-home
43:23
message and what price are you willing to pay
43:29
because if you put all your energy into raising your family or your you know or
43:35
looking after your family the price you pay is getting in your career or potentially at times doing a good job or
43:42
being if your team when they need you being the leader they need of you that's the price you pay
43:47
or if you are giving your team everything they need the price you pay is that your kids are
43:53
on devices all the time and Mr best and Minecraft are raising your two children
43:58
it sounds very consistent because it is might be the case that Minecraft is raising my children
44:04
that's the price that I am unwittingly paying rightly or wrongly
44:11
so how do we decide what I will say to you is this do not
44:17
leave it up to the organization to decide for you the nzdf will decide that
44:24
Luke is the most important thing in your life your job is the most important thing in your life and that is where you
44:30
should put all your energy and it will take all you have to give until you have nothing it is not evil it is an entity
44:38
it does so because that is the way all organizations are designed they're designed to suck you as a resource so
44:46
take your time in a GM Focus that is the way they're designed you can't hate them for it it's what they're designed to do
44:53
so if you leave it up to them that's what will happen they'll take you with them so I'm asking you to make a conscious
45:01
choice about how you spend your time your energy and your focus and it may be
45:07
that you want to give everything to your work that may be what you want and I'll say
45:12
out there because I know this is a really unpopular thing to say a whole lot won't work I love it I love
45:18
my job I love my team I way more enjoy spending time with you and doing this Workshop then I will
45:25
going home and cooking dinner because I hate to cook and my children I love them
45:30
to Pieces but they're not that fun to hang out with oh it's fun too so I would
45:36
say that I love my kids and I'll give them everything I can to be a good parent I'm probably going to give this
45:43
organization number one then I'm going to get my kids is that that's hard to say right
45:49
but the thing is that's my value that's me and I make that choice of where I put my
45:55
time and energy you've got to decide for you and you can judge me that I might
46:01
love my job I don't love it more than I love my kids it's just that maybe it looks like that because I spent more
46:06
time at work more energy at work than I do with my kids but what I love is developing people
46:12
it's having great conversations of solving working problems that's what lights me up I forcing my children to
46:20
use a knife and fork at the dinner table does not write me up I'm just sorry that's what it is
46:25
but other things light other people are some people are just born to be mums
46:32
some people were born to climb that mountain they were born to run that race and Run
46:38
100 kilometers which I think is just crazy thank you some people were born to create Amazing
46:44
Stories everybody's got their value and the key is knowing what your values are
46:50
that means that if you are acting in alignment with your values you're less
46:56
likely to burn out or be overloaded by stress working months are way more at risk of
47:04
burnout than working debts and working women who aren't mums
47:09
and that can often be because they feel this values Clash on a daily basis where
47:15
they're not giving their time and attention to their children at the expense of work I was in a place near burnout and my
47:22
kids did not get the best of me but because I was doing what I loved I was protected from burnout last year I was
47:29
doing what I loved I was acting in alignment with my values the time I was putting into my work was helping people
47:35
and that was to a degree restorative for me so when you act in alignment with your values
47:41
it is protective so knowing if family is the most important thing to you then you need to
47:48
organize your life around giving them the energy and the time and focus that
47:53
deserves if that's your primary value likewise if work is your primary value or if climbing mountains or whatever it
48:00
is Adventure that excites you that lights you up if you know what your values are you more likely to make
48:06
better choices and that will protect you from stress and work overload
48:12
that can be uh quite hard to do so I have sent out a worksheet for you
48:18
all so you're all at home to do this and that's why I said you're not going to solve this in this one hour
48:23
but if you actually are sitting there going I don't know what's the most important thing to me can I just take the all values get our own right just
48:30
make it easy no you have to do this work and it's not easy and it takes time but
48:35
there is a values worksheet and I've printed off some here for those in the audience if you want to take some away
48:41
there's hundreds of values out there that could resonate with you hundreds and what you do is you do a value sort
48:48
and you identify kind of the four core values that you think really Drive who
48:53
you are and will make you feel like you have meaning and fulfillment in your life you have to do that work it can
48:59
take a bit of time and once you've done that there's more work right it's not just
49:05
that easy or do you being healthy and well it's not it's not easy the next thing you do is you need to decide what
49:12
their value is so saying I value work that's kind of meaningless I hear little leaves say oh I value
49:19
people what does it even mean in fact we hear it a lot
49:25
but it's the people this is the people and that spurns that silicon us to go oh
49:31
yeah right that's not what we see right right so if you say to your staff or your people
49:37
that your number one value is people but they don't see that in your actions they're going to call you on it
49:44
and I'd want to call you on it so when you say that this is your value the next
49:49
thing I want you to do is think about what does that actually mean what is important about this value to me so your
49:55
core value might be family family is the most important thing to me now Stanley
50:01
is a value of minus my kids aren't watching this so it's okay hopefully they don't watch it one
50:07
day and go well this is why I am not a rocket scientist I want to be because of you but anyway if your core value is
50:14
family what does that mean so you create some principles well if there's ever attention between work and family I put
50:22
my family first or it might mean that I
50:27
work less so I'm going to change my working hours so that I have more time with my family or I have quality time so
50:33
you can create some rules that show your value and action and then from there you
50:39
create some goals around what those values in action actually could be in
50:45
the next month or two months so for example I do value people right what does that mean to me well I want to be
50:52
involved in inspiring and motivating others right so that's what I love about people what I get let up the same people
50:58
achieve their potential so one of my guiding principles might be to invest
51:04
time in my team to identify and help them Reach their potential and then a goal I might have is to spend at least
51:11
half an hour to an hour with each of my team members every Fortnight to invest in them in terms of helping them achieve
51:18
what they want to achieve right so that's our goal in action and if I had
51:23
that written down then it's priming me to actually take those actions and if I
51:29
share that with my team will me saying that I value people becomes real to them and they see it in action
51:36
if it's the family side of things creating some goals around making sure I attend every soccer game I'm making sure
51:43
I attend every yeah or spending at least an hour with my kid
51:49
every day doing blah blah blah blah blah that might be a goal that I have
51:54
and what we know about goals is if you write them down they'll bar more likely
51:59
to come about than if you just go I might just need to be a better parent for me one of my goals around parenting
52:06
was to yell lists which sounds really bad but I spend all my energy at work
52:12
and I get home I have a very short fuse and I totally yell at my children like
52:17
I'm like see a suck on the clock like it's not an immediate like graduated ah
52:27
immediately straight to yell but I've created a goal around that and my daughter has helped me out by
52:33
creating a younger and she had to decorate the yoga and
52:39
we're at the supermarket looking for things to decorate the jar like some little glue sticks and stuff like that and she said very loudly to the 10
52:46
people that were also shopping oh this young jar man I'm gonna make so much money off of you with all your yelling
52:54
oh I'm so excited about this what can I spend all this money on when you yell so much
53:01
you can see why they're not my Top Value I've created an example here for you
53:07
this is one of my actual core values which is balance and simplicity and that is I like things to be simple and my
53:15
life I don't have hobbies I get a lot of criticism from my mum around now you should have not Hobbies but I actually
53:21
just want work because I love it I put all my energy into it I know that I don't have much energy for anything else
53:28
I'm not going to be ambitious my ambition is to find the next best Netflix show and sit on the couch at the
53:34
end of the day with my feet up like absolutely geeking out on the latest sci-fi thing and I will be happy in my
53:40
life if that's what I do so turn down the noise like don't put expectations on myself notice what is
53:47
burning hot and what is neglected so if I'm gonna keep things simple I do have to notice when I'm over earning my work
53:53
burner I've set that as a principal and prioritize wrist and family so basically
53:59
my life consists of work family and rest that's it that's all I
54:05
have in my life and I don't care what you think about it because that is my value and it makes me happy and I'm good
54:11
and I'm well uh and then I've created some goals around there to make this value real now I did this work
54:18
as part of doing a workshop last year and I tell you what a year on not only am I back from the brink of burnout but
54:26
I feel good and I'm careless about the it just doesn't wear me up it
54:32
doesn't wear me up as much because I realize what is actually important and it's not what senior letter A says or
54:39
what so-and-so does it's actually what's important to me and that's protective
54:45
but I think we should take a little league stretch and wrist there and then after
54:52
the break so we'll just have two minutes we are going to get into leading so this
54:58
next session will be about if you're a people manager or you've got some people in your life you want to help out what
55:03
you need to know as a leader to prevent the burnout or work overload of your team and that will be our last 20
55:10
minutes and then we'll have a question in the last time so just two minutes Big Stretch
55:15
thank you
55:25
thank you
57:45
might just be the stress response um last year I got a few comments around
57:51
you know you're telling that executive blade is this and I wasn't but I can and safely say this year they
57:58
all know this information now right so what I'm about to bring you now I have grieved to xco and the Executive Health
58:05
and Safety Committee uh and I've also briefed the DLC leadership team and I
58:12
will probably be doing a few other leadership teams as they start to Grapple with their responsibilities as Leaders related to burnout so this slide
58:21
here which you're welcome to take away and use as much as you like is just a just a little kind of snapshot of the
58:28
current context that our people are living in when I say our people I mean you
58:34
I mean everyone in this room as well as all the people that are here and the people that work for you so the first
58:41
one which I'm I've been saying for a few years I'm really pleased that current CBO is actually reinforcing is when it's
58:49
not 1950 anymore people it is not 1950 anymore and that means that the family
58:56
structure has fundamentally changed from when this Defense Force was conceived
59:02
and developed it's currently operating off a World War II model where the man
59:08
went to war and the woman stayed at home and looked after the kids but their family structure hasn't changed you'd be
59:14
hard-pressed to find to a couple that has kids where only one
59:19
of them is working it'd be hard-pressed upon that now so it's now a model where both people are working and even though
59:27
we're not quite there yet we do know that men are doing way more of the household duties than they ever did
59:34
before but still stick it up guys
59:39
but that means that you know my husband and I both have responsibilities and I
59:45
am a terrible cook so it isn't his best interest if he comes home and Cooks the
59:51
dinner not just me so at the end of the day there is that expectation that men will stay till 4 30 or 5 or however long
59:58
they need to to get the job done and there is a complete lack of recognition for some of our senior leaders that
1:00:05
those men can't stay any longer they have to pick up kids they have to go and cook dinner they've got stuff to do now
1:00:12
I when a woman lefts she was judged for it I gotta go pick up kids it was held
1:00:19
against her we know that from the research but also now it's men as well
1:00:24
men are stepping up and doing a much better job of parenting but that does impact their work life that does mean
1:00:32
they cannot stay for that late meeting they have to go and I can speak from experience I have a
1:00:39
aging mother with a disability and it's hard work and I'm entering that phase of
1:00:44
my life where I have to worry about that now and what we know is with our aging population a lot of our parents need a
1:00:51
lot more care they're living longer and we've got more responsibilities and it's hard to get people in good homes these
1:00:57
days so a lot of people are looking after their elderly parents that's the thing right and the household is is way
1:01:04
more split families mixed families it's just not nuclear family anymore people
1:01:10
we've just got to let it go and that 100 influences how much time people can
1:01:16
spend it with as much as I love my job and I do I still have to go out to have
1:01:21
the kids and take them to their things and do their things with them right so that's happening plus we've got the tech
1:01:27
Revolution and we know that there's impact on our lives with having those phones that are little computers in our
1:01:34
hands right we know that that's impacting us so that's just one thing changing family structure changing
1:01:41
Society Tech Revolution we are in a new era people I think we've just had a freaking
1:01:46
pandemic we just had a pandemic where a whole lot of people overseas died we were locked down for a long period of
1:01:52
time we're still recovering from that some people are physically recovering from that because they have long covert
1:01:59
and that's impacting their ability to actually put energy into work they're fatigued they've got what looks like
1:02:06
glandular fever and it's ongoing right being aired into the real doomagome this
1:02:12
does sound a bit doom and gloomfield at the end um the financial crisis that we're going through right now let's not ignore the
1:02:18
cost of living is super high and in our own health and well-being survey and that was back in 2019 and things are a
1:02:25
lot worse than now than they were then is that Financial issues were a real worry for people especially our children
1:02:31
people so the things that people have in their life they're not just worried about doing a good job and the hours
1:02:37
they have to work and getting home to their kids a lot of people are worried about Rising interest rates for mortgages paying their mortgage the food
1:02:44
bill power bill all the things right so that is the context
1:02:49
from the resilience of mental health perspective generally in New Zealand we know mental health issues are on the
1:02:55
rise globally and in this country and we're just a little microcosm of that so
1:03:01
it's likely there'll be rising mental health issues and events because we are people and they're arising mental health
1:03:07
issues in this country and then we've got the nzd workplace
1:03:13
we've just had a great sort of Rim package delivered that came because our
1:03:18
attrition was huge huge highest it's been in many many years and
1:03:25
what we haven't talked about enough is with the high attrition we have not had a sort of can measure it reduce and
1:03:33
reduction in outputs so we've got gaps all over this organization and we have more people double heading and triple
1:03:39
triple heading it's not actually widely believed by a lot of people that we have
1:03:44
an issue with burnout some people don't think it's a thing and they'll say hey I was in defense
1:03:50
house at four o'clock and no one was around so clearly there's not a workload issue they're forgetting all the things
1:03:57
they're looking at one snapshot of a person or a group's day and forgetting
1:04:03
all the things because we know we've had attrition at 17 we all know people that
1:04:08
have got 717s and right now we all know gaps in the organization I have five
1:04:13
people in my team of 28 that are on Parental live right now not to mention the three I've lost for attrition so I
1:04:20
know that this is an issue that we have workload issues it is real
1:04:26
it's not everywhere not everyone has overworked but a lot of people are so
1:04:31
that's the context that we're working on I was as I think I mentioned earlier presenting Tech corporal's promotion
1:04:37
course we're doing a couple of weeks ago and I asked them to go around the room and I said hey can you just tell me your
1:04:43
name where you're from and what your kind of key workplace that she was right now might be something to do with you your unit or The Wider your voice what's
1:04:49
kind of really keeping you up at night and I would say 85 of that room and
1:04:55
there was about 25 Court pools there said Staffing capacity or people being promoted too
1:05:03
early due to Staffing and capacity issues that's what they're all saying so it's real but we don't have the physical
1:05:10
data on how stressed or busy uh people are or whether how many people are
1:05:15
burning out we just don't have that package we haven't run a survey of mental health survey and our pulse that
1:05:21
we run nearly isn't really specific enough but I think that 17 attrition rate we've just come out of it's
1:05:27
probably website to say there's people doing a lot of work out there this is the context that we're working
1:05:32
in that you as Leaders need to be aware of it's not just the workplace it is all the things going on in
1:05:41
someone's life I might not be busy at work but I might be walking home to an
1:05:46
absolute train wreck every day I might have a mother with a disability or a child with a disability so I don't get
1:05:53
that Respite Home is not rest in recovery for me so you said hey Carol
1:05:58
take a long weekend I'm like please can I come back to work put your hand up if you're glad the school holidays ended
1:06:04
yeah yeah that's right okay so home life might not be a respect for
1:06:11
people it might actually be against and you have to see people in terms of
1:06:16
the system they're in they are not just a worker they have all the stuff going
1:06:21
on but and that's not working on that's okay could be manually
1:06:28
so I said earlier we need to view burnout in terms of a system so burnout
1:06:33
and workload let's take a systems issue if one person is burning out it could be because of the system in
1:06:42
which they are the workplace in which they work in they could have too much work going on that is not necessarily
1:06:49
just because they've got poor time management or they're a stress monkey which is what often happens the person is blamed let's view the person is the
1:06:57
canary and the coal mine of somebody's experiencing burnout let's
1:07:02
view that as a canary going down in a coal mine and when a canary goes down in
1:07:08
a coal mine you don't just resuscitate the canary give it a gas mask and send it back in that's not how we deal with
1:07:14
things what we need to do is actually fix the coal mine in which we're in and
1:07:20
that's what I want to encourage leaders to do and it might be a bit harsh to say hey think about your workplace there's a
1:07:26
call mine but if people like going down with burnout will stress issues it may
1:07:31
just be that your workplace has some problems you need to sort out now here's a model that I just want to
1:07:37
share with you in terms of thinking about how you could view your workplace and take some actions to fix it
1:07:44
I'm going to share this with you but I will start by saying New Zealand health and safety legislation is going the way
1:07:50
of Australia and we are legally and ethically responsible for the workplace
1:07:56
stresses that our people experience and there has been successful court cases in
1:08:02
Australia where organizations have been held to account for what they call psychosocial hazards and that includes
1:08:09
work overload so if somebody's burning out there is a legal requirement for us as
1:08:17
an organization to prevent that say that okay these are your little
1:08:22
later so what do you do about it well this is a very well validated model that
1:08:27
was originally developed in one of the classic areas where you would experience workplace burnouts the health sector and
1:08:34
one of the things I like to do when I start feeling a bit cynical and down about defense as I talk to any one of my
1:08:40
family members that works in the health system and then I'm like it's not so bad because it's not it really isn't the
1:08:47
health sector is way worse than us you're a nurse or a doctor or a midwife
1:08:53
of which I have family members it's really hard out there and they definitely overload and they certainly
1:08:59
don't provide as much support or resources we do for our people so it really could be worse people but this
1:09:05
model has come out of that and it has been validated so essentially it's called demand control support now what
1:09:12
we know when we look at an individual in their role we need to determine do the
1:09:18
demands of their job and I put in Brackets or family exceed our ability to
1:09:24
cope now take it back in time to that slide I showed you which was all pretty helpful
1:09:29
when we see the lion we make that initial appraisal of is this a threat to
1:09:34
me and then the second appraisal of Can I code so in everyday life people will work
1:09:40
into their work not open their email they'll see 100 new emails the immediate thing that will go through their head is
1:09:46
can I cope with this immediate and stone and if the reaction is I don't think I
1:09:52
can that can move the stress so we need to look at does the workload of the role
1:09:58
exceed a reasonable person's ability to cope some of our jobs have not been designed
1:10:06
well shock and they are bigger than one person can do I don't even think of the things we
1:10:12
have a really good idea about what one mte is actually capable of so we just give this big long PD and a whole bunch
1:10:18
of tasks and hope that the person will cope and I will say psychology is the worst offender here I look at our role
1:10:25
and what we require our psychologists to do and it's too much and we are actually now sitting down after 20 years of being
1:10:33
in and going enough is enough let's actually look at what we can achieve with the people we've got and decide
1:10:40
what is reasonable for a person to do in their job whose responsibility is that it's not CDs it's yours CDF cannot do
1:10:49
all the job roles of this organization it's got to go to the individual manager to look at their person's workload and
1:10:56
go as this reasonable to accomplish and if you are a really good manager you'll know your person you'll know
1:11:03
what's going on in their life outside of work also do a bit of a holistic assessment and go gosh this is a really busy job
1:11:11
but they've also got all this other stuff going on outside maybe I should look at how we can
1:11:17
lighten up the load if they're going through a tough time right now that would be like extra step that would be
1:11:22
Tara gives you five stars if you do that but you've got to make that assessment and that may involve some restructuring
1:11:30
or some redesign of a job role or turning off of outputs
1:11:35
did I say it I didn't say that turning up outputs to reduce workload you might have one person doing a
1:11:42
reasonable amount of job but then your unit of 30 people you are carrying 10 vacancies and haven't accounted for that
1:11:48
and that workload has smushed and spread out over those other people so be real about that and turn stuff off
1:11:55
the second element that we know contributes to well-being or burnout is control so when people have more control
1:12:02
over their job and how they spend their time call it autonomy call it agency if
1:12:08
you like they are going to be protected from burnout if they have less control or it feels out of their control they
1:12:15
are more likely to burn out now we are in a hierarchical organization we do like to tell people what to do yes sir
1:12:20
no sir yes ma'am no ma'am we need to get better at giving people autonomy and
1:12:26
agency in their roles and they will Thrive they will be way better for it so just think about that
1:12:32
in terms of your people what can you give them control over if they can organize their day they might be a
1:12:38
little bit more protected and the final one is support do they have the right training to do
1:12:44
their role and pushing people up early that can be a bit of a problem because they can be pushed out of their ability
1:12:51
zone so they need the training to do that do they have the right resources
1:12:56
the right tick the right support systems the business support systems most of the leaders I've
1:13:02
talked to that have really struggled have had a lot of administration that could have been unloaded by an
1:13:08
administrator supporting them and I would have been protected from her now so do they have the right support and
1:13:14
are you as their boss supporting them through this because you are a support person do not
1:13:21
say oh this person's burning out I'll give Carol a call and send them off to the site they're just delegating your
1:13:27
support responsibilities to a psychologist as a leader you have the capability to figure out what's going on
1:13:33
in someone's life you can ask them what's going on alive you do not need a psych degree to ask a person that and
1:13:39
then you can figure out how to support them better you do not need to Outsource that you can do that as a leader
1:13:46
this is a model that I've taken from New Zealand government health and safety and
1:13:51
essentially what they're saying because they're going to start holding us to account around managing psychological and social risks in the workplace or
1:13:59
hazards is there are three ways to tackle this when we talk about preventing work stress or psychological
1:14:06
stress in the workplace we've got prevention we've got promoting
1:14:11
of well-being and we've got support it so in these
1:14:16
three areas when we are looking at prevention initiatives this is when we go this person is burning out instead of
1:14:23
sending them along to an amazingly entertaining burnout workshop with Cairo we might just actually reduce their
1:14:30
workload because that is going to prevent the stress as opposed to giving
1:14:35
them the tools to cope with the stress right so prevention is the best gold standard way to do it so this includes
1:14:42
job redesign this includes resourcing and support what I just talked about in that slide it is stopping burnout before
1:14:50
it happens now like I said earlier this is not stopping all WordPress stress this is not taking all the cool jobs and
1:14:56
the challenges of people it's actually just making sure that the demands don't exceed their ability to cope so making
1:15:03
sure workload is reasonable the second way we can deal with it is what we are doing right now which is promoting
1:15:09
well-being and building resilience that's not going to come out of a one-hour session that takes time to skill build in this
1:15:16
area I am a psychologist and I almost let myself fully burn out last year and it's taken me a year to get into a much
1:15:24
better place and I'm still away from progress and I probably will smash myself again in the future because
1:15:29
that's just what I love to do but as long as I've got the tools and resources to sense when it's coming put some stuff
1:15:35
in place to stop myself from fully burning out and provide some recovery then that's going to be the ticket and
1:15:42
the third area is actually something we do really well in defense we've got some fantastic support systems in place as
1:15:49
the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff so if people do burn out or experience psychosocial kind of depletion we've got
1:15:56
access to psychologists and chaplains and social workers and all the things oh 800 Anonymous lines EOP it's all their
1:16:05
waiting for your use so we actually do that really well compared to a lot of other organizations during the Cyclone
1:16:12
recovery I had lots of agency is calling me out going hey what do you do to support workers after an event like this
1:16:18
and I was like we do a lot and you're not going to be able to do that sunshine I'm sorry because we've got 25
1:16:24
psychologists and you know 25 chaplains and 15 social workers and we've got a
1:16:30
system and a process and policy and we're already rolling it out so I can send you some handouts but that's about
1:16:35
all right so we've actually got a fantastic support system uh but it's really actually pretty
1:16:42
simple so I just wanted to simplify all the diagrams and stuff reduce workload as a leader this is all you have to do
1:16:49
reduce workload press people's control over their lives and what they do and increase the support that you give them
1:16:56
it's really simple but I know you walk away from that going oh is it really so I brainstormed some
1:17:03
specific things for you to do and you can look at the slides after just to get some primers but if you're a
1:17:09
leader and you're in a directorate or a unit or a squadron or an area that has
1:17:15
gaps and people are double and triple petting here are some real things that you can do and I would just draw your
1:17:21
attention to planning because this is the prevention Circle if you can plan
1:17:26
into your work calendar and I know defense loves its planning plan and
1:17:32
respite and Recovery periods people can search and they can sustain height
1:17:37
clothes over short periods of time like a week two weeks a month even six months like a deployment but at the end of the
1:17:43
deployment we give a decompression to everyone who deploys and then usually some leave and Recovery periods
1:17:50
but we don't tend to plan that into our normal walking working gear domestically
1:17:56
in New Zealand so start thinking about planning respite and recovery after your busy periods which you probably can
1:18:03
anticipate and you're working here and PT physical training and to your daily work
1:18:10
for your team for everyone if you want to prevent burnout giving them time to do pt every day
1:18:17
it's going to be a great way to do that Army already does this like do it well it was we're terrible if we see someone going
1:18:24
for PT not at lunchtime we're like oh they're obviously not very busy are they we do have a culture of saying PT has to
1:18:32
have an outside of work but if you want your people to be well you will give them and support them to do physical
1:18:38
training during the day because I can tell you what if I don't do it during my work day I stress you can't doing it at
1:18:43
home I walk in the door I've got two children and they're not old enough to leave alone although maybe I've done it once or twice
1:18:51
that's cool I'll get a parenting session after this don't work so these are some things that you can do some pressing
1:18:59
timelines if you can't reduce workload push your timelines out that sort of things uh I will say this this is the remote
1:19:06
area yeah click to CPO who's fronted up for this Workshop I asked the recipe to turn up
1:19:16
um actually role modeling attending stuff like this is fantastic for your staff because where you're tuning up it
1:19:22
says this is important this is important I'm going to make time for it and I want you to make time for it so role modeling
1:19:28
attending these kinds of things is really great I have done this for you today but
1:19:33
honestly I'm smashing this into an all very really busy workload we don't have
1:19:39
enough psychologists to provide resilience workshops for every unit in this organization but you can Outsource this there are
1:19:46
tons of awesome consultants and agencies out there that can provide you maybe not quite as entertaining or real a workshop
1:19:53
as this but still has the right content right the same content so pay for
1:19:58
workshops for your staff to give them the skills and training they need because if they're if you're just waiting for promotion courses they get
1:20:06
so much content on those courses it's really hard to embed it but just fund it take your team for away days do some
1:20:12
recovery and resilience building with your team fund it lead it you will be better for
1:20:19
it and the last one here is the nzdf for you Health Website the Health Website
1:20:26
created by the integrated wellbeing team who are here today it's phenomenal that's world class it's got some amazing
1:20:32
resources on it anyone can access that go there ncdf Health Centers is where
1:20:37
you can get your medical support chaplains social workers but at the end of the day
1:20:42
your friends and family are the people that are really going to support you so I'd say lean and reach out to them but
1:20:48
as a leader role modeler part of the reason that I share my bad parenting stories to you
1:20:54
today so that you don't sit there and go oh she's so perfect you're probably going to walk out there and go I don't
1:21:00
really feel so approach because the reality is we can't be all things I want you to know that that I am
1:21:06
less than perfect parents a great examples this week my daughter had a um
1:21:12
field trip on the first day back from the school conference which she missed
1:21:17
because we didn't get it at school all the time because we forgot we forgot there was a field trip on and I found out at the end of the day with a witch
1:21:23
pick her up she's like Mom I was supposed to be in school at eight o'clock at my classroom and I had to
1:21:28
spend the day with another class felt like the worst mum in the world I
1:21:33
had the notification I was like school I didn't read that that's you know that's real life I am
1:21:40
not perfect I am not a perfect mum and I'm gonna forgive myself for that as I hope you all forgive me and my daughter
1:21:46
will one day too many many therapy sessions which I will be able to fund because I'm really good at my job
1:21:55
yeah role modeling your vulnerabilities the leader is a great way to make your people feel like they don't have to be
1:22:01
perfect and it's okay that they have different values from you but I think at take home I would say
1:22:08
is sometimes my values and my work ethic might send the wrong message to my team
1:22:13
so if I want to work on weekends and if I want to do a long day so if I want to
1:22:19
throw everything into my job that's because that's what I love and it lights me up but that's not everybody's value
1:22:25
set and if my message to my team is I expect you to be like that too that's a bad message so cranking my work burner
1:22:33
up is impacting all the work burners of my team it's mate expectations are
1:22:39
higher and they think that I'm role modeling what I want to see so I have to be really careful in saying to people
1:22:45
this is my values this is what I do but I want you to do pt I want you to do you I want you to be well and happy and have
1:22:52
what you need in your life and prioritize your work life have flexible working hours do what you need to do
1:22:58
because that is really important for you so if you've got a high work burner
1:23:03
which a lot of the simulators in this organization have you need to recognize
1:23:08
that that is not the right way to live and they don't look as happy
1:23:14
and so you've got to do what's important to you here's some takeaways I've put these in
1:23:21
these two slides for you please remember the Scotty principle went under promise
1:23:26
and if you under deliver your meeting expectations right but but really what I
1:23:31
want you to do is go away and think about am I intentionally making decisions
1:23:37
have an energy at work or is that just me rolling along and doing it without
1:23:43
thinking and if I was to decide where I was going to put my time and energy what is it that is important to me do a bit
1:23:51
of work around that and then put your energy where it matters to you so that you can craft the life that you want but
1:23:58
know that that life won't be a perfect life that if it is family that you prize you will have a great family life and
1:24:05
your work might be mediocre that is okay screw Facebook and Instagram it's okay
1:24:12
to be average at stuff it's okay not to run marathons and triathlons right that doesn't make you
1:24:18
awesome but it does make some people awesome so it makes them happy thank you so be
1:24:25
intentional about what you want to do with your time do the values exercise if you need to but maybe this is just a
1:24:30
refresher for those of you who do know their values to go and have a stock tank are you living and alignment with those
1:24:37
values and for leaders you also need to use the Scottish principle and start saying that you
1:24:44
can't get the ship going to the guy or girl above you and under promise what
1:24:49
you can deliver extend the timelines that you're telling people reduce the workload evaluate the job demands that
1:24:56
are on your people and reset them and that is your responsibility as a leader ethically and legally
1:25:03
cool okay we have a few minutes for questions
1:25:11
I should have said at the start I don't expect you to have any questions to lower my own expectations
and burnout is one of those topics that can be quite polarizing for some people
0:34
uh so if you want to challenge or reach out or say anything during this session I really invite it I really I'm open to
0:41
any kind of questions or things you want to lead unpack please feel free to do that just do so knowing that it has been
0:49
recorded
1:01
so I'll just tell you a little bit more about myself so who am I well
1:06
um for roughly about 17 years now it feels like a very long time
1:11
um I dye my hair regularly uh this is my husband Dan who's also an
1:17
Air Force um I found myself last week presenting
1:28
with every presentation I do bring him up and shamelessly embarrass him but
1:33
likely he's not here so this is Dan I also have uh two giblets this is that
1:40
they are now 11 and nine and they're the bang slash Joy of my existence
1:45
um and I've got a team of roughly about 33 psychologists across the principles
1:51
so we've got an army team a Navy team and an Air Force team and operations
1:56
team of projects team uh so we've got civilian and Military psychologists they are very attractive High performing
2:03
bunches as you can see from the picture here and they're a joined to have as my team and um I am a big sci-fi geek which
2:11
you're about to discover uh I don't want to make any apologies for that but I know some of the women would be groaning
2:18
uh so I'll try and keep it to a minimum but I thought it was important to let you know a little bit about the way so
2:25
my husband has leave me you've also go and work for in New Zealand yes I may pay for that uh daily because
2:32
it's just loyalty but he did what we make as well and so I balance a
2:38
full-time job with raising a couple of kids and a very needy border collie and
2:43
I have a very busy hobby of watching a lot of TV right so that that sucks up
2:49
all my time so it's a really cool life uh the reason I want you to know that is because I think sometimes when you have
2:56
an academic as psychologists are often conceptualized they're standing up in front of me you telling you how to live
3:02
your life you think what does she know um but I'm here to talk about
3:08
and I will say that last year I was the director of psychology I was duplicating
3:13
as one of the uh the lead teams that worked for me as reputable operational psychology I had two children and my
3:19
husband was supposed to talk yeah so he was remote uh and posted unaccompanied and I nearly burnt out I really very
3:27
nearly booked out and I actually did this workshop last year in the middle of that and I watched the recording of it
3:34
and I saw myself and I was like I'm in this with you with you I can't stand up here and say
3:39
you do this everything will be okay you should do that knowing that life is
3:47
so I I'm here now here internet and I wanted
3:52
to start with some realistic expectation setting so right where the word go I'm
3:58
going to role model to you how to manage a workload and burnout and the first principle is the Scotty technique so I'm
4:06
I'm guessing some of you know who this guy is some of you won't uh
4:11
Montgomery Scott Chief engineering officer for the Starship Enterprise and
4:18
his strategy was to always under promise I cannot do that Captain I don't have
4:24
the power he would say that regularly and I'm not a magician Captain I cannot
4:30
do it so he would constantly say I can't do this I can't do this and then I would
4:35
behold the Enterprise would always get enough power to get out of danger just in time but he never overcomes he always
4:43
so uh using that technique now I sort of want to come and think to myself what
4:49
can I deliver a group of people in person and online and one and a half
4:54
hours it's really going to make a difference in your life around managing workloading
4:59
out the answer is probably not much right let's be real if you are on the
5:05
bridge of burnouts or if you've got massive work overload or struggling with a lot of stress a one-hour resilience
5:11
listen is not going to fix that it is not going to fix that at all so I'm under promising right from the start
5:18
what generally does fix it is not a scented part for a long weekend we've
5:23
had a holiday
5:34
the reality is what we talked about being asked and it gives us a little bit more detail it's
5:40
about making some countries like so what I promise you that I will deliver is a bit of a tough tool
5:47
I want you to stop and reflect on your life I want you to stop and click on what's
5:53
important to you and I want you to start making some intentional decisions about
5:58
how you spend your time in community that's what I'm going to ask you to do today then
6:04
second part of the lesson so that's the first part looking at you the second part is thinking about how you as a
6:10
leader can make changes or do things that tips your team so hands up who has
6:15
stuff cool that's awesome so not everybody does but most people in this room do and
6:21
I'm missing quite a few people online do because most of us in this organization are leaders right uh and even if you are
6:28
the leader you probably have friends and family who are struggling with stress
6:35
and so if you do and you're a leader in this organization you have some responsibility through next day and I am going to give
6:42
you some ideas whether or not you make any changes for yourself personally whether or not you
6:48
make any changes with a team that's that there'll be some stuff I say that
6:55
doesn't resonate with you and feel free to dismiss not everything I say or do it's well received especially for these
7:02
Star Wars fans in the room on Star Trek right but uh some stuff I hope you can
7:09
take away so you can just pick and choose what you want and disregard the best
7:15
right so let's get into this I'm going to take you through a bit of a hero's journey for those literary uh
7:22
enthusiasts on the road you'll recognize this as the common story arc in most of the Avengers movies uh and or most of
7:30
the movies and shows and books that we um listen to and watch today so essentially the hero's journey is a
7:36
story where it starts with the unwitting person at the top and a call to Adventure and if you think about
7:43
yourself when you originally wanted to to come and work for defense that's a little bit of you I bet you were
7:49
thinking regardless of your uniform or a civilian
7:59
and that is the reason why am I supposed to join us so we get in the door uh and I'm not
8:04
looking at anyone in particular but then you get in the door a new thing
8:15
like most government agencies we have a massive agreement we are required to
8:22
quite a lot for New Zealand we have got to patrol the waters we have got to
8:27
respond to murders and disasters search and rescue not not to mention just actually potentially going to walk
8:35
defending our Shores deploying and support of other countries there's a whole lot of stuff we do and we don't
8:41
quite have all the resources to do that so what happens is we get into this challenges and and tribulations and
8:47
Temptation space when things start getting tough I think some of us might get down here
8:53
right to the brink of the abyss and I'm going to say that burnout is the abyss
8:59
now I did this presentation approximately a year ago we did a week hold and I said how many of you would
9:06
say that you are sent of that last audience that felt
9:12
like this time in 2022 they were in their best now I I'm not going to ask
9:18
this room to pull because now we're in person and when we did the poll it was all online but I would suggest there is
9:25
probably a similar portion that are here today and it might feel like you're in a bit but I'm really hoping that there's
9:31
quite a few of you that are actually just in the phase of that challenges and things are getting quite tough and maybe
9:37
some of the things I say or some of the things we think about today will stop you falling into that Abyss so I will be
9:44
helping here on the hero's journey and like Luke's Skywalker
9:49
I will be your daughter um and when I put that picture up originally I
9:54
that looks strikingly too similar to how I actually feel inside so I've decided
10:00
a little bit more useful a little bit more juice
10:05
that's how I want to be it's really um really cute about that
10:11
and I'm not going to do the Yoda voice but essentially I'm hoping that when we go through this
10:19
presentation there'll be some things that you can think about or do inside internal work that will make a
10:25
difference for you and it's not all going to happen today in the session but I do have some handouts and activities
10:32
that I've sent you and you can get all the slides after this so the slides are going to be sent out for you to take
10:37
away and do some personal work if you need it you might actually be in a really great
10:42
space right now but this might be some work that some of your team members might need to do and hopefully by the
10:48
end of this you'll be armed with how to have a good conversation with friends family or team members that you might be
10:54
concerned about in terms of their stress levels or their work cover lives so it might not necessarily resonate with you
10:59
personally which is awesome because that means you're not stressed or burnt out but hopefully you will help somebody
11:05
else do some good work and be their baby Yoda right so if we're talking about
11:10
burnout we have to start with understanding stress and I might be schooling
11:16
um schooling you here you might have already had the spread but I'll do it quickly because it's really important to reinforce that understanding
11:24
is an evolutionary response so the old caveman the old story around about here
11:30
back in the day out on the Savannah walking around with a spear uh he would see the beautiful Amber eyes through the
11:37
grass and his brain would go hmm what's going on here and immediately it would
11:43
trigger a series of physiological reactions in the body for the purpose of
11:49
saving that person's life so those physiological reactions include increasing the heart rate pumping the
11:55
blood around the body blood pressure increases your Crossing Factor increases because somewhere in your brain is a
12:01
message you might bleed soon right your digestion system shuts down your immune
12:06
system shuts down non-essential systems shut down to to boot energy to help you
12:12
run away real fast because this this line is fast or gives you extra strength
12:17
to fight it because you may need to fight your life right so stress response was designed to save your life a
12:25
life-threatening situations it's it's absolutely good and it's still in our
12:30
system today so the evolutionary response the amygdala which is in the oldest part of the brain right in the
12:36
brain stem right deeper near it still triggers that same physiological response to get us out of danger
12:44
but I guess you're kind of sitting there thinking I don't see many headlines around here Carol I don't see them even
12:50
when I go to the Wellington zoo I don't see any cavelands I don't know about you but it's really hard to see the lines at the zoo
12:56
why do we still have that stress response well this is a very busy diagram to say that what actually
13:01
happens when we see a stressor in the environment whether it's a cave lion or
13:07
our boss sitting in the front row watching a presentation that we're doing or somebody giving us a brownie face or
13:14
that look how partner gives us when we're in trouble we've done something wrong whatever that stressor is
13:20
an immediate process that goes on our brain which is what is the situation to
13:25
me is it a threat is that a challenge is this an opportunity so we make an
13:31
immediate assessment danger or threat the second thing that happens very quickly is our brain says do I have the
13:39
resources to cope with it so the guy with the spear out on the Savannah you
13:44
know he could be you know the young dude that's out there who's proving himself as a man and he might think this is my
13:51
opportunity I've been trained I know what to do with the spear and while the lion is coming to kill him he's ready
13:57
for it and he sees it as a challenge or he is not ready for it he doesn't
14:02
have a spear with it and it's a it's a dangerous threat and that produces different responses and outbrain the
14:10
same way that I might see delivering a presentation to 50 wonderful people in a
14:16
room for an hour and a half and 100 people online I can't see and don't know if they approval disapproval what I'm
14:22
saying as a real awesome Challenge and opportunity if I was ask a random person in the audience to take over from me
14:28
right now because I don't feel well they might see that as a threat right so same situation different reaction based on
14:35
the way that we immediately praise it so we have to stop and talk about the
14:41
upside of stress because we we use it a lot especially in the context of burnout but stress is not bad stress is a normal
14:49
part of life it's a normal part of functioning and we join the military because we like it right most of us
14:57
suckers for punishment I'm going to come to stress that's why we're in defense we want Adventure we want action some of us
15:03
even want to be in dangerous situations I mean who likes skydiving
15:12
but in the military we actually do enjoy the challenge and we do enjoy putting
15:17
ourselves in the line of danger sure we do it to protect our country but you can
15:23
bit your boots people join up because they want to do it because they want Adventure because they want excitement
15:29
and that is good the stress response when we're out in the field heightens our senses that allows us to see threats
15:37
in the environment we wouldn't see if we were relaxed the stress related to this presentation got me out of bed really
15:44
early this morning to go over and over my presentation so I knew I would say the right thing and I wouldn't stop it
15:49
up okay so the stress has motivated me to prepare and motivated me to stay
15:55
engaged and energized because nobody wants to talk to somebody who's like hey everybody we're going to talk about
16:01
stress today nobody wants that so stress gives us energy gives us focus it pushes
16:07
us it drives us it is good and we talk about it as bad for our health but
16:13
large-scale research in the States has shown that high level levels of stress
16:19
do lead to early death but only if you believe that stress is
16:25
bad for you that's what the research shows that people with high levels of
16:30
stress that don't believe stress is bad are no more likely to die than people with low levels of stress right so it's
16:37
actually the perception that stress is bad for you that that's actually bad for
16:42
your health not the stress itself so stress is good it's functional we
16:48
need it to survive so what happens with the stress cycle is
16:54
we have this stress a lot and it might be a contact in a military environment or it might be a deadline or it might be
17:01
a big presentation or it might be me trying to get out the door and my children will not put their shoes on
17:07
they're quick enough for me that might be my stressor and what happens is we get this release of a cocktail of
17:13
chemicals if we believe that the situation is threatening to us for example my children are driving me crazy
17:20
I can feel my temperature rising frustration going then I get a whole bunch of adrenaline and cortisol
17:26
released into my body which triggers that reaction of heart beating feeling tense it's tense start getting neck pain
17:34
I know that things are going wrong because my tummy is funny I always actually get a really funny tummy before
17:39
doing his presentations that's the stress response right so that cocktail of chemicals is released
17:45
then we have our reaction so right now I'm in vital flights right so I'm
17:50
energized if you were a lion I'd be running really fast but you're not so I've got a lot of energy here and then
17:57
at the end of this at the end of the session I will go somewhere and collapse in a little ball under a table
18:03
I won't want to talk to anyone for the rest of the day because I'll be in a recovery period after having such a
18:09
boost of adrenaline and expending it all with you here today I will have that recent recovery process this is how it's
18:16
supposed to be the guy sees the lion hopefully kills the lion or runs away
18:21
from it and then goes back to his cave there's mates are all around he tells them the story about a great lion they
18:27
all really enjoy it they cook them a bead someone else stands guard and he gets a really good rest right that is
18:33
what's supposed to happen being okay is a process we need this
18:38
process and this process has to include rest and recovery so when you're
18:44
experiencing a regular stressful job you're gonna be okay as long as you get
18:49
that wrist and Recovery that's good you want stress in your life because it makes life exciting and interesting as
18:56
long as you complete the process and get your recovery time so how do we recover effectively well I
19:04
did go to university for five years to tell you this exercise I know it
19:10
sounds like rocket science bear with me sleep social connection and eating well
19:17
oh my God I wish it was more complicated because then you're like oh my God come to this listen just for this right but
19:24
actually the reality is exercise is fundamentally a fantastic way to deal
19:30
with the stress wines it really gets it out of your system and it doesn't have to be a run it could be whatever
19:35
exercise you enjoy but if you exercise regularly on a regular basis because
19:41
stress is a daily thing you are likely to be more well in your life
19:47
sleep we know from our health and well-being survey in defense that a lack of sleep is the biggest predictor of
19:54
mental health issues for this organization but just generally because if you're not sleeping
20:00
you will not be able to function as well and stress will seem like it's more overwhelming so if you're waking up in
20:07
the middle of the night to angst ever work that's a bit of a problem that means you're not getting recovery at the end
20:13
of your day social connection is also fundamentally important
20:19
telling you the basics here but we are wired for connection a hormone a stress
20:24
hormone we don't often talk about is oxytocin when you have a flight or flight response you get adrenaline you
20:31
get cortisol and you get oxytocinos and the intent behind that is to drive
20:37
you to connect with somebody else for support because at an evolutionary level
20:43
your brain and body knows you need people close to you who care for you to
20:48
survive and thrive so social connection is fundamentally important for good Stress Management as is eating well
20:55
right so it's a really basic why don't we do it what's going on like
21:00
what's going on here but what I do see and all the work I do one-on-one with people in this organization is that
21:06
stressed and burnt out people have a deficit generally and one or more of these areas in their life they're not
21:13
getting that recovery they don't have that recovery process happening on a
21:18
daily basis so say you do have a very busy job which I'm guessing a lot of you in this
21:24
Workshop do as do I you've got lots of deadlines you've got lots of deliverables you've got family
21:30
concerns and all the things happening at once and then you're not exercising because you don't have time to put that
21:36
into your day and then you do wake up at two o'clock in the morning and then struggle to get back to sleep because you're angsting and thinking about their
21:42
deadline or that Workshop you've got to do it oh my God so by the time it gets to 5am you're like oh my God I might as
21:48
well get up anyway what happens then if life is supposed to be like a river
21:53
ride excuse me metaphor we know we're going to hit Rapids I'm not here to tell you life should be
21:59
smooth sailing I'm here to tell you life is full of Rapids that's normal and that's okay we get in our kayak and we
22:07
pedal through the rough times and it can be pretty exciting and interesting sometimes they can be miserable and hard but we know that we have Rapids but then
22:14
there's an expectation that you'll get to that period where you can just cruise for a bit that smooth same period but
22:21
what happens if life is just one big Relentless rapid
22:26
if you're not closing that stress cycle off with your wisdom recovery if you get home from A Hard Day's work and then
22:33
you've got to cook dinner you've got two screaming children who are fighting with each other and pulling their hair and
22:40
doing all the things and then you've got to do the washing and then they get to bed and by the time you actually get to bed it's quite late you haven't eaten
22:47
your recovery and then you think I'm so exhausted you lie down and then
22:53
and then you're in your head and you're not sleeping and it's 11 then it's 12. you finally get to sleep right that is a
23:01
constant Relentless rapid and that's what we're talking about we're going to talk about burnouts
23:07
burnout is just this constant Relentless Pace without opportunity for recovery
23:14
so what are the components of burnout and you can do a bit of a self audit and
23:19
like I said if this doesn't resonate with you because you're doing okay it might be useful to think about someone
23:26
in your team who you could do the audit for just internally so there are three components to burnout
23:33
and the first is it's just a deep emotional exhaustion right so I've experienced this this is where I
23:39
was last year when I was double hetting and my husband was away a lot and I paid controlled through this as well right
23:45
it's that deep sense of you are completely drained you have given everything you are emotionally wasted
23:52
and exhausted you feel physically physically tired but also emotionally
23:58
just completely rung out right so that's the first component but if you are
24:03
emotionally exhausted it doesn't necessarily mean you are burnt out it can just mean that you're really really
24:09
tired you've had you've given a lot of yourself but if you're still smiling you
24:15
can kind of slot in that wrist in a recovery piece and you can stop yourself from falling into that abyss of burnout
24:22
but this is a fundamental component is that deep emotional exhaustion the second component is cynicism and I
24:31
have presented to quite a few defense audiences and I always get a bit of a chuckle here because we tend to issue cynicism when you join right it's kind
24:38
of a fundamental part of being in the military is that since that this organization or other senior
24:45
leaders so we are naturally cynical here and we know from the post pulse survey
24:51
we have slightly lower trust in our simulators than what we would hope so there could
24:57
be a sign of our natural cynicism or it could be a sign of people are burning out because what we see is when we get
25:02
emotionally exhausted if we get to the point where I am giving everything to this organization and what is the effing
25:09
point they don't care they're not doing stuff and it's that just general sense that nothing you do works and so it
25:16
doesn't really matter anymore you get to the point where just want to give up you find yourself railing against the
25:24
organization it is at this point you download c-con to your phone if you haven't already got it and you start
25:30
looking for jobs because you've given up essentially you don't trust that the
25:35
organization is going to do the right things for you because you've got into this very cynical phase regardless of
25:41
how much you've lost all the organization does care for you when you're getting towards burnout you
25:47
believe that they don't care you get to that cynical point just giving up right
25:52
so this is why it's really important process leaders to be tracking this because people who get cynical disengage
26:00
from work this is the point where you start to disengage and you're there perhaps the
26:06
wheel spinning but the hamsters actually off getting a long coffee at Mojo anyway the third one and this is kind of
26:14
the most scary one when you've been in a burnout State and this is where I was
26:19
trekking a little bit towards last year I didn't get cynical but I definitely got to hear imagine being very exhausted
26:25
you're not sleeping at night usually which is quite a normal symptom of burnout so you are physically exhausted
26:31
and emotionally exhausted you are gonna start making mistakes and you're going to start dropping the balls think about
26:38
being in a role where you're double hitting you've actually got two full-time jobs that you're covering who
26:45
are unlikely to cover it all but you start seeing the things that you're missing and people are noticing you
26:51
start to feel incompetent like you can't do it the things I've heard people say when they've been in the state of
26:57
burnout there's I think they got the wrong person imposter syndrome is really similar to
27:03
this where they're like I don't know that I can actually do this job this is just this little sense that I'm not
27:09
making any progress I'm not getting anywhere and I can't do it if you've been in here where you've
27:15
experiencing burnout it can feel like a real brain fog like your words are coming out but they don't make sense to
27:21
you people are talking to you but you can't quite understand what they're saying because you're walking through a
27:27
fog so people who get to that phase can get a little bit pregnant can be quite scary to think but I've got to this
27:34
point in my career and I I no longer function I can't do a good job that is what burnout actually looks like
27:42
if you're operating heavy machinery it's a real problem because you can actually make legitimate mistakes
27:48
most of the people that I've dealt with are actually in people managery type mids to senior legal management roles in
27:55
this organization and what I've seen happen is they either get out so they just leave
28:02
or they've gone sick leave for extended periods of time or they just continue on
28:08
in a state or below to no productivity just phoning it in right so there's lots
28:14
of things that can happen now when people do take stress leave it can be incredibly difficult to come back
28:21
so you get out of this kind of churn of the really high workload and then you
28:26
just get into a comatose state and the idea of coming back into work can be
28:31
really really difficult and overwhelming so what I've seen is for the people that I've worked with that have burnt out to
28:37
the point of stress leave is that one week's leave returns to two two weeks Luke turns to three they don't actually
28:43
end up coming back for three or four months right so what is that that's a huge cost to our organization
28:50
huge huge cost to the persons who now thinks that they are incompetent but to
28:56
the organization and lost staff hours so this is a real problem and the states they estimate that burnout is costing
29:03
them about one billion dollars to the economy per year so it does have a an actual cost to it
29:10
I have this tool which I have sent out to you all which is a validated questionnaire that you can do a bit of
29:17
it to Conflict for just to see where you sit so it's got the areas of exhaustion
29:23
and mental distancing cognitive impairment and emotional impairment so when you have time if you are interested
29:30
in where you're at or if you're worried about a friend you can go through and fill out this questionnaire
29:36
you might find that you're just really tired and you're not actually burnt out so you might be in the low range if
29:41
you're in the medium range that would be the bet that I would say do something now you've got to make a decision to do
29:49
something different because believe you me getting into that full burnout stage is just a horrible place for anyone to
29:56
be and you want to stop that from happening if you get to that end of this this is not a self-diagnosis tool this
30:02
is to give you an indication of what to do next so low is like you know keep
30:07
going with your good self-care activities Medium as you need to change and do something different and high as
30:13
you need to seek help and there are many ways you can do that in defense getting help can be as simple as asking
30:21
a friend hey I don't I know what to do it can be connected with medical for
30:26
civilians there is our EAP system that you can get help for military people you can get help from your boss from a
30:34
psychologist a chaplain a social worker a medical center you can call oh 800 nzd
30:39
for you there are so many ways that you can actually access help if you've gotten yourself right into the office
30:45
that's what this organization is really good at is actually providing support to
30:50
people who are broken where I'd like to get us to as an organization is to
30:55
stopping people from getting broken in the first place um so we're going to get into that now just think about how we can actually
31:01
prevent getting to that full good night phase so what I have noticed in terms of the
31:09
narratives around people burning out and Stress Management in this organization is we tend to like to place most of the
31:15
blame on the individual so if somebody's having Stress Management issues you can conceptualize
31:21
it as an individual problem right who would we say would be most likely to
31:28
burn out any guesses from the room kind of individual features might lead
31:35
someone to burnout your personality you are being on and
31:40
you know what that means somebody who is incredibly driven and incredibly hard
31:46
working will often do longer hours check in their email after work maybe put in
31:51
an hour or two on the weekend or after they get home oh take my personality well we don't want them in our
31:57
organization that they're going to burn out right right the people that are most likely to burn out are the people that work the
32:04
hardest in our organization the people we try to select to get in the door the
32:09
people that get done they're the people we want right so people who work
32:15
really hard in a highly conscientious and highly driven are more likely to burnout
32:21
but that's also a feature a characteristic that we want so maybe we should look at the person in
32:27
terms of the wider system an individual and a workplace is really
32:32
hard working is nested in their workplace which is nested in the wide open safety Youth and the culture of the
32:39
organization and let's be honest with ourselves which I love doing in defense we have a real can-do attitude right
32:46
from the top through to the bottom we say yes to that dress we want to say yes to government we want to serve this
32:52
country we want to do a good job we're always pushing ourselves further doing more with less
32:59
now I know we've started here do less with less but I'm not sure as an organization we
33:05
even know what that means or how to do it I it's just a throwaway line and if we
33:10
say that as Leaders without backing it up with any kind of action people are going to get increasingly cynical
33:17
because they think your answer to our workload problem is to tell us to do less with less
33:22
but you're not allowing us to actually do this with this or making the hardcore yourself as a leader around what that
33:29
actually means or looks like but our senior leaders are also nested in The Wider government right their
33:36
their feet are held to the fire and they constantly ask to do things that they don't want to do we can use our protect
33:43
as a really great example we got really angry at the organization but doing that but the country needed it and our senior
33:51
leaders knew that they knew that we could do it and do a good job and we did protect the country it sucked and we
33:58
didn't enjoy it but our organization has nested in a bigger system that required stuff of us and we stepped up right
34:05
the price we paid though was the high attrition that we have now so there's always a cost
34:11
so it's not to say that we can say yes or no to these things as we do so with eyes wide open knowing the price that
34:18
will pay at the end and then the government is in this wider New Zealand society and we're going to
34:25
be honest with ourselves whatever the government did during covert we would have crucified them regardless they let
34:32
the covet in we would have got a new killed us all when they keep it out we're like oh you've changed our economy
34:37
okay so we're in a wider system of issues and we're all responsible and all
34:42
contributing to the state that we have in our individual units right here in the defensible
34:48
so let's go back to this individual you can't control the wider
34:54
organizational control culture on your own you can't control the Defense Force the government The Wider Society so it
35:01
is focus on you and then in the second part we're going to get into what you can do as a leader for this system
35:06
issues but this is this is the dream right this is the this is the goal this is the end
35:12
game this is what we want we want work life balance and I just want to call
35:18
if I can say this excuse my French but on this it's not a reality it's
35:23
not real it's a thing that people want to aim for but we'll probably never really achieve because of all the things
35:32
right all the things going on our life it's very difficult to get at work-life balance perfect and the reason we want
35:39
it more and more now is because we've bombarded with images on social media about what work-life balance looks like
35:46
and if you Google success which I have done if you Google success
35:51
you will see multiple images of people standing on mountain tops going if you Google happiness same image
35:58
and then in this organization I can tell you what work with life balance success looks like that means you're killing it
36:05
at work and you also have 2.5 children and a loving partner who supports everything
36:11
you do and you're you're a great partner yourself to them and you are running marathons on the weekend right that's
36:19
what we reward and support in this organization you've got to be in a marathon or some kind of multi-sport and
36:25
if you do that you should also drive a nice car and get some good overseas holidays that is work life success
36:31
but it's it's not a reality for most people so I want to offer an alternative
36:37
metaphor from work-life balance and it's probably not going to be what you want to hear but you need to hear it so this
36:44
is the four burner metaphor that I've taken from a guy called James Clear
36:49
which you can Google he's a really good author he's got lots of good insights but essentially the metaphor is this
36:54
life is like a guest stovetop and your time and your energy and your
37:01
focus is the guess beating these four main areas of your life now I have oversimplified this I know there are
37:07
more things in life than these areas but these are kind of language you've got your work which takes up most of your working life or
37:14
your working day you have your family and whatever format that looks like for you
37:20
you've got health so that's your physical health and well-being and you've got your friends and you could
37:26
enter in Social or hobbies in there if you wanted so these are your four main areas and so what what social media
37:34
tells us is that we need to have all of these things burning hot to be successful in anything right to be a
37:41
successful person you need to have a great job great family you need to be healthy and fit and you also need to
37:46
have lots of friends that's what success looks like but the four burner series is that if you want to be successful and
37:54
any one of these areas then you need to turn one of them down or off
38:01
right so if you want to be successful in one of these areas you have to turn another area down or off
38:08
to be really successful in one of these areas you might have to turn two off
38:16
just let that sit for a minute if you want to be really successful at work
38:21
you might have to turn your family burner down sure is it bit these people in this room
38:28
that have turned our health burner down and favorite work or their friends burner
38:35
but just even thinking about that because most people say family is the most important thing to me and yet
38:43
they're spending most of their time at work and some of their spare time at home at work
38:49
so if you want to be successful in your job it's really difficult to go home
38:55
bang on time or to work less to reduce your hours to give time to your family the time
39:01
that they need right so what we do though is we do this without even thinking
39:08
right we've got a finite amount of time and energy and focus
39:16
and we spend it without thinking so if you can imagine that I'm holding like a hundred bucks to my hands here
39:22
broken into 20s I don't have a hundred bucks because Rim didn't turn out good for me so I think
39:29
jokes jokes about 100 bucks in my hand right if I'm at work imagine that if you
39:35
can conceptualize money because we love our money and we don't give that away freely if someone knocks on the door is like can you give money to
39:44
so we know we're very good at keeping our money but when it comes to our time and energy right you're you've got to
39:50
prepare for that deadline so it's been 20 bucks document really then someone wants to talk to you about something so
39:56
you have a meeting how many people spend all their time and energy and meetings
40:02
meeting meeting and then you've got that other thing and oh you've got to answer the emails and then you've got to do
40:08
that other thing and that document and that admin and that thing by the end of the day if you conceptualize your energy as
40:16
money you've spent it all and then you walk in the door to an absolute family member or a crying
40:23
child you've got nothing left you've got no money left to give that little kid five
40:29
dollars to buy some ice you you don't have anything left so what does that mean if you don't have any energy left it means your tolerance
40:36
is low and you're more likely to scream or yell or snipe or snap at the people
40:42
you're supposed to love the most and it's not that you don't love them it's that you've been careless with your
40:48
energy but that don't you've spent it all at work you haven't thought about it you've
40:53
cranked up that work burner and then you walked on the door with nothing left to give to your family
40:59
right there are other people who do the reverse who might have like I had yesterday I've
41:06
got a child with strict throat and he's a very needy child I'm so sick his
41:13
development blew very early for a uh for 11 year old but he's never been as sick
41:18
as he has before and he needs all this love and attention and instead of preparing for this Workshop which is
41:23
what I wanted to be doing I was having to take him to the doctor I know in the middle of the day and get a medicine and
41:30
sit down with them and give them cuddles and so I was spending my energy and time on him
41:35
instead of preparing for this Workshop I have a half done handout that didn't
41:41
make it onto that list that I sent out to you right half done handout so if I was truly successful at work I would
41:48
have just said here's TV watch it I hope you don't get sick and die of some kind of infection but I've got a handout to
41:54
do so to be really good I would have had that handout finished for you but instead I was spending my time and
41:59
energy on my son and did I do it intentionally no I was fighting the fire that was closest to me
42:05
and spending my energy willy-nilly as I did what I want you to do is actually to
42:11
think about what you want to do with your time and your energy and your focus
42:18
this is a quote I've found and admittedly I stand up here as a
42:23
representative of the organization but essentially it says work is a rubber ball and if you drop it it will bounce
42:30
back the other four walls Family Health friends and integrity are
42:36
made of glass if you drop one of these it will be irrevocably scuffed next and
42:43
perhaps even shattered and we know this we know this in defense that people lose relationships through
42:49
deployments being away unaccounty postings or just simply working too hard and not giving enough time to their
42:56
family we know that we Outsource some child rearing stuff or we know that we are
43:03
being average in mediocre in our jobs which is the reverse of that right but we're giving all our time and attention
43:09
to our Ironman competition at the expense of being in the workplace
43:14
neither is right or wrong but the message is you can't have it all you cannot have it all that's the take-home
43:23
message and what price are you willing to pay
43:29
because if you put all your energy into raising your family or your you know or
43:35
looking after your family the price you pay is getting in your career or potentially at times doing a good job or
43:42
being if your team when they need you being the leader they need of you that's the price you pay
43:47
or if you are giving your team everything they need the price you pay is that your kids are
43:53
on devices all the time and Mr best and Minecraft are raising your two children
43:58
it sounds very consistent because it is might be the case that Minecraft is raising my children
44:04
that's the price that I am unwittingly paying rightly or wrongly
44:11
so how do we decide what I will say to you is this do not
44:17
leave it up to the organization to decide for you the nzdf will decide that
44:24
Luke is the most important thing in your life your job is the most important thing in your life and that is where you
44:30
should put all your energy and it will take all you have to give until you have nothing it is not evil it is an entity
44:38
it does so because that is the way all organizations are designed they're designed to suck you as a resource so
44:46
take your time in a GM Focus that is the way they're designed you can't hate them for it it's what they're designed to do
44:53
so if you leave it up to them that's what will happen they'll take you with them so I'm asking you to make a conscious
45:01
choice about how you spend your time your energy and your focus and it may be
45:07
that you want to give everything to your work that may be what you want and I'll say
45:12
out there because I know this is a really unpopular thing to say a whole lot won't work I love it I love
45:18
my job I love my team I way more enjoy spending time with you and doing this Workshop then I will
45:25
going home and cooking dinner because I hate to cook and my children I love them
45:30
to Pieces but they're not that fun to hang out with oh it's fun too so I would
45:36
say that I love my kids and I'll give them everything I can to be a good parent I'm probably going to give this
45:43
organization number one then I'm going to get my kids is that that's hard to say right
45:49
but the thing is that's my value that's me and I make that choice of where I put my
45:55
time and energy you've got to decide for you and you can judge me that I might
46:01
love my job I don't love it more than I love my kids it's just that maybe it looks like that because I spent more
46:06
time at work more energy at work than I do with my kids but what I love is developing people
46:12
it's having great conversations of solving working problems that's what lights me up I forcing my children to
46:20
use a knife and fork at the dinner table does not write me up I'm just sorry that's what it is
46:25
but other things light other people are some people are just born to be mums
46:32
some people were born to climb that mountain they were born to run that race and Run
46:38
100 kilometers which I think is just crazy thank you some people were born to create Amazing
46:44
Stories everybody's got their value and the key is knowing what your values are
46:50
that means that if you are acting in alignment with your values you're less
46:56
likely to burn out or be overloaded by stress working months are way more at risk of
47:04
burnout than working debts and working women who aren't mums
47:09
and that can often be because they feel this values Clash on a daily basis where
47:15
they're not giving their time and attention to their children at the expense of work I was in a place near burnout and my
47:22
kids did not get the best of me but because I was doing what I loved I was protected from burnout last year I was
47:29
doing what I loved I was acting in alignment with my values the time I was putting into my work was helping people
47:35
and that was to a degree restorative for me so when you act in alignment with your values
47:41
it is protective so knowing if family is the most important thing to you then you need to
47:48
organize your life around giving them the energy and the time and focus that
47:53
deserves if that's your primary value likewise if work is your primary value or if climbing mountains or whatever it
48:00
is Adventure that excites you that lights you up if you know what your values are you more likely to make
48:06
better choices and that will protect you from stress and work overload
48:12
that can be uh quite hard to do so I have sent out a worksheet for you
48:18
all so you're all at home to do this and that's why I said you're not going to solve this in this one hour
48:23
but if you actually are sitting there going I don't know what's the most important thing to me can I just take the all values get our own right just
48:30
make it easy no you have to do this work and it's not easy and it takes time but
48:35
there is a values worksheet and I've printed off some here for those in the audience if you want to take some away
48:41
there's hundreds of values out there that could resonate with you hundreds and what you do is you do a value sort
48:48
and you identify kind of the four core values that you think really Drive who
48:53
you are and will make you feel like you have meaning and fulfillment in your life you have to do that work it can
48:59
take a bit of time and once you've done that there's more work right it's not just
49:05
that easy or do you being healthy and well it's not it's not easy the next thing you do is you need to decide what
49:12
their value is so saying I value work that's kind of meaningless I hear little leaves say oh I value
49:19
people what does it even mean in fact we hear it a lot
49:25
but it's the people this is the people and that spurns that silicon us to go oh
49:31
yeah right that's not what we see right right so if you say to your staff or your people
49:37
that your number one value is people but they don't see that in your actions they're going to call you on it
49:44
and I'd want to call you on it so when you say that this is your value the next
49:49
thing I want you to do is think about what does that actually mean what is important about this value to me so your
49:55
core value might be family family is the most important thing to me now Stanley
50:01
is a value of minus my kids aren't watching this so it's okay hopefully they don't watch it one
50:07
day and go well this is why I am not a rocket scientist I want to be because of you but anyway if your core value is
50:14
family what does that mean so you create some principles well if there's ever attention between work and family I put
50:22
my family first or it might mean that I
50:27
work less so I'm going to change my working hours so that I have more time with my family or I have quality time so
50:33
you can create some rules that show your value and action and then from there you
50:39
create some goals around what those values in action actually could be in
50:45
the next month or two months so for example I do value people right what does that mean to me well I want to be
50:52
involved in inspiring and motivating others right so that's what I love about people what I get let up the same people
50:58
achieve their potential so one of my guiding principles might be to invest
51:04
time in my team to identify and help them Reach their potential and then a goal I might have is to spend at least
51:11
half an hour to an hour with each of my team members every Fortnight to invest in them in terms of helping them achieve
51:18
what they want to achieve right so that's our goal in action and if I had
51:23
that written down then it's priming me to actually take those actions and if I
51:29
share that with my team will me saying that I value people becomes real to them and they see it in action
51:36
if it's the family side of things creating some goals around making sure I attend every soccer game I'm making sure
51:43
I attend every yeah or spending at least an hour with my kid
51:49
every day doing blah blah blah blah blah that might be a goal that I have
51:54
and what we know about goals is if you write them down they'll bar more likely
51:59
to come about than if you just go I might just need to be a better parent for me one of my goals around parenting
52:06
was to yell lists which sounds really bad but I spend all my energy at work
52:12
and I get home I have a very short fuse and I totally yell at my children like
52:17
I'm like see a suck on the clock like it's not an immediate like graduated ah
52:27
immediately straight to yell but I've created a goal around that and my daughter has helped me out by
52:33
creating a younger and she had to decorate the yoga and
52:39
we're at the supermarket looking for things to decorate the jar like some little glue sticks and stuff like that and she said very loudly to the 10
52:46
people that were also shopping oh this young jar man I'm gonna make so much money off of you with all your yelling
52:54
oh I'm so excited about this what can I spend all this money on when you yell so much
53:01
you can see why they're not my Top Value I've created an example here for you
53:07
this is one of my actual core values which is balance and simplicity and that is I like things to be simple and my
53:15
life I don't have hobbies I get a lot of criticism from my mum around now you should have not Hobbies but I actually
53:21
just want work because I love it I put all my energy into it I know that I don't have much energy for anything else
53:28
I'm not going to be ambitious my ambition is to find the next best Netflix show and sit on the couch at the
53:34
end of the day with my feet up like absolutely geeking out on the latest sci-fi thing and I will be happy in my
53:40
life if that's what I do so turn down the noise like don't put expectations on myself notice what is
53:47
burning hot and what is neglected so if I'm gonna keep things simple I do have to notice when I'm over earning my work
53:53
burner I've set that as a principal and prioritize wrist and family so basically
53:59
my life consists of work family and rest that's it that's all I
54:05
have in my life and I don't care what you think about it because that is my value and it makes me happy and I'm good
54:11
and I'm well uh and then I've created some goals around there to make this value real now I did this work
54:18
as part of doing a workshop last year and I tell you what a year on not only am I back from the brink of burnout but
54:26
I feel good and I'm careless about the it just doesn't wear me up it
54:32
doesn't wear me up as much because I realize what is actually important and it's not what senior letter A says or
54:39
what so-and-so does it's actually what's important to me and that's protective
54:45
but I think we should take a little league stretch and wrist there and then after
54:52
the break so we'll just have two minutes we are going to get into leading so this
54:58
next session will be about if you're a people manager or you've got some people in your life you want to help out what
55:03
you need to know as a leader to prevent the burnout or work overload of your team and that will be our last 20
55:10
minutes and then we'll have a question in the last time so just two minutes Big Stretch
55:15
thank you
55:25
thank you
57:45
might just be the stress response um last year I got a few comments around
57:51
you know you're telling that executive blade is this and I wasn't but I can and safely say this year they
57:58
all know this information now right so what I'm about to bring you now I have grieved to xco and the Executive Health
58:05
and Safety Committee uh and I've also briefed the DLC leadership team and I
58:12
will probably be doing a few other leadership teams as they start to Grapple with their responsibilities as Leaders related to burnout so this slide
58:21
here which you're welcome to take away and use as much as you like is just a just a little kind of snapshot of the
58:28
current context that our people are living in when I say our people I mean you
58:34
I mean everyone in this room as well as all the people that are here and the people that work for you so the first
58:41
one which I'm I've been saying for a few years I'm really pleased that current CBO is actually reinforcing is when it's
58:49
not 1950 anymore people it is not 1950 anymore and that means that the family
58:56
structure has fundamentally changed from when this Defense Force was conceived
59:02
and developed it's currently operating off a World War II model where the man
59:08
went to war and the woman stayed at home and looked after the kids but their family structure hasn't changed you'd be
59:14
hard-pressed to find to a couple that has kids where only one
59:19
of them is working it'd be hard-pressed upon that now so it's now a model where both people are working and even though
59:27
we're not quite there yet we do know that men are doing way more of the household duties than they ever did
59:34
before but still stick it up guys
59:39
but that means that you know my husband and I both have responsibilities and I
59:45
am a terrible cook so it isn't his best interest if he comes home and Cooks the
59:51
dinner not just me so at the end of the day there is that expectation that men will stay till 4 30 or 5 or however long
59:58
they need to to get the job done and there is a complete lack of recognition for some of our senior leaders that
1:00:05
those men can't stay any longer they have to pick up kids they have to go and cook dinner they've got stuff to do now
1:00:12
I when a woman lefts she was judged for it I gotta go pick up kids it was held
1:00:19
against her we know that from the research but also now it's men as well
1:00:24
men are stepping up and doing a much better job of parenting but that does impact their work life that does mean
1:00:32
they cannot stay for that late meeting they have to go and I can speak from experience I have a
1:00:39
aging mother with a disability and it's hard work and I'm entering that phase of
1:00:44
my life where I have to worry about that now and what we know is with our aging population a lot of our parents need a
1:00:51
lot more care they're living longer and we've got more responsibilities and it's hard to get people in good homes these
1:00:57
days so a lot of people are looking after their elderly parents that's the thing right and the household is is way
1:01:04
more split families mixed families it's just not nuclear family anymore people
1:01:10
we've just got to let it go and that 100 influences how much time people can
1:01:16
spend it with as much as I love my job and I do I still have to go out to have
1:01:21
the kids and take them to their things and do their things with them right so that's happening plus we've got the tech
1:01:27
Revolution and we know that there's impact on our lives with having those phones that are little computers in our
1:01:34
hands right we know that that's impacting us so that's just one thing changing family structure changing
1:01:41
Society Tech Revolution we are in a new era people I think we've just had a freaking
1:01:46
pandemic we just had a pandemic where a whole lot of people overseas died we were locked down for a long period of
1:01:52
time we're still recovering from that some people are physically recovering from that because they have long covert
1:01:59
and that's impacting their ability to actually put energy into work they're fatigued they've got what looks like
1:02:06
glandular fever and it's ongoing right being aired into the real doomagome this
1:02:12
does sound a bit doom and gloomfield at the end um the financial crisis that we're going through right now let's not ignore the
1:02:18
cost of living is super high and in our own health and well-being survey and that was back in 2019 and things are a
1:02:25
lot worse than now than they were then is that Financial issues were a real worry for people especially our children
1:02:31
people so the things that people have in their life they're not just worried about doing a good job and the hours
1:02:37
they have to work and getting home to their kids a lot of people are worried about Rising interest rates for mortgages paying their mortgage the food
1:02:44
bill power bill all the things right so that is the context
1:02:49
from the resilience of mental health perspective generally in New Zealand we know mental health issues are on the
1:02:55
rise globally and in this country and we're just a little microcosm of that so
1:03:01
it's likely there'll be rising mental health issues and events because we are people and they're arising mental health
1:03:07
issues in this country and then we've got the nzd workplace
1:03:13
we've just had a great sort of Rim package delivered that came because our
1:03:18
attrition was huge huge highest it's been in many many years and
1:03:25
what we haven't talked about enough is with the high attrition we have not had a sort of can measure it reduce and
1:03:33
reduction in outputs so we've got gaps all over this organization and we have more people double heading and triple
1:03:39
triple heading it's not actually widely believed by a lot of people that we have
1:03:44
an issue with burnout some people don't think it's a thing and they'll say hey I was in defense
1:03:50
house at four o'clock and no one was around so clearly there's not a workload issue they're forgetting all the things
1:03:57
they're looking at one snapshot of a person or a group's day and forgetting
1:04:03
all the things because we know we've had attrition at 17 we all know people that
1:04:08
have got 717s and right now we all know gaps in the organization I have five
1:04:13
people in my team of 28 that are on Parental live right now not to mention the three I've lost for attrition so I
1:04:20
know that this is an issue that we have workload issues it is real
1:04:26
it's not everywhere not everyone has overworked but a lot of people are so
1:04:31
that's the context that we're working on I was as I think I mentioned earlier presenting Tech corporal's promotion
1:04:37
course we're doing a couple of weeks ago and I asked them to go around the room and I said hey can you just tell me your
1:04:43
name where you're from and what your kind of key workplace that she was right now might be something to do with you your unit or The Wider your voice what's
1:04:49
kind of really keeping you up at night and I would say 85 of that room and
1:04:55
there was about 25 Court pools there said Staffing capacity or people being promoted too
1:05:03
early due to Staffing and capacity issues that's what they're all saying so it's real but we don't have the physical
1:05:10
data on how stressed or busy uh people are or whether how many people are
1:05:15
burning out we just don't have that package we haven't run a survey of mental health survey and our pulse that
1:05:21
we run nearly isn't really specific enough but I think that 17 attrition rate we've just come out of it's
1:05:27
probably website to say there's people doing a lot of work out there this is the context that we're working
1:05:32
in that you as Leaders need to be aware of it's not just the workplace it is all the things going on in
1:05:41
someone's life I might not be busy at work but I might be walking home to an
1:05:46
absolute train wreck every day I might have a mother with a disability or a child with a disability so I don't get
1:05:53
that Respite Home is not rest in recovery for me so you said hey Carol
1:05:58
take a long weekend I'm like please can I come back to work put your hand up if you're glad the school holidays ended
1:06:04
yeah yeah that's right okay so home life might not be a respect for
1:06:11
people it might actually be against and you have to see people in terms of
1:06:16
the system they're in they are not just a worker they have all the stuff going
1:06:21
on but and that's not working on that's okay could be manually
1:06:28
so I said earlier we need to view burnout in terms of a system so burnout
1:06:33
and workload let's take a systems issue if one person is burning out it could be because of the system in
1:06:42
which they are the workplace in which they work in they could have too much work going on that is not necessarily
1:06:49
just because they've got poor time management or they're a stress monkey which is what often happens the person is blamed let's view the person is the
1:06:57
canary and the coal mine of somebody's experiencing burnout let's
1:07:02
view that as a canary going down in a coal mine and when a canary goes down in
1:07:08
a coal mine you don't just resuscitate the canary give it a gas mask and send it back in that's not how we deal with
1:07:14
things what we need to do is actually fix the coal mine in which we're in and
1:07:20
that's what I want to encourage leaders to do and it might be a bit harsh to say hey think about your workplace there's a
1:07:26
call mine but if people like going down with burnout will stress issues it may
1:07:31
just be that your workplace has some problems you need to sort out now here's a model that I just want to
1:07:37
share with you in terms of thinking about how you could view your workplace and take some actions to fix it
1:07:44
I'm going to share this with you but I will start by saying New Zealand health and safety legislation is going the way
1:07:50
of Australia and we are legally and ethically responsible for the workplace
1:07:56
stresses that our people experience and there has been successful court cases in
1:08:02
Australia where organizations have been held to account for what they call psychosocial hazards and that includes
1:08:09
work overload so if somebody's burning out there is a legal requirement for us as
1:08:17
an organization to prevent that say that okay these are your little
1:08:22
later so what do you do about it well this is a very well validated model that
1:08:27
was originally developed in one of the classic areas where you would experience workplace burnouts the health sector and
1:08:34
one of the things I like to do when I start feeling a bit cynical and down about defense as I talk to any one of my
1:08:40
family members that works in the health system and then I'm like it's not so bad because it's not it really isn't the
1:08:47
health sector is way worse than us you're a nurse or a doctor or a midwife
1:08:53
of which I have family members it's really hard out there and they definitely overload and they certainly
1:08:59
don't provide as much support or resources we do for our people so it really could be worse people but this
1:09:05
model has come out of that and it has been validated so essentially it's called demand control support now what
1:09:12
we know when we look at an individual in their role we need to determine do the
1:09:18
demands of their job and I put in Brackets or family exceed our ability to
1:09:24
cope now take it back in time to that slide I showed you which was all pretty helpful
1:09:29
when we see the lion we make that initial appraisal of is this a threat to
1:09:34
me and then the second appraisal of Can I code so in everyday life people will work
1:09:40
into their work not open their email they'll see 100 new emails the immediate thing that will go through their head is
1:09:46
can I cope with this immediate and stone and if the reaction is I don't think I
1:09:52
can that can move the stress so we need to look at does the workload of the role
1:09:58
exceed a reasonable person's ability to cope some of our jobs have not been designed
1:10:06
well shock and they are bigger than one person can do I don't even think of the things we
1:10:12
have a really good idea about what one mte is actually capable of so we just give this big long PD and a whole bunch
1:10:18
of tasks and hope that the person will cope and I will say psychology is the worst offender here I look at our role
1:10:25
and what we require our psychologists to do and it's too much and we are actually now sitting down after 20 years of being
1:10:33
in and going enough is enough let's actually look at what we can achieve with the people we've got and decide
1:10:40
what is reasonable for a person to do in their job whose responsibility is that it's not CDs it's yours CDF cannot do
1:10:49
all the job roles of this organization it's got to go to the individual manager to look at their person's workload and
1:10:56
go as this reasonable to accomplish and if you are a really good manager you'll know your person you'll know
1:11:03
what's going on in their life outside of work also do a bit of a holistic assessment and go gosh this is a really busy job
1:11:11
but they've also got all this other stuff going on outside maybe I should look at how we can
1:11:17
lighten up the load if they're going through a tough time right now that would be like extra step that would be
1:11:22
Tara gives you five stars if you do that but you've got to make that assessment and that may involve some restructuring
1:11:30
or some redesign of a job role or turning off of outputs
1:11:35
did I say it I didn't say that turning up outputs to reduce workload you might have one person doing a
1:11:42
reasonable amount of job but then your unit of 30 people you are carrying 10 vacancies and haven't accounted for that
1:11:48
and that workload has smushed and spread out over those other people so be real about that and turn stuff off
1:11:55
the second element that we know contributes to well-being or burnout is control so when people have more control
1:12:02
over their job and how they spend their time call it autonomy call it agency if
1:12:08
you like they are going to be protected from burnout if they have less control or it feels out of their control they
1:12:15
are more likely to burn out now we are in a hierarchical organization we do like to tell people what to do yes sir
1:12:20
no sir yes ma'am no ma'am we need to get better at giving people autonomy and
1:12:26
agency in their roles and they will Thrive they will be way better for it so just think about that
1:12:32
in terms of your people what can you give them control over if they can organize their day they might be a
1:12:38
little bit more protected and the final one is support do they have the right training to do
1:12:44
their role and pushing people up early that can be a bit of a problem because they can be pushed out of their ability
1:12:51
zone so they need the training to do that do they have the right resources
1:12:56
the right tick the right support systems the business support systems most of the leaders I've
1:13:02
talked to that have really struggled have had a lot of administration that could have been unloaded by an
1:13:08
administrator supporting them and I would have been protected from her now so do they have the right support and
1:13:14
are you as their boss supporting them through this because you are a support person do not
1:13:21
say oh this person's burning out I'll give Carol a call and send them off to the site they're just delegating your
1:13:27
support responsibilities to a psychologist as a leader you have the capability to figure out what's going on
1:13:33
in someone's life you can ask them what's going on alive you do not need a psych degree to ask a person that and
1:13:39
then you can figure out how to support them better you do not need to Outsource that you can do that as a leader
1:13:46
this is a model that I've taken from New Zealand government health and safety and
1:13:51
essentially what they're saying because they're going to start holding us to account around managing psychological and social risks in the workplace or
1:13:59
hazards is there are three ways to tackle this when we talk about preventing work stress or psychological
1:14:06
stress in the workplace we've got prevention we've got promoting
1:14:11
of well-being and we've got support it so in these
1:14:16
three areas when we are looking at prevention initiatives this is when we go this person is burning out instead of
1:14:23
sending them along to an amazingly entertaining burnout workshop with Cairo we might just actually reduce their
1:14:30
workload because that is going to prevent the stress as opposed to giving
1:14:35
them the tools to cope with the stress right so prevention is the best gold standard way to do it so this includes
1:14:42
job redesign this includes resourcing and support what I just talked about in that slide it is stopping burnout before
1:14:50
it happens now like I said earlier this is not stopping all WordPress stress this is not taking all the cool jobs and
1:14:56
the challenges of people it's actually just making sure that the demands don't exceed their ability to cope so making
1:15:03
sure workload is reasonable the second way we can deal with it is what we are doing right now which is promoting
1:15:09
well-being and building resilience that's not going to come out of a one-hour session that takes time to skill build in this
1:15:16
area I am a psychologist and I almost let myself fully burn out last year and it's taken me a year to get into a much
1:15:24
better place and I'm still away from progress and I probably will smash myself again in the future because
1:15:29
that's just what I love to do but as long as I've got the tools and resources to sense when it's coming put some stuff
1:15:35
in place to stop myself from fully burning out and provide some recovery then that's going to be the ticket and
1:15:42
the third area is actually something we do really well in defense we've got some fantastic support systems in place as
1:15:49
the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff so if people do burn out or experience psychosocial kind of depletion we've got
1:15:56
access to psychologists and chaplains and social workers and all the things oh 800 Anonymous lines EOP it's all their
1:16:05
waiting for your use so we actually do that really well compared to a lot of other organizations during the Cyclone
1:16:12
recovery I had lots of agency is calling me out going hey what do you do to support workers after an event like this
1:16:18
and I was like we do a lot and you're not going to be able to do that sunshine I'm sorry because we've got 25
1:16:24
psychologists and you know 25 chaplains and 15 social workers and we've got a
1:16:30
system and a process and policy and we're already rolling it out so I can send you some handouts but that's about
1:16:35
all right so we've actually got a fantastic support system uh but it's really actually pretty
1:16:42
simple so I just wanted to simplify all the diagrams and stuff reduce workload as a leader this is all you have to do
1:16:49
reduce workload press people's control over their lives and what they do and increase the support that you give them
1:16:56
it's really simple but I know you walk away from that going oh is it really so I brainstormed some
1:17:03
specific things for you to do and you can look at the slides after just to get some primers but if you're a
1:17:09
leader and you're in a directorate or a unit or a squadron or an area that has
1:17:15
gaps and people are double and triple petting here are some real things that you can do and I would just draw your
1:17:21
attention to planning because this is the prevention Circle if you can plan
1:17:26
into your work calendar and I know defense loves its planning plan and
1:17:32
respite and Recovery periods people can search and they can sustain height
1:17:37
clothes over short periods of time like a week two weeks a month even six months like a deployment but at the end of the
1:17:43
deployment we give a decompression to everyone who deploys and then usually some leave and Recovery periods
1:17:50
but we don't tend to plan that into our normal walking working gear domestically
1:17:56
in New Zealand so start thinking about planning respite and recovery after your busy periods which you probably can
1:18:03
anticipate and you're working here and PT physical training and to your daily work
1:18:10
for your team for everyone if you want to prevent burnout giving them time to do pt every day
1:18:17
it's going to be a great way to do that Army already does this like do it well it was we're terrible if we see someone going
1:18:24
for PT not at lunchtime we're like oh they're obviously not very busy are they we do have a culture of saying PT has to
1:18:32
have an outside of work but if you want your people to be well you will give them and support them to do physical
1:18:38
training during the day because I can tell you what if I don't do it during my work day I stress you can't doing it at
1:18:43
home I walk in the door I've got two children and they're not old enough to leave alone although maybe I've done it once or twice
1:18:51
that's cool I'll get a parenting session after this don't work so these are some things that you can do some pressing
1:18:59
timelines if you can't reduce workload push your timelines out that sort of things uh I will say this this is the remote
1:19:06
area yeah click to CPO who's fronted up for this Workshop I asked the recipe to turn up
1:19:16
um actually role modeling attending stuff like this is fantastic for your staff because where you're tuning up it
1:19:22
says this is important this is important I'm going to make time for it and I want you to make time for it so role modeling
1:19:28
attending these kinds of things is really great I have done this for you today but
1:19:33
honestly I'm smashing this into an all very really busy workload we don't have
1:19:39
enough psychologists to provide resilience workshops for every unit in this organization but you can Outsource this there are
1:19:46
tons of awesome consultants and agencies out there that can provide you maybe not quite as entertaining or real a workshop
1:19:53
as this but still has the right content right the same content so pay for
1:19:58
workshops for your staff to give them the skills and training they need because if they're if you're just waiting for promotion courses they get
1:20:06
so much content on those courses it's really hard to embed it but just fund it take your team for away days do some
1:20:12
recovery and resilience building with your team fund it lead it you will be better for
1:20:19
it and the last one here is the nzdf for you Health Website the Health Website
1:20:26
created by the integrated wellbeing team who are here today it's phenomenal that's world class it's got some amazing
1:20:32
resources on it anyone can access that go there ncdf Health Centers is where
1:20:37
you can get your medical support chaplains social workers but at the end of the day
1:20:42
your friends and family are the people that are really going to support you so I'd say lean and reach out to them but
1:20:48
as a leader role modeler part of the reason that I share my bad parenting stories to you
1:20:54
today so that you don't sit there and go oh she's so perfect you're probably going to walk out there and go I don't
1:21:00
really feel so approach because the reality is we can't be all things I want you to know that that I am
1:21:06
less than perfect parents a great examples this week my daughter had a um
1:21:12
field trip on the first day back from the school conference which she missed
1:21:17
because we didn't get it at school all the time because we forgot we forgot there was a field trip on and I found out at the end of the day with a witch
1:21:23
pick her up she's like Mom I was supposed to be in school at eight o'clock at my classroom and I had to
1:21:28
spend the day with another class felt like the worst mum in the world I
1:21:33
had the notification I was like school I didn't read that that's you know that's real life I am
1:21:40
not perfect I am not a perfect mum and I'm gonna forgive myself for that as I hope you all forgive me and my daughter
1:21:46
will one day too many many therapy sessions which I will be able to fund because I'm really good at my job
1:21:55
yeah role modeling your vulnerabilities the leader is a great way to make your people feel like they don't have to be
1:22:01
perfect and it's okay that they have different values from you but I think at take home I would say
1:22:08
is sometimes my values and my work ethic might send the wrong message to my team
1:22:13
so if I want to work on weekends and if I want to do a long day so if I want to
1:22:19
throw everything into my job that's because that's what I love and it lights me up but that's not everybody's value
1:22:25
set and if my message to my team is I expect you to be like that too that's a bad message so cranking my work burner
1:22:33
up is impacting all the work burners of my team it's mate expectations are
1:22:39
higher and they think that I'm role modeling what I want to see so I have to be really careful in saying to people
1:22:45
this is my values this is what I do but I want you to do pt I want you to do you I want you to be well and happy and have
1:22:52
what you need in your life and prioritize your work life have flexible working hours do what you need to do
1:22:58
because that is really important for you so if you've got a high work burner
1:23:03
which a lot of the simulators in this organization have you need to recognize
1:23:08
that that is not the right way to live and they don't look as happy
1:23:14
and so you've got to do what's important to you here's some takeaways I've put these in
1:23:21
these two slides for you please remember the Scotty principle went under promise
1:23:26
and if you under deliver your meeting expectations right but but really what I
1:23:31
want you to do is go away and think about am I intentionally making decisions
1:23:37
have an energy at work or is that just me rolling along and doing it without
1:23:43
thinking and if I was to decide where I was going to put my time and energy what is it that is important to me do a bit
1:23:51
of work around that and then put your energy where it matters to you so that you can craft the life that you want but
1:23:58
know that that life won't be a perfect life that if it is family that you prize you will have a great family life and
1:24:05
your work might be mediocre that is okay screw Facebook and Instagram it's okay
1:24:12
to be average at stuff it's okay not to run marathons and triathlons right that doesn't make you
1:24:18
awesome but it does make some people awesome so it makes them happy thank you so be
1:24:25
intentional about what you want to do with your time do the values exercise if you need to but maybe this is just a
1:24:30
refresher for those of you who do know their values to go and have a stock tank are you living and alignment with those
1:24:37
values and for leaders you also need to use the Scottish principle and start saying that you
1:24:44
can't get the ship going to the guy or girl above you and under promise what
1:24:49
you can deliver extend the timelines that you're telling people reduce the workload evaluate the job demands that
1:24:56
are on your people and reset them and that is your responsibility as a leader ethically and legally
1:25:03
cool okay we have a few minutes for questions
1:25:11
I should have said at the start I don't expect you to have any questions to lower my own expectations
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Work Life Design Workshop Operationalise Values Exercisepdf - 248 KBWork Life Design Workshop Operationalise Values Exercise