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The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It
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Sales rank 254,661
Customers rating (based on 10 reviews)
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Today's workforce is experiencing job burnout in epidemic proportions. Workers at all levels, both white- and blue-collar, feel stressed out, insecure, misunderstood, undervalued, and alienated at their workplace. This original and important book debunks the common myth that when workers suffer job burnout they are solely responsible for their fatigue, anger, and don't give a damn attitude. The book clearly shows where the accountability often belongs. . . .squarely on the shoulders of the organization.
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| Publisher | Jossey-Bass | | Release date | 10/1997 | | Availability | Usually ships in 24 hours | | Edition | Hardcover |
| | List price | $25 | | Our price | $16.5 (you save 34.00%) | | Used price | from $3.74 |
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 The Truth About Burnout
I bought it as a gift for my sister. She's graduating psychology on the subject of burnout. She said the book was very useful.
 A useful framework to address burnout.
"The Truth about Burnout" was written a decade ago, but its analysis and recommendations may be more valid today than they were when the book was published. The first couple of chapters are a bit tedious, but the book takes off once the authors start digging into causes of burnout and laying out ways to overcome burnout.
The authors describe the causes of burnout in terms of six mismatches between people and their jobs: "work overload, lack of control, insufficient reward, breakdown in community, absence of fairness, and conflicting values." These six mismatches provide a framework for developing interventions to address burnout and build employee engagement.
For me, the most encouraging feature of the book is the authors' suggestion that the intervention can be bottom up as well as top down. The authors provide roadmaps for both kinds of intervention.
One of the Best Books on a Pervasive Problem
Christina Maslach is well-known in psychology as the person who has championed the problem of burnout over more than two decades. For quite a time she was something of a lone voice.
Burnout is a prolonged response to chronic physical, emotional and interpersonal stressors at work, leading to exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy. In a memorable term the authors describe it as erosion of the soul.
Burnout has to be seen in the larger organizational context of people's relationship with their work: it's usually the job and the organization rather than the individual, although there are clearly differences in individuals' resilience to burnout.
There are many symptoms of burnout, including trouble sleeping, constantly worrying, feeling unappreciated or "used" at work and feeling less effective or competent. Many people find that they easily becoming angry or irritated and altogether too many start drinking or abusing other substances.
Burnout is immensly costly, not just for individuals, but also for organizations. I agree with another reviewer who lamented the paucity of data on just how costly burnout is to a company's bottom line. But judging by the number of corporations now asking epxerts to go in and help them deal with the burnout problem, I think that the message is getting through.
This is an excellent overview of the problem nearly ten years ago. If anything, the situation is becoming worse, and Maslach, and now an expanding band of other psychologists has continued to do empirical research on the problem, and have been coming up with ever more sophisticated solutions.
But even with the passage of time, this book remains highly recommended.
VERY VALIDATING
tretise on what most of us already know about bureauracracies. I've not finished reading the "what to do about it." yet, but already know my first questions when contemplating a new job will be "How many people were fired or quit in the past 6-9 months?"
A Good Read!
Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter's groundbreaking book debunks myths about burnout and holds organizations accountable for this epidemic, which has swept the work world. The authors detail how organizations can treat and prevent burnout, and take a critical look at its deep-rooted causes, including lack of engagement and conflict between employees' values and their jobs. Conversationally and with great impact, the authors support their points and suggestions. We recommend this book to executives, managers and employees. Now go home and get some rest.
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