Some of these things are so simple that are easy to ignore, other are a little bit too abstract to act on them right away. It depends on each of us to act on the things we believe in, to make it our mission to fight for our ideas. Millions of books have been written about these subjects, yet most of the modern workers continue to ignore them. I’m going to add another drop to the ocean of recipes of presumed success, here it goes, take it with a bit of hope:

  1. Burnout guard - let’s inform everyone how to recognise possible burnouts, acknowledge it and take measures. Make it OK to be tired, find a way to set a tempo that is maintainable, don’t abandon your people on the way
  2. Let’s make it visual - define goals, visions, values for our products or services to have everyone aligned on what we want to accomplish with them. Next step: same for the company. But besides everything, communicate them and put them on every square inch of the offices, shout them out loud and proud, repeat them until you’re out of breath
  3. Feed it back - educate on how to give feedback, positive or negative, right on the spot, when the situation allows it. The difficulty is to recognise these moments when they happen and take action
  4. Work smart not late - working late doesn’t mean you do more. Most of the time you create the work that you’ll have to fix later by staying late.
  5. Knowledge is power - find a way to share all the knowledge accumulated by the people with all the other people in the company - do workshops, trainings, discussions, coffee chats, take time to share at every level
  6. Learn to let go - delegate, share responsibility and successes, but also let people fail.
  7. Meetings are poison - don’t organise a meeting unless it’s really necessary! Educate on how to structure meetings, announce the goal and agenda beforehand, but most of all, announce the length of the meeting and stick to it! Time is the most important resource a person has, don’t waste everyone else’s time just because you don’t have time. Take the extra minute to save hours!
  8. Treat things for what they are - a burnout is a burnout, as a white lie is still a lie. Don’t wrap it in something nicer, so you’re not forced to accept the facts. This is the only thing stopping you to take action, the earlier you acknowledge the truth and accept it, the earlier you are able to get over it.