via Flickr courtesy of woodleywonderworks

Uncertainty has been the watchword the last few years. The business climate has been full of uncertainty. We’ve seen the economy fall from the heights of the early part of the decade into the depths of the last 12 – 18 months. The political climate has seen a sea change, and with that change comes a lot of uncertainty. For many people their households have experienced significant changes as the value of their savings have dropped, their home equity has evaporated, and they or their spouses or friends have lost jobs.

These changes and uncertainties have produced a lot of fear. Some are fearing radical political ideas, others are afraid of foreclosure or bankruptcy. While these fears may not be the ones that we are facing, the changes going on around us are creating some level of fear and anxiety for most, if not all, of your team members and their families.

People who are living in fear are working with only a small portion of their mental capacity. As one brain researcher said, “Fear prompts retreat. It is the antipode to progress. Just when we need new ideas most, everyone is seized up in fear, trying to prevent losing what we have left.”

But wait, it’s actually worse than that, even if people haven’t experienced loss themselves, the anticipation of loss can actually be worse than the experience of pain. From the same researcher,

“For many people, the wait was worse than the shock. Given a choice, almost everyone preferred to expedite the shock rather than wait for it. Nearly a third feared waiting so much that, when given the chance, they preferred getting a bigger shock right away to waiting for a smaller shock later. It sounds illogical, but fear — whether of pain or of losing a job — does strange things to decision-making.”

So what can we do? How can we deal with our own fear, and then engage our team to minimize the effect of the fears that they are experiencing?

If we are experiencing anxiety or fear we need to get our own heads right. In my life I’ve found that Thankfulness is the antidote for fear. Even in the worst of times when I had clients going out of business, and others deciding to hold onto their cash instead of working with us, I still had so many things to be grateful for. The clients who are healthy and growing, the network of professionals that support me, my health and family, are all positive forces that keep me moving forward and I need to be thankful for those things. It’s good for me to recognize that I don’t achieve success on my own; that I need and have a web of support that I can depend on.

Being thankful is a great antidote to my own fear, but it also provides a way forward for others too. If I can be thankful out loud, where my team can hear it, it can be contagious. Publicly thanking your team members when you do see them exerting that extra effort or even just reflecting the company values in their normal course of work can go a long way to defeating that fearful attitude that’s robbing you and your company of productivity.

What about the fears outside your workplace? You can always send your thank you notes to your employees at home, so that they can open it in front of their family and explain why their boss is sending them a hand-written thank you note to their home. This shares that same thankfulness with your team member’s whole family, and communicates that you are paying attention when they make sacrifices at home for the benefit of the company.

How are you being thankful now? How are you showing others your thankfulness?

You may have noticed that I didn’t post last week; it was kind of a rough week.  As we got to the end of the week I came to the realization that I’m feeling a little burnt out. Since the beginning of 2009 business has been rocky. My current clients have had ups and downs and brining in new ones has been a challenge. I’ve been pretty much heads down the last 18 months without much of a break and I’m not seeing the kind of results that I’m used to. It’s frustrating.

On top of that I fell into a bad habit. As the business hit it’s bumps I put my head down and worked harder. I have good people on my team, but instead of reaching out and asking for help, I hunkered down, communicated less and pushed harder. So as the challenges mounted I took a lot of that pressure on myself and that’s taken its toll.

By Friday I just didn’t want to be here, I didn’t want to make a call or write anything. I shuffled papers on my desk for a while before i realized that it was time to make some changes.

First, I checked my goals and surprisingly, I’m not doing that badly.  I got the book out, I’ve done 7 speaking gigs, I’ve tried some new pricing strategies, and started my recipe blog. I had taken retreats early in the year (but missed my last few) so I scheduled a retreat for the weekend to try to get some clear headspace.  Seeing all that had been accomplished felt good, there was more progress than I was recognizing.

But there were other areas where things are still not where I want them to be, so I took my retreat day and started making some plans. How are things going to be different. Not general plans (work harder!) but specific tasks and to-dos.  I loaded them up in to Omni Focus (which I had also neglected during this period) and it’s given me some renewed focus.

Lastly, I took some time to reconnect with my dreams. Why am I doing all of this anyway? Beyond the business, and the clients, what’s this all about? Looking at that big picture is helping me to find the joy in moving forward.

So I’ll be taking some long weekends this summer, and I’ve scheduled more fun into my weeks, but I’m also going to be more productive with the focused tasks in my to-do list.  I’m feeling a little better. I’m excited to get started with some new clients this month and spend more time with my team brainstorming and sharing the situation.

What do you do to avoid, or recover from burnout?