The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It [Hardcover]

Christina Maslach (Author), Michael P. Leiter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 19, 1997

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This collaboration by Maslach (Career Burnout, Free Pr., 1989), creator of the eponymous Maslach Burnout Inventory, and Leiter, a psychologist and educator, has a telling subtitle. To wit: the organization shoulders the responsibility for the individual's inability to subsist and thrive in the workplace. Although readers might challenge this premise, the authors do a credible job of examining the dichotomy between the individual and the organizational value system. They cite six reasons for burnout?work overload, powerlessness, insufficient reward, system unfairness, breakdown of community, and value systems in conflict?and recommend a process-oriented engagement to advance both the individual and the organization. Similar approaches can be found in W. Edwards Demings's well-known "Fourteen Points" and Stephen R. Covey's books (e.g., First Things First, LJ 4/1/94). Recommended for business collections.?Steven Silkunas, DCO SEPTA/FRONTIER, Conshohocken, Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"As the original researcher who first identified and described burnout, Dr. Maslach now digs to the roots of alienation and loss of community in many large organizations." (T. George Harris, editor, Spirituality & Health)

"Full of important lessons for those who experience burnout and those who are in positions to prevent it from occurring...it's a road map to the design of workplaces that will restore the vitality and the promise of fulfilling work." (Wayne Cascio, professor of management, College of Business and Administration, University of Colorado at Denver)

"The proposed solutions reach well beyond simple-minded, individual stress management to the core challenge of redesigning the work environment." (David S. Sobel, director of patient education and health promotion, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program)

"A welcome corrective to much of the writing I see on burnout. The authors show convincingly that the causes and solutions?are to be found primarily in the organization, not the individual." (Cary Cherniss, professor of applied psychology, Rutgers University)

"RecommAnded for business collections." (Steven Silkunas, DCO SEPTA/FRONTIER, Library Journal)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (October 19, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787908746
• ISBN-13: 978-0787908744
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #327,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The absolutely best book on burnout and its cure, June 12, 1998

By 

P. Lozar "plozar" (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It (Hardcover)

Most books on burnout are based on the premise that burnout happens because of some "flaw" in the individual, so the solution is for the individual to change him/herself. This viewpoint masks the extent to which burnout has become endemic in American corporations, as well as in its more traditional venues, the "helping" professions.
For 20 years, Maslach has been a voice in the wilderness, pointing out that the problem arises from the work environment and not the individual. Far from being "flawed," the people who burn out are those that a company can least afford to lose: the ones who take their jobs seriously. But the ugly little secret of American corporations is that burnout is cost-effective: employees who put up with impossible workloads, lack of control, a hostile and competitive work environment, no recognition, and no raises can keep a "downsized" company going; and if the employee burns out and quits, well, all the better for the bottom line ... Maslach and Leiter prove convincingly that the costs of burnout are non-trivial to the corporation as well: reduced productivity, loss of expertise, increased hiring and training requirements, employees who do the minimum rather than approaching their jobs with enthusiasm. And they point out that the cure for the problem lies in a concerted effort by employees and management to improve the work environment.
The most useful part of the book, to my mind, are the sections that describe how workers and managers can burnout-proof the work situation. Some of the earlier chapters, on how burnout happens and what it consists of, became a little repetitious, but perhaps that's because I've seen enough burnout (in myself and in others) that much of this was "old hat" to me! From my own experience, I agree wholeheartedly with the authors' conclusions about the causes for burnout, and I hope that more managers read this book and take its recommendations seriously.

51 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Organizational Perspective, August 2, 1998

By 

Laurence J. Stybel "Boardoptions.com" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It (Hardcover)

THE TRUTH ABOUT BURNOUT is that it is not an imperfection of the individual employee. Burn-out is a symptom of an organization in trouble.

Christina Maslach is Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and the creator of The Maslach Burnout Inventory. Michael P. Leiter is Dean of the Faculty at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada.

The traditional perspective about burnout is that it is an individual problem. The natural solutions to this perspective focuses on providing courses on stress management, bringing in Employee Assistance Programs, and doing a better job of selecting in people who can handle stress.

The authors argue that these interventions are positive but incomplete.

If employee burnout really is a symptom of an organization in trouble, then the interventions need to be organizational in context. They begin by analyzing job-person fit from the following dimensions: workload, control, rewards, community, fairness, a! nd values. There is a case description of a 750 bed hospital which illustrates these concepts in practice.

As it stands, the book makes its case well and provides concrete suggestions. The Maslach Burnout Inventory would appear to be an excellent tool for use in organization development interventions. The authors clearly have a solid grasp of their subject.

The limitations of this book are that I don't think the authors provide a convincing case for CEOs to take employee burnout seriously.

For CEOs to take employee burnout as seriously as Maslach and Leiter would like, we think there needs to be some recognition at the Board of Directors level that this is an important issue.

In our work with Boards of Directors, we seldom see that recognition.

Future editions of THE TRUTH ABOUT BURNOUT would benefit from more discussion about how burnout effects share holder value. Only five pages out of 178 focus on how burnout impacts the financial performance of a company.

To ! get CEOs to take burnout seriously, the Compensation Commit! tee of Boards would have to add that a percentage of each CEO's bonus pay be determined by positive or negative deviation from some desired employee turn-over statistic or some desired customer satisfaction statistic.

As it currently stands in North America, few companies even bother to collect employee turnover and customer satisfaction statistics. Few companies bother to collect the true costs of recruiting/training new employees.

If it is not important enough for the Board of Directors to measure, then why should the CEO assume that it counts?

That's a problem we would love to see Maslach and Leiter address.

Fortunately for them, a model exists. When a Board is serious enough to count diversity as a component of a CEO's variable compensation, suddenly companies seem to take diversity seriously!

And if the Board does not count it important enough to be part of the variable compensation system, then the company is apt to engage in more talk and training than! action.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best resource!, April 5, 2002

By 

Jose E. Nanin "drjnanin" (NYC, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It (Hardcover)

I currently teach a graduate-level course on Burnout in the Helping Professions. This book serves as the "bible" on burnout and prevention strategies from both organizational and personal perspectives. Use it fopr academic purposes as well as personal reasons. You'll be glad you did!