0:20

Hello and welcome, everybody. This is Joe from StartupRate.io,

0:24

your startup podcast, YouTube blog, and internet radio station from Germany,

0:28

Austria, and Switzerland. Today, I would like to welcome Imre from Vienna here with me.

0:34

Before we begin, could you briefly introduce yourself and your background in

0:38

psychology, burnout prevention, and leadership coaching?

0:42

It will be my pleasure, Joe, and happy to see you again.

0:48

I have so many things I could tell, so I'll make it rather short and quick and simple.

0:55

I am a psychotherapist and teacher of psychotherapists, and before that I was an opera singer.

1:04

And I decided to become a psychotherapist because I was standing on stage one

1:12

night as Othello, And I had just arrived from a very,

1:18

very successful campaign beating the Osmanic Armada.

1:25

Yet I knew in two hours I will have killed my loving wife and will be about to kill myself.

1:33

And there's nothing I could change about it because Verdi and Boito had decided that way.

1:40

And I wanted to be

1:43

able to make a difference and to have some

1:46

influence and therefore I changed from portraying human catastrophes to preventing

1:54

them by psychotherapy or by coaching or by preventing burnout and other terrible

2:02

things that happen to people.

2:06

I will kill my lovely wife and then everything.

2:11

Kill myself.

2:12

Kill yourself, exactly. By the way, I'm a big fan of Puccini.

2:17

Did you ever play Puccini?

2:19

Well, I sang parts of Tosca, not the whole opera, unfortunately.

2:24

And I also was cast for Il Tabarro.

2:31

Very good, very good. Yes. Love Tosca, even though it's a little bit dramatic.

2:36

Talking about dramatic here, that is actually a pretty good shift here.

2:42

We are here today because I invited you as a guest.

2:46

We get something like almost 20 pitches some days,

2:50

and what caught my eye was avoiding and detecting burnout in your team,

2:58

and I thought that would be something I could invite you over,

3:00

talking about that would be of great use to our audience.

3:05

That's why we are talking today about understanding burnout in teams,

3:10

not only in you directly, but also if you're a founder in your leadership team.

3:15

Can you give us a few early indicators of burnouts?

3:20

What are warning signs and how can leaders differentiate between like temporary?

3:24

Yeah, it's been a busy time or chronic burnout risks.

3:30

Well, burnout, first of all, happens to those who seem to be most unlikely to

3:38

suffer burnout because they are the strongest people we have in our teams.

3:44

But they are also usually the people who do most of the work and put in the biggest effort.

3:51

And so they don't notice the limit when they come from enjoying their work and

4:01

doing good work to being driven by their work,

4:05

even to the point where work becomes the only topic in their life.

4:12

No private life anymore. No hobbies anymore.

4:16

Only work seven days a week.

4:20

And that's a first starting point when work becomes toxic in the sense that

4:27

this person is already starting on the road to burning out.

4:33

Now, we do have a little controversy or ambiguity in this field of burnout,

4:42

because the process of burning out, burnout.

4:49

And the result, the last stop, have both the same name.

4:55

And since we can arrive at this final state also on four different ways,

5:03

I prefer to call it voidness, emptiness.

5:08

You are void of every other interesting thing in your life than work.

5:15

So you can also arrive there by bore out.

5:18

You can also arrive there by dripping out and by draining out and by being burned off.

5:28

But we are talking today only about this part, where you arrive in voidness by burning out.

5:41

When we've been talking about this upfront, I was wondering to my audience if

5:46

they have ever noticed any increasing sick days error in really routine tasks

5:51

or defensiveness in their teams.

5:53

Let us know in the comments, what was your first sign that something was wrong in your team?

6:00

You already said that there are different ways of burnout that eventually arrive

6:06

at the point where you cannot work anymore. And where, of course, also you lose the joy in what you're doing,

6:14

which is pretty bad. Can you tell us a little bit what role leadership has in preventing a burnout?

6:23

Well, first of all, leadership has to be very attentive to the possibility of

6:31

burnout arriving in their group.

6:35

They, as a leader, you must notice that we have been working on our limits now for a longer time.

6:43

It's okay to go over your limits for a short period,

6:49

let's say one or two weeks, but when a group is working way,

6:54

way past its limits for several months, for example,

6:59

you don't have enough people on your workforce, you don't have enough qualification

7:05

for the jobs that need to be done, you don't have enough...

7:11

People who can't care for the other people.

7:15

Then you will start to see that there are people going into sick leave,

7:21

not because they are actually sick physically, but they just cannot bear it anymore.

7:29

And they are usually the best, not the worst.

7:32

Then you will notice a rise in the overtime, whether it is paid or not paid.

7:39

But you will see that you drive out of your garage at your work plant,

7:46

and there are some windows which are still lit because people are still working there,

7:53

somehow to fill their deadlines,

7:57

somehow to do their actual jobs, and still because they think that their job

8:03

is very, very important. And then they come to the next step where they think, if I don't put in the

8:12

extra effort, then the whole company is going down the drains.

8:18

And this is overestimating one's necessity, one's being needed by the company.

8:26

And once you're past that, you

8:29

are really into the funnel which sucks you into this burning out process where

8:40

you will finally land at being completely void of any possibilities,

8:48

of any power, any strength,

8:51

any interests, and just simply giving up.

8:56

And this may be deadly.

9:01

And now imagine you have, let's say, you have in a group a workforce of 10.

9:08

Now, one of them falls out because of burnout, which means that usually the

9:15

work of 10 has to be done by 9, which, of course, puts an extra strain on all of the 9.

9:23

Then the nine again, one of them gets a burnout, so all of a sudden the same

9:29

workload is distributed to eight people.

9:34

And I don't know how you can imagine to go down to finally having one person

9:41

doing the job of 10. It's impossible.

9:44

So you have to take measures very, very early and be very attentive.

9:51

The easiest way, of course,

9:55

to find out whether people in your workforce are in danger is to sit down with

10:03

them when they come back from vacation, if they have taken any,

10:07

and ask them, well, how was your vacation? Tell me about your vacation.

10:13

Oh, I was always thinking about the work and all the things we have to do,

10:18

and I have a new idea how we could do this or that.

10:22

That person is in danger of burning out. If one of your employees hasn't taken

10:29

a vacation for a year, that's a very, very bad sign.

10:35

This person has to be sent to take a vacation and has to be taken care of.

10:42

You've been talking about from a personal and individual perspective.

10:46

I would now like to take a perspective, for example, from a C-level executive

10:53

down to your managing level.

10:56

Are there certain leadership styles that influence the burnout rate in their teams?

11:02

Of course, they'll have some type of SIG percentage reporting,

11:07

some type of color indicator.

11:10

But as you've already shown, when you go from a team of 10, you go down to 9,

11:18

you go down to 7, that should really, really raise a lot of red flags.

11:23

Could you talk about the leadership style here?

11:28

Oh, well, definitely. You see, any

11:31

leadership style that does not listen very carefully to the sound of their employees

11:44

is prone to produce burnout and voidness at the end.

11:50

And also leaders who think that,

11:55

oh, I have so much work and I don't see why my employees shouldn't have as much

12:02

work as well are also dangerous leaders in the end.

12:09

And third, I think that any leadership style that goes by numbers.

12:19

You know, just looking at the numbers is way, way too far away from the employees.

12:27

I think leading people is a person's job.

12:32

You have to have the personality of the leader.

12:36

And this is not something you learn in any management school,

12:40

but this is an attitude you have to learn through personality development,

12:47

maybe even personal training,

12:50

but that is not what you learn when you follow courses of accounting and of

12:59

all these numbers-based leadership styles.

13:05

I'm also quite aware that right now there is a so-called Leadership 5.0,

13:12

which is basing itself on artificial intelligence.

13:19

Sorry, a person does not want to talk with artificial intelligence.

13:29

You don't want to go on a date with some artificial intelligence.

13:34

You don't want to have your boss as artificial intelligence.

13:38

You need a person because you work, and that is something you have to keep in mind.

13:46

You work with and for people. And latest research by D.

13:52

Lloyd has shown that people, about 75% of our workforce, come to us because

14:04

of the company's name, reputation,

14:07

or because it's a very interesting job, or whatever benefits there are.

14:13

But 65 to 70% of these people are leaving because of their direct superiority.

14:24

Because they have not gotten enough attention, they have not gotten enough mental, emotional rewards.

14:33

And then there are again 30% who say the workplace atmosphere was so horrible,

14:42

no fun, no puns, nothing just work, work, work, work, and they left for that.

14:50

But when you ask them whose responsibility it is to have a good atmosphere in

15:00

the workplace, they say it's the boss's responsibility.

15:05

So at the 60 and then the 30, you arrive at 90% of those who leave us that are

15:13

leaving us because of their direct superiors.

15:17

I was wondering, when you've been saying about the managing by numbers,

15:24

there are a lot of entrepreneurs,

15:27

leaders who have organizations big enough that they necessarily cannot talk

15:34

to all the employees, also thinking about international branches and so on and so forth.

15:39

How would you recommend they try to avoid the burnouts in their teams without

15:49

only looking at the numbers?

15:51

Is it like regular visits, regular exchanges with leadership team there on site?

15:58

Well, that's a very good idea to start with, but of course, that's usually not enough.

16:05

I think that basically our employees of today want to be respected as human

16:13

beings, and they want to have a little say about what's happening in the company.

16:20

So we at LeoVeen.com have developed a special tool for companies to get very

16:32

good feedback from their employees,

16:35

but not in the usual form, which is you as the employee fill out something and your boss gets it.

16:45

In our concept, in our project,

16:49

employees are invited to fill out just 48 questions and grade them from one

16:59

to nine and send them directly to our company.

17:05

And we guarantee 100% confidentiality.

17:12

Thank you very much,

17:12

Yes. So, and then from that, we calculate, this is numbers again,

17:20

yes, but it's an average. We calculate how much the whole workforce is in danger,

17:30

And we also provide the employer with a possibility to see which fields of improvement

17:42

would yield the best results.

17:45

In addition to that, since all the questionnaires are coded,

17:53

employees get the first feedback which says, oh, congratulations,

17:58

you have a very healthy workplace.

18:00

To, well, some improvement might be necessary to the point of there is urgent

18:09

need of action where they can,

18:13

provided the company agrees to that.

18:17

Come to our coaches for advice.

18:21

They just deliver a voucher that they have got from their company,

18:27

but the voucher does not say to whom it belongs.

18:29

So, and that voucher again is our means for laying out the fees for the company.

18:39

So it is a very, very safe way of employees and employers getting good feedback.

18:51

Good feedback means it's useful feedback. You can do something with it.

18:56

And therefore, we have been very successful with this.

19:00

But since we are very much based on confidentiality,

19:07

we also do not use our customers for our own advertising,

19:13

which is something that might make it difficult in today's field of attractivity,

19:22

where everybody is boasting with 500 acknowledgements and feedbacks.

19:32

We don't do that. We invite the company.

19:38

First, usually it will be the HR responsible or it's the CEO himself,

19:45

herself, to have the first personal meeting.

19:49

Then we are very willing to come to the company and give a speech,

19:56

a presentation on burnout and its dangers and its effects and present our model of the project.

20:07

And then even after that there might be a vote among the employees or on the

20:16

other hand on the management level yes let's do it or yes we would like to have this.

20:24

It's all about trust and cooperation.

20:29

You cannot force anybody to be truthful because I say, please be truthful. No, please.

20:37

Just be truthful. No, sorry, that doesn't work.

20:40

That's what is called management style X by color, as opposed to Y,

20:52

which is more lenient leadership.

20:56

You are already quite ahead of me. What I want to ask you, let me take one step

21:02

back before we get into practical strategies for burnout prevention.

21:07

We already know you recommend involving a third party, involving questionnaires.

21:12

But before we get into that, can a company do something in terms of workplace

21:18

culture, avoiding burnout risk?

21:21

How can they manifest, contribute to ingrain in the culture pieces that would

21:30

minimize, not completely avoid, but minimize the burnout risk? What would that be?

21:37

There are certain measures, but it makes a difference whether you just try something

21:46

because you have heard that it worked somewhere, As opposed to,

21:50

I come back to what I just said,

21:53

having a precise and clear-cut feedback that says most likely, for example,

22:01

improving the feedback culture or dealing better with so-called mistakes.

22:11

So I don't call it a mistake culture, I call it a development culture, or a learning culture.

22:18

And then of course some people think that they are in the wrong place. Now if,

22:28

30% of your employees think I'm in the wrong place, then definitely re-evaluating

22:35

who is doing what is a very recommendable approach.

22:43

While if everybody thinks they're in the right place and you evaluate again,

22:47

that doesn't make any impact whatsoever.

22:50

You know, it reminds me of an experiment that was done about 100 years ago.

22:58

A big factory hall where women were assembling light bulbs.

23:10

And in came a group of researchers with their pads and everything,

23:17

and they talked to the ladies, and then they gave the recommendation,

23:23

let us increase the power of the lighting by 20%.

23:29

They did it, and the output rose by 20%.

23:35

Now, they said, well, why don't we raise it for another 10 percent?

23:40

It was even brighter and lighter by 10 percent, and the output was 10 percent higher.

23:49

And then they said, well, this cannot be true, that the output is a direct,

23:55

relevant coefficient of lighting.

24:01

So let us reduce the light by 10% again and they did it and the output rose by 10%.

24:15

And so they really got into researching this and finally they found out the

24:22

output was not a result of the lighting it was a result of being asked about their situation,

24:33

having somebody caring for them.

24:36

And so in that case, they learned you have to care for your employees.

24:45

You have to involve them in what's happening.

24:49

You have to raise their self-esteem.

24:53

But many other possibilities are there, too.

24:56

So I am still an advocate of either asking the employees directly,

25:04

which might yield unwanted results,

25:08

like pay me more, let me work less,

25:12

as opposed to the truly relevant factors, which might be like having more freedom

25:21

of action or having the information.

25:26

I need at the time I need it and in the full amount I need it, those kinds of things.

25:35

So then improving the information flow might prevent burnout.

25:45

I see. So if you ingrain this caring about your employees in the company culture,

25:53

that will be already a pretty good indicator that you try at least to minimize the risk,

26:00

even though we all know, unfortunately, this is not necessary, always 100% secure.

26:08

Let us get to a little ad break.

26:12

And when we're back, we talk a little bit about addressing work overload phases

26:16

and proactive leadership involvement and psychological safety.

26:26

Hey, guys. Thank you for sticking around. We are back with Imre talking about

26:35

early detection of potential burnouts in your teams and the roles of leadership.

26:41

We have just talked about how we can find and address these burnouts and what

26:50

data-driven approach with feedback culture you are recommending.

26:54

And we also talked about how to include this potentially in your company culture.

26:59

Now, I would like to talk a little bit about addressing the overload and regeneration phases.

27:08

How should companies define healthy work rest cycle for employees?

27:14

For example, I was once talking to an entrepreneur and he insisted that his

27:20

people take at least one week off per quarter.

27:23

Oh, I agree with that gentleman 100%.

27:27

And I think I said it before that if a person has not taken leave at all for a whole year,

27:35

that is definitely a warning sign that burnout might be already way on its way.

27:45

I think there is a big misunderstanding in general we have this expression work

27:53

life balance and we think that on the one hand there is work on the other hand

27:59

there is life and they should be in balance,

28:03

in my perception this is a big mistake it's called work life balance That means in your work life,

28:14

while you are at work, there must be a balance between,

28:20

sort of stop and go, taking a rest and then getting to work again.

28:26

You need these moments.

28:33

Resting, of getting your resilience going at your workplace,

28:40

not wait until you are at home.

28:42

And that is something that good workplaces provide,

28:48

be it, I know of an organization here in Vienna where they offered half an hour of sports after lunch.

29:03

So just gymnastics or throwing the ball or frisbee around or whatever was possible due to the weather.

29:15

But, of course, it was not just the people,

29:20

okay, you can go out into the park now, But we have an animateur who is with

29:26

you in the park and who will play all kinds of relaxing and at the same time

29:33

mind-opening games with you.

29:38

Actually, that really plays into what I've been learning about myself.

29:43

When I started Sotabrate.io and I still do this, I work quite a lot.

29:49

So working until midnight is not uncommon once or twice a week.

29:54

But I realized I get a much better balance if I do spend in the meantime more time with my family.

30:01

Plus what I tend to do like the old people do. I get out for a walk at least 30 minutes a day.

30:07

And that helped me really very much. We try to also communicate some German culture here.

30:14

What we say for unwinding here in Germany is let your soul dangle.

30:20

Give it some time, relax it. That was what I had in mind when we were talking about that.

30:27

Well, actually, this letting your soul hand dangle is a quote from Johann Wolfgang

30:35

Goethe where he already said,

30:38

just lie in the meadow and let your soul dangle and you will find the most fantastic

30:47

and amusing or even clarifying ideas.

30:57

And basically you have to get out of thinking always of your work in order to

31:04

have better ideas for your work.

31:07

So we know that you can get the output you want in the quantity and in the timeliness

31:20

you want by being strict.

31:23

But if you let your people work as they think it's right for them,

31:30

you will in addition get the quality,

31:33

get the innovation, and also get the persistence.

31:41

So it will not be broken in two days, but it will stay working for maybe decades.

31:50

All that is part of why leadership should take care of these threats of burnout,

32:01

also from an economic point of view.

32:05

It's not just because we are so nice.

32:08

It's not just because we like humans.

32:13

Excuse me, we trap ourselves into this type of thinking.

32:18

It is very, very economic because it's not the weakest in performance who go

32:28

to burnout, but the best.

32:31

Those really carry your whole success.

32:35

And therefore, I think it's like taking summer tires in a winter snowstorm,

32:47

not to look after your employees',

32:53

well-being in that sense, not to make sure that they can and want to stick around.

33:01

I was wondering when you talk about not only from the goodness of your heart,

33:06

but what actually should drive your curiousness for human beings and should

33:14

be already something you want to do.

33:16

But also there is, of course, a financial rule to this because it takes quite

33:22

a long time for an employee to recover from burnout.

33:26

I had this here around in Germany and you can be sick up to 18 months and then

33:32

you have a phase of up to half a year of reintegration.

33:35

Can you share your experiences with that?

33:38

Yes, this is exactly the number I have too. And I know that,

33:46

It is a big, big loss for the company because what do you do?

33:53

You have no guarantee that, number one, this person will come back at all.

34:01

You don't know the exact time, how long it will take that person to recover.

34:07

So you cannot say, okay, I hire somebody else for six months and then the other

34:13

person will be back. So you have absolutely nothing to go by.

34:19

And therefore, maybe the idea is, now, I have been giving this person definitely too much work.

34:30

Let's assume he will be back in one and a half or two years.

34:37

Then this person will still have a need of a certain time to reintegrate.

34:43

And for those two years, it's definitely feasible and sensible to get somebody else.

34:54

And then when this person comes back, then we sit together and redistribute the workload.

35:03

So it's always about not having enough people.

35:07

And replacing a person who is on sick leave is definitely a better investment

35:19

than just to have the others burn out while waiting for him or her to come back.

35:29

I was wondering for our audience, what strategies have worked for you in reducing

35:34

burnout in your team in the past?

35:36

Have you implemented any specific policies or initiatives that have made a difference?

35:43

Drop your thoughts in the comments here.

35:46

Okay. First of all, what worked very well was to clearly define the number of people I am leading.

35:57

And that number should not be more than seven.

36:02

If I have more people, because I'm building up the company, for example,

36:08

that would mean that I already have to work in some sort of divisions system.

36:16

So generally, going from the top to the bottom, it's groups of sevens, maximum tens.

36:26

And that means that these are your direct reports.

36:31

You don't have more than 10, let's say,

36:36

direct reports, and you have to have enough time to lead these direct reports

36:45

consequently with all aspects involved.

36:51

That is to say, we're talking to them at least once a year, this famous once

36:58

a year evaluation in German called Jahresgespräch,

37:05

where I have seen so many companies who have realized, yes.

37:12

Bosses need to talk to their employees.

37:15

And then when they introduced it, some of the supervisors said,

37:24

why do I have to talk to them? They know everything anyway.

37:30

And others came and said, may I only talk to them once? I like to talk to them several times.

37:36

But this is one basic conversation that only has three topics.

37:45

Number one, what did we do well in our cooperation?

37:54

You and I. Not the company, not the others. You and I.

38:01

Secondly, what are we going to improve concerning our cooperation in the coming year?

38:10

And then we're talking about wishes. is, we're talking about needs,

38:16

we are not talking about complaints, because the complaints have to be turned into future actions.

38:25

And then the third topic is, where should, respectively, would the employee like to develop?

38:37

And that's all, not about paying,

38:41

not about any other things, only these three topics, and take one and a half

38:47

to two hours for these three topics,

38:50

and you have done all you can do to plant the seed of trust between your employee and yourself.

39:01

And then you will get honest and valuable feedback from your employee when he

39:10

will tell you in time, listen, boss, this is getting too much for me.

39:15

I need some other arrangement.

39:18

We have to talk about finding different ways of doing my work,

39:25

or is there something I could let go of,

39:29

which is the hardest thing for every employee to get,

39:35

to let go of something, because the more jobs and the more chores you have,

39:43

you feel the more needed and important.

39:47

Not just to say powerful, but important.

39:51

We are a podcast also focused on tech entrepreneurship, talking a little bit

39:58

about future trends in burnout prevention here.

40:02

Do you see any potential with the rise of AI-driven workplace analytics that

40:11

technology can be used to monitor and mitigate burnout risk?

40:17

Well, I'm not a great friend of AI, but I'm also not a terrible enemy of it.

40:26

I think that it needs to be used in a very human way,

40:34

which is to say what can be done by AI and not so well done by a human should be done by AI.

40:45

And that is to have one or two monitoring systems, but never replacing the interaction

40:55

between superiors and employees,

40:59

but rather assisting also the employees so that the employee can see,

41:06

oh, wait a minute, I haven't had a week of leave for the past 12 months.

41:13

I need to take one now, and then AI maybe shows a red flag right there to the

41:21

employee rather than to the boss where

41:24

many employees think they are being controlled by some machine or so.

41:32

I think you may remember this big scandal in Germany where a company had name tags for everybody,

41:44

but the name tag was at the same

41:46

time a monitor that was registering every time you pass certain doors.

41:58

And so usually the company knew earlier than the female employee that she was

42:06

pregnant because she was going to the loo more often.

42:11

And so they had an increase in the frequency of her visits to the restroom,

42:17

which told them, oh, maybe she's pregnant.

42:20

I think we have to get rid of her before she goes on pregnancy leave.

42:25

So examples like these stick unfortunately in the minds of our co-workers and give them a sort of fear,

42:40

what if the machines control me even more?

42:45

So AI is seen usually as a means of being controlled and being manipulated.

42:53

While put at the person's use and control, it may seem very helpful to say,

43:02

listen, you haven't had your leave now for such a long time.

43:06

Hey, you have gained 10 pounds in the last five months.

43:11

You know the seats can be easy measures of weight they almost look like scales

43:18

anyway if you sit in them at least mine does.

43:23

So very comfortable and at the same

43:26

time you should tell me oh you gained again or

43:30

I lost weight I mean so yes AI can be helpful if it is used openly and to the

43:41

advantage of the employee and where the employee can understand,

43:50

the meaningfulness of this measure.

43:54

If not, then you will get very controversial results, like, imagine, Joe, I am your boss.

44:08

And I come to you and I'm very open and honest and say, Joe,

44:14

I would like to motivate you.

44:19

Oh now tell me what's going through your mind I.

44:25

Would at first assume that he thinks right now that I'm not motivated enough right

44:31

Yes and how do I know that you're not motivated enough some machine or some

44:37

super surveillance must have told me,

44:43

secondly you will ask Okay, let me see, how are you going to motivate me?

44:52

There's no way. So, and unfortunately in every business school,

44:58

the second or third item on their schedule is learn how to motivate your employees. It's not your job.

45:08

But the point is any effort at motivating people is already a step in the inverse direction.

45:19

So the same thing goes for I want to look for your health. You're not my mother.

45:27

I mean, I can look for my health myself. But if I say, listen,

45:31

I have seen that your sick leaves are getting more and more,

45:38

and I'm worried about your health.

45:42

And let's see what we can do together to improve your health situation.

45:49

That's something different, because also you must keep in mind that many employees

45:56

are afraid of losing their jobs if they take too much sick leave.

46:04

And that would be exactly the sign for everybody. Wait a minute.

46:11

Health is in jeopardy.

46:14

And then in order to avoid that,

46:21

they work overtimes and more overtimes, and that's straight into the funnel

46:29

of burning out and into failing.

46:35

I see. How do you see the prevention of burnout and other problems at work,

46:42

because burnout is just the one we're focusing on here, evolving in the next five years?

46:47

Well, I'm a bit ambiguous in my view.

46:53

On the one hand, there are more and more leaders learning that they can have

47:05

the best company and the best technology.

47:09

But if the workforce is constantly ill, they will not be making any profits.

47:19

That's why I think you see it too, all these offers of generating income without doing anything.

47:29

You know, this famous automatic and automatized income. I think it is stupid

47:35

because if everybody does that, who is going to do the work?

47:43

So we are going down the wrong alley there.

47:48

And on the other hand, all the efforts to reduce human work to less and less

47:58

mean that we need people who are higher and higher qualified.

48:07

Now, the higher the people are qualified, the more it is a risk for a corporation that they burn out,

48:17

because nobody can just come from the street and step in,

48:23

as opposed to this famous movie with Charlie Chaplin where they just grab a

48:30

guy from the street to do the struths.

48:35

Nobody can come in and do very complex and complicated work.

48:41

Just, you know, I haven't done it before, but I've been a gardener,

48:47

so I'm sure I'm good at cutting hair. It will not work.

48:53

We are already talking on learning for more than 50 minutes here,

48:56

and I was wondering for your final thoughts, a call to action for leaders.

49:02

If you could give one piece of advice to startup founders and executives about

49:09

preventing burnout in the teams, what would it be?

49:12

It would definitely be to become a real leader, which is to say,

49:21

forget about the numbers and work on your own personality.

49:25

Make sure that you do not burn out by doing the wrong things and spending your energy there.

49:35

A manager is a person who makes sure that things are done right.

49:42

A leader is a person who makes sure that the right things are done.

49:48

So become more

49:51

aware of your real role

49:54

as a leader and that implicates

49:59

that you have to have good health that you have to have enough time to reflect

50:05

and think about your company where nobody disturbs you where you can talk to

50:13

maybe a coach maybe several coaches,

50:17

about how to proceed and where to proceed.

50:23

Great. Thank you, Imre, for sharing insights on burnout recognition and prevention.

50:29

We appreciate your expertise in helping companies build healthier and more resilient

50:34

teams. Thank you very much.

50:36

Thank you very much, Joe. And we supply this service to leaders and business owners at leoveen.com,

50:48

where they are free of any influence by employees or coworkers or competition

50:56

or any other people who mean just the best.

51:00

Thank you very much. We link down in the show notes.

51:03

Thank you.

51:04

Have a good day. Bye bye.

51:06

You too. Bye-bye.