vertical axis - performance
horizontal axis - stress
The Jerks-Dodson curve (amended to show how burnout) takes over
When stress increases and is not addressed things eventually gets to a point (at the peak of the bell curve) where more stress added on top starts to decrease a person's performance.
B zone denotes people with no or lower resilience to stress.
There are no high fliers in the brown zone. And thats OK - we are not all built the same.
But one of the top features of high performers is that they have high resilience and learn to function well and even thrive in the green zones - particularly at D.
But this can be a double edged sword.
Clearly working somewhere in the two green zones means that stress and performance are mainly in balance - with performance maximised. But when the stress builds to levels beyond that persons stress -performace curve ( and we all have one tailored to us) the curve starts to drop ( at 1 and 2 ).
The the transition between stress and burnout is now underway
By the time it gets to 3 and 4 frank burnout is present.
The time frame between leaving D and end up in 3 4 or C is likely to be years - not least because the journey is not linear and can oscilatte back and forth for sometime. This unfortunately aids adaptation to the burnout (but not in a good way) as well as giving false sense of improvements from time to time.
However what resilient people do is they maintain an outward appearance of keeping up performance ( see the black line)
This is at some cost to themselves as in order to maintain the illusion they prop, patch and distract by various means.
The outcome is deteriorating health, and an apparently slow deterioration in performance which may not be spotted by others.
"apparent" in that really the burnout descent has commenced - it is just being shored up with superhuman effort but this is unsustainable.
Unfortunately if this is not admitted or spotted there comes "the burnout plummet" . This is an apparently sudden drop ( to most observers although the person's close family and friends may be less surprised). It is represented by the vertical black line and can manifest quite dramatically such as not being able to get out of bed one morning, an inability to get out of the car once arrived at work, or any sort of precipitating incident resulting in a mental or physical collapse.
It is still possible to recover from burnout fully despite this - but once the descent has started from the peak of the Gaussian distribution curve - it becomes ever more challenging to effect this and ever more likely that some expert help will be needed to gain full resolution.
Most of those contacting the geese are at 3, 4 or C (collapse) stage. And many are already on sick leave ( or should be).
When stress increases and is not addressed things eventually gets to a point (at the peak of the bell curve) where more stress added on top starts to decrease a person's performance.
B zone denotes people with no or lower resilience to stress.
There are no high fliers in the brown zone. And thats OK - we are not all built the same.
But one of the top features of high performers is that they have high resilience and learn to function well and even thrive in the green zones - particularly at D.
But this can be a double edged sword.
Clearly working somewhere in the two green zones means that stress and performance are mainly in balance - with performance maximised. But when the stress builds to levels beyond that persons stress -performace curve ( and we all have one tailored to us) the curve starts to drop ( at 1 and 2 ).
The the transition between stress and burnout is now underway
By the time it gets to 3 and 4 frank burnout is present.
The time frame between leaving D and end up in 3 4 or C is likely to be years - not least because the journey is not linear and can oscilatte back and forth for sometime. This unfortunately aids adaptation to the burnout (but not in a good way) as well as giving false sense of improvements from time to time.
However what resilient people do is they maintain an outward appearance of keeping up performance ( see the black line)
This is at some cost to themselves as in order to maintain the illusion they prop, patch and distract by various means.
The outcome is deteriorating health, and an apparently slow deterioration in performance which may not be spotted by others.
"apparent" in that really the burnout descent has commenced - it is just being shored up with superhuman effort but this is unsustainable.
Unfortunately if this is not admitted or spotted there comes "the burnout plummet" . This is an apparently sudden drop ( to most observers although the person's close family and friends may be less surprised). It is represented by the vertical black line and can manifest quite dramatically such as not being able to get out of bed one morning, an inability to get out of the car once arrived at work, or any sort of precipitating incident resulting in a mental or physical collapse.
It is still possible to recover from burnout fully despite this - but once the descent has started from the peak of the Gaussian distribution curve - it becomes ever more challenging to effect this and ever more likely that some expert help will be needed to gain full resolution.
Most of those contacting the geese are at 3, 4 or C (collapse) stage. And many are already on sick leave ( or should be).
The geese can't wait to help.
Your 1st class flight back to full energy awaits!
Your 1st class flight back to full energy awaits!
