Burnout to Breakthrough

Motivating Employees With Leadership Tools That Work

By: Ina Catrinescu

Narrated by: Kristin Watson Heintz

Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

You'll never think about productivity the same way again!

Are your employees feeling exhausted, cynical, or just tuned-out? Do they frequently check their phones in meetings, and seem especially uninterested to hear about the next important organizational change? Are they working harder but getting less done? Ill too often or for too long? These are some of the classic warning signs of disengagement.

In a perfect world, work should do so much for us. It should lend us purpose and a sense of meaning, offer us structure and stability. But invariably, something goes wrong - many employees have to pull themselves over the fence each day at a job that is burning them out.

Employee engagement and burnout were declared in a state of “crisis” and the biggest concerns for employers in 2017. And we are right to be concerned. Disengagement comes at the yearly cost of $550 billion to the US economy. But it’s not just our economic prosperity that’s at stake. The study presented in Burnout to Breakthrough shows an alarming correlation between disengagement and the following three health predators: depression, obesity, and suicide.

Here, Ina Catrinescu draws on cutting-edge neuroscience, and integrates social psychology and organizational science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific management practices within the context of this workplace crisis. She redefines how we understand work and idleness. And the best part? The same turnkey solution that can aid disengagement and burnout is responsible for unleashing our creativity.

Are you ready to get your employees thirsty to create, their minds tickled, and their hearts racing? Then Burnout to Breakthrough is the right book for you.

©2018 Ina Catrinescu (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Big let down

Interesting wind up, but the solution is borderline communism that suggest people should want less and work less to distribute jobs and income evenly. Nothing really actionable here.

Relevant and visionary

It's been six years since the book was published. A lot has happened in the leadership and work space since then, and as an executive myself, I find that the developments align with the recommendations in this book. This speaks to the book's relevance and foresight.

Many organizations have indeed started to prioritize employee wellbeing and engagement, COVID-19 has forced us to work remotely, we do have more free time, and if we are to trust Gallup's reports—engagement has increased from 13% to 16%.

The book discusses the concept of "Mincome," - minimum guaranteed income. There's a growing interest and a number of experiments already. Multiple countries have implemented pilot programs to explore the impact of basic income on reducing poverty and enhancing economic stability. For example, Spain's Ingreso Mínimo Vital and the GiveDirectly initiative in Kenya have shown promising results in improving financial security and well-being. This growing body of evidence underscores the potential of Mincome to address economic inequality and provide a safety net in an evolving job market as Mrs Catrinescu suggests.

I personally don’t read "victim mentality" anywhere in the book as one negative review highlights. I read a healthy dose of challenging mainstream management practices, and if we are to throw "victim" as blanket statement on all of the books that do that there would be no progress.

The critic’s suggestion that "happiness and engagement at work" are more about individual “mindset” than external factors is an incorrect generalization. It overlooks the complex interplay of individual mindset and systemic factors in the workplace - exactly as the book highlights. Research shows that while personal mindset is indeed important, systemic factors such as workplace culture, leadership styles, and job design significantly influence employee engagement and satisfaction. It's not solely about the individual's mindset but also about the environment in which they operate.

The only shortcoming that I can see is the subtitle of the book—it doesn't really reflect the content accurately. But for the rest, as a Head of People, I found this book useful.