How to Defeat WFH Burnout & Zoom Fatigue (Wise Decision Maker Guide 41)

Greetings Decision maker,

As you may recall, in the last edition of the Wise Decision Maker Guide you learned about how I helped Matt, the CEO of an insurance company with a staff of 1,300, navigate through a widespread work-from-home (WFH) burnout crisis in his company.

Understanding the root causes of WFH burnout is the first step to defeating these problems. Unfortunately, the large majority of efforts to address WFH burnout try to treat the symptoms without getting at the root causes.

In the case of Matt’s company, the issues ranged from those that stemmed from an individual’s personal circumstances to those that originate from the workplace itself. The most significant problems I’ve identified include the deprivation of our basic human needs for meaning, purpose, connection, and the chance to build trust with workmates. Working from home also deprives employees of the chance to be mentored by senior colleagues.

To efficiently address these and a host of other issues, I urged Matt to take a series of steps that organizations can use to defeat WFH burnout and Zoom fatigue.

To learn more, check out this blog.

Recent Public Appearances

You might find of interest a number of recent public appearances about my three recent best-selling books:

USA Today interviewed me for an article on how to make wise decisions about spending time outside in the pandemic. It’s my third interview for them!
The Decision Lab published my article on why we ignore clear risks such as the new COVID strains
The co-founder of Disaster Avoidance Experts, Agnes Vishnevkin, was interviewed for an article on financial decision-making by Cardrates.com

What's Up With Me

Do you ever feel like you suffer from the Curse of Cassandra? It is named after the Greek myth about a woman who had the ability to predict the future but was cursed with no one believing her. I definitely felt like that early on in the pandemic when I predicted at the start of March 2020 that it would have a major impact on nearly every American’s lives for over a year, but was widely dismissed as too pessimistic. I felt like that in early January, when I predicted on January 5, 2021 that the UK variant would become predominant in the US by April, leading to a new case surge: again widely dismissed.

In both cases, I was sad to see later that my predictions were borne out, even though I would much rather they didn’t. Of course, I’m far from perfect: for example, I placed a low probability on our ability to develop a highly-effective vaccine this quickly. I was very glad that the new and previously-untested mRNA technology proved me wrong: go scientists! I’m also glad that the US vaccine rollout has been much more successful than that of the vast majority of other developed countries, and I underestimated its overall effectiveness. Still, my overall predictions about the original COVID strain and how we would respond to it, and the predictions about the variants and our response, was overwhelmingly on-target. And in both cases, widely dismissed.

Do you have any suggestions on how to avoid the curse of being disbelieved while retaining the ability to make accurate predictions?

Recommendations for You

If you live in the US and haven’t done so yet, please do what you need to do to cope with the surge. The UK variant is both much more infectious and much more deadly than COVID “classic.” If you’re eligible and have been procrastinating on getting a vaccine, procrastinate no longer. If you’re not vaccinated and fully protected by two weeks of waiting after the one-dose vaccine or after the second dose of a two-dose vaccine, enter pandemic lockdown mode, whatever that means for you. If you’re a business leader, it’s time to take out your business continuity plan and have your employees work from home as much as possible (following the guidelines in the article featured in this newsletter). And encourage them to get vaccines quickly, for everyone’s sake.

Help Me Serve Your Needs

What does your organization currently do to deal with work-from-home burnout and Zoom fatigue? Where might you do a better job of helping your team members deal with work-from-home issues related to mental health and professional development? Which next steps will you take based on this article/video/podcast?

Would love to get your feedback! I strive to improve my ability to help you avoid decision disasters and maximize success, so any feedback you can provide on this content - or anything else - will help me serve your needs better.

Decisively Yours,

Gleb

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