My GPS for work
Here is how we're turning 3 years of research findings on preventing burnout into practical tools and insights for leaders and teams.
A key insight we got from interviewing people who burned out was that they missed the warning signs. They were on the path to burnout but didn’t know it.
Pilots in planes have instrument panels. There are visual indicators (altitude, speed etc) that help pilots maintain control and identify any potential issues at a glance.
Similarly in cars, we have a GPS which tells us where we're headed. You type in a destination and it finds the fastest path, avoiding traffic and hazards.
We saw in our research that people in workplaces were driving themselves extremely hard, but without a GPS or indicators to show them where they were headed, if they were running out of fuel or driving themselves into burnout. They were flying with no instrument panel.
We wondered if we could help by giving people a dashboard that measured their current ways of working. Based on the research we found 4 key indicators that people could track throughout the year to help them perform and grow, but keep them out of burnout risk. We call this your G.P.S. (Grow, Perform, Sustain) Dashboard.
The GPS is made of four key indicators.
Intrinsic motivation – the extent to which the work you do excites and energises you (your fuel for the journey)
Values alignment – whether your work lines up with your most important values (your internal compass)
Perform/ Grow balance – the balance you have between doing familiar work (perform mode) or having new, first-time experiences that challenge you (grow mode) (your trajectory)
Burnout risk – the extent to which you are working in a way that is unsustainable (your warning lights)
We saw that when people had this information they gained insight into why they were feeling the way they were about their work. It also showed them where and how to make adjustments and course correct.
The G.P.S. takes 15 mins to complete and you get your results and report immediately. People can then participate in a 90-minute workshop to learn more about their results, explore key insights from the research and learn how to improve their scores. It is specifically designed for busy people – minimum time, maximum insight.
In the last 3 months we’ve run the GPS workshop for:
- Investment bankers
- Fortune 500 executives
- Sports organizations
- Consumer goods leaders
- Tech companies
- Executives in banks
The GPS crystallises 3 years of research into practices for staff to get back in control of their performance and well-being. We see people make improvements very quickly.
We then move on to looking at improving the organizational conditions so people are operating within a healthy system.
