Maria Knodt

When I get asked these days at dinners or parties what I do, I laugh nervously and respond that I recently quit my job and am looking for something else. I get nervous because my interlocutor usually continues by asking why I left or what I am looking for in my next job – and there is no easy answer to that. To keep the mood light, I often opt for an overly simplified one that doesn’t paint my past employer or me in a bad light.

The other day, I came off a call with my parents. They looked at my website and implored me to not mention on it that I had a burnout, because it would diminish my chances of finding a new job. And I realized that this is precisely the problem. This is why I have been keeping quiet about it all the time. I am afraid of the consequences. But do I really want to work for a company that doesn’t want me because I had a burnout? As if the problem was a default in myself, that I was weaker than others, that I could not withstand pressure and stress – rather than a default in the system.

Instead, I should say: “I am done with wasting my precious lifetime in toxic or unhealthy organizations that don’t care about me, doing things I don’t enjoy doing, just because society thinks it is a good job.”

Am I the only one burning out right now? No, almost half of all employees have experienced it at some point in their lives based on a McKinsey study (even though their sample size is unclear). Many of my colleagues experienced it as well. So while there is a personal component to it, some people seem more resilient and some less so; the problem is not with us but the environment.

When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.

Alexander Den Heijer

Profit-making businesses are told to have to put their clients first. But that also means putting employees second. And where both are in conflict, many companies prefer to satisfy the client and have employees suffer. While that will ensure that client wishes are fulfilled and money generated in the short term, this is not sustainable long-term. And fewer employees, who are privileged enough to have a choice, will put up with it. It will require a value shift to appeal to future generations and create a long-term sustainable business model.

Besides other sectors, especially the strategy consulting and financial sectors need to catch up. They have to develop a more sustainable business model where people don’t burn out in mass. To be fair, it is particularly difficult for consulting or financial companies working in the development / impact sector, as margins are even tighter than in the private sector.

Dalberg had always been a dream company from the outside – a prestigious strategy consulting firm focusing on development topics. Could I finally have a job that combines having a positive impact, earning well, and being in an environment where I can strive? I knew it would also be a place where I would work a lot and have to be careful to take good care of my mental well-being.

I had burned out before working at BlackRock in London, where ‘Facetime’ was expected. ‘Facetime’ means that you have to be in before your manager arrives and cannot leave before he or she leaves – whether you still have work to do or not. When the manager is out, colleagues go into relaxed mode and leave much earlier. A sign that it is often not a client necessity but rather internal politics that determine working hours.

I recognized a way of thinking in managers along the lines of: “I had to go through it as a junior, so now they have to go through it as well. It didn’t kill me, so it won’t kill them.” It is like parents believing that if they are not being strict with their children, they will never behave well or learn anything. But as with parenting, harsh treatment is often detrimental and counterproductive. While it is required to push employees to give their best, this has to happen in a healthy, motivational way. As soon as employees don’t feel appreciated and seen as human beings, they will lose their motivation, and their quality of work will diminish.

At BlackRock, it was common for us to work until midnight or longer. I remember that I was particularly struggling with it after a breakup, as I would cry a lot and not sleep well. I even informed my manager about this. Nevertheless, when I came in late one morning at around 9:30 a.m. after having worked until around 1 a.m. the night before, he took me to the side and yelled at me: “You are an Associate Maria, you have to be a good example to the Analysts in our team and come in before them.” He warned me to not come late again. I was distraught. What kind of example did I want to be to my more junior colleagues? One that taught them that it is normal to work until 1 a.m. and that we should put our well-being aside to come back to work in time after little sleep?

Some of my junior colleagues came to me complaining about their exhaustion and fear of speaking up to managers. One even started crying and told me she couldn’t do it anymore and would want to quit soon. And what was even more infuriating was that these strict rules did not seem to apply to the one employee in our team whose father was in a high position in BlackRock’s management. He often came in late or left early, refused to do certain tasks, or took three weeks of holidays. Freedoms others couldn’t afford.

After I got yelled at for coming in late, I broke down in my doctor’s office and begged her to give me some time off as I struggled and couldn’t handle it anymore. This was my first burnout.

With all these memories and fears in my head, I started at Dalberg. The work was intense but less than at BlackRock. We would work until 10 or 11 p.m. in the evenings, but seldomly longer. I tried to keep a healthy work-life balance and did sports regularly, knowing it would help me maintain my physical and mental health.

This time, burnout came differently. It crept in over months, every frustration compounding it. It felt like my internal battery could no longer recharge to 100%, even if I tried to relax on weekends or took a week off. Week after week, my maximum battery level was lower. Soon, I was only able to finish about 70% of the work that I would typically be able to complete per day. Then 50% and at some point even less than that. I knew I couldn’t continue like that. I knew that otherwise, I would be at 0% at some point. And it was showing. My work was getting worse and worse. I made mistakes. I was short-tempered.

After I did a burnout test online, it was clear that I was at very severe risk of burnout. I had to do something urgently. So I spoke with my therapist and GP and took some weeks off.

The online test made me realize that part of the problem came from feeling unappreciated, misunderstood, and not in control of my work. With every frustration, it worsened. In hindsight, I came to realize that many factors contributed to it. For me, these were the following:

1. The way projects and client relationships were handled: The motto of the majority of managers was to say ‘yes’ to everything the client asked for. If they asked for more than what was initially agreed, we said yes, without renegotiating time or budget, to please them. This often resulted in team members working long hours to handle the workload. In other cases, managers did not align well with clients. For example, the client specified in the Terms of References that reports should be submitted in Word, but we submitted them in PowerPoint without clarifying with the client first. This resulted in us having to do extra work to transform the PowerPoint presentation into a Word format and adapt the content. As an employee below Project Manager level, we had very little say about how we approached a project and what we had to work on. My concerns about content or approaches were often not taken into consideration.
2. The general nature of the work: Strategy consulting is relatively high level. Often, we had only a couple of weeks or a few months to propose a strategy to our client in a field that we were not experts in, but our clients were. While it is exciting to work oneself into new topics every few months, it can also be frustrating. We often gave recommendations based on a half-baked understanding of the topic and local circumstances. Given that we didn’t implement the recommendations we gave to our client, it was difficult to tell how realistic they were and whether our work would ever have a positive impact on the ground.
3. My strengths were not valued and made use of enough and there was a lot of focus on my weaknesses: Some managers primarily focused on my weaknesses, for example, on me being quite direct and undiplomatic, rather than on my strengths. Once, a Partner summoned me to only give me negative feedback, even though I had just helped organize a workshop – and had received positive feedback from participants about my presentation and the workshop in general. Speaking my mind made me feel like I didn’t belong and I wouldn’t be able to excel in the organization, as that was mentioned in my feedback to be the major contributor to not being promoted.
4. The difficult situation with our office and how it was poorly handled: Our office in Dakar underwent a significant change when our former Partner decided over Christmas to take the legal entity and disintegrate it from the wider Dalberg Group. Without a legal entity in Senegal and a physical office, we were re-hired by Dalberg under a temporary contract with another office. The process was a mess; it took days for any communication to be sent out, weeks for us to know whether we would be taken back by Dalberg, months for a co-working space to be found, and a year for the establishment of a new legal entity. In parallel, I had to chase our old Partner for months to be reimbursed for the holidays I couldn’t take under the contract with her legal entity (formerly Dalberg Dakar). The major frustration for everyone was the lack of communication and transparency provided to us employees. It made us feel like we were not valued. It made us question why we worked so hard for a company that wasn’t sure whether they wanted to keep us. Over the months, the situation improved, but the demotivation and disillusion stayed for many of my colleagues and me. We are, for example, still waiting to be paid out our bonuses for 2020, as there seem to be continuing issues due to the transition.
5. A lack of community and office culture due to remote work: Since COVID started in 2019, I have mostly worked from home. When we finally were able to go back into the office in Dakar, it was a relief for me. I was in a new country where I knew very few people, so finally, I could network and laugh with my colleagues. But due to the transition that I discussed above, our office was taken away, and we were back to working from home. While most colleagues enjoyed the flexibility, and to some extent, I did as well, it made me feel disconnected from my colleagues and the company. I was sitting at home alone most days, working on projects with colleagues in other offices that I never saw physically or could easily exchange with. There was no lunch break to look forward to, no small talk about different topics than work, and no after-work drinks or social activities with colleagues. There was just work.
6. Not enough support from my company to entirely focus on my work and feel secure: When I moved to Dakar without knowing anyone, there was no help to find an apartment, apply for a residency permit, or open a bank account. Tasks that are very time-consuming and challenging – especially in a country where I didn’t speak the local language (Wolof, not French). We had to fight to get on a full-time contract, as we expats were given a service contract initially, which only provided limited securities. The health insurance that was provided for us insured us in Senegal but not well enough in our countries of origin. The process of getting reimbursed was very manual and cumbersome. So I got private insurance, for which I paid myself. It proved critical when the transition happened, and my colleagues were left without health insurance for months.
7. My efforts to change to another role internally were unsuccessful: I tried to apply for different internal positions, but none were successful, or I was told I could not change as they needed me urgently on projects. This prevented me from seeing an opportunity within the organization.

I knew that taking a few weeks off wouldn’t remove the reasons why I had burned out and that I was likely to burn out again at some point. I had to get out of the environment. Taking a sabbatical was also denied, as too many people from my office had asked for sabbaticals already. So I quit.

Right now, I am struggling to believe in my capabilities and am absolutely terrified of getting into an unhealthy work environment again. Based on what I hear from friends, unhealthy work environments seem to be more the rule than the exception these days. And the last thing I want is to burn out again.

Luckily, I also had experiences with healthy work environments, which gives me hope that I can find an organization that challenges me and where I can grow in a healthy way. One that actually cares about me and my well-being rather than only what they can get from me. Going forward, I will thoroughly analyze not only whether I am a good fit for the position but also whether the organization is a good fit for me.

To ensure this, I am planning to do the following:

1. Talk with current employees about their experience working for the company and any concerns they raise.
2. Research online (for example, on glassdoor.com) to read reviews of past employees.
3. Ask critical questions during interviews, such as what processes are in place to deal with employees experiencing mental health problems or what they are doing for employees to stay longer at the company.

I am also thinking about what organizations can do to create a healthier work culture and prevent burnout from happening. Dalberg had an internal group called Dalberg Minds that was working on improving the mental well-being of employees. A first step in the right direction. Even though in our case, we worked on this initiative in ‘magic time’, meaning besides our project work, and, therefore, often in the evenings or on weekends. Here are a few ideas:

1. Create mandatory and anonymous 360-degree feedback that is considered in semi-annual reviews, salary, and promotion discussions.
2. Set KPIs for managers encouraging them to take care of the mental well-being of their employees rather than only revenue-generation (e.g., realistic scoping of projects, number of hours the team works while delivering timely to client).
3. Foster a culture of transparent communication – rather over- than under-communicate to your employees, not just the senior ones.
4. Value different opinions and reward people for speaking up and challenging the status quo (also towards clients) rather than chastising them.
5. Organize and make it mandatory for everyone to attend trainings on mental well-being and self-awareness.
6. Allow certain flexibility for employees (e.g., working from home a couple of days, work hours based on personal responsibilities, and circadian rhythm).
7. Mirror back to employees what positive impact their work has on clients, beneficiaries, or other employees.
8. Foster connections between employees outside work to create a positive and human work environment. (e.g., have lunch together, organize talks or sports events).

Good managers not only fulfill client expectations or bring in a large amount of revenue, but they are also aware of their critical role in caring for their subordinates.

I am looking forward to hearing your feedback and any ideas.

True leadership lies in guiding others to success – in ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.

Bill Owens

If you feel like you might be burning out, do a test here and consult your GP, a psychiatrist, and/or a therapist.