Why Burnout Coaching?

There are all sorts of coaches. There are many kinds of niches. So how did I end up in the area of burnout coaching?

After doing my MBA in Japan while living there for five years and studying mindfulness, I entered the world of consulting. While seeing my grandma burn out while serving as family caregiver to my great-grandparents, I decided to switch gears and get a masters in geriatrics. As I ran my geriatric care management practice, I felt a nudge toward ministry. I went to seminary, got ordained, and became a hospice/hospital chaplain. At the same time, I did my training to become a professional coach with special training in grief/bereavement coaching and served as a bereavement counselor.

Ok, so that sets the stage for my time at a certain hospice and hospital. Let's focus on the hospice for now.

Nurses were constantly burned out. They would quit and those left behind would have to cover the patients and on-call shifts for those who left. This led to further burnout. The nursing director would spend less time doing her job and have to be in the field with patients. The hospice director would enter panic mode and live in his amygdala where he didn't have an ounce of compassion. His sole focus was to preserve his own job. So, this left everyone scrambling to get out in the field and put on a good face for the organization. The burnout made its way to the volunteer coordinator, aides, social worker, etc.

I understand compassion. I understand business. I could see that both were crumbling.

By continuing to operate in the same way without addressing the root cause, I knew that the cycle would perpetuate. The cost of turnover, cost of vacancy, cost of hiring and training would all bring scrutiny on the hospice director from corporate and he would continue to panic. His lack of compassion would affect how he interacted with staff. The organization's reputation in the field with patients, families, and facilities would continue to suffer as the turnover continued.

And so it was. The Director of Nursing position was a revolving door. Nurses didn't last more than a couple of months. Aides were becoming less and less reliable and the hospice director became a tyrant. Knowing that I am a certified coach, he eventually asked me to step in and "rally the troops" to lift morale. With my hands tied to affect any real change, it was received well in the beginning, but quickly seemed disingenuous.

Not only did I "know" that things weren't right, but I genuinely felt for my colleagues, patients, and their families. Those of us who have worked in the health care field (especially hospice) know that we get attached to our patients. We get attached to their families. We get attached to the nurses and staff at the facilities that we visit day in and day out. So when I saw them all suffering as a result of the burnout happening in our organization, it made me sad. I wanted to do something about it.

When I asked about doing a survey to check the morale and burnout level amongst other hospice offices within the corporation so as to develop a program to address it, it was initially met with lip service among local and regional management. So, I moved forward just to have it quickly shut down by an organization that clearly didn't care.

I knew then that I couldn't stay where numbers were the only thing that mattered. Patients and employees were only an afterthought. So, I told myself that I would focus my coaching practice on burnout and those who were interested in changing it.

I'm guessing that some or all of this sounds familiar to you. Perhaps you have seen such burnout or experienced it yourself. I'm blessed to be in a vocation that can affect change and make lives better for nurses, patients, and caregivers. For this and the relationships that I get to build with these fine people, I am grateful.

Let's partner so that we can reverse this insidious and unnecessary phenomenon. Through the right coaching methods, individuals can become aware of healthy practices to prevent and undo burnout and organizations can realize how to create healthy systems that don't perpetuate it.