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ARE YOU IN A NO-WIN JOB?
by, Dr. Beverly Potter
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Just as your body needs vitamins and proteins, certain ìnutrientsî are also essential to sustain high
motivation, including getting rewards or motivationalìwinsî or good work and feeling that you have
control over your work life. In other words, you must feel that you can influence what happens to you
by what you do.
Motivation is determined largely by what happens after you act. For instance, you get a bonus for
making a big sale or your boss praises your idea. If your actions bring no rewards, your motivation to
perform lessens or burns out. Demoralizing work situations similar to the ones below are key
contributors to job burnout.
The Critical Boss
No matter how hard you try or how well you do, you boss always find a nit to pick. Eventually, you feel
unable to satisfy this kind of boss.
The Incurable Client
If youíre in a service job, such as social work, you probably have a large caseload of clients with nearly
impossible problems. No matter how hard you try, how much you give or how much you care, the drug
addicts continue to use drugs, the welfare recipients canít get work and the delinquents end up back in
juvenile hall.
Lack of Recognition
Your good work often goes unnoticed. You may be in a civil-service job, where promotions are based
on seniority and not performance. Two other forms of lack of recognition include:
Inadequate pay: When you work hard but feel underpaid, you may think that your efforts
arenít being adequately rewarded.
Underemployment: If you have high aspirations and spent years in college preparing for
work but youíre stuck in a low-level job, you may feel that no one has recognized your
talents. Baby boomer who must compete with millions of others to squeeze into a narrowing
pyramid of higher-level jobs are particularly prone to this dilemma.
Ambiguity
If you donít know whatís expected, it is difficult to feel confident that you are doing the right thing in the
right way. Chaotic and ambiguous work situations are common in rapidly expanding high-tech firms.
Examples of ambiguity are:
Lack of Information
You donít have enough information to do your job properly. As a result, you may be working hard on the wrong thing.
Lack of clear goals
Jobs in rapidly expanding organizations, entrepreneurial operations and poorly managed departments often donít have well-defined responsibilities and clear-cut
goals. Without clear goals, you have no target to shoot for.
Tasks Without End
Your ìin basketî is always full, no matter how long or how hard you work, or you face a seemingly
unending line of customers, who eventually become faceless. This a problem with any job that has no
natural beginning and ending point.
No-Win Situations
Your job may have incompatible demands so that no matter what you do at work, someone is
dissatisfied. Perhaps you report to two bosses: One wants speed while the other wants quality. It may not
be possible to produce both. Or you may work with several departments; marketing wants one thing,
manufacturing another.
Conflicting Roles
Youíre expected to be star employee, supermom and superwife; your company wants you to travel for business and your family wants you at home.
Politically Incorrect Jobs
If you work in a politically sensitive field such as police work,
IRS investigation or military research, you may experience value conflicts: You believe in
what you are doing and you strive to do a good job; yet you are criticized for the work you
do.
Work Overload
A lot of work in and of itself will not burn you out as long as you feel you can control what happens and
you receive adequate wins. You may be very tired, but you feel motivated. However, work overload in
one of the above categories is a setup for burnout.
Bureaurcracy
Organizations are based on the military model of the hierarchy and chain of command which is desgined
to make sure that no one person has too much power. But having power, a sense of control over one's
life, is necessary for healthy functioning.
http://www.docpotter.com
Copyright 1980, 1993, 1996: Beverly Potter. From Overcoming Job Burnout: How to Renew Enthusiasm for Work, by Dr. Beverly Potter, Ronin Publishing. |
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