At the beginning of any Lean coaching or training session, we almost always ask, “What is Lean?”. We nearly always receive responses centred on “removing waste.” Sometimes, if the group is more advanced, we also hear the Japanese term “muda” (meaning waste). However, we rarely hear about Muri (meaning overburden) or Mura (meaning unevenness).
Burnout is Muri. It is an overburden on a person, giving them more to do than they can manage. Requesting that they give more hours every day that they can cope with.
“Burnout is a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion. It can occur when you experience long-term stress and feel under constant pressure” https://mentalhealth-uk.org/burnout/
Muri today is one of the biggest causes of waste in any organisation. Unlike Muda, which is often related more to front-line activities, Muri is owned by managers, senior managers, directors, C-Suite Executives and Shareholders. Muri is designed, albeit poorly, by the constant striving to do more with less without actually changing anything.
Organisations make sweeping cuts in an attempt to reduce labour costs: growth is not matched by an equal increase in resources. However, the typical “No, let’s grow by 20% but keep the resources the same. I know we can do it” type of attitude prevails. Someone, somewhere, thinks we can squeeze more juice out of the fruit.
And our experience tells us that they are not wrong. It’s a question of how you do it.
Reducing headcount or growing the business without resourcing is the same thing for the people doing the work. Processes remain the same, but productivity requirements increase. Individuals now need to do more without anything else fundamentally changing. The result is longer hours, working weekends, emailing in the evenings, and living with the constant need to be “on” and “available.”
Overdurden materialises in stress, burnout, mistakes, high levels of employee turnover and perhaps quiet quitting. It’s a state that managers design or choose to accept without making any changes. It’s a “waste” that drives bonuses and rewards for individuals and leaders.
But ultimately, overburden kills.
It kills people’s physical well-being and energy for work. It kills their mental capacity to make the right decisions and to do the right things. It disrupts their emotional balance, causing exhaustion when mistakes occur, sickness levels rise, and engagement levels plummet.
The solution is, firstly, to redesign processes and remove the “muda”. Secondly, to strip back the organisational structures and look at the flow of value that needs to be created. Thirdly, aim to eliminate the “hero” mentality.
How we get the results is just as important as the results themselves if you want a sustainable culture.
Get in touch with Leanscape today to see how we can help your organisation “make change happen” in a sustainable way.
