Christina Maslach
Fix the job, not the person
Teaching people to relax repairs the wrong thing
Maslach & Leiter, The Truth About Burnout, 1997
What to do about burnout. The mainstream answer may have the whole thing backwards, and she says why.
What actually happened?
The moment burnout was named, the market's fix became teaching people to relax: mindfulness, time management, resilience training. Maslach has argued against that direction for decades. Her claim is blunt: burnout is a problem of the work environment, not of individual resilience. Spending the effort on remaking the individual asks the person absorbing the damage to repair the thing causing it — and carries a second message along with it: if you can't take this, you aren't strong enough.
Putting the responsibility in the wrong place makes it worse
Tell someone the problem is their attitude and they add a layer of self-blame, then stay in the same environment. The two together are much harder to climb out of than the exhaustion was on its own.
The company runs a mindfulness course and doesn't touch the rota. Everyone comes back to the same schedule.
Personal fixes aren't useless, they're second
Maslach never said sleep and exercise don't work. She said the order matters: see what in the working conditions can change, then talk about personal regulation. Reverse the order and personal regulation stops being support and starts being cover.
Cut the two hours of daily meetings first. Then discuss how to unwind. Not the other way round.
For an individual, this means check the environment first
You may not be able to change the company, but you can do the accounting: is it too much work, or no say, or work that runs against what you care about? Each diagnosis points at a completely different move — what to negotiate, what to leave, what to refuse.
You think you need a holiday; the audit says what's crushing you is needing sign-off for everything.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: you're close to done, and everyone advises you to adjust your mindset and rest more.
Ask first: if I took a month off, would I come back to the same arrangement? If yes, the problem isn't your mindset.
Where it goes wrong: using it to deny everything an individual can do — she gives an order, not an exemption; and don't let it replace medical help. Burnout and depression aren't the same thing, and if you can't tell, see a doctor.
Lines to keep
Asking the person absorbing the damage to repair its cause is backwards.
A mindfulness course and an unchanged rota send everyone back to the same schedule.
If a month off returns you to the same arrangement, it isn't your mindset.