Augi World - July/August 2008 - (Page 4) The CAD Manager Brown Outs The December 2006 issue of Harvard Business Review featured the article “Extreme Jobs - the Dangerous Allure of the 70 hour Workweek.“ In this article, authors Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce found from their research that people with extreme jobs may not always experience burn out, but rather, might experience what they call “Brown Outs.” Most of us are familiar with brown outs as they relate to electricity. A power outage may be referred to as a blackout if power is lost completely, or as a brown out if the voltage level is below the normal minimum level specified for the system. In business, brown outs can happen when your personal energy level drops. But back to the article. A brown out, from the authors’ perspective, is when workers reduce the level of effort or output because they are overtaxed. You come into work and just don’t feel like giving 110 percent—or even 50 percent. The article states that 45 percent of extreme workers experience brown outs on a weekly basis. This can happen with CAD managers if they are pushed too far in too many areas. You cannot work at a breakneck pace for very long. Keeping so many balls in the air can physically exhaust a person. As a brown out begins, your enthusiasm and energy give way to fatigue and irritability. Your patience may start to wear thin. You have difficulty starting projects and become indecisive. Your usual high productivity drops a bit and continues to drop. Your work deteriorates and you start thinking that your performance is “good enough.” You start thinking about calling in sick or actually take a day off “just to recover.” These are some typical signs of brown outs. Yours may differ. Have you ever experienced a brown out? Protecting yourself 4 Have you had days when you just couldn’t think straight? Have you been running too fast for too long? It may be time to rethink some things. Keep in mind that you are in this for the long haul. The short term may drag you down and wear you out. Keep some of the things below in mind when you reach the end of your “rope.” Remember that it is the best who brown out or burn out. This means that if you are experiencing fatigue and stress it is be- cause you are one of the best and may be more dedicated than others. Those who just cruise through the work day are not candidates for getting overworked. Those who move away from taking on more responsibilities will not experience the strains that you might. If you are experiencing any level of discouragement and sluggish thinking, then it may point to the fact that you are the “go to” person. You are the one that others load up with their needs. It imw w w. A U G I . c o m http://www.augi.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.