Steve Jobs Resigns – The Failure to Disengage and Price of Workaholism

2011 August 29 By


Illustration: Tsevis Visual Design and Deanna Lowe at Fortune magazine. From http://www.flickr.com/photos/tsevis/2313082920/in/set-72157594536252686

Steve Jobs, the charismatic and visionary founder of Apple Computers has resigned (August 24, 2011). Not to worry, he’s now assumed the Chairman of the Board role at Apple.

Last year, I wrote a post titled “The Dangers of Charismatic Leaders” in which I talked about Steve Jobs and the virtues and vices that characterize a charismatic leader. Well, the day has come when he’s handing over his CEO duties. As Jobs wrote in a letter to the Apple board of directors and Apple community, “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come. I hereby resign as CEO of Apple.”

Many have written and, no doubt, will write about Apple, what will come of Apple and Mac products, and the financial implications of Steve Jobs — a charismatic and visionary leader — leaving as CEO. The Harvard Business Review even posted “Why Apple Doesn’t Need Steve Jobs.” Just so you know, I disagree with the article (as outlined in “The Dangers of Charismatic Leaders“). These quotes below from that post sum up what, I believe, we can expect to see in a post-Jobs-as-CEO Apple:

No American CEO is more intimately identified with his company’s success. Jobs is deeply involved in every facet of Apple development and design, and he’s justly admired for his instinct for the human-factor engineering of Apple products. (Hiltzik, Jan 2009)

What remains to be seen is whether a post-Jobs Apple will retain the corporate traits that made the company successful with its iconic leader at the helm. (Knowledge@Wharton)

Ultimately, some leaders are so irreplaceable that no amount of succession planning will ensure a seamless power transition. ‘In some sense, with the charismatic person, it’s difficult to prepare a successor, because they are bigger than life,’ says John Larrere, general manager at the management consultant Hay Group. (Ante & McGregor, 2009)

Ok, now let’s shift gear a bit because in this post, I want talk about the health, well-being, and the price we pay for not heeding the warning signs of being a workaholic.

Some pundits were surprised that Steve Jobs resigned, but others weren’t. I wasn’t. After a successful surgery to remove a tumor in his pancreas in 2004, he went back to work within a few months. But Jobs’ health has been declining and he looks gaunt. If we analyze this whole scenario from a workplace psychology and occupational health psychology perspective, it’s not difficult to see that Jobs’ relentless drive (whether at work or when he’s at home) and his self-sacrifices (mentioned as a virtue in my “The Dangers of Charismatic Leaders” post) have taken an exacting toll on his health and well-being.

In 2009, Jobs took another six-month medical leave and it was later revealed that he had received a liver transplant. Things “appeared” normal as he once again returned to work. But, in January 2011, Steve Jobs announced, yet again, that he was taking a medical leave. Fast forward to August 24, 2011 and the world found out, he was not coming back in his role as CEO.

In his email to Apple employees back in January 2011, Jobs wrote, “At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company…I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can.”

Notice the conflicting priorities – “focus on my health” and yet “I will continue as CEO and be involved…and hope to be back as soon as I can.”

There’s an interesting story on the NPR blog called “A Story About Steve Jobs And Attention To Detail” by Eyder Peralta about Steve Jobs’ attention to (I would say obsession with) detail. It’s a story that Vic Gundotra, the guy behind Google+, posted about Steve Jobs calling him in January 2008 on a Sunday. While Vic’s memory of Jobs calling him on a Sunday unhappy that the second “O” in the Google icon on the iPhone didn’t “have the right yellow gradient” was one of admiration, my interpretation is one of concern. Remember that this is only four years after his pancreatic cancer scare.

There are 3 common characteristics of workaholics (Schaufeli, Taris, & Rhenen, 2008):

  1. Workaholics spend a lot of time on work activities. They are excessively hard workers.
  2. Workaholics have a hard time disengaging from work and when they do, they continue and often think about work even when they are not working. This suggests a preoccupation and obsession with their work.
  3. Workaholics work beyond what’s reasonably expected from them to meet either the organizational or economic requirements. That is, workaholics often work excessively even if they don’t need the money.

Schaufeli, Taris, and Rhenen (2008) explained that workaholics work and push themselves extremely hard, not because of financial rewards, career drives, or even organizational culture. Instead, workaholics work hard because of an inner compulsion, need, or drive.

Shimazu, Schaufeli, and Taris (2010) discovered that workaholism is both directly and indirectly associated with poor health. The researchers found that while workaholics might contribute more to organizational performance than others, “the costs for the workaholic people themselves (in terms of ill-health) are high” (p. 158).

When a workaholic, like a Steve Jobs, is constantly obsessing about work and doesn’t know how or even want to disengage (see my post about failure to disengage) while he’s away from work (e.g., Jobs should have been resting on that Sunday as I am sure his doctors would have told him to do), the end result is that something has to give. In this case, it was his health.

I am a Mac user. I’ve been one for 9 years. I love my Mac and Apple products. I wish Steve Jobs all the best, particularly good health. But if I were him, I would not only resign as CEO, I would also not take on another role, even as a Board member. The health warning signs his body has been trying to tell him should be taken very seriously.

As I wrote back in 2009, approaching work with a 24/7 mindset “is a double-edged sword that in the end [can and does] threaten employee health and well-being” (Sonnentag et al., 2008, p. 273.)

It doesn’t take a doctor to see that Steve Jobs’ workaholic mentality is costing him his health. What a truly sad price to pay when we can’t or won’t disengage from our work.

References

Ante, S.E., & McGregor, J. (January 2009). Apple Succession Plan: Nobody’s Business? BusinessWeek. Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2009/tc20090115_863327.htm

Apple. (August 2011). Letter from Steve Jobs. Retrieved from http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/08/24Letter-from-Steve-Jobs.html

Apple. (August 2011). Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple. Retrieved from http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/08/24Steve-Jobs-Resigns-as-CEO-of-Apple.html

Cheng, J. (August 2011). Steve Jobs has resigned as Apple CEO “effective immediately.” Retrieved from http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/08/steve-jobs-has-resigned-as-apple-ceo-effective-immediately.ars

Gundotra, V. (April 2011). Icon Ambulance. Retrieved from https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/gcSStkKxXTw

Hiltzik, M. (Jan 2009). Apple’s condition linked to Steve Jobs’ health. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/05/business/fi-hiltzik5

Knowledge@Wharton. Job-less: Steve Jobs’s Succession Plan Should Be a Top Priority for Apple. Retrieved from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2134

Peralta, E. (August 2011). A Story About Steve Jobs And Attention To Detail. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/08/25/139947282/a-shade-of-yellow-steve-jobs-and-attention-to-detail

Schaufeli, W. B., Taris, T. W., & Van Rhenen, W. (2008). Workaholism, burnout, and work engagement: three of a kind or three different kinds of employee well-being. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 57(2), 173-203. doi:10.1111/j.1464-0597.2007.00285.x

Shimazu, A., Schaufeli, W. B., & Taris, T. W. (2010). How does workaholism affect worker health and performance? The mediating role of coping. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 17(2), 154-160, doi:10.1007/s12529-010-9077-x

Sonnentag S., Mojza, E.J., Binnewies, C., & Scholl, A. (2008). Being engaged at work and detached at home: A week-level study on work engagement, psychological detachment, and affect. Work & Stress, 22(3), 257-276.

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Filed Under: Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Executive Coaching, Happy & Unhappy, Health & Wellness, Leadership, Meaningful Work, Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The Three Burnout Subtypes

2011 August 19 By

We typically think of a “burnt-out” employee as someone who has been on the job for a long period of time. A worker who experiences burnout is someone who is exhausted emotionally. This individual exhibits low motivation and lack of energy for the job (Spector, 2008). However, there are, in fact, more than one type of burnout.

The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), a scale measuring burnout, divides it into three components:

  • Emotional exhaustion is feeling tired and fatigued at work (it can result in absence from work).
  • Depersonalization is developing a callous/uncaring feeling, even hostility, toward others (either clients or colleagues).
  • Reduced personal accomplishment is feeling you (the employee) are not accomplishing anything worthwhile at work. This can lead to a lack of motivation and poor performance.

The Burnout Clinical Subtype Questionnaire (BCSQ-36), another scale, also divides burnout into three subtypes:

  • The “frenetic” type describes involved and ambitious subjects who sacrifice their health and personal lives for their jobs.
  • The “underchallenged” type describes indifferent and bored workers who fail to find personal development in their jobs.
  • The “worn-out” type describes neglectful subjects who feel they have little control over results and whose efforts go unacknowledged.

In a study of 409 employees at a university in Spain, Montero-Marín and colleagues (2011) discovered that those who work more than 40 hours a week faced the greatest risk for “frenetic” burnout. They found that administration and service personnel encountered the greatest risk of “underchallenged” burnout compared to teaching and research staff. Finally, the researchers found that employees with more than sixteen years of service in the organization faced the greatest risk of “worn-out” burnout versus those with less than four years of service.

Take-Away: The “frenetic” profile is associated with the number of hours per week dedicated to work. The “underchallenged” profile is related with the type of occupation and the “worn-out” profile is associated with the cumulative effect over time of the characteristics of an organization.

Suggestions: There are two, rather obvious, ways to reduce burnout. One is to take a vacation (Fritz & Sonnentag, 2006), even though a few weeks after returning to work, feelings of burnout often return. The second way to reduce burnout is to have supervisors offer emotional support to workers through positive feedback and discussions about the positive aspects of the job (Kahn, Schneider, Jenkins-Henkelman, & Moyle, 2006).

References

Fritz, C., & Sonnentag, S. (2006). Recovery, well-being, and performance-related outcomes: The role of workload and vacation experiences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(4), 936–945. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.91.4.936

Kahn, J. H., Schneider, K. T., Jenkins-Henkelman, T. M., & Moyle, L. L. (2006). Emotional social support and job burnout among high-school teachers: Is it all due to dispositional affectivity? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27, 793–807. doi:10.1002/job.397

Montero-Marín, J., García-Campayo, J., Fajó-Pascual, M., Carrasco, J. M., Gascón, S., Gili, M., & Mayoral-Cleries, F. (2011). Sociodemographic and occupational risk factors associated with the development of different burnout types: The cross-sectional University of Zaragoza study. BMC Psychiatry, 11:49. doi:10.1186/1471-244X-11-49

Spector, P. E. (2008). Industrial and organizational psychology: Research and practice (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Filed Under: Attitudes & Emotions, Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Executive Coaching, Happy & Unhappy, Health & Wellness, Meaningful Work, Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

WeFeedback and Famine in Somalia

2011 August 11 By

This is Fatuma.

Hi Everyone,

While WorkplacePsychology.Net is about work, it’s also about understanding the struggles of people, many of whom happen to work. Imagine not having any food to eat or to feed your child. Tragically, in Fatuma’s case, both of her children died a day after arriving at Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya. They had walked for 10 days from Somalia and had no food for 3 days.

Here in Texas, I’ll hear friends say “I’m starving.” But they’re really not. No, the starvation I’m referring to is not having any food at all that your body shuts down and you die. When the big aid agencies use the word “famine” to describe a situation, the situation is dire. The BBC says agencies only use “famine” when things reach level five on the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) system. This means:

  • at least 20% of the population has access to fewer than 2,100 kilocalories of food a day
  • acute malnutrition in more than 30% of children
  • two deaths per 10,000 people, or four child deaths per 10,000 children every day

Usually, a country’s government will declare a situation a famine. Unfortunately, in the Somalia, where there’s a lack of a central government, the United Nations had to step in to declare the famine. Of course, as the BBC article noted, to those people starving, it really doesn’t matter what the situation is called because they need immediate assistance.

This blog gets a lot of visitors. Many of those who visit come to read “People with a Situational Value System,” the most popular story on WorkplacePsychology.Net. It’s a story I wrote back in 2009 about people who mistreat those they view as inferior and it seems to have really resonated with many visitors to this blog. I think everyone can relate to being treated badly by somebody at some point in time.

But now, I want to ask you: What have you done to help others?

I know this is a bit out of the ordinary but I hope after reading this post you’ll understand why it’s important to me, and all of us, to help in whatever way we can. As you’re reading this blog post consider the following:

  • You sit in a place with air conditioning (or heat)
  • You have (or will have) three meals to eat (or even just one)
  • You have cold, clean water to drink
  • You have a car
  • You have a computer, laptop, and/or cellphone

If any of the above applies to you (there are of course many more), then you are much more fortunate than the people suffering from the famine in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. If you plan on buying a cup of coffee (spending $3.50 to $4.00) tomorrow or the next day or the day after that, I want to challenge you to instead donate that money to help feed the children and starving families in Somalia.

My favorite charity is the World Food Programme (WFP). Part of the United Nations, it is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger. WFP has a social media initiative called WeFeedback. WeFeedback has a feedback calculator that lets you enter your favorite food item and estimate how much you normally pay for it. It then shows you how many children that amount of money can feed.

It’s really simple and yet such a powerful way to see how a little bit can go a long way to help. For example, I bought a cup of Caramel Frappucinno at Starbucks and paid $3.45. When I enter $3.45 into the calculator it tells me that $3.45 will feed 13 children.

For those of you wondering why I’m so passionate about issues related to poverty and hunger, last year (in April 2010), the month marking 30 years that my family and I have been in the U.S., I made a personal pledge to give back and share with others about the World Food Programme. It’s a reminder of how lucky I am, and to always give thanks and give back.

Now, if everything you have just read isn’t enough to motivate you, hopefully this will: Giving is good for you. Professor Lidewij Niezink in the Netherlands pointed me to an article called “5 Ways Giving Is Good for You” on the Greater Good Science Center (at U.C. Berkeley) website. There’s research showing that when you give, it doesn’t just help the receiver of that gift, it also helps improve your own health and happiness.

[Note: The sections below are taken directly from the Greater Good Science Center website]

Five Ways Giving Is Good for You:

1. Giving makes us feel happy.

In a 2006 study, Jorge Moll and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health found that when people give to charities, it activates regions of the brain associated with pleasure, social connection, and trust, creating a “warm glow” effect. Scientists also believe that altruistic behavior releases endorphins in the brain, producing the positive feeling known as the “helper’s high.”

2. Giving is good for our health.

In a 2003 study on elderly couples, Stephanie Brown of the University of Michigan and her colleagues found that those individuals who provided practical help to friends, relatives, or neighbors, or gave emotional support to their spouses, had a lower risk of dying over a five-year period than those who didn’t.

In a 2006 study by Rachel Piferi of Johns Hopkins University and Kathleen Lawler of the University of Tennessee, people who provided social support to others had lower blood pressure than participants who didn’t, suggesting a direct physiological benefit to those who give of themselves.

3. Giving promotes cooperation and social connection.

Several studies, including work by sociologists Brent Simpson and Robb Willer, have suggested that when you give to others, your generosity is likely to be rewarded by others down the line—sometimes by the person you gave to, sometimes by someone else.

4. Giving evokes gratitude.

Whether you’re on the giving or receiving end of a gift, that gift can elicit feelings of gratitude—it can be a way of expressing gratitude or instilling gratitude in the recipient. And research has found that gratitude is integral to happiness, health, and social bonds.

5. Giving is contagious.

A study by James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, and Nicholas Christakis of Harvard, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, shows that when one person behaves generously, it inspires observers to behave generously later, toward different people. In fact, the researchers found that altruism could spread by three degrees—from person to person to person to person. “As a result,” they write, “each person in a network can influence dozens or even hundreds of people, some of whom he or she does not know and has not met.”

Help end child hunger

 

Almost half of Somalia’s 3.7 million people are facing hunger, malnutrition and other related problems. Please join me in doing just a small part to help feed those who are starving. When I read about Fatuma’s situation, I cried. I have never had to walk to get food, let alone walk for 10 days in desert conditions; and I have never gone for 3 days without food. The closest was when I was 9 years old and my family and I escaped Vietnam on a boat. I remember we ran out of food but that was only for 1 day. We were lucky.

Click on the WeFeedback graphic above (or the link provided in this sentence) and see how the feedback calculator works and, even more importantly, how just a few dollars will help feed people who are truly starving.

Thank you,

Steve

Links to Famine in Somalia

Filed Under: Health & Wellness Tagged With:

Dull Tasks Seem To Drag On for Entitled People

2011 August 5 By

Wonder why something feels longer than it actually does sometimes? According to a recent study, it might be because you feel entitled.

A study by O’Brien, Anastasio, and Bushman (2011) found that people who have a sense of entitlement, where they believe that they deserve more and is entitled to more than others, tend to feel that dull moments last an eternity.

Undergraduate students were told that the purpose of a survey they were participating in was to “gain a better understanding of your own personal opinions and preferences” because “you’re entitled to the best possible experiences here on campus.” They were then asked to complete a 27-item survey that had very mundane things such as “What is your favorite day of the week?” and “How often do you eat fast food?”

Those who felt entitled (to the “best possible experiences” on campus) thought that the survey took 2.81 minutes longer to complete than a control group did.

Like most resources in life, the resource of time seems more precious to those who feel a sense of entitlement. Dull tasks seem like a particular waste of their time for people who feel entitled, resulting in slower perceptions of how time passes (O’Brien et al., 2011, p. 7).

Reference

O’Brien, E. H., Anastasio, P. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2011). Time crawls when you’re not having fun: Feeling entitled makes dull tasks drag on. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1177/0146167211408922

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