The 5 Step Process to Overcome the Bystander Effect and Help Others With Burnout
Photo by Dan Burton on Unsplash
Continuing from last week's post on the bystander effect, I wanted to dig in further and learn how to overcome it. Most of our current understanding of the bystander effect comes from experiments run by two social psychologists: John M. Darley and Bibb Latané. Darly and Latané identified the five cognitive steps that bystanders go through before they take an action in an emergency. With those steps in mind we can create a process to handling burnout.
Notice that something is going on
How familiar with the three scales of burnout: exhaustion, cynicism, and lack of accomplishment? Do you check in with coworkers or team members on these scales to see if anyone is burning out?
Interpret the situation as being an emergency
Burnout may not seem as urgent as other emergencies, but if left untreated it can have many negative effects.
How do leaders in your organization feel about burnout? Do they recognize that burnout is an issue? When people complain about being overworked do you brush those concerns off or do you think burnout can be a factor?
Feel responsible for taking action
Don't try to solve everyone's problems at first. If you notice some of your close coworkers burning out you are more likely to feel responsible for them and are more likely to be more than just a bystander.
Choose a form of assistance
There are two main ways bystanders can help - directly assisting the victim or a "detour" intervention by reporting an emergency to authorities.
Do you think you are capable of directly helping someone with burnout? Is there an upper-level manager at your organization that can help you? Admittedly, this can be difficult if there are no institutional ways to handle burnout at your organization. If that’s the case, can you create new processes to help coworkers with burnout?
Implement the action choice
The final step in overcoming the bystander effect is to take the first step towards implementing an action. This may seem basic but don't underestimate the difficulty in taking that first step.
What do you think about this process? Feel free to send me an email.