Hello, my name is Stephen Smith, the owner of 3Pi Squared, and this is the ABA Business
Leaders Podcast.
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program.
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on ABA Business Leaders.
And now let's get to the episode.
Hello everyone.
Today we're going to talk about burnout awareness.
So I mean, we can't talk about being business owners and leading companies and all of that
without talking about how not to get burnt out.
Sure.
This is something to worry about.
I don't know, worry about is the word I want to use, but it's the word I use for all of
your staff.
It's not.
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Like everyone, everyone in life, like burnout's a thing, especially in 2023 when we have been
shaped to think that we can do all the things as we all kind of, I think, are starting to
step back and take care of ourselves a little bit more.
It's becoming more of a thing than it was a few years ago.
So it's super important, especially dealing with helping fields.
And we're definitely in a helping field.
You know, we're helping individuals mostly on the spectrum.
If not individuals that have a high level of need in a lot of cases are typically the
majority of who we work with on day to day and helping the families.
And then my personal experience coming from working in early intervention and helping
families during those really difficult times where they're getting a diagnosis or they're
not exactly sure how to connect with their child or how to teach their child because
they're realizing their child is different and they're reaching out to us.
So there's a lot of emotion there.
And so, yeah, from our techs, I mean, I would say that you're right.
It's not just us as business owners and directors and the leadership of the companies.
It's important for us to model these things and to do it ourselves.
But yeah, I mean, every single person on our staff need these tools and skills.
And like talking about burnout, like, dude, when I was doing scheduling and the billing,
oh my goodness gracious.
So like it's not even like our BT's job is the job that I will never be able to do.
And so like our BTs out there, if any of you are listening, you guys are all amazing.
But like billing and insurance, oh, goodness gracious.
So like that in itself can really burn someone out.
So it's just, yeah, this is a hard business to be in.
I don't think that there's going to be any like a wonderful position, right?
This is just, it's stressful.
You're helping people and there's a lot to do.
And in a lot of cases, you're dealing with the politics and stuff of insurance, which
is not as mainstreamed as we would like for it to be.
So therefore it makes it more challenging.
I don't know.
I feel like that's real.
So yeah.
So burnout awareness.
I don't want to go into the next slide.
So we're going to start with the definition of burnout because it is in, it's defined
in the ICD, the diagnostic manual 11.
I guess I'll read it for those of you who can't see the screen.
So burnout is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that
has not been successfully managed.
It is characterized by three dimensions.
Very interesting that they specifically say workplace.
Yes.
Yeah.
So burnout is a workplace thing.
It's not, I'm burned out at home.
I mean, you could, I'm sure you could be burned out at home, but like this is specific to
the workplace.
I mean, those stay at home parents, I'm sure you consider that workplace.
You may not get paid.
Anyway, so the three characterized, it's characterized by three dimensions.
So those three dimensions are feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased
mental distance from one's job or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's
job and reduced professional efficacy.
Burnout refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be
applied to describe experiences and other areas of life.
Okay.
So I got to read that with all of the hard words.
Good for me.
All right.
So I don't know.
Is there anything else you want to say?
I'm not sure what the next slide is to be honest.
So is there anything more on this one?
We'll get into it, but it's just like, this is really just to say, like, this is a real
thing.
It's not some frou-frou thing.
Diagnosis.
Yeah.
Like, so like this is important, right?
We need to understand what is going on and then obviously how to prevent it is the biggest
thing and we'll kind of talk about that.
Yeah.
What to do if it's there, but then yes, how to prevent it, how to keep it from.
So yeah, so burnout and the leadership team, right?
And this is something when I'm talking to people as they're growing their business,
it's especially on the growing side of things.
I find it can be very stressful and overwhelming.
And starting out.
Yeah.
And so like, if you're burnt out, your staff are burnt out.
Like that's typically what you will see.
I will see that, but I will say there's an exception there because I think at some level
of that in between is that's part of your burnout is that you're not letting on and
you're masking that you're not burnout.
And like, no one knows that you're burnout.
There is that part there.
I mean, eventually I think if it continues and everyone's burnt out, if you're burnt
out, but they do feel like that can add to the feelings of burnout and aloneness and
whatnot during that, like leading up to it, right?
Like if you're trying to hide it or you're trying to keep it from everyone.
Yeah.
Like we just recorded it.
And so you'll hear that one first is like our expressing concerns and complaints.
We tie it back to values.
And so again, this is very similar, right?
Like I don't think anyone listening to this or watching this is like, Oh yeah, you know
what my value is to have a burnt out company like that.
That's not a goal of anyone.
And so like, we just need to be aware that like, if I'm feeling burnt out, then I'm
setting up an environment where it's possible for others to be burnt out.
And it probably is going to happen.
And so in my experience, it typically is, is if leadership is burnt out, then the staff
are also burnt out as well.
And it just kind of, it goes down, right?
Yeah, at least they're feeling it.
I have to keep these podcasts clean because we have a, we checkbox that it's clean and
it's okay for people to listen.
So poop rolls downhill.
Am I allowed to say that?
Yeah.
You know, so that that's kind of where it's going to go.
And so that's just something to be aware of.
So if you're stressed and burnt out, you know, maybe you're not handling situations the best
that you could if you were otherwise not burned out and then you apply more pressure to staff
and, and then that causes more stress and then that results in burnout.
It's just, it's going, it's inevitable.
So it's, it's really important that you're aware of it.
And then we need to move forward and moving forward is changing the mindset of the company.
And then again, you know, we've talked about it a number of times, values, right?
Like this goes back to your mission statement.
I'm going to get a sign like says values and then like throughout the podcast and just
like values and like, yeah.
And so it values, right?
So April's taking this on for three pi squared, right?
She has her two courses on values based leadership.
Highly recommend it, right?
It's my favorite thing right now to do coaching on values based leadership for ABA company.
And so like, even if you feel as though you have a mission statement and you have your
values, I do recommend that you just like talk to April and we're going to put the link
to the courses and we're going to put the link to her booking so you can book her and
talk to her, but just like, um, talk to her about, okay, this is where I'm at.
Where do I go next?
Right.
And just, um, I heard this this morning on another podcast, but when you're in, you can't
see the picture when you're in the frame.
And I thought that was kind of a good expression.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that's similar to like what I said last time.
It's like, you know, with the boiling pot thing that I messed up during what we just
recorded a few minutes ago, but like a lot of times you don't know until the level of
drama and putting out fires is so intense that it's consuming all the parts of your
work day or an outside of work too.
And so like, how do you recognize that before it gets to that point?
Yeah.
Obviously it's hard to.
Yes.
Yeah.
But outside, like having a mentor, I highly recommend and I wouldn't recommend anybody
else but April on this.
Well, I mean, you kind of have to say that.
But she is awesome.
And you know, what else can I say?
And so creating a leadership team is really important.
And it's this, it goes across the board.
I'm like, you know, we're going to be talking about KPI, you know, we talked about quality
and, and that we say you need a leadership team.
We talked about the complaints and concerns that was bringing in a leadership team to
help your staff if this is their first time feeling comfortable enough to express concerns.
So really having that leadership team is important.
And the leadership team is not just your quote unquote leaders.
This is like you want to bring in the billing department, you want to bring in the cleaning
department, you want to bring in operations, you want to bring in clinicians, you want
to bring in various levels of clinicians.
So you know, newer RBT's like RBT's that maybe have 1400 hours of time, BCBA's like you want
to bring in as many people as you can into this leadership team.
Of course, I also recognize that like you're paying these people.
So if you've got a staff of five and everybody's on the leadership team, that's not feasible.
Right.
Like, as you grow, your your leadership team should grow too.
So it represents every department as much as possible.
Because you want their feedback.
Like you may not want their feedback, but you want their feedback.
It's important.
I feel like that's a really important thing.
Yeah.
As you grow, I like how you said that as you grow, your leadership team should grow.
Because yeah, when it's just you, or just you and an RBT or is that like, yeah, that
doesn't make sense yet.
But like have that in your business plan, have that in your model to grow into.
Because I think we were our most successful and we really fit into the culture that we
wanted to be when we had someone from every day.
We were like, we grew.
But then I was like, I took it back down smaller as Stevens are growing three pi squared.
And so like, I mean, we didn't have that many staff, but like, we still made sure we
had someone from every level like represented.
And we had like, you know, we had kind of like our our tech who had been there, you
know, for years, like a lead tech kind of person we had in BCBA, we had our billing
person, we had our admin person.
That was like super important.
Yeah, super important to have and the leadership.
Yeah, the tech piece was like, probably, I don't know, guys, like it was, I can't put
like a percentage or number I'm trying to, but I'm just not that kind of person.
That's not how my brain works.
It was just really, really important, because we got a lot of feedback.
And so but we can talk about that another day.
That's something else that we're working on is like how to support support our behavior
tech.
So but yeah, just having that leadership team, even bringing in like your scheduler like
this can be eye opening to the rest of the team, like how much work is involved in scheduling
and like, just the frustrations around scheduling, like this so that people like the idea of
this leadership team is that you're getting you're getting feedback from all areas so
that like, we can all understand where each are coming from.
And then maybe we can, like, without an official process, remove barriers from each other because
we're like, oh, wow, this is a human being.
And this job is will hurt.
And if I do this thing a little bit differently, it makes their job easier.
And so why would I not do that?
Well, okay, so we like we went through like a season where we had like really bad cancellation,
right?
And we were like, what is going on?
Right.
So we're bringing and we had our leadership team then, I kid you not, several of our techs
are like, so we had number one, we had like scheduling person in there.
And she was like going through the whole process of like how how we did it.
And then we had our biller and like how she like double checked the time she's in double
check that they making sure that we're like not making any mistakes or like accidentally
committing fraud or something, right?
And so we had all these pieces.
And I kid you not, I can see her face right now.
She was like, I had no idea.
Yeah, I had no idea.
She's like, now I never want to call out.
And I'm like, well, that's not you know, let's just let's follow.
You know, that's important to you do you know, need these off.
But yeah, so it's transparent.
It's open.
People don't know.
No, they don't.
I think we assume.
And even if they do know, they forget, right?
Because they've got their own stuff to worry about.
They're worrying about like getting, I don't know, a million mans from their little client
that day.
Or their own family issues.
Yeah, who knows?
Right.
So it's just good to have that.
It just opens up the like, again, it provides feedback from every every department you you
learn new things that you may not otherwise learn.
And then it just it opens that up and it promotes a team environment.
So I highly recommend it.
And then we already talked about the unique company value.
Highly recommend having company values.
And then it's not just enough to say, well, now I have the values.
We got three or four.
You have to implement them into your day to day stuff.
So again, you know, putting them into every meeting, right?
We talked about in the meeting, the complaints and concerns, bringing in grounding, bringing
in checking in, allowing openness in the meeting, allowing everyone to be able to talk before
the second, before anybody gets to speak twice.
Things like this, you know, are part of your values.
And so I would highly recommend that.
And then, you know, the focus has to be on for the leadership team, in my opinion, and
as how I look at leadership and or a manager, whatever you want to call yourself is, it's
my job is to remove barriers.
That's it.
That's that is my job is how do I make it an easier position for the people that are
under me that I am supporting?
That's it.
That's all my job is.
And so we need to focus on removing barriers from providing excellent services and then
delegating as much as you can.
Again, if you're a one person show right now, then there may not you may not have financially,
you may not be able to do it.
Right.
And you're just going to have to push through it.
I totally get it.
We've been there.
And and but as you grow, you can't do it all.
And you know, when I'm working with someone creating their company, that I will ask them,
like, what is your exit strategy?
You need an exit strategy.
Right.
And so is your exit strategy, you want this company to flourish without you in the picture
and you're going to be on an island somewhere drinking america rita?
Or is it the exit strategy as I'm going to work my butt off for the next five years and
I'm going to sell it?
Right.
Like, so what is your exit strategy?
We need to know that.
And so that is going to be knowing what your your exit strategy is will allow you to make
an informed decision on what it is that you're ultimately going to delegate.
Right.
Because if you're delegating the director level position, then we need to start working
on how we do that.
But if you're not, and you're just like, yeah, OK, I'm fine with being director, but I don't
want to do billing anymore.
I don't want to do the scheduling anymore.
That's a different process.
Right.
You need to know it.
You're like, I love this, and I'm going to do this until retirement.
And I like the, you know, I like having my hand in all the clinical parts of things,
but I don't I don't I just need to be able to check in with, you know, billing or whatever.
Right.
And so it's knowing that.
I think there's something on here like when we're talking about burnout and leadership
that's not included on this slide, I probably would have included with like boundaries.
No, it's in there.
Oh, well, of course it is because you have all the things I guess I'm feeling self conscious
that people are good.
Yeah.
Instead of putting it on others, I'm taking it myself.
But I'm starting to feel self conscious that I'm like, values, values, values, values,
everybody values if you don't do values like, you know, whatever.
Just seriously part of forming your values and knowing like why you're starting this
company, why this company is even here, what your, you know, your vision for the company,
your mission in this moment and like where are you wanting to go?
Like can also as you're growing it, like Stephen will say, like, define your dream job.
What are the parts that you see yourself doing for years or at least for a while that you
enjoy?
What parts do you keep you grounded within this and that you need to make sure you, you
know, like if you need to be able to work with a kid occasionally to keep grounded,
like mine was like I needed to have face to face time with some of these families, some
of the parents to like remember why I'm doing this or see a kid every now and then.
Because I got to the point where like I was in my office at a desk and I was like, like
what am I paperwork, right?
And so so like what is it that you need to keep you going and what's important to you
and like knowing your values helps you to know that.
But then also like can it helps you to like know what boundaries and I hear that we're
going to talk about that in a minute.
But like that's also like I feel like delegating like it all kind of works together.
It's not a first this then that kind of thing.
It's like, okay, knowing your values, knowing what you want, knowing what you're striving
for, what can you delegate?
What can you let go of?
And then like having those boundaries because I think what happens is so I'm going to talk
to those of you who are business owners and who have like single handedly grown your own
business, right?
It's like this is your baby.
This is your project.
You're you've put all your time and effort into this and it's something you've had to.
You've had to wear all the hats.
Like unless like, you know, you have like, you know, unlimited funds that you can hire
people from the start when we could for you, then it's hard.
Like you get stuck in that.
Oh, like I need this mentality.
And as you grow and it's hard to realize that this is you have a choice, right?
Like you have a choice.
So I think that having a plan and you might not know it all from the beginning, but as
you're going, I was talking with someone the other day and I was like, you know, just keep
like a notebook or, you know, or if you're an electronic person, like keep a little thing
on your computer, like just to jot down as you're doing your day to day skills, jobs,
whatever for running this company, like what do I like?
What do I not like?
And just keep a running to you know, and so it's there for you.
And so then you're like, OK, I'm at the point where I can hire somebody.
Who am I going to hire?
Am I going to hire Billing?
Am I going to hire Scheduler?
Am I going to, you know, hire more tax?
What you know, you could that's even one thing you can look at these and say, what can I
take off of my plate that from the I don't like call, you know, and give this to someone
else?
I just think I feel like we've just seen so much burnout in young companies, even up to
like year five or something, right?
If it's the solopreneur, is that the right word?
Who's built this company from scratch and they're continuing to hold all the things.
Yeah, I mean, like like the normal person that would be building a company is a bit
of a control freak, if I'm being honest.
And so I am totally control freak.
I need my hand in everything.
Like that's just something that's that's me.
That's who I am.
That's there's no denying it.
And so I have to catch myself and say, well, hold on.
Like is this really necessary?
And so but delegating is still difficult for me.
I have a hard time trusting that anyone is going to do it as well as I would.
And I'm probably not wrong in that.
Right.
Like this is my company.
Of course, someone that I'm paying hourly or salary is not going to be in it to the
depth that I am.
Of course they're not.
But can you put the processes in place that allow that person to do the job to the best
of their ability without making mistakes?
Of course you can.
Right.
And so that's where you got to let some stuff go.
You just you're going to have to or you are going to be burnt out and then your entire
team will then be burnt out.
It's just right.
I mean, you start dropping balls or your health starts to suffer.
You know, you're like, why do I keep getting sick?
You know, and then and then it's possible that you realize, wow, I'm I'm doing all the
things that I don't really need to be doing all the things anymore.
Right.
And it's not that you don't need to.
You shouldn't be like you like it's like you can't like you physically.
It's impossible.
Right.
So you shouldn't be working 80 hours a week.
Right.
Again, maybe at the start, you're pushing through it.
Like you just got to do this.
But that should not like in year two, year three, year four, year five, you should still
not like if you're still working 80 hours, then you have a problem.
You are a control freak and you need to stop it.
So like delegate, delegate and you know, we're here.
We can help with that.
But again, putting those values in place is going to give you that opportunity to recognize
that, oh, wow, this I am not I am not living where I want to be writing that dream job
will let you know.
Like, OK, am I ticking any of the boxes of my dream job or am I just stuck in the grind?
You know, and there are people and I know people that they'd love to be stuck in the
grind.
They just love to put out fires.
It's very addictive to put out fires.
But that's not your job either.
You're the business owner.
You're there to remove barriers permanently and not just get stuck in the daily drama
burn out.
Like that's just not that's not where you want to be.
It's not going to be a successful business.
Or if it is, it's going to be to the detriment of course.
Yes.
Yeah.
All right.
So prevention, right?
So if we can prevent this before it happens, then that's where we want to be.
Right.
So we want to try to avoid this.
Now, typically, that's not what happens is that you recognize that like you're burned
out because you just don't want to go to work anymore.
But just like we did in the last one or I did in the last podcast, I highly recommend
you have a meditation practice.
It can be super helpful.
Trauma sensitive meditation is a great place to start.
There are people that have trauma that don't even know they have trauma.
You know, as you start a meditation practice, it should be gentle and you should go slow.
And you know, like this is it's not it's a marathon.
It's not a sprint.
And so, you know, giving yourself grace and recognizing you're a human, it's really important.
And I'd like to add to I think another thing here, unless it's on another slide, because
obviously I did not review these slides before we started talking today because I think boundaries
are here.
But no, it's like having I want to say a hobby.
I don't it doesn't necessarily have to be a hobby, like per se, like building model
cars or whatever.
Right.
Legos.
Yeah, it's the way Stephen loves his legos.
But having some kind of hobby, having something like whether it's going for a hike in the
woods, whether it's, you know, listening to music or gardening or crossword puzzles, I
don't know anything coloring.
I recently have really enjoyed coloring and my son and I will like color together sometimes.
And it's like a nice little brain break.
Right.
So even finding ways to move your body or to like rest your brain or doing something
that brings you joy that's outside of your company.
Even in the beginning, when you feel like you don't have time to do that, take five
minutes a day, like put it in your calendar, schedule it for yourself.
Even if you have to take something off of your plate to be able to put this on, like
it's super, super important and also can help you stay grounded.
And remember, there's a life outside of your company as well.
And so boundaries, it is absolutely OK to say no.
Right.
We have to be able to say no.
And this again goes across the board for the team.
There has to be some ability for the staff to say no.
Now there needs to be justification around the no.
But like, like, is it an unethical situation?
Is it, you know, is it is it not working?
Is it not promoting company value?
What is it?
Right.
What is the reason for the no?
But we need the ability to say no.
Right.
And then we can have a conversation and maybe the no turns into a yes.
But like, there needs to be that ability to say no.
Or maybe it sets up a need for clear expectations.
Yeah.
To be able to like clearly define business hours.
You know, and like we talk about like having company devices and not having staff use their
own devices and like they're not giving out their personal number.
So when they're off the clock.
And that goes for you too.
You too.
Yeah.
Put your phone in the drawer and lock it.
But have a business number or a personal number?
Don't have your personal number be your business number.
I mean, I'm sure I've said it on this podcast probably, or at least in some of the classes
for the membership, like probably several times.
But like, it was so scary for me to set a cutoff time.
Like we were well into year two, I would say, because Willis, our son, was like a toddler.
And he was at the age where he was needing my attention more and more in the evenings.
Right.
And it was really scary for me to set a time for to be done for work.
But I was finding it was just it was necessary.
And we were no longer in a position where we were working with some at risk cases where
we were kind of on call.
And so we no longer had that contract.
So we were able to kind of we were doing more of the basic early intervention type of thing.
So we could turn off work at a certain time and it was OK.
And so but it was hard to do that and to stick by it.
Yeah.
And I remember I had a call from or a text.
I can't even remember.
I think it might have been a text from one of the BCBAs and she had this really important
question.
And I'm like, OK.
And she asked me her question.
I could wait till tomorrow.
It could wait probably till next week.
Like it was nothing like emergency.
And so I like took a deep breath that I like gritted my teeth and I was like, we can talk
about this tomorrow at nine o'clock because I knew we were going to we were going to have
a meeting tomorrow anyways with all of the BCBAs.
Right.
And she got frustrated.
She got irritated with me.
She did not like it.
And but then she also came back later and she was like, wow, I really respected that
that you you had.
I see.
I see you.
You know, you putting boundaries in place and then that built into us having the culture
for our BCBAs.
We're like, yeah, no.
Like you're not answering text and emails and phone calls from texts and parents and
whatnot like all hours of the night have work hours and turn it off.
And it was scary to do.
It was like one of the best things I ever did.
Like and then I was able to pretty much keep up with that boundary of turning work off
at a certain time or at least accept, you know, taking in calls and emails and phone
calls from other people.
Sure.
And again, like this is going to depend on you.
So April had a boundary and like the boundary was while it was for her, it was probably
more for the employees to feel like they could shut it off.
But at the same time, like if you're loving it and you do you write your boundary may
look different.
Yeah.
So that's if you love Sunday mornings, you respond to emails, you do you.
But then just that's just something to be aware of.
Like this is to prevent the things on the first slide.
So if it's not preventing those, then don't do them.
Does that match where you want to be?
So there's no one size fits all for this.
That's really all I'm trying to say here.
And then give yourself self-compassion and then expect the same from others.
I don't personally like self-compassion that I don't like that phrase.
It's just compassion for me.
Like you would want the same for yourself as you would for others.
And so compassion is for everyone, yourself included.
That's kind of how I look at it.
Yeah.
And I feel like that's how you say it here.
Like give yourself compassion and expect the same from others.
It's just like it's like allowing for human-ness.
Yeah.
And just meeting people where they are.
And it's I think I'm kind of excited.
I want to dive into that more in a later class because I think it's something that we could
benefit from like further defining what that means and like what that would look like in
a company.
Because sometimes I think people feel like compassion also like is opposite of keeping
your boundaries.
Yeah, totally.
And it's not.
You can do both.
You can have.
You can have compassion without boundaries.
You can't.
You have to have boundaries.
Yeah.
You can have compassion and still keep your boundaries and not let somebody walk away.
It's not that we're like saying get out of jail free card that people can do whatever
they want.
I think sometimes that's the connotation that compassion in a workplace had.
Yeah, no, why not?
Almost like a gentle parenting, like a submissive, like a permissive.
It's not permissive parenting, permissive leadership.
It's more like clearly communicating boundaries, being open, accepting mistakes, learning through
mistakes, like growth mindset.
It's like it's very much holding each other accountable too.
Absolutely.
Yeah, no, like what I was saying wasn't that you have to have boundaries if you're going
to be compassionate.
No, like the definition, my definition of compassion includes boundaries.
Like you cannot be compassionate without applying boundaries.
Like you're not being compassionate if you don't have boundaries.
Well, because it's like it's also respecting other people's boundaries.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's accepting boundaries.
It's saying you're allowed to say no, right?
Like that is being compassionate.
And even though I might be like, I like it, I'm going to allow you to say no.
Exactly.
Yes.
All right.
And so, you know, like shutting off the work devices at the end of the day, right?
Again, you know, technically burnout is not like is home related stuff, but like doom
scrolling on Facebook is not going to help you just shutting off devices is a good idea.
That's something that I need to do better at myself.
So like, you know, shutting off the device when the workday is done when you have set
your workday.
And so again, you get to set your workday.
So your workday may be different than mine.
And so I may not like your workday, you may not like mine, you may like to work in the
evenings where I like to work in the morning.
So that's totally fine, but when you have set your workday, then shut it off, right?
And then asking for help, asking for help and allowing others to ask for help.
Talking to supervisors and advocating for yourself, right?
These are important things and letting others advocate for themselves.
So again, this goes back to expressing concerns and complaints, right?
Like we need this place to be this environment to be open.
You need to feel like our opinion matters.
We feel need to feel important.
When we come here, we need to feel like we're accepted and that we're making a difference,
right?
All of these things are super important.
And that you matter, right?
And so and I think there is something in there with asking for help that like mistakes, like
learning through mistakes and being okay with mistakes is like a thing, right?
Because asking for help can be so hard.
And I think that sometimes we set it up to be hard within.
Yeah I think it's probably this culture that we live in is it's asking for help is it leads
to vulnerability and that's bad, right?
Like it's a...
Yeah, I mean, because it's like that like single minded like independent like mindset
of I'm doing it myself versus like we're a community doing this together.
And I mean, and that's that's another thing that's like up to you as a business owner
and like director of how you want to set up the culture of your business.
But I mean, that's what we've we really tried hard to set it up as a community that we're
all here helping each other working together.
And we kind of facilitate some of that by like allowing you know, some techs to like
if one tech was really good at like pretend play or something and someone else might be
have a hard time with that, then we would allow like that one tech to shadow or to hang
out with at a session or have like some time in the office to work on that skill together
like peer coaching kind of stuff.
And I think that did start to open up people being more willing to ask for help in areas.
But I think to like really listen, I think as as leadership really listening because
people I think this is just my own random thought and perspective of this.
But I think sometimes people ask for help without actually asking for help.
And so like really and that's where those like we talked about in our last recording
that like having that open environment for people to come in and and also have an intention
and having an intention is very helpful.
But even you know, thanking people for asking for help, you know, like, you know, like,
you know, there are ways that you can promote this stuff.
But, you know, like the mistake of the week, you know, and emailing it out, even if it's
yours, right, and saying, look at this, like, now you may want to call it near when or something
like that.
I mean, there are languages that's fine.
Some mistakes are like termination.
Yeah, like, there's some really important mistakes that can't be made of right.
But just having that growth mindset within those like day to day small things like throughout,
like as we're all learning and I mean, all learning all the different levels of ABA and
then also like every human that we provide services for are all a little different.
So yeah, yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
So and then supervisors leadership, right, just be aware if you see changes in your team
or your tax or the people that you're supervising that, you know, you talk to them about burnout,
everyone should know at least a general sense of what the definition of burnout is.
And then, you know, again, having that meditation process in place will allow you to have a
better understanding of what's going on in your body, the emotions, the sensations to
clearly know that, hey, maybe I am burned out, right.
And so that that can help as well.
Well, even the check in process and meetings to over time, like they can give you a lot
of information.
And then to I believe we've mentioned this before, but the clarity coaching conversation,
what you call Triple C, which I refuse to call Triple C because it's really a four season
it.
But anyways, those are values based missions based like templates or like, you know, you
make it your own, but it's like a way a standard kind of form to go off of to have regularly
scheduled check ins with your staff.
It doesn't have to, you know, depending on how things run in your company, that can mean
every few months or it can mean monthly or weekly.
Yeah, I mean, we recommend.
Yeah.
So we recommend to start with weekly, right.
And then you may have some people that just need weekly and then you may have some people
that are okay with every other week.
And I think it's really important to include text in this.
And so that's why I say that the frequency isn't as important because that is where it's
harder, especially if you're a little bit larger, small company, to be able to get FaceTime
with texts on a regular basis and you're having to pay them outside of their time.
So there are a lot of logistics there.
But even if it's like a quick, even if it's an email, like you have to, you have to make
it, you can't always go to like the best case scenario.
Sometimes you have to do the best that you can, but some kind of check in.
And when you do check in, like based on your values are based on like, you know, the intention
of what specific thing you want to check in on.
Let's say you've realized, wow, we're all stressed out and burnout.
What are we going to look at first?
What's the first thing that we can change?
What can we, what's the easiest thing that we barrier that we can eliminate?
You know?
And then like maybe even taking that intention with these check in processes or the triple
C thing to be able to, yes, I called it triple C. I saw you smirk.
But yeah, so I mean, it's just, it's really about having that open communication really,
because it just builds off of the communication because burnout is a real thing and there
are these, and I think a big part of the prevention is communicating about it because if you don't
know that your staff, I mean, because some people are really good at hiding this, right?
Or they feel like they're supposed to, or that's just how they work, right?
Until it's already too late and they're like quitting, right?
And really you found out that, oh gosh, if I would have just like, if we could have worked
on this and maybe move their start time to 9 30 instead of nine o'clock so they can
drop their kids off at school and get here in a, I don't know, like it can be some little
something that you could have discussed two years ago and you would still have this amazing
staff member here with you.
Yeah, I highly recommend these like unofficial non-formal communications than just waiting
six months for an evaluation.
Exactly.
I do not recommend evaluations.
I despise evaluations.
So yeah, I mean, having open communication and then again, using your values for that,
you can have it so that it's standardized and if there's a process and the more you
do it, the easier it gets.
Like when I was doing it regularly with my staff, three pi squared, it was 10 minutes.
It was 10 minutes.
Right.
That's the thing.
I mean, if you're staying on top of it and you're doing it on a regular basis, there's
not like a long list of grievances there, right?
Because you're just like keeping up.
It's just what happened in those five days.
And that builds a relationship for them to even come to you outside of that meeting and
be like, hey, could you have 10 minutes tomorrow?
I really need rent on the bayou or I'm having an issue or something, whatever.
And the feedback was, this is great.
When I come to these things, I don't feel judged.
I do feel like I'm allowed to talk.
I do feel like this is meant for me and to make it easier for me and to make it so that
I can do better.
And so that's really it, right?
And we definitely have to wrap this up for today because we're about to head into a live.
But I do just want to mention quickly that I think another thing that's super important
outside of values is having your job expectations very clearly defined.
And that doesn't just mean the RBT checklist or the BACB checklist that the BACB puts out.
I mean, those are obviously very important pieces, but also looking at your own company
policies and procedures and looking at the soft skills that are needed to be good at
their job and to provide quality services.
And so even making those checklists for the soft skills and adding them within just our
day to day duties that they're supposed to be doing anyways, delivering quality services
and use also checking in with those along with the values.
Because when you're able to give very direct feedback based on a very specific thing that
they are already should be aware of that is expected of them, then that also opens the
door for that communication.
And even when you're talking about burnout prevention, hey, these are my expectations
that you guys have of me working with this company and I'm finding that when I'm able
to fulfill all of these, my burnout goes like, what can we juggle?
Is there something we can take off my list or is there something we can switch out with
something else?
So I feel like that's a piece that gets missed sometimes when we are discussing communication
is like the big compassion there is to have that clear communication of expectation.
And then the value in like tying that together when you're able to have that conversation
because you're communicating really more concretely and directly, I guess.
Anyways, I just wanted to throw that in there because I feel like it's an important piece.
Okay.
And I would just say take care of yourself.
So like you said, get a hobby.
Go get a hobby.
No, but like, you know, take a day off and just work on you, right?
Like go get a massage or something, right?
Like catch up on your laundry.
I mean, you know, I mean, you know, those faces sometimes self-help is not necessarily
fun and joyful, but it does help to decrease that.
And we're here, you know, book a time with April.
Again, we'll share the link, book a time with me and see if there's something that we can
help take off your plate or standardize a process so it's not so crazy stressful.
That's what we're here for.
And so hopefully you enjoy this content.
As always, please like it, subscribe to our podcast, share it with others.
We really appreciate it.
Yeah.
I would love it.
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It's super helpful.
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