Microstress: The Invisible Cause of Burnout

For decades, my research and that of the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp)—a global human capital research firm that studies practices of high-performance companies—have raised warning flags about a relentless epidemic threatening organizations worldwide. No, it's not COVID... it's burnout—and it continues to spread.

Just since 2021, i4cp surveys of business leaders found two-thirds citing burnout as the top driver of talent loss in their firms. Their recent study, The Productivity Predicament, showed burnout affecting productivity in more than one in four companies globally and nearly one in three in the U.S.

Gallup agrees—its 2023 State of the Global Workplace report revealed "a trend of elevated stress that began almost a decade ago." The research showed that the U.S., Canada and East Asia are leading the world with the highest levels of employee stress.

That stress is a key facet of burnout because it depletes workforce well-being. Employees who aren't well can't deliver optimal performance, leading to diminished organizational productivity that results in lower revenues, decreased customer satisfaction and other operational threats.

Businesses consistently respond to the challenges of burnout with programs that focus on mindfulness, meditation, yoga and other tools to enhance resilience and well-being. And these practices are important. But at their heart, they only enable people to persist a bit better in their daily struggles. Meanwhile, stress and burnout levels continue their relentless rise.

There is a route out of this quandary, but it requires focusing on a different form of stress: microstress.

What Are Microstresses?

Microstresses are small moments of stress from routine interactions with people in our personal and professional lives. In isolation, they are so small we barely register them. But in today's hyperconnected world, the volume and pace of them have an enormous impact on our physical and mental well-being.

Why do companies' (and individuals') efforts to curb burnout fail so miserably? It's because leaders—all of us, really—are overlooking a critical, but invisible, driver of burnout: the tsunami of microstressors that come at each of us all day, every day from the interactions we have with others in today's hyperconnected world.

But how can that be? Don't we look to our loved ones, our friends and our colleagues to help us relieve the stress in our lives and in our work that burns us out? Of course we do.

However, my interviews with 600 successful people—300 women and 300 men—show that even interactions with those positive influencers can lead to a dangerous buildup of seemingly small moments of stress that eventually derail us. Let me explain.

Examples of Microstress

Most of us know about fight or flight. That's our bodies' natural and automatic response to major stresses—anything from bounced checks or fender benders to company layoffs, an impending divorce or an eviction notice. When big stress occurs, our brains recognize it and drive us to fight it or flee from it.

But microstressors fly under the brain's radar—they don't trigger that automatic recognition of danger because the incidents seem so small and momentary. Consciously, too, we may not even recognize these fleeting occurrences for what they are. Yet we all encounter microstressors every day. And we feel their effects.

Here are a few examples:

• You've worked late and called in favors from others to complete a project on a tight deadline; now, your boss tells you priorities have changed, the work isn't needed.
• As you leave for the office, you and your spouse or partner argue about who's promised to pick up the kids after work.
• An unexpected email from a new company executive requests you attend a just-scheduled late meeting, which means you can't pick up the kids after all. Now you have to call and ask your spouse to cancel their plans to attend an evening class and cover for you.

Why Are Microstressors So Harmful?

We dismiss occurrences like those as life's everyday moments and normal interactions, so it's easy to see how microstressors remain invisible to us. The problem is that in today's always-on world, we are forced to contend with a volume, pace and diversity of them—from both our professional and personal lives—that conventional fight or flight responses do not help us with.

My interviews identified 14 sources of microstress. The sources of microstress fall into three broad categories—each of which damages us in its own unique way.

1. Those that drain our capacity to get things done:

• Misalignment between collaborators on their roles or priorities
• Uncertainty about others' reliability
• Unpredictable behavior from a person in a position of authority
• Collaborative demands that are diverse and high in volume
• Surges in responsibilities at work or at home

2. Those that deplete our emotional reserves:

• Managing and feeling responsible for the success and well-being of others
• Confrontational conversations
• Lack of trust in your network
• People who spread stress
• Political maneuvering

3. Those that challenge our identities—who we want to be:

• Pressure to pursue goals out of sync with your personal values
• Attacks on your sense of self-confidence, worth or control
• Draining or otherwise negative interactions with family or friends
• Disruptions to your network

And these forms of stress don't just come from toxic colleagues or demanding stakeholders. Some of our largest sources of microstress emanate from people we are closest to via concern for the well-being of aging parents, children, friends or teammates. These interactions do not create stress through conflict but rather feelings of guilt or anxiety. We don't want to disappoint family or let friends down.

Consequently, the positive emotions we associate with the most special relationships in our lives can magnify the stressful fallout of the contentious moments that happen throughout the day.

Over time, as microstressors—of various kinds and from multiple sources—build up, the effects can become crippling and take a toll on our physical and mental health, our energy levels, and our overall well-being. They burn us out and shut us down.

How We Can Beat the Invisible Cause of Burnout

Because we live in a hyper-connected world, we can't expect to avoid the relational causes of burnout. Collaboration, innovation, teamwork and stronger business performance require social capital—the relationships in (and beyond) the workplace that enable us to contribute fully and effectively to achieve goals and drive success.

The Productivity Predicament research from i4cp explores that human/social capital co-existence, defining new ways of working that confirm that productivity and empathy are not mutually exclusive constructs. Rather, when purposefully blended, they create a high-performance business philosophy and talent practices that can help defuse the microstressors of workplace interactions.

For leaders, and for us as individuals, handling microstressors more effectively begins with a better understanding of those three general types and the specific examples each encompasses. We'll explore those 14 sources of microstress in the next article of this series.

About the Author

Rob Cross is Senior Vice President of Research for the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), a research firm that applies the lenses of human and social capital to identify talent practices that drive bottom-line business impact.