Arianna Huffington Discusses Dangers of Burnout at Rotman: MBA News

By Tim Dhoul Updated Sep 05, 2019

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Rotman School of Management told of company innovations designed to curb burnout

Arianna Huffington promotes book at Rotman event

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“Burnout is truly the disease of civilization”, Arianna Huffington told an audience at Toronto's Rotman School of Management as part of its ‘ShiftDisturbers’ speaker series on Tuesday.

Downtime is just as important to a person’s success as working hard, in the eyes of the Huffington Post president and editor-in-chief, who talked through her idea that success should be viewed through the lens of personal wellbeing, and not just through considerations of money and power - the subject of her latest book, Thrive.

The appearance at Rotman School of Management - Canada’s leading business school among international recruiters and academics this year – is part of Arianna Huffington’s bid to convey that Thrive’s message of finding time for downtime need not be dismissed by businesses as new age nonsense.

Indeed, she might hope that the Rotman MBAs and future business leaders in attendance will take heed of her warning of the connection between overwork and bad decision-making, as well as her belief that a large number of health problems and related costs are stress-induced and self-inflicted.

Rotman School of Management told of company innovations designed to curb burnout

Arianna Huffington, who sits just outside the top 50 in Fortune’s latest list of the world’s most powerful women, told the Rotman crowd of her experience in this regard, recounting how she once broke her cheekbone and needed four stitches after collapsing from exhaustion at her desk.

A psychological need to constantly keep up with things is something of a cultural issue, and one that has only been exacerbated by technological progress, according to Huffington. She cited a recent University of Virginia study as evidence of people’s aversion and inability to simply do nothing. In the study, a number of people confronted by 15 minutes with just their own thoughts for company chose to give themselves electric shocks to help pass the time.

But, Huffington believes companies can play a part in aiding the wellbeing of their staff and referenced recent initiatives from German car manufacturers Daimler and Volkswagen.

Daimler introduced an auto-delete email program for out-of-office staff so that they can avoid the sheer horror of returning from holiday to a mass of unread messages: “Then they can come back to work with a fresh spirit,” was the explanation given by Daimler spokesman, Oliver Wihofszki.

Volkswagen, meanwhile, has been handing out company phones with automatic switch-off times: “People need to know they don’t have to check email in case their boss needs something. You can’t live like that,” Huffington reasoned.

You can watch a snippet from Arianna Huffington’s talk at Rotman School of Management in the video below:

Written by

Tim Dhoul

Tim is a writer with a background in consumer journalism and charity communications. He trained as a journalist in the UK and holds degrees in history (BA) and Latin American studies (MA).