Burnout is a destination, Capacity is the gauge

Most managers notice burnout when someone's already at the edge. By then you're managing a crisis and not the capacity that got you there. Here's what to do instead. Every week or 2, ask your team, how's your capacity this week? Not how are you? Not how's it going? How is your capacity this week? This is also a super useful question when you're delegating something new or starting a new project. I personally like to position it on a scale of 0 to 100%, or you can use something symbolic like a battery or a bucket. And here's the important part. Now that you've asked this, you're also responsible for taking care of the response. What I mean by this is that you can't just say, yeah, I hear you. It's tough. There needs to be action taken, either adjust something, redistribute work, remove one task, or shift a deadline. Capacity is a moving scale, and if you're not tracking it, burnout isn't a risk. It's actually inevitable.