Burnout Is Not the Problem—It's a Design Flaw

We are standing at the edge of the most transformational decade in human history. The question is, are you preparing for it? Are you simply hoping to survive it? I'm Susan Drumm, and this is The Enlightened Executive, where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. Each week we spotlight cutting-edge strategies to help executives and entrepreneurs grow in leadership and in life. My guest today is Josh Allen Dykstra, who spends his time answering the complex questions about the future and so much more. Josh is a futurist pioneering in the field of future design, helping leaders transform from tomorrow's passengers into architects of building the future they want. His unique background offers a refreshing perspective on transformation. Over the past two decades, Josh has served clients of companies including Microsoft, Sony, Genentech, Chanel, and Amazon. He's the CEO of The Work Revolution, and his articles and ideas have been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, and the Huffington Post. And his book titled Igniting the Invisible Tribe: Designing an Organization That Doesn't Suck. Josh, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you.

Oh, I'm excited to be here, Susan. Thank you for having me.

So I love talking to futurists because I'm like, what's gonna happen? Tell me. Is that what people do when they come there? Like, you're a futurist, you're kind of like a fortune teller, right? Yes.

Yeah, get out the crystal ball. Um, yeah, I think, I think there's probably a place for a different, a couple different things inside the futurist container. I'd be curious to see what you've encountered over over the years. But from my perspective, I— well, A, I call myself an optimistic futurist. The reason for that is I believe dark dystopian, you know, Terminator-like visions of the future are really easy to conjure. I think, uh, coming up with positive possible futures are actually much harder. So I think we need a lot more of that. And so that's why I do that. But I also want to tell people that I'm not a born optimist. I'm a chosen optimist, right? I think sometimes when people hear that word, they think, oh, everything's just flowers and roses and unicorns and rainbows. And no, I choose, you know, some people maybe are born that way, but that, that wasn't me. So I, I choose to be an optimist because I think it's just a better strategy for creating the future that we want. So that's really my kind of futurism is how do we design and create a better future? Because I believe it's co-created by all of us together. So That's my kind of futurism.

I love it. So, well, let's talk about your journey to start with. And you said you weren't always an optimist, but you've become more of one. So maybe lead us, tell us the, the journey and the path for you getting to where you are today.

Initially, coming out of my childhood, I really thought I was going to be a performing musician, i.e., rock star. So I grew up on stages in churches and recitals. I was a classically trained pianist from the age of 5. Writing songs when I was 4. And so I grew up playing instruments and being on stages and, you know, drawing a crowd in the music stores in the shopping malls. You know, we had those in the '80s, you know, in the US at least. And, um, yeah, I really always thought I was going to be on stage as a musician. And then I took it pretty seriously and recorded some albums, got a manager, moved to Los Angeles, and realized pretty quickly after being in LA that I am not a night person, Susan. And this is a problem, right? If you're gonna be a rock star, you gotta be up pretty late for the rock star festivities. And I was like, no, I think I wanna be in bed at 10. And so I was like, this career is obviously not gonna work for me. But what I realized then is that to have the energy for the thing you want to do is actually a really important thing. And that was kind of my first lesson in that. And so that kind of pulled me down the road and I, I got really interested in strengths-based philosophy and, and then this topic of human energy and how do we be energized and in flow states at work. And so I ended up, uh, being a consultant and a workshop facilitator for a better part of a decade. Um, and then I took that and then started training other coaches and consultants. And then we built a tech company. And closed that tech company last year. Yeah, we might want to talk more about that later. That was quite a formative, interesting experience. But yeah, coming out of the tech company closure last year, I had a bit of a dark night of the soul. I didn't know what I was going to do. I really thought I was building a billion-dollar tech company for a few minutes there. That, you know, obviously did not happen. And so I was like, what am I going to do next? And I thought, wow, I'd really never got to do as much speaking. As I wanted to, I missed the world of thought leadership and ideas and influencing. And so, and kind of being back in the public sphere with ideas. And so that's what I've tried to rebuild over the last year or so. And I really think I can take my organizational expertise from the last 20 years and hopefully help us understand how to use some of the knowledge that we've, we've gained in the world of how to build great organizations. And point that more at how do we build better societies? Like, how do we build better lives for everybody in and outside of work?

Yes. Well, let's start with your own journey along conscious leadership. What— who were you as a leader? It sounds like this tech experience really transformed you. What have you learned from it? What the mindset shifts that occurred along the way?

Yeah, that was really an interesting project. I kind of went in with a lot of confidence in my own kind of nerdery, right? I'm kind of a tech-brained person, and there was a stint there when I worked for Apple. I say I used to be a genius, not anymore, but I worked for Apple as a genius for a little bit, right? So I'm kind of a nerd, and it's like, I'm going to get into this tech thing and I'm going to kill it. And there's just so many things I didn't know that I didn't know, and I tried to be smart about, right? I tried to put people around me who understood more than I did about what it's like to build a tech company. And so I didn't do it naively, and yet it still just like kicked my ass. Like it was still so hard. And yeah, it was really, it was really a painful process from everything from some business partner betrayals that I experienced to just the difficulties of raising money and then trying to raise more money. You're kind of on this endless cycle of raising money as a tech startup and the frustration of how that kind of competed with the thing I really wanted to do, which was serve the customers, right? I end up kind of like in this battle to just be continually getting more and more capital. Yeah, which eventually led to me closing that down and having to file a bankruptcy.

It was really And that's right, you couldn't get the capital that you needed to keep growing.

Yeah, we couldn't. Yeah, we got to a point where we, we just couldn't get another fundraise done and we hadn't— and we didn't have enough customers at that, you know, that quite yet keep it alive. So it was, it was kind of a bizarre confluence of timing too, because we're— this was all happening during the pandemic, right? So we released our first version of this in 2020. And, uh, so that's why for a minute there, I really thought, actually for a couple of years, I really thought we were building a really big thing because everyone in 2021, 20 and 21, um, leaders were very much like, we care about your burnout, right? We care about work flexibility, right? It's, it's all right. And so they're all, everybody's looking for technology to help them do the thing that we were building. And so I was like, we hit the timing of this perfectly. But then the winds really changed hard in '23, right? The capital markets went weird and everything kind of shifted to AI and we really weren't AI. And so, yeah, I couldn't get another fundraise done, so I ended up running out of money and much to my deep sadness, yeah, closed it down. And yeah, it was, it was, it was pretty, pretty tough. And I, you know, because I was a majority owner of the business, I, and I wanted to keep my house, And I thought, well, I guess I need to file a bankruptcy. So I did that. And I think the— I learned a ton, right? I learned a ton going through this. I think A, being the kind of the importance of business partners, making sure you pick the right ones. 'Cause I had kind of both, right? I had one, I had a business partner that was just with me the whole way, all the way through, like couldn't be better. Just phenomenal partner. Then I had a couple others that were not so good and really did some serious damage to the, to the mission and the business. So like, that was a big learning. I, you know, I would like to say that I learned something about, you know, knowing when to let go. I think I did probably hang on for too long.

Yeah.

Um, I'm not sure though, like, if that's true. Like, like, looking back, would I have done it any differently? I'm not sure, you know, like I think not letting go is actually like the superpower of an entrepreneur, right? We like, we just keep going even when no one else believes. And so it's a really hard thing. That is, that is, yeah. It's a hard thing to see.

As an entrepreneur, you have to get really comfortable with failure cuz you're gonna experience it. Otherwise, you know, if you're not comfortable with failure, don't be an entrepreneur.

Right? Totally. Totally. But then yeah, it's then I think it's kind of our persistence, like, and our willingness to like keep going. In spite of the failures that makes us good at what we do. And so it really becomes a hard thing to know when to stop doing that.

When to stop. Yeah, agreed. Agreed.

Yeah.

And so how does your experience of what you went through there impact now your thought leadership around the future of work?

I think having kind of been reduced to some sort of layer of dust in this process— and sometimes I think about this as the— the transformation of the caterpillar to the butterfly, right? It's a common metaphor. But, you know, what I didn't realize is that in that process, when in the chrysalis phase, right, there's a phase, like the first phase of that, it's called histolysis. And that is actually the caterpillar turns into goop.

Yeah.

Right? And it's like, and then you're just like nothing. You're reduced to just like this pile of goop. And then you have to get reconstructed right into your next form. And I think, yeah, going through those kinds of experiences, if we let them, it does make us much more— A, I think it's made me much more determined for the next chapter. Like, I've really, I feel a sense of determination going into the next chapter that feels different than last time. I think I'm better now at believing strongly still, but holding more loosely, if that makes sense. There's something about like, my belief is, my determinism is kind of even maybe stronger than it was, but I think I'm better at holding the how, maybe more loosely. Like, how do we get there? So I think that's what really feels like it's making a difference for me into the next phase is I feel like I'm watching or listening or even feeling more, like, more for the divine timing of things or the flow states of things or even just like the strategic pattern recognition of things, right? So whatever label you want to put on it, whatever anyone's comfortable with. But paying attention to these things and trying to stay in the flow of what's happening instead of me just trying to force what I want to happen.

Exactly.

That feels like a big—

We're all about pattern recognition here because all the body of work that we've developed for Meritage is around pattern recognition and pattern disruption. Right? So I would completely agree with you that effective leadership is generated from pattern recognition and pattern disruption. So you gotta know, first of all, are you in a pattern? Right? Is there a pattern operating? Is it a pattern you want or a pattern you don't want? And then how do you disrupt that if that pattern is effective or not effective, right? Or is not effective and you wanna switch to something new. So each of those sort of stages is where I think mastery comes from in leadership. And so I like what you're saying at the end is recognizing that you can't always just, like, will something to happen. It's like, what are you noticing about your environment? What you need to prioritize, what you don't need to prioritize, and how you're showing up in that space.

Yeah, that feels very resonant. Very resonant to me.

Well, tell me about the concept of future design that you said you're writing a book on. And let me know a little bit more about— you mentioned it's about actively designing something better. So share more a little bit about that concept.

I think what we want to do is first maybe like re-examine the way we think about the future in general. As I think many people think when they think about the future, they think about it as like a destination point on a map and we just kind of like hurtle towards that thing that's going to happen. And I don't think the future works that way at all. And I really believe that the future is being co-created by all of us right now. Right? We make different choices now. It makes a different future later. And we kind of understand this, I think, intellectually. Right? It's like if I make different eating choices now, I have better health results later.

Right?

I teach my kids different things. Things now, right? They grow up to be more constructive humans, right? We kind of understand that, but in the big scheme of things, I don't know that we really like appreciate it or put it into practice, right? Another thing we think about is like, we often see like time travel movies or whatever, right? We think like, you go back in time and you change one little thing and it's gonna like mess up. But we never think about that in the present. If we do one little thing now, it's gonna, right? So it's like, Um, I think there's a, there's a big opportunity here for us to, A, kind of reimagine the way we think the future works and say, okay, if, if the future is the collection of things that we are co-creating, uh, and planting the seeds of right now, then the better— there, there's actually less, I think, pressure put on the future. It becomes more about now. It becomes more about, okay, what seeds am I planting now? Like, what habits am I cultivating now? What practices am I practicing now? What systems am I building now? And so I think that's really the better frame for this, this kind of, this topic of the future. And so when I say future design, that's kind of what I mean is, all right, let's, let's put into practice now the things that create the kind of future that we actually want. And so this involves a couple things, right? It's like, let's— hey, let's get curious and, and clear about the future we actually want, because that's another thing we tend to not be very good at, right? We've got a whole bunch of like dark dystopian, like, you know, crazy visions of the future we don't want. Like, that's clear. But I don't think very many of us have a clear picture of like, that's really what I do want. For my life, for my company, for my job, for my country? We don't have a very clear picture. So I think that's something we need to— that's a practice we need to cultivate.

Yeah. Totally agree with that.

Yeah.

I agree with that because this phrase, focus on what you want, not what you don't want. You've probably heard that phrase before. But I particularly— it's funny how it shows up. There was a leader who was always afraid of losing their job, and they're really competent. And really, really smart and highly educated, and yet somehow they would create losing their job 3 times, um, that I had recently connected with. And so much of it, you could see it was because they kept focusing on what they don't want. And it's almost like if you look at— if you look at some— there are studies, like if you look at something on the road, even your, your steering wheel will go towards that. So I think your point is we're steering the ship more than we realize, and the future isn't being done to us. So where do you want to point that car in that direction? Do you want to just look at the potholes and like aim your car for the potholes, or do you want to go, you know, look at that incredible destination that you've already had your eyes on, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And yeah, and how clear, how clear of a picture can we paint of the destination that we actually want to get to, right? I think, and that inherent in that is, is a challenge though, because work, work and life right now are both exhausting, right? Like, we are all exhausted, I think, for the most part. By the state of geopolitics, by the state of, you know, the, our workplaces, by the state of uncertainty, by the state of AI, by the state, right? Like, like everything is hard right now. And so what, what happens is we get really hijacked and we become unable, I think, to imagine a better, right? So we're, we're in this really kind of like conundrum space of, right? Like we need better pictures of the future. But like, who has the frickin' energy? Who has the time and energy and like, you know, space to imagine, right? Like, it's a really— it's a difficult kind of conundrum. So I want to recognize that too. Like, what I'm— what I'm asking of people I know is not the easiest thing in the world, but I do think it is the thing that steers us out, to your point, like it steers us to a better road. Mm-hmm.

Right. And so what are some of the practical steps that you think leaders need to take in order to co-create this future? Besides, it sounds like step number 1 is get clear, like, what is a more desired future for yourself?

Yeah.

What else?

A couple more tips for folks. The other thing I would really recommend people do is get more in touch with their own body and their own energy. Like the thing about human energy is that we really only understand or talk about it when we don't have it. So, right. When you're sick or tired or depleted or exhausted, right? All you want is more energy. But we don't talk about energy any other time.

Yeah.

And so like really learning to focus on like, when do you feel energized? When is your cup full? When is your, when, when do you feel resourceful? And try to put yourself in those states, because I think that's what allows us to be able to get back into that space of imagination and wisdom. So if you can find— and your body's a really good energy detector, it is. You know when you're energized and when the life's being sucked out of you, right? We, we know it. We've just been trained to ignore it. And so kind of breaking that down really getting back to, okay, like paying attention to what my body is telling me, I think is a big step in this process. Um, especially doing this at work. You know, most of us at work, we can come up with a list that drains us. Uh, that's easy. Most of us do not know what parts of our work bring us life and energy. And so I said, really, like, you want to increase what we call your energy intelligence.

Yeah. And why is that? Why most people know the brain is hard-coded to pay attention to pain and discomfort and to try to avoid it again. And so we're kind of hardwired to pay attention to some of the dark stuff that we have to deal with in life. And often we don't give enough attention to the wonderful things. I mean, think about how many times people have to be reminded to do a gratitude practice. If it came so naturally to the brain to do this all the time, we wouldn't have to remind people, like, write down 3 things you're grateful for before you go to sleep. And because for survival purposes, it was all about, like, focus on the danger and avoid the danger. And I think we're looking to evolve past that very old part of the brain, the amygdala, and go into what's possible for us as human beings to create. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think you said that really well. That's, that's exactly right. We, yeah, evolutionarily, right, we're still kind of like stuck in the past. And, uh, yeah, most of, most of what we face at work for most of us isn't like life and death problems, but it feels like it, right? It feels that heavy and it feels that dark. And, um, yeah, it can be challenging.

Yeah.

To get out of there.

So what, what next then? What should leaders do, and even do tomorrow, right? What is like the, the steps that they need to take here?

So we've got a couple things, right? Yeah, get clear on your picture of the future. Understand that your body is something that requires refilling of energy, right? You need to have— you need to refuel it for it to be able to work the way you want, uh, which again, intellectually we get, right? But we don't work that way. I think the next step for leaders is to understand that your job is systems. Like, so what I've come to believe is that most people, they live their lives at the affect of systems. We actually don't make very many choices. We choose systems and then our, those systems make choices for us. So for example, maybe you get the choice to go to a university for college. Okay, you've made that choice unless your parents made it for you. But like, right, you've made that choice to go to college. But once you're in college, a lot of choices get made for you, right? You choose a major, maybe, maybe you do that too. But then it's like your classes happen at this time and you gotta show up on these days and you've gotta pay this much money and you've got, right? All of these choices are now being made for you because you chose that system. This is the way it happens everywhere in our organizations, right? They're full of systems. We didn't, right? We chose to work there maybe, but after that, a whole bunch of things are decided for you. What meetings you have to go to, right? What, how much health insurance you get if you live in the US, right? Like all sorts of things. What, right? So what leaders need to recognize is that there, because of the hierarchical way that we've constructed our reality, only certain people can change systems. And those people are what I call leaders. And so leaders, your job is to make these systems suck less because most of them fricking suck. And I mean that literally, like they suck the life out of people, right? So let's talk like in the workplace, some systems, meetings, performance review system, HR information system, expense reports, right? Like how many people can say like any of those things are life-giving? For people? No, right? Everybody hates them. They all suck, right?

Yeah.

And so it's just like, but leaders can actually make these systems better. And so that's why I say the work of leaders really is the work of like, it's, it's to, you know, work on yourself probably first, but then right after that, it's to change these systems because they impact freaking everybody.

Yeah. Yeah. I love, I love your framing of that. I hadn't thought about it in that way before. Um, and The, the piece that I think leaders do need to recognize is yes, you need systems to scale. That's what, that's why they get put into place, right? We need a standardized way. Everybody needs to follow the same process. We can't have everyone deciding how they're gonna turn in their expense report and make it different for the people that need to. So we do need to create those systems. But what I find is once they're created, they're not undone or enhanced very often. It's sort of like we're onto the next whatever prison system we're teaching for people and really go back and say, like, is this the most effective way to do it? Can we do it a little bit better? Can we make it a little less burdensome for people?

That's right. Those questions are almost never asked, Susan. That's exactly my experience too, right? Once we put them there, they just kind of like stay there. Like there's some sort of like law of gravity now. Yes. It's like this is the way we do expense reports until the end of time.

Exactly. So you might want to think about too, then, as a leader, what systems do you have in your life? I think doing this type of audit around what's giving you energy and what's depleting your energy, and then for anything that's depleting your energy, let's look behind this. Let's see what system is placed and what could be shifted in that dynamic. How could you make that different? And even in terms of— I mean, I was just talking about this on another podcast of you know, the system of the 30-minute meeting or the 60-minute meeting such that now we have so many of them that are back to back. Well, yeah, how about change the system of like, it doesn't have to be 30 minutes. You can make 50-minute meetings, you can make 25-minute meetings so that you have time to pause, reset, you know, and do what you need to do and putting, putting these buffers in for yourself. So like, that's just a very simple Simple one. Yeah, so simple. Yeah, people don't, don't do it.

We don't know. And that, that really, that's why I think this message is so important, right? And why leaders need to hold the flag for this. Because a lot of, like, people, a lot of people are just going to live and work at the effect of your systems. And if you don't make it clear to them that they have the autonomy to change these things, they won't. Otherwise, you can, you know, make these things better. And yeah, I just think it's huge. Yeah, so many of these things are just happening just constantly in our organizations. And no one's asking, do these things actually bring life and energy into our people? And the answer is usually no.

Yeah, and are you even asking that question of your people? At the time of this taping, we're nearing the end of the year. And as the new year starts and I think questions like, what makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning? What did you do over the past year that just excited you and got you going? I mean, shouldn't you know that as a leader? So, you know, like they love that type of work. And then the flip responses and what made you want to press the snooze button? You know, what was like, you know, and it's not to say that every job sometimes has the part of taking out the trash, right? It's not like every single aspect of my work needs to be super energizing all the time. Like, if you live in a house, you might love it, but you have to still take out the trash, and that part, it's not so enjoyable. But hopefully it's not the dominant part of what you have to do every day, every minute, right?

Right.

And so kind of getting a sense of that balance, because, you know, if the balance goes too much into the every day feels like I'm taking out the trash, well, that person's not going to be there that much longer.

Yeah, that's right. You know, sometimes the tendency is to be like, oh yeah, no, I can't, I can't do it 100% of the time, so I'm not even gonna try, which is just so, that's so backwards, right? Like, no, if you can just make it 10% more energizing, 20% more energizing, like do that. Like do, and just do a little bit of a, little bit at a time. And it, it does compound. It, it adds up for your people and for yourself.

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, where can people learn more about you and your work? I'm, I'm, I love more people start to think about how they create their future, and I think you'd offer a lot of wisdom.

Oh, thanks, Susan. Yeah, it— so people, the best way to find me is probably my website, which is joshallan.com. It's A-L-L-A-N, joshallan.com. Or you can find me on pretty much any socials out there. Uh, so LinkedIn, I'm on a lot right now, but I'm going to be in other places a lot more frequently starting next year. So with some of the things I'm building.

Well, fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about systems and future design and an optimistic designed future.

Yeah, thanks so much. No, I appreciate what you do, Susan. Thanks so much for having me.

And if you like this episode, you're not going to want to miss my interview with Natalie Nixon, who wonders, when was the last time you paused Not for strategy, not for solutions, just to imagine. Let's lead the way. Hope you enjoyed today's episode, and I'd like to point you to the next important step. Hit the subscribe button to get notified when we release new content. I'll see you on the next episode of The Enlightened Executive.