In the third Speaking Engagement Agora, executive coach Ellen Whitlock Baker tackled a problem our field knows too well: burnout. Drawing on Gallup’s 2025 findings — roughly 80% of employees worldwide are disengaged, a number that’s fallen every year since the pandemic — she made the case that burnout is a serious, worsening issue, and that engagement professionals, with our events, nights, and weekends, are among those most at risk.
Her central reframe: burnout isn’t a badge of honor, and it isn’t your fault. It’s largely systemic — the product of workplaces that expect too much with too little, and of work norms we absorbed early (first in, last out, always on, say yes to everything) that quietly trained us to live without boundaries.
The heart of the talk was her Honest Capacity Audit, a five-step framework (informed by Immunity to Change and Britt Frank’s The Science of Stuck): (1) name a draining behavior — say, checking email every night; (2) surface the “shadow incentive” — both what you gain by continuing it and what you fear if you stop; (3) calculate the “capacity debt” it’s costing you — the yoga class, the walk with the dog, the time with your kids; (4) set a micro-boundary, deliberately tiny so your brain accepts the change and builds a new pathway (e.g., no phone Wednesdays 6–7 p.m.); and (5) assess how it went — usually the feared consequences never materialize — then loop back and set the next one, chaining small wins into sustainable boundaries.
She closed with three tips: find an accountability partner (not your boss), work on one behavior at a time, and prepare for resistance — when others push back, remember it’s about them, not you.
