Are Your People Quiet Quitting, or Are They Just Disengaged?
First it was the Great Resignation, then the terms Quiet Quitting and Lifestyle Fatigue entered our vocabularies. In a lot of ways, these new words finally gave meaning to phenomena that have been occurring for some time, we just didn’t know what to call them (or that other people felt the same way).
As a lifelong advocate for work/life balance, I’m a big believer that people should be able to do their jobs without giving their lives to their employers. And now that we’re in a war for top talent, I’m starting to look at Quiet Quitting in a new light.
Low pay, stingy benefits, and an overworked culture are all symptoms of a company that is not checking the boxes for its people. But what about the ones that are: the organizations that do get a good rep for treating their people well and honoring work/life balance? What can we infer about the Quiet Quitting within those companies?
My hypothesis? Maybe the organizational structure is making it impossible for talent to get their work done and, as a result, make an impact. Asking people to try and try again without changing the outcome is a surefire way to encourage disengagement and Quiet Quitting.
Here’s how I usually see this come to light:
Stage 1: Leadership feels like they’re having an execution problem and nothing is getting done. There are a lot of handoffs, the process has been overcomplicated, and nobody owns anything. They’ve tried to Six-Sigma their way out of the muck and it’s just not working.
Stage 2: Talent starts to feel the crunch. They’re frustrated because the execution structures are tied up in knots and prevent them from getting work done. They feel defeated – why bother putting time and energy into a place that can’t execute against its own ideas?
Stage 3: A fed-up talent pool takes its capabilities elsewhere. Now the organization has an execution problem AND a talent problem. The people they need to help get the train back on the tracks are no longer around.
We won’t go cataclysmic and talk about Stage 4, but you get the picture and can see how this vicious cycle could repeat itself until it implodes (sad to say, this is usually when I get called in to help!).
So, what’s the answer here?
What we’re seeing from Quiet Quitting is that people want to do good work and feel valued. They don’t want to play games, they just want to show up, do their jobs, then go home. The cultures that are winning here are those with leaders that empower teams to do their work and then get out of the way.
I have personally seen the magic that unfolds when teams are given the tools needed to complete the task at hand and can come together around a unified front. That’s the moment engagement goes up. Not because people feel obligated, but because they feel stimulated.
What you get out of teams is exponentially greater when they’re engaged. And yes, I’m still talking about people who have healthy boundaries with work. This balance needs to start first and foremost with a company and its leadership, and the culture they create for their teams.
To paraphrase Princess Leia, “The more you tighten your grip, the more great talent will slip through your fingers.”
If you want to empower your teams and spark engagement, loosen your grip and build the environment they need to flourish.