Quiet Quitting: How to Prevent It

Now that we have a foundation for what the real issue is, rather than getting caught up in all the recent hype, and we’ve looked at who’s to blame - or more importantly, who’s behavior we can actually control on any given day - let’s tie all this together with some specific things we can do to prevent quiet quitting from being the thing that takes our team by storm…

 Before we dive into that though, let me emphasize something one more time: I’m not suggesting that it’s OK for anyone on our teams to deliver sub-par performance. Quite frankly, I believe far too many people in society today have been given the impression that hard work should be frowned upon. Since I jumped on the anti-partcipation trophy soapbox a while back in our Leading At The Next Level program, I won’t go far down that path again now. The reality though is that even the most effective leader can only control themselves. While I’m certainly not suggesting we allow our team members to be irresponsible, I’m also not suggesting that we stand over them every minute of the day to make sure they check the right boxes. As leaders, let’s control what we can and build a culture that earns their buy-in rather than one that forces their compliance.

With that in mind, think back to that passive-aggressive nonsense that’s being called quiet firing. I can’t imagine a single way that would possibly yield positive results! At best, someone leaves the organization without the supervisor or manager having to hold them accountable - and that’s still not a great option when it’s so hard to find people with the skills we need (in any industry). I’d argue that it’s far more likely for the person to stay and the situation becomes so toxic that it sucks the engagement out of some of the great team members who are watching it happen…

So what CAN we do as leaders to prevent this not-so-new issue from being the thing that keeps our team from performing to its potential? Since pointing fingers and making excuses rarely results in anything positive, I believe we need to take this bull by the proverbial horns and do everything within our power to move those potential quiet quitters from the “neither actively engaged or actively disengaged” category to the “actively engaged” ranks by giving them a reason to give it all they’ve got - and that reason will be different for every single team member!

For the last several years, Cindy and I have worked to include specific examples of how leaders can tailor their communication to each individual team member based on that team member’s unique communication style blend. In doing that, we’ve shared the idea of The Platinum Rule: communicating with others as they need us to communicate with them. While that’s always provided those leaders with an effective tool for building stronger communication throughout their teams, I’m seeing more and more research showing that the way we’re wired - to communicate and to behave - translates to our overall performance in our jobs. A recent Bloomberg article shared this:

Certain jobs attract people with predictable personalities. Office managers tend to be outgoing, detail-oriented, and respectful of authority, as do fitness instructors, flight attendants, and beauticians. Industrial designers, creative directors, and executive producers tend to be excellent listeners, with an ability to understand the needs and feelings of others.

In fact, personality correlates so tightly with jobs that it may affect job choices more than skills, experience, or ability, according to a group of researchers based in Australia. The team who published those findings in 2019 is now back with another revelation: aligning occupation with personality leads to happiness and engagement.

As we wrap all this up, let’s take a quick look at how we can work to provide our team members with just what they need to get fulfillment from their current role and to grow into roles that are the best possible match for the way they’re wired. I won’t suggest that any of this will magically happen, or we’ll see sweeping changes overnight, but I do believe the work we’re already doing to maintain the status-quo is just as hard and a few slight adjustments could make a tremendous impact!

The Right Tool(s) for the Job

Let’s think about The Platinum Role with regards to communicating with our team members based on what they needed, rather than just how we’re wired to share a message. That’s critical for simply limiting the amount of misunderstanding we have on any given day, but it’s even more important when we’re working to earn engagement and buy-in from the folks we’re responsible for leading! When Cindy and I put together our lesson on Building Buy-In Around a Clear Mission & Vision, our intent was not only to challenge leaders to provide their team members with an understanding of how their daily tasks tied directly to the overall goals of the organization, but to do it in a way that connected with them on a personal level - based on their unique communication and behavioral style. Based on what I shared from the recent Bloomberg article, this matters more than I even realized!

 When I put the outline together for working through this topic, I was planning to wrap it all up with specific practices we can apply as we provide clarity to our team members on why their engagement matters - tying that directly to their primary communication style. Having used the DISC Model of Human Behavior with teams across the country over the last several years, I’ve seen some definite patterns showing how the “personalities” referenced in the Bloomberg article not only influence happiness and success in various career paths, but I’ve also learned how we can use the results of an accurate DISC assessment to understand what tasks a given team member will be best equipped to do, on the good days and the bad, over the long haul. With all the time I’ve invested to learn that, and the resources I’ve worked through to find ways to apply that information with the teams we serve, we’ve been able to help deliver some great results. But I’ve also realized that someone only reading through their assessment results likely won’t be able to pull that same level of understanding; as simple as the tool is, the dots won’t always connect…

One of the great things I recognized through all that work directly with the DISC Model of Human Behavior was how it helped me come up with a practical way to approach emotional intelligence. Just like that helped me piece EQ together, I recently found something that will help me just as much with doing the same thing when helping leaders earn active engagement from the folks labeled as quiet quitters… 

I’ve studied Patrick Lencioni’s work for close to a decade. I think what I’ve enjoyed most is his way of weaving a lesson into a story that I can picture myself in. In many cases, I’ve even been able to tie his ideas to things I’ve experienced as we help teams develop their own leadership cultures. In his most recent book, The 6 Types of Working Genius, he explains (much like the Bloomberg article) that we’re all naturally wired for certain specific tasks. As I listened to it the first time through (at 3x speed on Audible), I tied nearly everything he shared back to my experience and understanding of DISC. I thought about how much energy it took for me to pay close attention to critical details when I was under high levels of stress. While I could still do it well, my DISC style blend explained why it was burning me out to do that long term. Although that was as clear as it could be to me, I’d be wrong to assume it connects with everyone else the same way.

I learned to read construction blueprints as a teenager. That foundation has helped me be fairly competent with any type of technical drawing or schematic ever since. Just like it’s not fair for me to assume that everyone else will be able to read a blueprint, I can’t expect everyone to look at things through the same lens I do with DISC. Rather than wrapping up this look at quiet quitting with how we can just communicate based on what each of our team members need, we’ll look at how we can use multiple tools together effectively to get even better results! I’ve heard it said that when all we have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But from my first full time job as a carpenter, I knew I couldn’t be effective with just one tool in my pouch…

Be the Reason They Don’t Quietly Quit!

Think back to the statements I shared from the article, To Find Success at Work, Match Your Job With Your Personality, suggesting that “Certain jobs attract people with predictable personalities” and “personality correlates so tightly with jobs that it may affect job choices more than skills, experience, or ability.” As a kid in grade school, the G.I. Joe cartoon series taught me that “knowing is half the battle!” Having access to and understanding how to use the right tools gives us a clear path for knowing not just what our current team members are best suited for but also how to identify team members who will be the best fit for a given role moving forward!

 As Cindy and I work with leaders to identify what Pat Lencioni calls the “Working Genius” for each member of their teams, we’ll also be able to compliment that by providing them with practical resources they can use to tailor their communication to the needs of each team member. In the short term, this will help address what an SIS International Research study showed as “an average downtime of 17 hours a week clarifying communication issues” resulting in “productivity losses of $26,000 per employee” per year! This will help build the long game by creating a clear understanding of not just what team members are best suited for now, but where they’re best equipped to excel as they grow in the organization. Let’s be honest, very few companies get to wave a magic wand and move folks into different roles just because they want to; that thing called work still has to get done… But knowing is indeed half the battle so that type of clarity will provide a way of showing a team member a clear path for growth and a solid succession plan for the organization as a whole! Like I said before, I learned as a young carpenter that we can only be so effective with only a hammer in our pouch!

So here’s where the rubber really meets the road… We can put some outstanding tools in a leader’s hands but we won’t be able to control what they do with them. Once we, as leaders, understand what types of tasks our team members are best suited for and we recognize how we can communicate with them so they understand our message, it all boils down to the doing - because knowing is ONLY half the battle!

When we’re willing to be intentional about how we interact with each team member, we can genuinely be the reason they don’t quietly quit! If the messages we share with them on a daily basis speaks to their individual needs and explains to them how they make an impact through the work they do, we stand a much better chance at moving at least some that 50% who are generally neither actively engaged or actively disengaged (who now are called the quiet quitters) toward that actively engaged category where their “increased commitment can lead to a 57% improvement in discretionary effort” which “produces, on average, a 20% individual performance improvement.”

Will this require an investment of time, effort, and likely financial resources? Most certainly! But based on the conditions we’re seeing in the workplace today, many of which have actually been there for years and are just getting attention now, I can’t think of a good reason not to make those investments. And yes, nearly everything I’ve shared here has been directed at what we need to do as leaders. But rather than simply chastising our team members about how they should be doing more, how about we work to inspire them so much that they want to do more!