210. The Myth of Quiet Quitting: Leadership's Role in Employee Engagement with Mick Spiers

Uncover the truth behind the quiet quitting phenomenon—it's not just an employee issue, but a leadership challenge begging for a solution. 

Join us as we dismantle the myths surrounding quiet quitting, focusing on how engagement and passion, rather than mere hours clocked, define true employee commitment. Explore the vital role of leadership in crafting an inspiring workplace that aligns individual tasks with the organization's larger mission. Learn how leaders can tackle disengagement by understanding both macro and micro purposes and making employees feel valued and heard.

Step into a world where consistent business rhythm is key to organizational success, as Mick shares insights from his leadership experience alongside thoughts from Patrick Thean. By focusing on a few key initiatives each quarter, leaders can shield their teams from change fatigue and encourage a more productive environment. Mick opens up about his personal struggles with overcommitment and the art of expectation management through open communication. 

Chapters

• 0:01 Debunking Quiet Quitting
• 11:14 Engaging Employees for Organizational Success
• 18:45 Promoting Leadership Project and Team

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

So what is the truth about quiet quitting? Is it real, and what can we do about it? In today's episode of The Leadership Project, it will be a solo cast where I reflect on the wonderful interview with Ishaan galapati, I'm going to be debunking some of the misconceptions and myths about quiet quitting and giving practical advice on what you can do if this is happening in your team and in your organization, andat theend, I'll share my leadership reflections of the week. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm your host. Mick Spiers, and today I'm excited to dive into a topic that's been on my mind ever since our incredible conversation with Ishaan galapati in Episode 209, and I'm going to be sharing the truth about quiet quitting. We covered so much ground in that episode, and it really got me thinking about how we as leaders need to rethink our approach to disengagement in the workplace. So today I want to reflect on some of the key takeaways and explore what we can do to turn this situationaround. Let's start by addressing the biggest myth surrounding quiet quitting. It's not about how many hours someone is working. There were many people in the media, including some mainstream shows like The project that tried to debunk quite quitting by referencing the fact that people were still working the same hours, or in some cases, even more hours. But it was never about the number of hours that people work. It's about their engagement. It's about whether they're bringing their full energy and their full passion. Quiet quitting is fundamentally an engagement issue. It's about energy, passion and effort that people bring to their work and how much they believe in what they're doing. Just reflect on thisfor yourself at the moment. Think about work that you do. You know that when you're passionate about whatyou're doing, you put in more effort. It's not about number of hours. You just pay more attention. You get almost absorbed in your work. You you get into this flow state where you're really excited about what you're doing, and you do your very best work. It's about engagement. It's not about hours worked. There's also another myth that people keep on thinking that we're blaming staff members when we talk about quiet quitting. It's never been about the staff members. It's a leadership issue. It's on the leaders to create the environment where people feel inspired, where they feel passionate, where they feel connected to the work that they're doing. It's the leader's responsibility to create the environment where people can do their very best work, and doing your very best work includes having purpose and meaning and getting inspired about what you're doing. Gallup's research on workplace engagement has been tracking this issue for years, and their findings are eye opening. According to their most recent report, only 23% of employees globally are fully engaged in work. That's less than one in four. Just think about that for a moment. 77% of people are either disengaged or actively disengaged. These are staggering numbers, andthey tell us one thing, very clearly, we need to take a good hard look at how we're leading our teams. So what's driving this disengagement? Well, as Ishan and I discussed, a major factor is purpose. People need to feel that what they do matters. They want to feel that they matter themselves. They want to feel purpose and meaning. They crave purpose and meaning. When they lose sight of the why behind their work, when they can't connect the dots between their daily tasks and the broader mission of the organization, they start to disengage. I talk about this in the terms of a macro why and a micro why a macro? Why is the big purpose? What? Why are we all here? Why does this team exist? Why does this organization exist? What is it that we're trying to achieve, and what makes that important? This is connecting to the vision. It's connecting to the broader purpose of the organization. Then I. Talk about a micro why? Why am I doing this task, this task that my boss has asked me to do this week. What makes that important? What does this task unlock for someone else? Is it an enabling activity that enables someone else to do something that's really important? So connecting the micro why to my task, it can also be the micro y of a decision. If the boss has had to make a pretty tough decision, I can usually live with that if I understand the rationale behind that decisionand how it connects to the bigger purpose. So a macro, why is the bigger purpose? A micro y is understanding the little things, the little task, the little decisions that lead us towards that purpose. And Gallup's data supports this, employees who strongly agree that they have a clear sense of purpose are three times more likely to stay engaged. Think about that. Purpose is a multiplier for engagement, and it's on us as leaders to provide that purpose. But it's not just about purpose. It's also about feeling seen, heardand valued. One of the most powerful insights from my conversation with Ishan was the idea that people quite quit when they don't feel valued. And it's not always an overt thing. It can be as simple as a team member putting forward ideas, suggestions or feedback only to have them consistently ignored or maybe even ridiculed. Eventually, people just stop trying. They think, why bother? And as Tim McClure famously said, the biggest concern for any organization should be when their most passionate people become quiet. That's a real warning sign. Now, as leaders, we need to ask ourselves, are we creating an environment where people feel valued? Are we listening to their ideas? Are we recognizing their contributions? Because if the answer is no, we're driving people into disengagement without even realizingit. Gallup's research shows that employees who feel their opinions count are nearly five times more likely to feel empowered to do their best work, five times. That's huge, and all it takes is to make sure that someone feels seen and heard, that we listen to them, that we recognize them. When people feel valued, they're more likely to bring energy, creativity and passion to their work. So how do we fix this? How do we as leaders, turn quiet quitters into change agents? That's the real question. There's no simple answer, but one of the things Ishan and I discussed in the discussion was the importanceof genuine engagement. It's not just about getting people to show up and do the work. It's about truly involving them in the process giving them ownership, listening to their ideas, and making them feel like they're part of something bigger. This reminds me of a conversation we had in a previous Episode with Jake Jacobs. I think that might havebeen in season one. He made a brilliant point. A lot of people think that people don't like change, butit's not that people don't like change. What they don't like is being changed. People don't want change to be something that's done to them. They want to be part of the process when we engage people in a genuine way. When we ask them for the input and involve them in the decision making, we're giving them a sense of ownership over that change, and that's when real engagement starts to happen. One of the sayings I use with my team, maybe a bit too often, but I say this all the time, you hold the pen if you want to see something done differently in the organization, grab hold of the pen and help us co architect the future. Help us co create the future. And then they feel part of it. They feel part of somethingbigger. And they bring their energy, they bring their ideas, they bring their creativity and they start investing in how do we make the team and the organization better? I think this is especially important when we're talking about turning disengaged employees into change agents. These are the people who have. Potential to drive innovation and improvement within the organization, but only if we give them the tools and the space to do so. If we ignore their ideas or dismiss their contributions, we're not just missing out on great ideas. We were actively pushing them away. We're pushing them into disengagement. I wantto circle back to something Ishan said that really struck with me, the idea that people want to feel valued for their contributions. And it's not just about recognition, it's about creating a culture where people's ideas are taken seriously. We've all been in situations where we've put forward suggestions only to have them ignored or brushed aside. It's demoralizing, right? So my question to you, are you now doing that to other people? Imagine if you did that time and time again, your ideas were consistently met with silence or even ridicule, it's no wonder people stop speaking up. And when that happens, organizations lose the very voices that could help them drive change. This brings me to another key point we've discussed before, specifically in our Episode with Patrick Thean, where we talked about his rhythm systems, Patrick emphasized the importance of creating a consistent rhythm in the business, a cadence that allows people to align their work with the larger goals of the organization. When employees have clarity about where the business is going and understand how their work contributes to those goals. Engagement naturally improves. It's about giving people a clear direction and empowering them to contribute in meaningful ways. As Patrick then put it, we then need to stay the course and not get distracted and keep changing course all the time.If we're implementing a change, we need to have a rhythm. And he talks about a quarterly rhythm. What are we going to do this quarter? What are the activities, what are the changes, what are the initiatives that we're going to implement this quarter? And then if another idea comes in halfway through the quarter, you put it in the parking lot and say, Okay, that's a candidate for the next quarter, but we're going to finish what we already started. People get change weary very quickly, if all you're doing is jumping from one idea to another idea. Patrick's concept is to make sure that we're focusing on on only one, two, or maybe three things to change at any time. If we try to change 36 things at once, we're going to fail. But if we can focus on that one key one, like I said, could be two, could be three, but a small subset of things that we can effectively change in the organization we set ourselves up for success. We follow thecourse, we finish the task before we go on to the next initiative, and this is what will help people engage to the change and stop being so change. Weary you. So how do we as leaders implement all of this in ourown teams? First and foremost, we need to listen, really listen, not just by going through the motions of a feedback session, but genuinely listening to what people have to say. This is one of the most powerful ways to engage your team. When people feel heard, they feel valued. When they feel valued, they're far more likely to be engaged and bring their best selves to work. But listening alone is not enough. We need to take action when someone comes to you with an idea, a suggestion or even a concern, don't just nod along. Do something about it. Show them that their input matters by acting on it, even if the idea isn't something you can implement immediately, acknowledge it, provide feedback and explain why you may need to hold off to explore other options. In fact, Gallup's data shows that employees who feel their managers are open to their ideas are more than twice as likely to be engaged in their work, and engagement, as we know, leads to higher productivity, better performance, and ultimately, better business outcomes. Beyond the business outcomes, the person feels better. People spend up to 1/3 of their life in the workplace. They want to feel good about themselves. They want to feel that they matter. So as we reflect on this, I challenge each of you listening today to ask yourself. Off. Are you truly engaging with your team? Are you listening to their ideas? Are you empowering them to take ownership, and are you providing them with a clear sense of purpose, and most importantly, are you creating an environment where people feel valued and motivatedto bring their best every single day, because when you do, the results can be transformational. You'll not only prevent quiet quitting, you'll turn disengaged employees into passionate, motivated changeagents who actively contribute to the success of your organization. Okay, so now on to my leadership reflections of the week. For anyone that's new to the show, I've been asking myself the same five questions every dayfor the past 11 years, what went well, what didn't go well? What would I do differently next time? What didI learn about myself and what did I learn about others? So what went well this week? Well, I have been quite prolific. I've gotten through an amazing amount of work this week, and what it required was a lot of intentional focus and scheduling and planning using time blocks in my calendar. I looked at everything that I needed to achieve this week, and I had a very clear schedule and set of time blocks for all of the things that were most important. What didn't go well is I did over commit. I committed to too much this week, and then I had to have almost this perfect hour by hour plan of everything that I was going to achieve this week, which was pretty stressful at times. So whatwould I do differently next time I would have said no to a few extra things by saying no to some things, I can do a better job of the things that I say yes to, probably just 10% in this case, if I had have taken 10% of things off that to do list, I would have done a better job this week. So what did I learn about myself? Well, you know what? I actually don't enjoy saying no. I'm a bit of a people pleaser, which can become a bit of a problem if I'm saying yes to everything, I'm actually going to let more people down, because I'll do a bad job of all of those things that I'm saying yes to. So I do need to say no to a few more things. What did I learn about others? Well, when you do say no or not yet, might even be the answer they can usually understand. And if you can give them a good explanation, say, you know, I'm really sorry. I'm not going to be able to do this this week because of the following reason, but I might be able to do it next week that they're usually quite compassionate and they're usually quite ready to have that conversation. So if you are a people pleaser, give people a bit of credit that you can have a really good, robust conversation with them about what you are saying yes to and what you're saying no to or not yet to, if you give them a good reason and a good discussion about it. So that's it for this week. In the next Episode of The Leadership Project, I'll be joined by Jason Anthoine, the founder and head honcho at audacity, where he'll be talking about creating impactful teams and impactful organizations. If you have been getting great value from our content, we would love it. If you would leave us a rating and review on Apple podcast or your preferred podcast service, you can also subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you weekly videos, the video podcast and also live stream shows that help you to become the leader that you wish you always had. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspears.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for hisvideo editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and youcan follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.