We’ve had the great resignation, the great exhaustion, and now quiet quitting. Covid, Brexit, the war in Ukraine, and the cost-of-living crisis have put people under intense and prolonged pressure so these reactions are not surprising. What’s the problem with quiet quitting anyway? Charles Tincknell explains.
Jumping straight in: quiet quitting is an absolute disaster for creativity, which requires positivity, inspiration, great leadership, an open mindset and intrinsic motivation to want to engage, look up, out, and wider, to improve things.
Quiet quitting, where you do your job role no more and no less is, in my mind, a form of self-sabotage. It is a sign of poor leadership and management or loss of purpose and a long way from living a full and happy life in all aspects of your being.
It has undertones of being passive-aggressive to yourself, but wrapped up in a justification of regaining work/life balance.
Yes, work/life balance is hugely important, but if you need to achieve it through quiet quitting, perhaps question how you got to this situation and why. Then do something about it as a priority (see my tips below).
Creative ideas bring positivity
Very few people are ever criticised for not coming up with creative ideas. Yet a business brimming and overflowing with creative ideas is both healthy and thriving.
“Processes that are faster, better, simpler and produce more value should, with good leadership, enable a better work/life balance. That is a real win-win.”
The fabulous thing is, working on improving creativity levels and embracing innovative ideas through open dialogue, good leadership and embracing change is that you move people and the organisation out of the quiet quitting zone.
It will get you back towards full participation, fun and a much more positive working environment. Creativity focused on process improvement brings efficiencies that give back people time and improve productivity.
Processes that are faster, better, simpler and produce more value should, with good leadership, enable a better work/life balance. That is a real win-win.
Top five actions to change the quiet quitting mindset
- Re-find your motivations, especially your intrinsic motivation, your internal drive for success and your sense of purpose. Ask yourself: What do you stand for? How do you want to be perceived? What is your personal brand? And most important, actively listen to your answers. This will give you rich material to then…
- Find a thing or task that you personally would like to move forward with, and have a passion for, and make it a project. If you are passionate about it, you will be creative to make it happen. This will help your mind focus on a positive activity and not languish in the quiet quitting zone.
- Managers should know what passions their people have and enable them to incorporate these into their work, so they can flourish and excel.
- Accept people have peaks and troughs, but be close enough to know when a trough flatlines. This takes empathy – if you don’t have enough to see this coming then work on it.
- The phenomenon of quiet quitting is not about people not doing a good job – they do. It’s about the discretionary effort put in so they are happy, fulfilled and taking part to their greatest potential.
However, it’s also possible staff may have been pushed into quiet quitting due to a manager or leader’s behaviour. Perhaps a manager doesn’t want to be challenged or hear new ideas, and may actually feel threatened by this. Or they may have already quiet quit themselves.
I suspect the latter is one of the root causes of quiet quitting in a workforce. However, whatever you do, do not accept the situation as there are still steps you can take.
12 tips to deal with being pushed into a quiet quitting mindset
- Look for an internal secondment.
- Find your boss’s passion and see if you can weave something around their interests.
- Look for a cross departmental task team.
- Find something that makes your manager look good but is not threatening.
- Become the best and most efficient at what you do and then use any spare capacity you have to build yourself and your skill sets up.
- Purposely be seen and heard outside your department so you build your network if an escape is needed.
- Manage your boss better by building their self confidence and capability. This is easier said than done, but a great challenge to set yourself.
- Have a plan for dealing with this, the change you want to see and a timescale you are prepared to work to and an outcome you are willing to accept. This is both for the manager and yourself.
- Do not accept being driven into the quiet quitting zone by others. If you cannot solve the situation move on, but set your own path and pace.
- Speak to friends and, if possible, get a mentor or a coach.
- Read, and Google, for advice and help.
- If all else fails, develop a side hustle that brings you fulfilment and pleasure.
Charles Tincknell is director of process improvement at Willmott Dixon
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Thanks Charles Tincknell and CM for surfacing this, it’s important.
The seeds of quiet quitting were sown long before Brexit, Covid, Ukraine, cost of living crisis and more. Gallup the analytics giant has been surveying employee engagement across the world for 30 years and the stats are not good. My own, more limited, research done with the CIOB suggests the majority of those under 40 would not recommend the construction industry to family or friends.
I believe it’s to do with the default command and control style of management that I was once guilty of cos I didn’t know better till I did 25 years ago and that I still witness today across our industry.
I like how you address the prospective quiet quitters directly here and that you rightly call out leadership and management. Together they form a living system which tends to pull down the high flyers to a common level and makes it very hard to buck, get above, that system – though I do think your tips are very useful.
I have been on a mission to transform this command and control style of management for 20 plus years and have written about it extensively in these (CM) pages and elsewhere. And am now working ground up with young professionals enabling them to make the change as well as top down with big project leadership teams I am coaching. This is just the best work possible.
I also like that ‘get a coach’ is one of your tips. It matches exactly what Gallop recommend.
Well done Charles and CM.