We can change… the conversation
Quiet quitting isn’t the half of it
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” my client said, looking defeated. “I just can’t make myself care about my job. Everything else is the same, but I just feel… broken.”
I was coaching a senior executive in a large, complex and highly competitive company. She had a big job, and was used to working most of her waking hours to get it done. She used to thrive on the fast pace, running on adrenaline, being a “problem-solving machine.”
Until she didn’t. Something had shifted over the past few years. The work that used to fuel her now fatigued her. She found it took all of her available energy to do what she considered the bare minimum. And in disengaging from her role—a high-profile position that she had long equated with her personal value—she was left feeling adrift.
I share this leader’s story because it represents to me the complexity of the seismic shift currently underway in our relationship to work. This leader isn’t Gen Z, she’s Gen X. She’s not new to the workforce, she has decades of experience in global roles. She’s not lazy and she can’t just push through it this time. She has hit a wall. And she’s far from alone.
As usual, the public discourse (with a little help from the mainstream media) has flattened this complexity into a pithy, sticky hashtag: quiet quitting. The phrase originated as something of a Gen Z rally cry on TikTok in August and has already been adopted (and weaponized) by the “nobody wants to work anymore” crowd. I keep hearing that perfect lyric from Bo Burnham’s millennial opus, Inside: The backlash to the backlash to the thing that’s just begun…
And so we find ourselves where we always seem to find ourselves—on one side or the other of a divisive debate. Except we aren’t really debating, which would require us to, you know, talk to one another. And listen. Maybe navigate some nuance. Instead, both sides are talking mostly to themselves. With righteous indignation and eye rolls. Each blames the other for problems created by neither.
Everybody digs in. The divide deepens. ‘Round and ‘round we go.
My natural inclination, when I encounter a divisive issue, is to try to see both sides. I think it’s a holdover from my early defensive posture of people-pleaser—an impulse to understand the needs and motivations of others. No longer my default, I still find it a useful strategy for finding a way forward in important moments that feel impossible.
This is why, last week, I asked you to share your thoughts on “quiet quitting.” (There’s still time, click that link!) Over the next few weeks, I want to create a bit of space to have this conversation in a way that recognizes and respects both sides… and all the complexity in between.
Here’s how it’s shaping up:
Part 1: Employees on how work needs to change (next week)
Part 2: Employers on the challenges of leadership in this moment
Part 3: The Tornado - What happens when we react to one another
Part 4: The Tree - What can happen when we create solutions together
I’ll post each part here on my regular weekly schedule, and in the meantime you can check in on me mapping it all out (in real time) here on Miro. Yep, that’s a visual of how my brain works.
Three Easy Ways to Join the Conversation:
Leave a comment with your point of view below
Finally, please bring on over any friends and colleagues who have something to share or something to say. I’m looking forward to learning from you all.