Megan Hyatt Miller:
It’s not as easy now to build relationships on a team as it used to be, because people are in-person less. So we have to be more intentional.

Michael Hyatt:
Hi, I’m Michael Hyatt.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
And I’m Megan Hyatt Miller.

Michael Hyatt:
And this is Lead to Win, our weekly podcast to help you win at work and succeed at life. And today, we want to talk about a phenomenon that is sweeping the nation, maybe the world, but it’s called, quiet quitting. And we want to talk about how to avoid quiet quitting in your business, because apparently, it’s affected a lot of businesses.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
It’s so funny, Dad. I read about this, I think it was the Wall Street Journal article that came out recently. And I was like, wait, what? What is this? And then I just started digging more and more. It’s so fascinating. I feel like this has been such an interesting time in the relationship between employees and employers, there are so many shifts happening. And this is just another big one, kind of like the great resignation.

Michael Hyatt:
Yep, absolutely. Well, let’s start with the definition. What is quiet quitting? And according to the Wall Street Journal, the phrase started on TikTok. And employees are busy, not being busy. At least, not too much. And here’s what they said, and this is a direct quote from the article. “Some young professionals reject the idea of going above and beyond in their careers, labeling their lesser enthusiasm a form of quitting. Coasting from nine to five, doing just enough to get by.” So what do you think of that, Meg?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, gosh. I mean, this is so interesting. Some of it sounds healthy. I mean, we at Full Focus talk all the time about the idea of the double win, winning at work and succeeding at life. And that’s really an intentional response and rejection really, of hustle culture and people working 50, 60, 70 plus hours a week and not having any personal life or attending to things outside of work. And so we really believe in the idea of the double win, but we also believe in the idea of the double win, not the single win.
And this sounds a little bit like a single win, in which you’re pitting your personal life against the company. And what we really want is integration. We want people to win at work and succeed at life. So I think that this is maybe an effort to bring some balance back, and there’s definitely some impulse here that’s healthy. But obviously, it’s not good for employers to have what ultimately results in a disengaged workforce.

Michael Hyatt:
Well, and if you’re listening to this and you’re wondering, I wonder if I’ve got a disengaged workforce? Are people quiet quitting on me? We’ve got a free tool, a survey that you can use with your own team to determine exactly that. And you can find that at fullfocus.co … C-O. /quietquitting. Again, that’s fullfocus.co/quietquitting. This tool is free and it’ll help you determine whether or not you have a problem with quiet quitting in your own organization.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, this is something that we do … an employee survey, that is. Every year during our strategic planning process, long before this concept was coined and has become part of the national, and maybe even international conversation in the business community. We always want to know, how engaged is our team? And so we do an anonymous survey every year to our employees to just understand that better. And I think if that’s not something that you’re in the practice of doing, this is a great place to start to just get a pulse and a baseline on how your team’s doing.

Michael Hyatt:
So we want to cover four strategies that business owners just like you can use to avoid quiet quitting among their employees. So strategy number one is, connect your team to the vision. How does this counter the quiet quitting thing, Meg?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, this really goes back to the principles that we know drive engagement and have been studied for a long time. And when people don’t feel like they understand or feel connected to the vision of a company, and there’s a real disconnect between their day-to-day work, the tasks that they’re completing on a daily basis and the goals of the organization, the direction of the organization, it’s really hard to stay engaged. I mean, honestly, what it feels like is your work is meaningless and it doesn’t really matter anyway. So why should you be so invested? What you want is people to think, to use an old example, I’m not just laying bricks here, I’m building a cathedral. You want them to feel like they are part of something that’s bigger than themselves, that really matters, and that’s making a difference.
And we know particularly among younger team members, this is critically important. That so much of their expectation for a positive professional experience is a sense of meaning and a larger purpose for their work. They don’t want to just collect a paycheck, they want to feel like their work matters and they’re making a difference. And that’s where the role of vision really comes in handy. And if you are a business owner with a vision and you’re communicating that diligently, you have an edge over so many other organizations that just plug people into tasks. And it can honestly feel a little dehumanizing to people at some point.

Michael Hyatt:
Yeah. And I’ve talked to business owners in the past who don’t really want to do the work on the vision or mission or core values, or some of that stuff that we typically call core ideology. It’s usually the first place that we start with our clients, because we think it has an outsized impact on everything you’re trying to do. And it’s not something that’s one of those airy, fairy, fluffy kind of things that doesn’t really matter, but it really shapes culture. And what it really does is gives people one of the most important things that they seek, which is meaning. And if they’re not finding it at work, they’re going to find it somewhere else. And where the meaning goes, the engagement follows. So if you don’t create that meaning at work for people, then they’re going to be engaged in something. It’s just not going to be at work.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Right.

Michael Hyatt:
Okay. That brings us to strategy number two, which is, connect your team to you as their leader. And I want to just start by saying, I don’t think people do work for companies, they work for other people. People may start out working for another company, but they quickly become connected to their leader, or not connected to their leader. And at the end of the day, people quit people, they don’t quit companies. And so you’ve got to get connected to people. So let’s just talk about that a little bit, Meg. And how have you experienced that in the past and how do you try to foster that with your own team?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Yeah. Well, I think this is one of those areas that’s easy to overlook. The data tells us, when we’ve been having these conversations about the great resignation over the last year or so, that one of the reasons that people are resigning, or in the case of this conversation, quiet quitting, is because they are doing it in protest of a manager, really. That there’s a leadership issue that’s in play there. And so one of the best ways as a business owner that you can circumvent this is to shore up your leadership and make sure that you’re staying connected with your team. Relationships are the glue of an organization. And we know this also from the data, that more than ever people have their most meaningful relationships in the workplace.
If you think about in the past, church was a really significant place where people not only got a sense of meaning, but connection to others. They often lived in the same place for a long time. Now that remote work is so significant, that’s not the case anymore. So the relational fabric that maybe was happening outside of work in generations past is now happening so much inside the workplace. And if those relationships aren’t good, then it’s going to cause people to be disengaged and ultimately vote with their engagement, or ultimately their employment about how that’s going.
So I think, just a few practical things. We want to be making sure that people understand what their contribution to the vision is in their particular role. And as their direct supervisor, that’s what you can give them. You can provide that context and you can really draw that line back to the vision so that they understand their work matters. Also, you want to help them understand what is blocking their path to making progress on the vision and through their daily work. And sometimes people just become cynical and opt out, at least become disengaged, because they’re frustrated and they can’t resolve their frustration. And they just feel trapped. And so rather than leave, maybe that’s not an option for them, they just check out. And so I think that’s one of the things that you can do also.
And are there things that you can do as the business owner or the direct supervisor to help maybe take part of the work from them that … we would use the language of, their disinterest zone or their drudgery zone. Things that maybe are causing them to feel drained. Are there things you could automate? Are there ways that you could help to make their job more enjoyable? Make their contribution more meaningful and more effective, and get some of the frustrating elements out of the mix? I think that’s the purview of the direct supervisor, of the leader. And if you stay connected to your people through regular one-on-ones and those kinds of things, then these are things you’re going to be able to know and you can put in your agendas to make sure you’re addressing.

Michael Hyatt:
There’s another thing … and I agree with all that. But I think there’s another thing that we need to cover too here. People need to be seen, they need to be acknowledged, they need to be affirmed. And I think that I’ve never met a leader who didn’t have that intention, but people don’t judge us by our intentions. They judge us by our words and our actions. And so you have to get it out of your head and be explicit about it. Because I think for most people … and it happens for me too. If I’m not being seen, if I’m not being acknowledged, then at some point I just shrug my shoulders and say, hey, I’m going to get the same result whether I am actively engaged or if I just phone it in. And phoning it in is a whole lot easier than actually doing the hard work.
But you can make the difference as the leader by just seeing those people, again, acknowledging them, and affirming them. Don’t just take it for granted. And a lot of leaders … and you see this happen to marriages sometimes. Where people say, well, I said, I do, at the altar, and until I revoke that, it’s still in place. And, no. You’ve got to continue to express that you love that person. And I think the same is true in the workplace. You’ve got to continue to express that you appreciate that work, that you don’t have an attitude of entitlement.
And it’s easy to get entitled as a business owner or a leader and think that people owe you that work. But I think that’s where we got to turn this on its head. And think of this through the lens of being a servant leader. How can I help people? How can I serve people as the leader? And as you said so well, how can I help clear the path so that they can do the work that they were made to do? But also what do they need in terms of affirmation to feel confident and to feel good and to feel like they’re really being seen? That their work matters?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, I think we underestimate, as leaders, how important affirmation is. And being seen, particularly by someone who is your supervisor or the business owner. Even little things like remembering people’s names, asking about their kids, seeing them as full-orbed people is so important. Remember, this is the context where most of their meaningful relationships are happening.
And you’re probably a very important person, whether you know it or not, in the lives of the people on your team. And if they feel like you care about them, if they feel like you see them, then necessarily they’re going to feel like they matter. Their work matters. They have significance and recognition. All of which are pretty basic human needs that we’re going to work to fulfill.

Michael Hyatt:
That thing you mentioned about seeing people’s individuals and using their names and understanding their family situation, that gets more difficult the more you scale.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
It’s true. It does.

Michael Hyatt:
When I was the CEO at Thomas Nelson, we had about 750 employees. And I remember asking John Maxwell, I said, how do I connect with everybody? Because the truth is, when I meet an employee, that’s one of 750, but I’m the only CEO. So it’s easy for them to know my name, but it’s also easy for them to assume that I should know their name, particularly if I’ve met them before. And I was part of a company at one point where I kept meeting the CEO at every Christmas party. And for him, it was like the first time he’d ever met me, over and over again. He couldn’t remember me. And I would joke about it, but they didn’t leave a good impression upon me. So I thought, I’ve got to learn people’s names, and I don’t think I really succeeded in the way that I would’ve liked.
But one of John’s hacks … and John was really good at this. When he was a pastor in San Diego, he had his assistant put the names of people on three by five cards, one name per card with their picture on it. And he’d have the picture on one side and the name on the backside. And when he would travel, he would take a stack of those cards. And he had like, 3,000 or 4,000, some crazy number. And he would just use those like flashcards to remember people’s faces and their names. And so I did the same thing at Thomas Nelson. I had my executive assistant do the same thing, and I would take those cards dutifully with me on trips and try to rifle through them and try to remember. And I did the best I could, but it’s a challenge. But I think you get so much credit when you make the effort.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
You really do. And people want … they want that recognition. They want to matter.

Michael Hyatt:
That’s it.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
And I think that oftentimes, the things that are driving engagement, are the intangibles that are easy to miss.

Michael Hyatt:
Well, and to just put a bow on this, if people don’t feel like they matter, they assume that work doesn’t matter. And they check out.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Yes.

Michael Hyatt:
Let’s go to strategy number three. It’s not enough just to do strategy number one, which is to connect your team to the vision. Or strategy number two, connect your team to you as your leader. Strategy number three is to connect your team to one another. How do we do that at Full Focus? And not that we do it perfectly, and we probably got a lot to learn, but I think there’s some things we could share that would be helpful for people that are trying to do this.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well. I think, again, to remember contextually how important these relationships are. And I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but I think this is not always true for the business owner in the way that it’s true for our teams. And so we need to be reminding ourselves, hey, the people are looking for meaningful relationships here. And how can I set the stage for that? Especially as most of our companies, if you’re in any kind of knowledge-based industry, you’re probably more remote than you were two to three years ago. Which means people are having more transactional interactions with one another and less in-person, ad hoc water cooler type conversations. And so it’s not as easy now to build relationships on a team as it used to be, because people are in-person less. So we have to be more intentional.
For us, that means that we ask people to come into the office. Nobody at our company works in the office or has a private office, but we ask people to come in periodically because we want them to see each other. So that might be something like we do a happy hour, or we do an outing, or we do a Christmas party where there’s fun activities, like last year. We have an annual gingerbread house decorating contest, and we have teams, and it’s a great competition. We have prizes. It gets very competitive. It’s a blast, and people remember that. And they form connections with people that they were putting the frosting and the candy on the houses with, and they remember that all year long.
And so you want to be coming up with ways that are outside of work for people to connect with each other and build relationships. Including people’s families is another really fun thing. I mean, you don’t really get to know someone unless you get to know the people that are most important in their life. And so we’ve done things where we’ve invited people’s families and got to meet the kids before, and I love that. So those are just a few of the things that we do. We also just try to celebrate. When we have a particularly great month financially, we might have a party and celebrate and really call out the people that were a part of that by name and what was their contribution.
Because we want them, again, to feel seen. To feel like, when I do something that matters, I’m going to get recognized here, and in front of my peers. And then their peers are high fiving them, which is actually even more meaningful than if you or I did it, in a lot of ways. People want to be recognized by their peers, so we try to set the stage for that. But the most important thing is recognizing that this is critically important for engagement, and then being intentional in planning opportunities for people to connect with one another.

Michael Hyatt:
You mentioned something that, frankly, I haven’t thought about until now, or at least in this context. And that is the importance of connecting people’s families to the company. And obviously, they don’t work for the company and you’re not asking for that. But you want them to be supportive so that the chatter inside the home is supportive of the company and it’s mission, and is not a detraction from that. And so a lot of times when I’ve sent bonuses out to people, I’ve sent them to people’s homes with a letter, a thank you letter, knowing that that person would probably read that to their spouse.
And so it’s just a way, a subtle way of acknowledging that person in front of their family, which is really important too. Because at the end of the day, people really care about what their family thinks. And if they can be acknowledged in front of their family in some way … and I’ve had bosses in the past that have done that too. When I’ve brought Gail, my wife to a meeting, they’ve bragged on me to her. And that makes me feel great, about the boss and about company and all that. So you don’t do it to manipulate, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to be intentional about that. And to understand the psychological dynamics that are in play.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, for example, next week we are completing the second part of our operational planning process on the backside of strategic planning, where we’ll be presenting to our leadership team, our team of directors as an executive team. And when we’re all together, we could have just gone through the agenda that I have planned for that time. But I decided, you know what? We’re all going to be together. There’s 10 or 12 of us that’ll be together for several days. We need to plan a special dinner and really allow people to connect.
So we have a private room at a local restaurant next week. We’ll have intentional questions. We’ll do some special stuff as a way of saying, we could just let this be what it is on the calendar, which is to complete some part of our planning process. Or we could be intentional about using that as a springboard to develop connection between the people that are going to be at the meetings, and that’s what we’re going to do. Because those people aren’t all together all at one time in that setting very often, and it’s a real opportunity for us.

Michael Hyatt:
So that’s three of the four strategies. Let’s get to the fourth one, which is, connect your team to the results. That seems like that’s a hard right turn, because we’ve talked about vision, we’ve talked about connecting to people, including your leader and the other people on your team. And now the results. How does that work?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, I mean, we all want to have a sense of efficacy. That when we do this thing over here, when we push this thing, something moves downstream. If there’s a sense of futility to our work, we’re just working really hard and it never really seems to matter one way or the other, I mean, that’s discouraging. And I think when you consider that at the root of this quiet quitting issue is disengagement, you don’t want people discouraged, you want them encouraged. Do you want them to feel like, when I take this action, something really good happens over here. Or these financial results that we’re experiencing as a company are because of our effort. And we want to connect the dots for people, because obviously, we want more of that kind of behavior. We want our people to do the things that drive results.
And so we have to make it visible to them. We have to have a scoreboard. Otherwise, I mean, think how fun would it be to go to a football game and go watch the Super Bowl if there was no scoreboard? I mean, no one would do it. Nobody would pay thousands and thousands of dollars for those seats. But it’s really fun to watch that scoreboard. I mean, I’m just thinking of all those games last year that were so close and they were one in the last couple minutes. You’re hanging on by your fingernails because it’s so exciting. I think that’s how people feel when they can connect their actions to the results that the company is producing.

Michael Hyatt:
Well, it’s shocking to me, in working with hundreds of businesses, how few businesses … at least when our coaching clients come into the program, where they’re not sharing their results with their team. And that’s just discouraging. It’s like not having a scoreboard and expecting people to be engaged. Now I’ve played a round of golfer two where I’ve just said to the person I was playing with, hey, let’s just not keep score. Let’s just enjoy our time together. But we don’t enjoy the time together. We don’t enjoy it as much. I mean, even if I’m just playing against myself, which I tend to do. I don’t mind losing to the group, but I’m always trying to beat my personal best. I’m always trying to play against myself, but I got to have the score to do that. Otherwise, I’m not engaged.
So I think this is a really critical, important thing. And it’s not that hard. You just have to decide as a leader that you’re going to be transparent with the results and that you’re going to report back to people. And one of the things that I like to think of is, if you want people to behave as owners, where they’re more than just a hired hand, but they really have a stake in the outcomes, you got to treat them like owners. And owners share the results with other owners. It’s a real way to communicate partnership, that we’re in this together.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Yep. Trust.

Michael Hyatt:
That the results are important to both of us, et cetera.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
And trust. I mean, I think people feel trusted and they rise to the occasion. This probably goes without saying, but I think a part of this, connecting your team to the results is also what incentives you have in play. If it feels like the ownership is the only beneficiary of the financial results, that’s going to be very discouraging to your team. So if you don’t have a good bonus plan in place, if the incentives of someone’s job are not aligned with the outcomes you’re trying to create in terms of results, that’s something to really look at.
Because you know want people to feel like when you win as the business owner, when the business wins, they win. And that’s really what we want, is to get our incentives aligned with each other so that we can all row in the same direction.

Michael Hyatt:
Just to tie this fourth point back to the first point about vision, people need to feel connected to the vision. The results are a way to begin this cycle again. Because when people have a through-line from the results back to the vision, when they understand that we’re moving incrementally with our results toward that bigger vision that’s further in the distance, then it’s easier for them to be engaged too. But it’s up to us as the leaders to connect the dots. Because if it’s just results for results sake, then that also loses its meaning.
If just getting that sales increase this month is an end in itself, people aren’t going to play that game for very long. But if they know that this is to build a bigger company, to create more opportunity for the people inside the company, to make a bigger impact on the world, all that kind of stuff that’s the stuff of vision, then I think they’re willing to be more engaged, and not quiet quit.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, what we talk about in our methodology of strategic planning is that you have a three year long term vision. So this is where you’re taking the organization. And in the next year you have an annual plan, which is one year, one chunk of moving toward that three year vision. And so it should feel like the annual plan and the accomplishment of the results that you’re committed to for this fiscal year are moving your vision forward.
And if those dots are not necessarily connected for your team, that’s a really important connection to make and a really important opportunity for you to drive engagement, because that’s how it should work. And it should be really inspiring and exciting to people.

Michael Hyatt:
That’s great.
Okay. So today we’ve talked about quiet quitting, and how you as a business owner or business leader can avoid quiet quitting in your business. We talked about four strategies. Strategy number one, connect your team to the vision. Strategy number two, connect your team to you as their leader. Strategy number three, connect your team to one another. And strategy number four, connect your team to the results.
And again, if you’re concerned that you might be experiencing quiet putting in your organization or you suspect it might be the case, we’ve got a free resource for you. We’ve produced a survey that you can download at fullfocus.co/quietquitting. It’s free, but it’s got several helpful questions that you can ask your employees to determine if you’ve got a problem, and to quantify it and see how big of a problem it is. Megan, final thoughts?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, as I think about this topic, there’s a part of me as a business owner that groans a little bit. It’s like, one more problem to solve. And I’m guessing that probably is how it feels a little bit to you guys listening. Here’s what I think is truer though. This is an opportunity in disguise. This is an opportunity for us to do things inside our organization that certainly will circumvent this issue of quiet quitting, but will actually build the kind of culture that drives even better results, even better talent retention over time. And the opportunity for future acquisition of talent, that really gives you an edge.
So I think it is a blessing in disguise if we see it that way. And doing the things that we’ve outlined today, these four strategies will put you a long way forward in having the kind of culture that, dad, as you say, is the unseen force that drives operating results. So it really is a win-win in the end.

Michael Hyatt:
Thanks, Meg. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. And until next time, Lead to Win.