Imagine it is a Friday and you have just joined a meeting with your team members to wrap up the week. As you wait for the meeting to actually kick off, the customary small talk begins. The most common question being asked around is:
“How was your week?”
What would your answer be to that question? What would be the most common answer you might hear from the group?
Overworking: Commonplace and Glorified
In my experience of working at large multinationals, I hear a lot of:
“It was a busy week…a crazy week” or some version of that.
I am guilty of saying that myself too.
But then it almost becomes a game for everyone to one-up on each other.
“Looks like I need to work a few hours over the weekend!”
“Oh no, I understand, I had to do that last weekend.”
“Me too! I have been putting in extra hours all week!”
Somehow, when you sit in such a meeting, even though YOU had a good week, maybe a light and productive week, you would inevitably be pressured into saying that your week was tough.
But why?
Why is this a common conversation at work?
When did overworking become an acceptable situation for many of us despite the fact that it can lead to mental and physical decline, with the most notable condition being BURNOUT?
Burnout: The Effects
A Washington Post article notes that burnout, as we know it today, was first taken seriously by scientists and the public at large in the mid-1970s. Its world domination began after the pandemic started. And the numbers continue to rise.
But my question to employees like you and me is, how will we know when we are crossing the line from glorified overworking to helpless burnout?
If burnout meant emotional and physical exhaustion for you, how would YOU rate the extent of the burnout you experienced over the last year based on the scale below?
On the other hand, if you are a people manager, what is the effect of your employees feeling burned out on your team?
Apart from the reduced productivity and engagement, the ultimate risk is your employees giving up… They give, give, give until they are mentally, physically, and emotionally depleted.
They feel frustrated. One day their anger boils over.
They QUIT.
Turnover comes at a cost. The cost of rehiring, retraining, and re-engagement.
But, of course, you know that.
You pay attention to those emails on mental health days that your HR department sends out.
You ask your employees to check out early on Fridays.
You even hold pizza parties each month!
Unfortunately, burnout is more serious than the temporary relief that these ‘band-aids’ will provide your employees.
So what happens next? Your employees will take matters into their own hands. When they don’t/can’t/won’t quit, they start to look for ways to solve their burnout issue on their own.
They QUIET QUIT.
Quiet Quitting: The Short-Term Advantage
The easiest way to stop the exhaustion from burning out and overworking is to simply draw stricter boundaries. Employees disengage from their job, distance themselves from the work, maintain strict 40-hour weeks, and simply do the bare minimum to keep their job for now.
Sometimes, employees may quietly quit for reasons that may not be related to burnout and work-life balance at all.
-
Lack of career advancement opportunities: Why go above and beyond when you are not moving up anytime soon?
-
Uninteresting work: When employees haven’t found their niche or purpose at work, or found work that deeply engages them, work simply equals doing the bare minimum and collecting their paycheck. Nothing more.
-
Personal reasons: People may also quiet quit for personal reasons, such as a change in their family situation which may lead to distraction at work.
And if the above reasons make you think that quiet quitting is the best way to move forward in your life, then by all means, do it. Know that your performance will take a hit.
But what if you are a high achiever and care to make a name for yourself in your career? Is quiet quitting the best long-term solution for your burnout?
NO.
And here’s why.
Understanding the root cause of your burnout is important to take a holistic approach to fully addressing it. If your situation is extreme to the point where you DREAD the thought of work, it may be helpful to seek guidance from a mental health professional or a career coach to help you determine the best course of action.
Short-term, quiet quitting can reduce stress and improve work-life balance because you will be reducing time and energy spent on work.
And I have been there, done that. When one of my previous jobs was taking a toll on my mental health, I thought I was being smarter than everyone around me by quiet quitting. I can’t deny it helped me feel better initially.
The Long-Term Problem
But when I finally caught a break and found my ground, I couldn’t help but feel bored at work. I was definitely not performing at my peak. I missed the periods of intense flow and productivity, both on my own and with my team members. I missed the feeling of meaningful accomplishment.
I began to feel disappointed as if I was letting myself and my respected colleagues down.
It wasn’t too long before I started asking myself – Is this it? Is this what my career has come to?
Quiet quitting is the worst enemy of high achievers and the ambitious. If anything it creates more stress due to discontentment at work.
Quiet quitting means you are stuck in limbo at work, you are just getting by. As much as you may want to scale back on work, you might still feel that pressure to create a good work product and maintain status at work.
Still not convinced?
Consider this:
If I give you 100 hours to do any activity or task of your choice, you can earn a large sum of money after those 100 hours are complete. It’s a large sum of money, it’s an offer you can’t refuse.
Remember, you get to choose ANY activity or project you want to spend those 100 hours on.
Would you do something that bores you for those 100 hours?
Or would you rather do something that feels fun, effortless, and natural to you for those 100 hours?
Of course, the second choice – have fun and get that money!
But let’s dig a little deeper. Consider the same scenario at work.
Now, if you go with the first choice, you will NOT be performing at your peak because of a lack of focus and boredom. You would be producing average work.
You will spend close to 100,000 hours at work in your lifetime. And if you are quiet quitting, long-term, that would equate to 100,000 hours of apathy and average work.
| 100,000 hours at work = 11 years of your life |
You will always find many employees around you who are okay to do the bare minimum and produce average work. But if you are an ambitious high achiever who wants a sustainable and successful long-term career, you don’t want to be known for average work. Therefore, quiet quitting is your worst enemy.
If you are a people manager, note that the media tends to celebrate quiet quitters. Even though the media portrays quiet quitting as employees simply setting boundaries for their mental health, the problem can run much deeper.
No team or company has won awards, created something innovative, or done anything great… with a bunch of average employees doing average work.
Therefore, quiet quitting is your worst enemy as well.
The Solution: Effortless Work Culture
The best way to reduce burnout for good, perform at your peak, and actually have a good time while doing your work is by getting into a FLOW STATE. When you get into a flow state, you enter a hyper-attentive phase where you are highly engaged and creative.
You get more work, deeper work done in lesser hours. You start to feel effortlessly productive.
Some studies by the Flow Research Collective have shown that Flow State leads to up to almost 5 times more productivity, creativity, and learning speed at work!
You enter a Flow State when you feel driven and authentic at work. That is, you do what you love and how you love to do it. Your work starts to feel more effortless.
You start building a work culture that is fun, engaging, and rewarding or as I like to call it, an Effortless Work Culture… beneficial to both leaders and employees.
Where is the question of quiet quitting when you feel thoroughly rewarded and enjoy your work? Where is the question of burnout when there is no struggle, exhaustion, and long hours when you’re being so effortlessly productive?
Remember – you will spend almost 100,000 hours at work in your lifetime.
Those are 100,000 hours where you can be deeply immersed in your work, performing at your peak, feeling energized, feeling engaged, feeling content in the end… smiling.
Go make it happen.
I Can Help!
Do your teams suffer from one or more of these six corporate problems?
-
Low Engagement Scores
-
Constant Organizational Change
-
Wasted Potential
-
Reduced Productivity
-
Weak Collaboration
-
High Turnover
I am Sneha Mandala. I work with leaders to create an EFFORTLESS work culture for their employees.
I help leaders ditch the common …hustle-and-grind mentality… and instead create a FLOW STATE at work for employees.
My signature 3-step process helps leaders REDUCE burnout, ENGINEER peak performance, and TRANSFORM employees into an engaged powerhouse!
If you too want to find the sweet spot between happily engaged employees and extraordinary business results, book your discovery call today!
