Why are you so grumpy?
Quiet Quitting is nothing new. It's been a feature of most organisations for as long as I can remember.
Quiet quitting is doing what you're contracted to do; nothing less and nothing more.
I first started to learn about this concept when I came across an article about Performance Related Pay (PRP). I was totally committed to the concept of PRP and engaged with it wholeheartedly when I encountered it in my first job. However, this article challenged my thinking on the topic.
The article put forward a case to say that there will always be around 15% of the workforce who are totally committed to their work, and they will be high performers in whatever remuneration they receive in their salary package. There are another 15% who will never be committed to their work, whatever encouragement they receive. Then there are those in the middle, some 70% of the workforce, who all believe that they are the high flyers and are demotivated by not being remunerated as a high flyer, and they would then become indifferent to their work and quietly quit.
Now, whether the percentages are accurate or not, the point still remains that there are varying degrees of commitment and performance that can be expected from your staff. In fact, when I was managing IT projects, it was often quoted that there can be a 10-fold performance difference between a good programmer and a bad programmer and a 10-fold difference for any one programmer from one day to the next. The maths suggests that there can therefore be a 100-fold difference between a good programmer on a good day and a bad programmer on a bad day. These 10x multipliers may be subject to adjustment depending on the type of work, but the underlying difference in productivity is still enormously significant and worth paying attention to for any organisation.
4-day working week
The widely explored "4-day working week" experimented with another feature of working life by removing un-productive tasks to motivate people to work harder in the remaining time and thus get 100% of the output from 80% of the input. Why not just eliminate the unproductive tasks, find ways for your staff to be really engaged with their work, and increase productivity by 25%?
Another model popular in some workplaces to help encourage employee engagement seems to involve asking our staff to add some additional "well-being" or "mindfulness" tasks into their working life as an antidote to counter the adverse effects of the damaging and demotivating world of work. This seems to me to be like extending the working week to try to help people survive in a toxic work environment.
Exposure Meter
Some years ago, my job involved making regular visits to various nuclear establishments - manufacturing plants, power stations and reprocessing facilities. During this season, I was issued with a radiation exposure meter called a "film badge", which would record the level of exposure I had to harmful radiation. This would be checked regularly in order to keep my exposure below a nationally recognised threshold to ensure my well-being and physical health.
It seems that in today's world our staff need to be issued with a "work exposure meter" to record the level of exposure they have to the harmful world of work. This would need to be checked regularly in order to keep their exposure below a nationally recognised threshold to ensure their well-being and mental health.
The key thought running through these models has to do with our work being something to be endured and something that needs to be kept below a recognised threshold to allow for employee well-being and permit a decent work-life balance.
Now consider another model. How about if we work on helping our staff actually enjoy the work they are employed to do?
Why are you so grumpy?
The discussion that led to creating the Working Genius model was that some tasks could make you grumpy. Pat Lencioni was asked by one of his colleagues, "Why are you so grumpy these days?". The ensuing discussion led to a discovery that most of us have areas of work at which we are brilliant and that when we're doing this kind of work, we end the day more energised than when we started. Then there are some areas of work that, while we can do them, and often we do them pretty well, are draining, and we quickly find ourselves drained and worn out. Then there are some areas of work we really dislike doing or, in some cases, we can't do at all. These tasks leave us both drained and miserable.
In this season, Pat found himself doing work that he could do but that left him feeling drained, and he was doing this day after day. His work exposure meter was recording levels of overexposure.
So, the team explored the idea that some tasks were more enjoyable than others and that the enjoyable tasks weren't the same for everyone. Even people employed in the same role could and would have different aspects of that work that they "enjoy".
Working Genius
That resulted in developing the Working Genius model - to help people find the areas of work that they enjoy most and to make sure to include that in their daily work. It's rather like keeping a balanced diet - we all need a balance of carbs, protein and fats along with the correct amounts of vitamins and minerals - we all need to eat some spinach and sprouts. Not all of us enjoy all of the ingredients, so we need to make sure we include some of what we love along with what we need.
• Working Genius indicates your natural ability, what brings you joy and fulfilment. It consistently gives you energy.
• Working Competency indicates what you can do well but are not fulfilled by. Over time this drains your energy.
• Working Frustration indicates what you dislike doing and find draining, even if you’ve learned to be capable of it.
Enjoy your Work
That's what the Working Genius model does for you and your staff, it helps us to understand what it is that we love doing and then to find ways to do more of it so that our work exposure meter doesn't become over-exposed, and as a result, we can raise the levels of employee engagement for all of our staff and people can enjoy going about their work. Everyone can be given the right tools, training, education and encouragement so they can make a contribution that helps them find personal meaning and value in their lives through their activities at work.
If you want to explore more about the Working Genius Model, then please give me a call,
or check out rogerfairhead.com/working-genius to find out more.
