Tough Conversations about Quiet Quitting with Gene Hammett

Quiet Quitting is a silent issue that can erode your company culture and performance if left unaddressed. In this episode, I share how to have tough conversations about Quiet Quitting before it becomes a bigger problem. I’ll walk you through practical ways to re-engage team members, set clear expectations, and foster real commitment. Addressing Quiet Quitting isn't just about performance—it's about leadership, clarity, and accountability. I'm Gene Hammett, an executive coach with over ten years of experience working with CEOs and their executive teams. After studying the leadership of fast-growth companies, I’ve developed frameworks and insights to help you and your company grow.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

  He went in there and saw like three emails in three months. And this person's in sales. And so a lot of their work is coordinating emails and reaching out to people and confirming appointments. And all the stuff that salespeople do, they weren't doing it. And so that gave him data to have a conversation. And this person, I won't mention his name or the company name, but he said, oh, I did have a meeting last week. And so they got curious and said, well, who was the meeting with? And he mentioned an accountant. And it turns out he had looked back at the notes when he hired the person. That was the accountant that that person used as a personal. So he was saying that he had a meeting with his own personal accountant, maybe to sell something, but that was the only meeting he scheduled in three months. And that was a version of quiet quitting. You've got to read between the lines.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  You can't just assume this. You have to be prepared. You have to be willing to engage and you have to have a dialogue. Welcome to Growth Think Tank. This is the one and only place where you will get insight from the founders and the CEOs of the fastest growing privately held companies. I am the host. My name is Gene Havitt. I help leaders and their teams navigate the defining moments of their growth. Are you ready to grow? Today I want to talk to you about quiet quitting. I've probably put out content around this before, but I just had a client of mine realize that there's a certain part of their employee count, if you will, percentage, that is not engaged with work. They are doing the bare minimum. And that's sort of the classical definition of quiet quitting.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  So how do you as leaders address that? Do you address it? If you, you know, sit back and wait, does it get better? Maybe. Sometimes, but I'm a much more proactive person and we're talking about leadership and how do you lead people powerfully? And so when you sense that someone's not engaging with their work, they're not putting in the effort, they're not putting in the the the extra that even after you had a tough conversation with them. Yes, I know that the neon behind me, if you're watching the video, says how to have tough conversations because I wrote a book with my wife, Amanda Hammett, called How to Have Tough Conversations. And so we come across this quite often with companies. Now, it could be a number of different factors. But when the client was describing this

• 2:45Speaker 01

  to me, that they were really looking at this from the perspective of, well, if I ask them if they're committed about working here, they always tell me yes. And it's classical because they don't want to say, no, I'm not committed. They're not going to tell you the truth. That would be crazy for an employee to do that, right? They're going to dance around it. Your job is to read between the lines. Your job is to probe and be curious, have a real dialogue with them, and maybe even be prepared for with your data. If you have any way of tracking this, I had one client who hired someone and I asked how they were doing after a few months. And he goes, oh, I haven't really thought about it. And he hired someone that was very experienced, paying them, I think, 10 grand a month to run sales as their base salary, plus they're going to make commissions. So not a cheap

• 3:29Speaker 01

  employee. And when I was asking this question, he was like, oh, I don't know. And he goes, well, can you check his email? Just activity. So I'm not not saying read someone's email, although you, if you can do that, great. But he went in there and saw like three emails in three months. And this person's in sales. And so a lot of their work is coordinating emails and reaching out to people and confirming appointments and all the stuff that salespeople do, they weren't doing it. And so that gave him data to have a conversation. And this person, I won't mention his name or the company name, but he was, he said, oh, I did have a meeting last week. And so they got curious and said, well, who was the meeting with? And he mentioned an accountant. And it turns out, he had looked back at the notes when he hired the person, that was the accountant that that person

• 4:14Speaker 01

  used as a personal. So he was saying that he had a meeting with his own personal accountant, maybe to sell something, but that was Only meeting he'd scheduled in three months. And that was a version of quiet quitting. But you got to read between the lines. You can't just assume this. You have to be prepared. You have to be willing to engage and you have to have a dialogue. Now, what happens when someone comes back and says, you know what? I'm just, I'm not feeling like I know what I'm supposed to be doing or whatever. You can reset. You can set expectations in the tough conversations framework. You know, if this is the first time you're going to understand and clarify. That's phase one. You're going to ask questions, be curious, and then you're going to clarify what's expected of them. Now, if you've already had phase one, then you go to phase two.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Name the pattern, which is, hey, I've noticed that this, this level of activity is still not up to the standards. And so you're still underperforming. And so that is naming the, the pattern. And you have a conversation, a dialogue about that. You don't have to get upset about it. You just say, okay, what do you want to do about it? In my opinion, employees shouldn't just show up, clock in and sit around and, and kind of push paper around and do things. That's quiet quitting or a version of it. But you've got to help them by being explicit with what you expect from them. You've got to create accountability that allows them to share with you what they're doing and for you to look at things. You've got to have even mechanisms. I don't believe personally in, in recording screens, but I know some people do.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  And some people want to know that you're, you know, their virtual employees are actually there. But there's a, there's a cottage industry out there. I, I've never bought this. I've never even explored it, but there's mouse movers. So that someone pretends to be at work because they've bought a $7 a month program. And it moves their mouse in a pattern to show that they're working. And how ridiculous is that? And you know, what kind of person wants to fraud others for that? It's just, I don't get it. We got here because we were talking about quiet quitting. First of all, please don't ignore it. Please be a strong leader. Be willing to engage. Be willing to be curious about what's going on. You don't have to accuse them yet. There could be something seriously going on with their health or family's health.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Be curious, but then be willing to escalate through the different phases of tough conversation. Want to get the book, check it out by all means. If you are, have the right conversation and it still doesn't change, then be willing to have a phase three conversation, which is be direct. You might formalize that with a PIP. However, it is, you cannot just sit back and wait for it to get better. In my opinion, I'm a proactive person. I'm just one of our values and I really believe that we should engage in these types of conversations. Don't just accept their story of, oh yeah, I'm completely committed to being work here. And look for data, look for ways to verify and then have conversations to continuously verify.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  And then ask questions that are sometimes hard hitting. I mean, I know it's hard for me to, to, to frame this question in, but like read your sense, your feeling, tune into your gut feeling and have your conversation from there. This will help you understand where they are and be willing to let go of people who aren't committed to working there, who aren't meeting you and trying and, and putting in the activity for their role. That's my two cents on leadership. If you feel like you're the bottleneck, if you feel like you're something missing as you continue to grow and scale your company, join us for a free training that we've got coming up. My name is Gene Hammett, CEO Coaching. That free training is at training.corelevations.com. That's our legal name company, training.corelevations.com.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  You can find it on coreelevation.com if you forget about it. And we'd love to see you there for a free training for CEOs that want to stop being the bottleneck of their company and for it to grow without them. My name is Gene Hemmott and when you think of leadership and you think of growth, think of Growth Think Tank. As always, lead the courage. We'll see you next time.

• 8:16Speaker 00

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• 8:26Speaker 02

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