When you think of laziness, most of the connotations are bad. Hard work is a virtue in our culture. Much as we talk about work-life balance, we don’t expect people to shirk their work responsibilities—just not to overwork.
Even the concep…
A few weeks ago, I got to my French class early and sat down on a bench in the hallway, wearing my mask. I’m a graduate student at UC Berkeley and always have to arrive to classes early, due to being out of breath from walking—a side effe…
If you have an iPhone, Apple’s weekly Screen Time report can be eye-opening. Did I really pick up my phone 36 times and spend 7 hours on social media? You might be tempted to blame the phone as the cause of your distraction, especially if you have notifications enabled. The root cause, however, is your relationship with technology—one that’s possible to change, says Dandapani, a Hindu priest, former monk, and author of The Power of Unwavering Focus.
“The problem is that people haven’t defined the purpose of the smartphone in their life,” he says. “I am quite clear on my purpose in life, and my purpose has defined my priorities. Because I’m clear on my purpose and my priorities, I can look at the smartphone and say, ‘How can this smartphone serve me in living a purpose-focused life?’”
Dandapani looks at his phone the same way he looks at tools for his garden. “I have a few shovels in the shed, and I only use a shovel when I need to dig a hole to plant a tree,” he says. “The rest of the time, the shovel stays in the shed.”
The same is true for his phone. “I don’t pick up the phone unless it’s helping me connect with my priorities,” he explains. “Define what it is you want. Then you can see how technology will align with you. You can make decisions as to what apps you need. What notifications you need. When and how to interact with your phone will become obvious and clear. Once you define the purpose and relationship, it’s easier to manage technology. But if I don’t have that purpose and relationship defined, then every time it chimes, I respond.”
Defining Your Purpose
Defining your purpose and figuring out what you want in life requires reflection, a process that can be quite challenging when you’re constantly distracted.
“Most people don’t spend time in self-reflection,” says Dandapani. “They’ll spend two hours with a friend, but they won’t spend two hours with themselves. When people spend time with themselves, they’re reading a book or listening to music. How about listening to your own thoughts and what it is you want? . . . If you don’t spend time with yourself, you won’t know.”
Self-reflection requires focus, turning your gaze inward long enough to learn what you really want. The problem is that many of us are looking for a fast solution, says Dandapani.
“There’s no quick fix,” he says. “We live in this world that trains us to be going from one thing to another. It’s 60-second TikTok videos that move to the next. If you do that for 3 or 4 hours, you’re training your mind to be on one thing for only 60 seconds. Even if you sit to self-reflect, you can only self-reflect for 60 seconds because that’s the pattern you’ve created in your mind.”
Building Focus
To improve your focus, you need to practice concentration. Instead of meditating, though, Dandapani recommends starting with the nonnegotiable, reoccurring events in an average day. For example, you may speak to your spouse or partner a cumulative total of two hours a day in five- or 20-minute increments.
“Every time I speak with my wife, I give her my undivided attention,” says Dandapani. “I keep my awareness on her. If my mind starts to drift away as she’s speaking, I bring it back to her. I’m relentless with this practice.”
In a day, you can clock in two hours of practicing concentration. After six months, you’ll have better focus. “We’re masters at distraction because we practice it 8 to 10 hours a day,” says Dandapani. “Practice concentration instead of distraction.”
When you can practice concentration instead of distraction, you’ll be able to enter periods of self-reflection. You can define your purpose and priorities and change your relationship with your smartphone. “Figure out what it is you want in life and how technology can serve you,” says Dandapani. “Smartphones aren’t to blame. What is to blame is the inability to exercise discipline around their use.”
Quiet quitting isn’t the only “quiet” trend; quiet firing is happening, too, and it’s been going on for a long time. Instead of properly managing an employee, bosses shirk their duties and hope they’ll quit. And in some cases, they may be pushing their employees out the door without realizing it.
“Quiet firing is a rebranding of a concept that’s been around for a while,” says Annie Rosencrans, director of people and culture at HiBob, a people management platform. “It’s when managers have lost faith in the ability of their team members to do their jobs. Rather than giving them direct feedback or opportunities to develop new skills, they hope the person will self-select out.”
Quiet firing can also describe managers who treat employees badly to the point that they quit, adds Dr. Ella F. Washington, organizational psychologist and founder and CEO of Ellavate Solutions, a DEI strategy consulting firm. “It’s employers disenfranchising employee in implicit ways,” she says.
Why do managers quietly fire?
Quiet firing is a symptom of weak leadership. “Managers are often not equipped to have tough conversations on performance, feedback, and expectations,” says Washington. “If an employee is not performing at the level expected, instead of coaching them, giving them feedback, and telling them the consequences of continued poor performance, managers ice them out.”
For example, Washington says managers may not give the employee assignments that they would enjoy, or they may stop investing in their continued development. “That’s easier than having those candid conversations that help employees course correct when there’s a performance problem,” she says.
It’s also possible that a manager doesn’t realize they’re quiet firing. “If a manager has a lot of direct reports and is pulled in a lot of directions, they may be focusing their efforts on the people that they see contributing more or having more value,” says Rosencrans. “They may be inadvertently neglecting some team members, not giving them the attention they need to continue growing.”
While it may be unconscious, Washington says it’s not happening by accident. “I don’t think most people are malicious, saying, ‘I’m going to leave this person out of this meeting, because I don’t like them,’” she says. “But I think they do start to think, ‘These are the team members that I want to work with.’ Ultimately, it’s still shying away from that tough conversation.”
And quiet firing can be more prevalent in a remote or hybrid environment. “Disengaging from your direct report is easier when you don’t run into each other in the office,” says Rosecrans. “You have to be more intentional about communication when you’re in a remote environment.”
What employees can do
While managers should be addressing performance issues head on, not all have the self-awareness or desire to improve their management skills. In that case, an employee can take steps to mend the situation if they feel they’re being quietly fired, says Rosencrans.
“They’re probably going to be able to read the signs before anyone else,” she says. “They may see that they’re being passed over for promotions or they’re not getting salary increases from year to year. Or they’re just not hearing any feedback from their manager.”
Be proactive and manage up. Book time on the boss’s calendar and explicitly ask for feedback. Conversations around transparency goes both ways, says Washington, who suggests asking questions like, “How am I doing on this project?” and, “Is there anything I could have done better?”
“Also, be vocal about your goals and aspirations,” says Washington. “Tell your manager, ‘I’d really like to get promoted in the next year. What are some ways that I can ensure to do that? What are some gaps in my performance that I can close to reach my goals?’ Make it very clear that you’re invested in the organization and your growth within it.”
If you aren’t getting anywhere, Washington recommends reaching out to other managers or HR. “Don’t tell on your manager, but make sure you are connecting with multiple members of your team throughout your week,” she says.
What companies can do
HR leaders should also be stepping in to prevent quiet firing from happening in their companies, says Rosencrans. “We have regular check ins with managers, where I listen to them about what’s going on in their teams and who are the team members who are struggling,” she says. “I will proactively ask the managers, ‘What are you doing about it? How are you managing that person’s performance?’ If they suggest that they’re sort of disengaging, then I put the pressure on them to take action and not just let the person fade out in the background.”
It’s important for companies to provide feedback training as part of their management development program, says Rosencrans. “It’s one of the most difficult things for most people,” she says. “If you feel there are gaps in an employee’s performance, you need effective strategies for continuous feedback, as opposed to the once-a-year performance review where an employee learns all the things they’ve been doing wrong.”
Quiet firing can also have lasting consequences on future hiring, says Rosencrans. “Sometimes the desired effect is having the person leave, but it’s under really negative circumstances where they were ignored,” she says. “That is not good for your employer brand. Even when people leave, you want them to leave on good terms. And that’s probably not going to happen if they leave due to quiet firing.”
At their core, quiet firing and quiet quitting are about assumptions, says Washington. “Managers assume team members know they’re not doing the job, but that’s not always the case,” she says. “And employees assume their manager would let them know when they’re unhappy. All of this is a lack of transparency in those difficult conversations. Avoiding assumptions and being explicit in conversations is really important.”
For decades, feminists worked to have the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) added the U.S. Constitution. But now, 50 years after it was first drafted, and despite the fact that the required 38 out of 50 states have ratified it—Constitutional amendmen…
Four-day workweeks are a popular perk, but rolling them out correctly can be a challenge. What day do employees get off? Can your company still hit its goals and serve its customers? And what if it doesn’t work out? Rolling back a perk can be ev…
Director Nneka Onuorah had never tackled reality TV before. So when executive producers of Lizzo’s competition show Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls reached out with an offer, Onuorah realized she had an opportunity to “revolut…
In the past decade or so, I’ve watched as a linguistic shift has occurred from using “African-American” to “Black.” When I was younger, I sensed the difference between the two: African-American was always more formal….
Résumé-writing typically comes with a list of best practices. Tailor your résumé to the job. Focus on the impact you made instead of the tasks you performed. And, most of all, be sure it’s accurate and free of typos. A recent…
We’ve all had email threads that seem to go on forever. A coworker asks for a report. You respond and ask, which report? They get more specific. You ask when they need it. The back and forth can be frustrating and hard to follow, but there are t…
