Tag: better conversations

A Reddit member writes: I manage a product development team of ten. One person is objectively our top performer, smart, fast, clean work. A huge asset. But lately they’re totally disengaged. We’re doing this big all-hands effort to refine our long term vision, and they treat these sessions like optional homework. Sits there, phone under the table, contributes nothing. When I ask for input, “Looks fine!!.” that’s it.

They crush the technical work but seem to have zero interest in the why, the mission, the team, their own career path. I tried the usual stuff: more recognition, promotion talk (which they deflected immediately), giving them a project to lead. Nothing. Here’s the weird part: they light up talking about their hobbies. Building a gaming PC, super into it. But work stuff? Completely flat.

I’m worried this is burnout, but I don’t know how to have that conversation without sounding like I’m accusing them of being a bad teammate. I get the sense they need autonomy and complex problems and maybe our current focus on collaborative vision work feels like a waste of their time. But I don’t know how to dig into that without it getting weird.

How do you have a coaching conversation about motivation that goes deeper than why aren’t you engaged?

Minda Zetlin responds:

First of all, you’re doing something that’s very human but not very helpful. In the absence of clear information, you’re filling in the blanks yourself to try and guess what’s going on with this employee. You speculate that the problem might be burnout, or a need for more autonomy, or disinterest in working in a group to strategize a vision of the future.

Any or all of those could be true. Or maybe they broke up with their partner, lost a beloved pet, or have a new and all-consuming relationship in the gaming community. They may even have applied for a different job and are marking time until they give notice. You don’t know what you don’t know.

You have to talk things out with this employee, and they don’t seem to want that conversation. That’s always a tough situation both at work and in your personal life. But you need to find a way to make it happen.

Take the conversation out of the office.

From your question, your objective here is to reach this employee and bring them back to their former level of engagement, not initiate a disciplinary situation. With that in mind, here are a few suggestions. First, take the conversation out of the office setting if you can. Ask the employee out for lunch, or coffee, or for a walk, as Steve Jobs used to do. That may make it easier for them to talk to you, and it should be a clear signal that your intentions are benign.

Next, since they light up around the topic of building gaming PCs, begin by engaging them on that. Letting them talk about their passion may help them talk to you on other topics as well. As one commenter noted, listening carefully to what they say about gaming might also give you a clue to what is on their mind, and how to re-engage them.

Try some open-ended questions.

After that, I’d recommend some very open-ended questions. Since they’re resisting the group vision work, ask for their honest opinion of that initiative. In a one-on-one conversation, they might be willing to say more than “Looks fine!!” If that truly is part of the problem, offering to let them opt out of the group planning work, and perhaps replace it with a more technical task, could be helpful. As several commenters noted, not everyone wants to be a leader, or to participate in strategic planning.

Or, you could say something as simple as, “I feel like something’s changed with you lately. I’m wondering how you’re doing, what’s going on, and whether there’s anything I can do to help?”

The most important thing is this: Your goal is to talk as little as possible and listen as much as possible. The employee might open up and you may leave with a clear plan to re-ignite their enthusiasm. Or they might keep things to themselves. If you listen closely, you should still end up with a better idea of what to do than you have right now.

Got an ethical dilemma of your own? Send it to Minda at minda@mindazetlin.com. She may address it in a future column.