3 Tools That Get Your Team to Care as Much as You Do

  Links

• The Truth About Employee Engagement by Patrick Lencioni
• List of my Favorite Books

 You’ve offered raises, perks, and flexible schedules, so why does your team still seem disengaged? In this episode, we explore the real reasons employees check out and what you can do to re-engage them.

In today’s episode, we’re breaking down the book The Truth About Employee Engagement by Patrick Lencioni and exploring the real reason behind low morale, quiet quitting, and disengagement.

If you’ve tried surface-level perks, bonuses, or team outings to boost culture and it’s still not working, you’re not alone. This episode covers why so many leaders are unintentionally missing the mark, and how to start fixing it today.

By the time you finish listening, you’ll learn:

• The 3 root causes of disengagement every new manager needs to recognize
• Why building trust as a leader goes far beyond small talk and birthday cards
• How to hold employees accountable without micromanaging or burning them out

You don’t need another pizza party. You need a plan that helps your team feel known, needed, and successful.

Key Takeaways

• Disengagement is often caused by anonymity, irrelevance, and lack of clear measurement
• Quiet quitting doesn’t mean lazy, it usually means unseen
• High performers burn out fast when they don’t feel appreciated or purposeful employee engagement, quiet quitting, high-performing team, how to fix a toxic culture, building trust as a leader, how to hold employees accountable

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Transcript

Desiree Petrich (00:03.822)
So you've bought the team gift cards, you've filled the candy dish, you've taken them out for drinks, maybe you even bought them the walking treadmill desk that they swore would boost team morale, but you have yet to see anyone use it. And yet your team still feels checked out. If you've ever thought, what else could they possibly want from me, then this episode will finally give you the answer. And spoiler alert, it's not money, despite what your team might say.

Desiree Petrich (00:34.04)
Welcome back to You're the Boss, Now What? I'm your host, Desiree Petriq, and our goal here is to help you lead yourself and your team better. So lean in and let's get started.

Desiree Petrich (00:49.644)
Last week we talked with my friend.

Desiree Petrich (00:58.572)
In the last episode, we did an Ask Me Anything episode where I answered some of the most prevalent questions that I get asked, usually about how can I let work stop bleeding into every area of my life and how can I move my body when I'm exhausted. So go back and check out that episode if you've ever asked yourself those questions. But this week, we're gonna shift gears a little bit. We're gonna talk about something that every manager notices, but we often misdiagnose the problem, the root cause of it, and that's employee disengagement.

If you've tried all of the things and you just can't seem to figure out why your team is claiming to be burnt out or you can see they're burnt out and they're refusing to say it out loud or they're quietly quitting and they're

Desiree Petrich (01:48.718)
quietly quitting, they're mentally checked out, they just don't seem to care, they're not getting along with people, et cetera, et cetera, then I'm gonna tell you something. It's not about the perks. As awesome as the perks are, the perks are a bonus for a team that already feels engaged and you want them to have the best experiences and you truly want to value them and you want to invest in them. It's really not about the money. Based on Patrick Lynchoni's book, The Truth About Employee Engagement, this episode is gonna explore the thrill re-,

Desiree Petrich (02:26.872)
the three real reasons that people disengage at work and how you can fix it. Because it's not just annoying for you and frustrating for you, it's also expensive for the company. Just one unproductive employee can cost your company tens of thousands per dollar.

Desiree Petrich (02:49.496)
tens of thousands of dollars per year. So let's get to the heart of it because there are three reasons that your team might be checked out. And the good news is they're all fixable. But the frustrating news or maybe a little bit overbearing news is that

Desiree Petrich (03:15.352)
So let's get to the heart of it because there are three reasons that your team might be checked out. And the next thing I'm gonna say is either gonna frustrate you or empower you. They're all fixable. It just requires a little bit of tweaking in the way that you've been doing things. It takes a little bit of extra effort, maybe a lot of bit of extra effort depending on where you currently are. So the three main reasons. Number one, anonymity. People don't feel

known or seen for who they are in the workplace. If you can't remember their kids' names, if you can't remember their spouse's names, if you can't talk to them about a specific hobby or the kind of music that they like, they probably think that you don't care. Whether that's true or not, if we don't have any specificity that we can give to an employee about who they are in and out of work, they probably think that you don't care. So that's number one. Number two is irrelevance.

Employees don't know who they're helping or why their job matters, and they won't know who they're helping or why their job matters if we don't help them to answer that question, especially if it feels like they're doing the same thing over and over again and they can't immediately see who it might be impacting.

Desiree Petrich (04:34.146)
Number three, in measurement. And Patrick Lynchoni says he made this term up, but there was no good word in the dictionary for it. So there is no good way to gauge success. For some people, we could look at sales and we could say, yes, they hit their sales numbers or the marketing goals. We got the number of impressions that we needed. There are ways to gauge success if we put measurement on them.

If we don't know how to measure our success, that can be really frustrating and it can lead directly into disengagement for our employees. When success depends on the mood of yourself or someone else, it leads to politics and it doesn't allow for the individual to strive for progress. So we're gonna dive deeper into each of these different pieces. And if anyone wants a list of...

Desiree Petrich (05:45.614)
So let's dive into these a little bit more. But first I want to say money is important, especially if your employees are maybe getting paid minimum wage and they feel like they're barely making it by. Maybe that is the driving force behind why they would change a job. But most of the time, it's not enough to give them a raise. Even if you gave them a raise or a bonus, they would probably either forget or it would just become natural and you'd be right back to where you started. Most employees say that they want more money.

But the raises and the bonuses, they don't fix burnout. They don't help people to feel seen or valued and they don't help to build trust. anything, people feel like you're placating them by throwing money at the problem and then not actually fixing anything, which is going to frustrate. It's going to frustrate you because you feel like you put money towards the problem and that was what they said they wanted. But you can't figure out why it's still having people quit and why people are still frustrated and why people are still claiming that they are not being valued in the workplace.

Desiree Petrich (06:52.686)
So what can we do instead? How do we actually reengage our team, especially if we feel like we're already so far past the point of actually doing anything about it? I'm gonna give you a couple of tips and tricks and tools here, and we're gonna address each problem individually. So for anonymity, and just a reminder, anonymity is people feeling like we don't know who they are. We don't know them. We don't know anything specific about them. We don't care about the specifics of them. And I know this.

and the impact of this. I was working for a boss for six months. He had less than five employees. I had one kid, just one. And six months later, he still did not know her name despite me talking about her probably annoyingly every single day. And I knew all of his kids' names, his wives' names, their hobbies. It has to be a two-way street. It has to be something that you were paying attention to. And if...

you're using your disc style or you're using Working Genius or Myers-Briggs and saying, well, that's just not my personality to know those details. I'm not good with details. Write them down. Ask people what matters to them. Listen to what they say. Listen to the conversations that they're having. Ask questions that pertain to them. Ask them what they do in the off hours. Ask them what it is that they like to spend their time doing. Write it down. Reference it later. One small detail that they thought you didn't remember.

that you then reference goes a really long way. Make sure you're paying attention to each individual and what matters to them.

Desiree Petrich (08:37.196)
Okay, for irrelevance, and just a reminder, irrelevance is employees don't know who they're helping or why their job matters. So I could see this on an assembly line or I worked in a call center where we called for collections, people who owed money to a bank. And you honestly feel pretty irrelevant.

At the end of the day, I'm calling 70 phone numbers, maybe talking to 20 people, getting money from five people who clearly didn't have the money, otherwise they would have paid it earlier, and you almost feel just completely like a cog in the machine. You feel like a person on the assembly line. Your job is replaceable and they would probably do it the second you left. If you feel irrelevant,

you do not feel like you need to put in anything more than what the minimum required is. How can we connect our employees to the impact that they're making? Who are they helping? Why is it that what they're doing is helping? Even if it's just, even if my boss would have come to me at this call center for collections and said, you know, our department's goal is this. Last week, you helped to create this much, which helped us to reach our goal.

I really appreciate that. It helps me to reach my goals. Thank you so much for having an impact on my ability to do my job well. Relevance, right? We want to be relevant in the job that we're playing. If you're in customer service, you need to be told, or our employees need to be told that they are relevant to helping our customers to feel valued. We need to be told that we are relevant in helping the company to have a good community impact. Pick the job.

figure out who it is that the individual is impacting and bring that into the conversation. They need to know who they are helping and they need to know why. If we feel irrelevant, if we don't feel like we're making any impact on the world, there is no longevity in that situation. There is no ability to keep an employee in a job that they don't feel is bringing value to anyone.

Desiree Petrich (10:50.976)
Next one, in measurement. So we need a clear way to gauge success. I already said a couple of them. For salespeople, maybe it's their sales numbers. For marketing, it could be impressions. Now think of someone like a drive-through window attendant. It might be how many times can you make customers smile? For a delivery driver, it could be how many times did you get to the front door and...

Desiree Petrich (11:32.846)
For someone like a delivery driver, measurement can be hard because timing might not be up to you. You don't make the food. You don't determine how far away the person is. So what kind of measurement can you have? Can you make sure that every order is the correct order before it gets to the individual? Again, can you make someone smile? Can you create an opportunity for not only positive impact on the cook, tell them how much the individual appreciated their food?

How can you make sure that you are measuring something? Individuals aren't necessarily going to want to do this. We have to help them track their effort. Not just the outcomes, the outcomes are not always in our control. The input is in our control. So even something like tracking smiles or tracking something that doesn't necessarily immediately come from what it is that we're doing can be hard. This is a question that you have to work through.

and ask your employees, what is it that we can measure? What makes you feel like you're making an impact on people? How do you know at the end of the day that your day has been successful? What would that look like? What would you need to do every single day to make sure that you're getting to that point of success? That's what it looks like to measure something.

Desiree Petrich (13:16.718)
So now we've talked about the different types of disengagement, why people are disengaged, a couple of ways that we can help them to come out of that. But I want you to understand the benefits and also the challenges to this kind of approach because some people might say that this type of approach is A, too touchy feely, it's too vulnerable. And you know what, it maybe is, but I think we forget sometimes that people are people.

They need to be seen and heard and valued and they want to know that we care about them as a human. They want to know that they're making an impact on the world. And if you think that's too touchy feely, let's have a conversation around your emotional intelligence a little bit because it does matter. Just imagine if you didn't have any way to measure your success or if you felt irrelevant to the people around you or if you felt anonymous. It doesn't feel good. So touchy feely? Yeah, maybe. Too obvious?

That's another complaint that some people have. Maybe it feels too obvious, but it's also the cause of these things like burnout and overwhelm and frustration and quiet quitting and disengagement. So these solutions, right, they didn't take very long for me to go through, but the solutions may seem obvious, but it's because they're obvious that I think they get missed sometimes. We just assume that people are going to be.

okay with whatever way the cookie crumbles and that's not necessarily the case. If we want employees to be engaged for the long haul, if we want them to be sustained in the job that they're doing, we have to create ways that they can measure themselves. We have to create ways and remember ways to help them to feel relevant and to help them feel known. So some of the benefits of this approach. The increased productivity. If we can develop ownership,

and pride and more enthusiasm and passion and attention to detail. That's what doing these things is gonna create. It's gonna create that increased productivity. Because our employees are gonna feel like they're part of the process, they're part of the solution, they are part of the whole. And they're gonna wanna have a part in that. People at the end of the day are good people who want to add value to what it is that they're doing. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth it. So you're gonna have increased productivity. You'll probably have greater retention.

Desiree Petrich (15:30.784)
If you want to hold on to your good people and attract other good people and create that sustainable culture that everyone says that they want, even though I think most people don't know what that looks like, this is what is required. A human-centered type of leadership. It's different than our competitors. We have to be willing to do something that's more human-centered than the majority of individuals. Think Chick-fil-A in their...

How can I help you and have a great day versus a Hardee's who forgot to put in your order and 30 minutes later doesn't even give you a discount on your second order? That's true story. Nothing against Hardee's, but there it is. So what are some of the obstacles? What are some of the things that could potentially keep you from doing this? Number one, employees place a lot of emphasis on pay. They do. They're gonna tell you that they need to be paid more. They're not paid enough. They want more bonuses. And even though I told you it wasn't about the perks,

I do want you to pay attention to these conversations around money. They might be getting underpaid. But if they're not, create a way that you can respond to this and say, is through the research, what we have found, blah, blah. I don't know. Use your words however it feels good to you. I want...

Desiree Petrich (16:54.67)
So here's some of the obstacles. Employees place a lot of emphasis on pay. They put a lot of emphasis on career status. And so some of these things might not directly apply to that. We already said that it's not about the pay and the perks. It's about the human centered leadership. It's not about how quickly they can raise or rise through the levels of leadership. It truly is about how can we show that they are relevant? How can we show that they are valued? And sometimes people will want to get

to where they want to go faster and further, and this won't speak directly to that. So don't forget about how ambitious some people are, but just know that this is part of it. It needs to be required first. So many times companies are trying to fix the wrong problems. don't, I can't tell you how many executives I've worked with who have some of their best employees quit and don't even do an exit interview. It's a whole conversation in and of itself, but we have to be willing to ask the right problems.

and to fix the right problems, not only focusing on the wrong things. Don't wait to ask, why are you leaving? Ask now, why would you even consider leaving? Is there anything that's going on in your day-to-day life right now that would have you considering leaving? And let's do something about that. And this is the last one. This is the most important one. This is the one that I'm putting on you. I'm empowering you with this, right? Because I said that you can fix this. It's on your shoulders, which can feel a little bit scary.

You need to have the personal confidence and the emotional intelligence to be able to do this. Emotional intelligence means that you need to have the willingness to be vulnerable and have these conversations with people and know why it's important to know their kids' names and to know what their hobbies outside of work are. It's important that you're asking those questions and it's important that you have the personal confidence to do that. If you want to keep your team engaged, which I know that you do,

Don't wait until that exit interview. These are not soft skills. These are culture saving moves. They're culture building moves. It's how you set yourself apart from other companies who may be looking to take your employees from you. So make sure that you are paying attention to these things. Just pick one of them. Start with one. Start with asking them about their kids' names. Start with asking them about what they do outside of work. Start by telling them how relevant they are and which part of the process that they're relevant to.

Desiree Petrich (19:23.352)
So here's how to put this into action. Ask yourself these three questions. Number one, do you know your employees as a person? Do you know them individually with their uniqueness as a person? Go through each of your direct reports and answer that question. Number two, have I told them why their work matters? Same thing, go through your employees list. Do they know why their work matters? Have you said it out loud to them? Don't assume that they already know. And number three,

Do they have something to measure success other than your approval? We cannot allow their success to be based on your mood or your interpretation. We have to give them something that allows them to take ownership and empower them to measure something for themselves.

Desiree Petrich (20:20.13)
Now on the flip side, if you are an employee and you're feeling unseen or burnt out, send this episode to your boss. Leadership starts with self-awareness and they might not have any idea that there is a problem ensuing. I know I've had multiple bosses that didn't know there was a problem until I had already quit. And I now take that upon myself. I should have said something. I should have been willing to go that extra mile and even if it was uncomfortable, said something out loud. So if you wanna keep your team engaged and motivated,

If you want to, as an employee, feel engaged and motivated, then make sure you are not putting this off. We have to make people feel seen. We have to make people feel heard. We have to tell people how they're relevant, and we have to give them measures for success. I hope you enjoyed this. I love all Patrick Lynchoni books. If you want a list of all of my favorite books, you can go to intentionalaction.net slash books. I'll put the link in the show notes, and you can see all my favorite books from Parenting to Leadership, et cetera, et cetera.

And I can't wait to hear from you. If you love this episode, can you scroll down and leave a five star rating and review? I appreciate it so much. It helps other leaders to find the show. And although I put a lot of emphasis and a lot of weight on your shoulders this week of the things that you have to do to make sure your employees are engaged, I say it every week. Leadership is a privilege, but this is the responsibility part. Leadership is also a huge responsibility. And you're the boss now. So what are you going to do with it?