How to Motivate an Unmotivated Employee Without Micromanaging

Have you ever had an employee where you think…
 “Do you even care anymore?”

They used to show up early
 They used to go above and beyond
 And now… something feels off

You try to motivate them
 But nothing seems to work

Here’s the shift:
 You can’t make someone care
 But you can make it easier for them to stop caring

And most managers do it without realizing it

In this episode, we’re breaking down a few mindset shifts to help you look at this differently

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL LEARN:

•  Why “they don’t care” is often an assumption 
•  How disengagement can be a form of protection 
•  What might actually be causing the shift in motivation

Additional episodes to catch-up on 

Using The 5 Love Languages at Work to Build Loyal Teams 

How to Stop Your Newhires from Checking Out Early

This podcast for managers is here to help you:

• Grow your leadership development
 • Navigate team management with confidence
 • Learn how to handle conflict at work
 • Apply real, practical leadership tips

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Transcript

Desiree (00:01.89)
All right, I've said it before and I'm gonna say it again for you now. Things come in patterns. They come in chunks of...

Desiree (00:20.258)
I've said it before and I'll say it again, when it rains, it pours. And specifically when it comes to challenges that managers and teams and individuals are facing, they always come in clumps. And specifically in the last month, I have had a lot of individuals coming to me and saying, my employee doesn't care. Why can't I get them to care? I can't motivate them no matter how hard I try.

Desiree (00:48.802)
no matter how hard I try, what do I do? Do I need to just let them go? And I have a lot of thoughts about this. So I wanna first off, welcome you back to You're the Boss, Now What? I'm your host, Desiree Petrik, and our goal here is to help you lead yourself and your team with confidence. So lean in and let's talk a little bit about employee motivation.

Desiree (01:21.496)
So the frustration that I have been seeing over and over again is I have an employee who doesn't seem to care. They're not meeting their deadlines. They used to work really hard and they don't work hard anymore. They don't show up on time or they're not early to meetings like they used to be. And I think it's a really interesting juxtaposition because Patrick Lanzoni talks about these three ideal.

Desiree (01:53.486)
qualities of an ideal team player and they are being humble and hungry and smart. In this case, we're going to zoom in on the hungry. This is the hardest one to teach to someone because either a person has a drive and a desire to do more, to be more, to work hard, to be someone who is seen as a high performer or they don't.

Yeah, there's a spectrum and there's people in the middle, but I think a lot of us see it as they either have drive or they don't. And for the individuals that have had drive in the past and then lost it, that's who we're talking about today. Because I think the only way to have the same conversation around people who never really had drive in the first place, you hire someone, they did great in the interview process, but within a week, they're already not showing up. They're late. They're making excuses.

They're on their phone. That's probably a hiring conversation of how do we figure out if someone has drive during that part of the process. So we can talk about that at a different time.

Desiree (03:08.878)
I'm gonna link an episode in the show notes that Tessa Campen and I did all around the hiring process and making sure we're doing that part right. But in this case, we are going to talk about my employee had drive. I hired them for their drive. They started off really strong. They seem to really care. And then all of a sudden they lost it. And no matter what I do, I can't get it back anymore. Well, you can't make someone care, but you can make it easier for them to stop caring.

And most managers, teams, leaders, they do it accidentally. It's not something that they're intentionally trying to do. But there are these four main ways that I listed out when I started to think, what is it that we as managers might be doing to contribute to our employees losing some of that motivation? And here's what I come up with. Number one is we are filling the gaps with assumptions. In other words, we

don't know that they don't care. We are guessing at the fact that they don't care. And so we tend to guess the worst. Like they've just gotten lazy, they don't have a work ethic anymore. And we kind of view it as like this, we have to fill the gap. So we're going to fill it with something permanent. And then once we start thinking about them that way, the only thing that we see is, well, yeah, they are lazy or see, I knew they didn't have a work ethic.

if we are guessing.

Desiree (04:46.516)
If we are filling in the gaps, especially with anything that sounds permanent, we are probably setting ourselves up for failure to actually get to a place where we can help this individual come back to a place of caring. So I want you to stop and think the next time you think about this individual and don't say it with any type of permanence. Say something along the lines of, wow, lately they have not seemed to be as motivated to do this thing. I wonder what's going on. Just lean into it with some curiosity.

stop putting so much permanence on it because the only way we're going to actually be able to do the rest of these is to keep our mind open to the fact that it's not that they've stopped caring forever. Might not even be that they've stopped caring. It might be that something happened to decrease the amount as to which they care. So the second part of this and I thought long and hard because I've actually had employees who I've coached.

who have said, well, I stopped caring because they don't want me to care. And when I prodded a little bit, it turns out that they have chosen to no longer care as a form of protection. They did not wake up one day and decide, I don't care anymore. They didn't show up to work one day and say, I no longer want to be a positive part of this team. They didn't show up one day and say, I wanna make my boss's life harder on purpose. Over the course of time,

they have learned to protect themselves by not caring so much. Maybe they felt ignored during meetings. Maybe they don't feel like they have gotten the attention that they worked really hard to deserve. We've all seen it. We have one really high performing employee next to a really low performing employee. And who gets the attention? The low performing employee who needs the performance improvement plans, who needs to constantly be monitored and looked at and met with. And so that high performing employee

starts to feel like they're getting ignored. And if we're not holding everyone accountable to the same standards, that high performing employee says, well, if they can get away with being late, then why am I trying so hard to be on time? If they don't have to meet the deadlines and they still get as much money as I do, why do I have to meet the deadlines? If they only have to call 50 people, but I'm required to call 100, well, that's not fair. I might as well just slack off and then maybe I'll get the same leniency.

Desiree (07:09.152)
These are all ways that we as managers unintentionally make people stop caring. When they feel ignored, they shut down and then they feel overlooked and they just, they stop trying. And I'm saying they as in I'm putting a blanket across all employees that don't seemingly care. But just remember this is for a person who cared at one point and now doesn't seem to anymore. And this feeling like they are being ignored, like they weren't getting the accolades that they needed.

This is why I'm such a huge advocate of focusing on appreciation and gratitude. Like I have talked about with the five love languages, I will link that episode in the show notes. If you feel like you have an employee and you know they deserve more appreciation and gratitude, but you just don't know how to give it to them, go check out that episode. And I'm actually going to do an episode here coming up with the five love languages of what they crave and what they are crushed by so that you can start to get

to know your employees a little bit better, but more on that later. So they might stop caring as a form of protection. And that's disengagement that I don't care anymore. I don't want to be hurt anymore. I don't want to be overlooked anymore. I don't want to think about work. When I leave here, I just want to go home and not care. It's a form of protection. So the only way that we can help them through that is just to show them that we do care, to lean in with curiosity and say, hey, I've noticed that maybe you're not performing as

great in numbers or hitting these numbers if you want to bring into that. Maybe you just want to say, I've noticed you're not as happy when you come to work. You're not as smiley. Maybe it's that you're noticing they're not offering help to their coworkers as often, or they're not as willing to train or mentor in a really positive way. And they're just kind of going through the motions that can be a conversation starter going up to that employee and saying, Hey, I've noticed this. Can you tell me more about it? You might be surprised what they say. So that's, that's number one.

Desiree (09:09.038)
So that's one of the thought shifts we need to make. Not caring might be protection, and that's something that we get to approach with curiosity and try and figure out how we can make them feel safer to care again. The next one is that they might not see a future in what they're doing, and so they're just biding time. Why would someone care about a job that they don't see themselves either A, staying at long term, or to see themselves growing in, assuming growth is a goal that they have?

I see this a lot, especially when people are promised something like a promotion, like more responsibility, and then it takes a long time for them to get it. And we as managers might be, you know, biding our time as well, waiting for someone to leave or someone to retire or waiting for this person to get the schooling that they need in order to be qualified. We might be thinking about it on a daily basis, but if we're not giving them updates, we're not encouraging them on here, this is what it looks like.

You just have to continue doing this and we're in good shape. You can't do that forever. But I think a lot of us miss the step of communicating what it is that we're thinking. I just saw this the other day. Someone wanted a different job. She was not enjoying the job that she had and was kind of like, I'm going to leave if I don't get a different job because I'm going home miserable every night. And they said, OK. And then weeks later, hadn't said anything to her. And so she felt forgotten.

Like she couldn't see a future at that company anymore. And this happened within a month, within one month. It can happen so quickly. And all it would take is for these individuals to be communicating with her. She understands that it takes time, but she kind of feels forgotten. So this is something that you really want to pay attention to. If you find that an employee is not caring, it might be that they don't see a future. Whether they have voiced that they want a future with your company or not, again, an opportunity to lean in with a question.

Do you want to be in leadership? Do you want to just keep doing what you're doing? Do you want to?

Desiree (11:17.646)
Do you want to be in a different department? Whatever that question might be, however it is that you can get them to voice their desire to see a future, that's gonna help them care more. A point that I just made with one of my accelerator clients was he had an employee who is seriously a rock star, like doing all the things, hitting numbers higher than he would have ever tried to get her to hit, and she's doing all of these things, but

He had yet to ask her.

Desiree (12:12.856)
So I just talked about this with an accelerator client of mine. He has an individual who is trying really hard and clearly does a good job and is doing great at certain things. But he recognized that he was not giving a lot of responsibility to this individual. And so he could start to see that, yes, he was checking things off the box, but wasn't necessarily going above and beyond.

wasn't voicing his opinion as much in meetings as he maybe once did, wasn't raising his hand as often for new ideas. And when we talked about why that might be, he said, I wonder if he doesn't feel like I believe in him enough or that I empower him enough or that I give him enough responsibility because I think that's what he wants. I said, I think you're absolutely right. We think that if someone is losing motivation, that what they might want is to not have to do as much.

But I have found that it's sometimes the opposite. The individual who seems bored and uncaring and unmotivated just wants to know that they have a piece of the end result. They want to know that they matter in the grand scheme of things. And that actually brings us to our next thought that needs to shift is that they might be bored. They might just be bored. And so it's kind of like if I can get all of my work done in five hours and I'm required to be here for 40.

Well, fine, I'll sit on my phone and I will watch Netflix. This happened to me. may or may not seem like the type who would do that, but I got hired for a job that they created for a 40 hour job and it took me less than five hours. And I would sit there on Netflix because I wasn't allowed to leave my desk in case the phone rang, which it never did. And they were fine with that for me not caring about that job. It lasted one month because I was like, I am so

bored right now, there's no stimulation. Some people might love the opportunity to sit there and read a book or watch Netflix, but you have to be careful who you hire in those situations. with the expectations that you say that they're going to get out of the job. But also if someone is bored, what can you do to understand what it is that they enjoy? This is where your working genius comes in. What brings them joy and energy at work? What's going to really light them up and make them excited about what they're doing again?

Desiree (14:32.792)
this is how we can make sure that they don't get bored. We assume that low motivation means that they're working too much or that we're giving them too much work, but it might be that they are either not challenged enough, not empowered enough with enough responsibility, or it's not the right type of work. And I'm sure as we've been talking about this, you have that one coworker or that one employee in mind who's just like, I don't know what happened.

They were doing such a good job and they were such a big help and they were such a kind person. And then all of a sudden it was like a switch flipped and I can't read them anymore. That's where we get to take all of these mindset shifts, all these thought shifts into it. A, stop filling in the gaps with assumptions. Figure out how to lean in with curiosity. Ask them open-ended questions that don't come off as negative and just really lean into, they will tell me.

what I want to know as long as I ask the right questions. Because not caring might be a form of protection, that is something that we can help fix by building psychological safety. They might not see a future. Again, something that we can help fix if we know the right questions. And they might be bored, something we as leaders can help fix if we know the right questions. So my last thought for you here is check your role in it.

If you step in too fast and take over their work because maybe you feel guilty that they have to do it. I've fallen into that trap before. Maybe you used to do the work and now that you're managing people, it's hard for you to keep your hands off the tangible. Happened to me before. I've heard all of these different scenarios. We try and fix things. We we try and keep ownership and it doesn't feel like micromanagement because we feel like we're trying to help. But they see it as micromanagement. Check your role in all of these different things.

lean in with curiosity, ask really good questions, and just really try and focus on what is it that I can do to help them feel more safe, more involved, more appreciated in these moments so that they can start caring again. Now, I told you that next week we are going to talk about craves and crushes. In other words, what are the things that my employees expect from me in order to feel like they can do their best work? And what is it that would crush them?

Desiree (16:54.944)
if I'm not giving them enough of. So we're going to talk working genius next week. We're going to talk craves and crushes. We're going to talk all the good things about appreciation. There are links in the show notes if you want to check those out. If you have not left a rating or review for this podcast and you're willing to take five minutes to go do that, I would greatly appreciate it. And I look forward to seeing you here next week for another episode of You're the Boss. Now what?

Desiree (17:26.028)
And just remember that leadership is a privilege, but it's also a really big responsibility. And you're the boss now. So what are you going to do with it?