Is Quiet Quitting Just Setting Clear Boundaries?

Galen Low: Quiet quitting. People have been talking about it for some time now. But is it really that big of a deal? 

Sure, you've noticed some folks on your team taking a bit of a step back from their typical overachievements. But so have you, and so far there hasn't been any dire impact. 

Maybe it's been a *little* disruptive. I mean, you had made all sorts of plans assuming that your team was going to keep going above and beyond. 

But on the other hand, is there anything truly wrong with someone just doing what their job description says they should do? 

And then you start waxing philosophical: is quiet quitting about apathy? Or could it be that this is just another push of the reset button for our understanding of work? 

And does it mean the sky is falling? Or will it lead to better performance, more sustainable behaviors, and a more balanced value exchange between employers and employees? 

If you've been noticing signs of quiet quitting throughout your projects, your teams, and even yourself, but aren't really sure what to do about it, keep listening. 

We're going to be exploring how quiet quitting might actually just be healthy boundary-setting, and what that would mean for employers, teams, project managers, and the future of work.

Hey folks, thanks for tuning in. My name is Galen Low with The Digital Project Manager. We are a community of digital professionals on a mission to help each other get skilled, get confident, and get connected so that we can amplify the value of project management in a digital world. If you wanna hear more about that, head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com.

Okay. Today we are going to peel back the onion and take a fresh look at the notion of quiet quitting and what it means for your projects, your organization, and for you personally. 

With me today is one of my favorite people to have on the show, Ms. Sarah Hoban. 

Hey, Sarah!

Sarah Hoban: Hey Galen! Glad to be here. 

Galen Low: Welcome back. Always a pleasure to have you here. 

Sarah Hoban: Likewise, always a pleasure to be a guest. Thank you for having me. 

Galen Low: For folks who don't know Sarah, Sarah has recorded several episodes with us and has shared her knowledge. But actually why don't I give you a chance to tell some of our listeners a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your background and the types of projects and programs that you've been running?

Sarah Hoban: Sure. Yeah. I've been in the program management space pretty much my whole career. I have 15 years as a program manager and a strategy consultant. And these days I'm in the tech world leading strategic planning and some of our cross-functional transformation projects, which gets me a chance to work with lots of different types of people and departments.

Which to me is the bread and butter of project management. One of my favorite things about it. 

Galen Low: That's what's cool about your perspective. I find, not to oversell you, but I find that, you're like boots on the ground, but you're also working in big enterprise. You're involved in digital strategy, so you have this like broad lens to look at things through, both from the tactical side of things, right up to the management side of things.

So that's why I thought it'd be interesting to bring you in and I know quiet quitting, it's it's one of those things. We've been hearing about it a lot, but you and I had a really interesting chat beforehand. And I thought, Hey, let's put some of this to tape. So why don't we dive right in?

Maybe just to take a running start at it, maybe you could tell us what is quiet quitting to you and what is the controversy about it? 

Sarah Hoban: Yes. I think it's fascinating that there is a controversy, which you know, is one of the reasons that I'm super excited to chat about this topic today. I don't think there's one answer for what quiet quitting is, to be honest.

I think it varies depending on the person. But I think a good like rule of thumb definition is you're putting in like a lower level of effort at your job than what may be applied for you in the past. So I think that can look different for different people. That could be, you used to put 120% of effort, you went to all of the things that they call optional.

I'm doing quotes for optional, but are not actually optional. And you've decided you're just gonna do it. It's your job description and that's it. Or it could mean, hey, if I put in 80% of my effort, I can still get a hundred percent result and no one's any wiser, and that's like what I'm gonna do. So to me it's like a very personal definition that's relative to you.

And I think the reason that it's controversial is because, obviously an employer is not gonna love to hear that you're quitting essentially. You're not, you're not putting in like the level of effort that they feel like they should be getting from you, maybe. So there's a connotation, like you're lazy, you're not an engaged employee, you're not doing enough.

But in the positive it's oh, you're setting a boundary. You're doing the work that's expected of you and you're performing that work to a high standard of quality. And that's awesome. And like maybe there shouldn't be this expectation of let's push ourselves to the actual edge. So that's why I think it's super interesting how different people think about this term differently.

Galen Low: Actually, I never quite understood it. I'll be totally honest with you. Because quiet quitting connotes that you will lose your job. But it doesn't sound to me based on your definition, like I don't think that's the goal. I don't think it's let me do less until I get fired. Cuz that's what it sounds like to me when people are like quiet quitting, the way you described it and which I agree with, it's let me make a personal decision about the level of effort I'm investing in this, above and beyond what I'm technically getting paid to do. 

And that might come with some costs. But usually, I mean, in my head I'm like I don't think it means people actively trying to not be employed. Which is why the word quitting, I don't think it's fair to even be in there if what we're talking about is people just maybe not stretching themselves as far to get done what they usually would get done because of a personal rebalance.

I mean, coming out of the, like all the lockdowns from the pandemic, I think it put different things into perspective. There was a very funny ad, I can't remember who it was by, but you know, it was someone who was just whispering around the office about how they're quitting and they're like, I don't think you know what quiet quitting is.

And that's me. I'm like, I don't get it because it sounds to me like you would be trying to like exit. But everyone I talk to about this is actually it's more just about, changing the level of effort you're putting in and what you are or are not willing to do over and above what you're supposed to be doing.

And I think from an employer lens, and we'll get to it, of course, but like you said I think it's that change. And it's a noticeable change in whatever - energy spent, results delivered or whatever it may be. And I think it frightens people in some ways when they're perceiving it from the outside.

But I dunno, anyways, I'm rambling, but do you agree with that? Do you think anyone's quiet quitting so that they get fired or that they lose their job? 

Sarah Hoban: No, I definitely don't see it that way. I see it as a proactive choice, similar to you. Like it's the conscious decision that someone is making. But I don't see it as like necessarily that the employee is disengaged, which I think is one of the negative connotations of it.

I actually think my perspective is it can be very empowering. And I also don't know that it's something that's necessarily visible to an employer. Like your employer is probably not gonna notice that you're quiet quitting. That's what I think. You probably notice or have your, and this is where I'm airing on the positive side of the definition.

Cause I do think that people, for the most part, obviously there's gonna be exceptions to this. In every situation, right? But I think most people are legitimately wanting to do their best work at their job and be dedicated and be engaged. And so that's why this quiet quitting term is necessary cuz people will continually for social pressure or like reasons of wanting to do a good job and just be a good human and derive meaning from their work will push themselves like maybe too far just because there isn't a parameter that's maybe put in place proactively by their organization.

To make sure they have time to recharge, take the break, do what's reasonable. And this is a way of okay, if my employer's not gonna do that, I'm gonna do it for me. 

Galen Low: That's interesting. 

Sarah Hoban: They probably won't notice. 

Galen Low: So in other words, for everyone who's like trying to, stick it to their boss by quiet quitting, they might not even be seeing it. It should be a personal decision. 

Sarah Hoban: Right. I think that's it. And it's funny that you mentioned it in terms of disengaging to the point of getting fired. I never really thought about it that way, but I think it's funny in the sense of now you're starting to see all these other like terms. They are trying to be popularized in the media, like quiet firing and quiet hiring.

I'm just like, it's just funny cuz I think it speaks to we're trying to make this a bigger deal than it actually is. It may just be a rebalance of some things. 

Galen Low: Well, that's fair. I mean, I may be taking this off track, but when I'm thinking about what you said, right? Quiet quitting, quiet firing, quiet this, quiet that is maybe the problem that we have to, we feel like we have to be quiet about it?

Like why are we being so like secretive about the fact that, know, like, hey, my organization or my employer doesn't have any boundaries in place for me. And I feel like even though they say one thing, they expect another thing, and therefore, here I am pushing myself. I'm gonna set a boundary, but I'm gonna do it quietly.

Is it maybe an inefficient way for us to have the conversation about work and what work is these days, like rather than quiet quit? Shouldn't it open a conversation about, and maybe it has. I mean, here we are talking about it. So, I just feel like the word quiet quitting has they almost have like negative connotations.

Arguable, okay. Debatable, right? Nothing wrong with being quiet and there's nothing wrong with quitting. But when you see it used, there's this sort of like weight to it that is either ha, I'm gonna like not do as much work and still get away with it. Or it's like a, I am burning out and nobody's helping me and I need to reset my boundaries. Or it's a, oh, look at everyone not being ambitious anymore.

I guess my employees don't want to climb the ladder. We'll get to that. But is it maybe even just imbued with something incorrectly because of the words we're using? 

Sarah Hoban: Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's really smart. I think it's a step in the right direction in the sense that it has sparked a conversation about these things that we should really be having.

And I think, in the productivity literature, which I'm the productivity nerd, so I read about all the stuff all the time. There's tons of debate and discussion around what does proper work-life balance look like and how do you have a candid conversation with your employees about the fact that they should take time off, et cetera, et cetera.

In practice, unfortunately, I think the way a lot of those things play out is, Hey, here's a really rigorous and aggressive deadline. We may not have enough staff to support this deliverable. Okay, well it's due. Take some time off at the end. And it's not really, maybe that employee doesn't necessarily feel like they're in a place where they can go to their employer and say, Hey I'm still gonna meet this deadline.

But here's how I'm gonna execute that. There's never really been a lot of interest or transparency around like how we're getting the work done, I think because we didn't need to before when most people weren't in person. The markers of how you got your work done was like, Oh, well, Galen is first at the office every day, and Galen like leaves last and Galen goes to every happy hour and volunteers for every, assignment.

And now it's having to shift to what is the output that Galen produces. And we don't always have a gray way of measuring that, certainly comparatively. 

Galen Low: I think it's as you go through those, I'm like, actually none of those are really a great way to measure productivity and I can't think of any better way, so. 

Sarah Hoban: It's difficult. I think we're all still getting used to this remote/hybrid environment and it's gonna take us a while to figure it out. It took us a while to figure out, in-person knowledge work. I think arguably we're still figuring that out. But there's that transition that's happening and I think one part of that is like on some employer's parts, an overreaction of, well, this scares me.

I don't know how to measure it. So here's the way that I know how to do it and the way that I came up through my organization. So this is the standard that I'm gonna use. And I think it's blunt at best. Hence we have quiet quitting. 

Galen Low: That's fair. Actually, I wanted to return to something you said earlier.

You had said something about, yeah, it's just your regular old resetting of expectations. And I was like, actually, you know what? That kind of makes sense. We call it quiet quitting. It's this like new thing, but is it really anything new? What is different now than any other time in the past where we've been like, actually listen, I'm not gonna keep my work phone on after five o'clock.

Or pull a Nokia and be like, we're actually gonna shut your work phone off after five o'clock. And have we done this before? Is this new? 

Sarah Hoban: I don't think it's new. I think the term itself is about a particular form of employee, let's say, disengagement. Although I think that's a little bit more dramatic than what it really is.

That's a reaction to, the pandemic, the rise of remote work that ensued following the pandemic and some of the burnout that people experienced, right? So if for a lot of us working through the pandemic, whether you're a knowledge worker or not represented business as usual. And the other side of that, I think it did cause people to question like, is this really what I want business as usual to be and or, maybe it was. But the added burden of all of the other things that maybe you had to take on from a family perspective, a social perspective, whatever the case might be for your situation, it just represented a way to re-evaluate.

And I think this term is really about that. But I think that the concept is not new because we used to say that somebody would phone it in. Right? Which I do not think is an accident. Right? Like again, there's the same negative connotation. Like you're lazy, you're not trying hard enough. You're literally not showing up.

Right? And again, that ties to like you were measured based on physical presence and like where you were. It's just now we have to, we're saying the same thing. We're just saying it differently, basically. 

Galen Low: Have you found that like you work with teams and in the past you've definitely worked with teams that are remote and this was probably pre pandemic, and like over the past like decade or so. I think you're right. I mean, I think that there's culturally some organizations where remote has been a bit of a stigma and maybe not even knowing it, right? Because we use words like phoning it in, not showing up and all this stuff. We don't really recognize it, but it is, it's baked into the language.

But then for folks who've been like working on, working with remote teams for decades, do you think it feels less different now? Is it less of an issue? An issue? 

Sarah Hoban: I think what it is that, it's a broader issue that affects more companies. One, so I think it's a bit more pervasive. And if you're somebody who's been in that type of environment before, it's probably a little bit frustrating because you figured this out 10 years ago.

But the other piece of it is, well, we were not asking people during the pandemic just to work remotely. We were asking them to work remotely and do all of these other things. So it's really about, maybe it's a lack of social support, right? And a lack of like resetting what work means and work not necessarily defining you and your life as a person.

I think there's a part of that too. I've certainly gone through that journey over the last like couple of years, where it's very much tied to your identity. It still is. And then there's moments where you have to remember, no, I'm an actual whole entire individual besides just my job. Which is hard to recalibrate when everything in our society kind of points us to that.

What do you do for work? First question somebody asks you, right?

Galen Low: Right. Yeah, exactly. And then I was thinking the other day about it. I'm like, 80% of the people in my life that I care about deeply have no idea what I do for work. Won't ask and I won't tell them. And I'm like, that should be okay. Right? 

Sarah Hoban: And that's good. That's healthy. Congratulations. That's awesome. 

Galen Low: Thank you. I've been described as chandler in my group of friends. 

Sarah Hoban: Yes, exactly. Nobody knows what his job is. Yep. 

Galen Low: It is a statistical analysis for a multinational conglomerate. I can't remember what is. I'm not actually that much of a French fan. 

Sarah Hoban: That sounds right. See, we still don't know what his job is. This is good. 

Galen Low: There you go. One thing you mentioned that I wanted to dig in on was that, yeah, like there was this kind of big event that didn't just change work, right? Like actually the nature of the pandemic was quite traumatic. It wasn't just an economic depression. It was probably closer to the bubonic plague in terms of how you're feeling about, your anxiety about your life.

And I think that kind of just maybe that's part of what makes it a bit of a different reset other than just, wow, I'm working 60 hours and I'm supposed to work 40. What can I do? Let's push for change. This, I think was a bit more dramatic and decimated what we knew as normal. Do you think that's, like part of what's driving the complexity of what we're now calling quiet quitting, and not just resetting work expectations again? 

Sarah Hoban: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's, we're resetting work expectations again, but it's also in the context of a bunch of other things that have happened that we can't necessarily go back to.

And if you were somebody that was working remotely before the pandemic, you had to juggle a whole lot of other things during the pandemic. And you may have decided, okay, I need to go back to how it was before where I had a bit of a better balance. So that's gonna be impetus for you to stick to it a little bit more this time maybe.

Because you've lived through that and if you were somebody who was working remote as on a temporary basis and you're performing your job, two expectations, and now you're being told that you have to, sacrifice that time back to your company. Whether it's commute time, time away from your family, whatever it is, that doesn't sit well either.

So I think it's just, we've learned too much. It's like we can't necessarily go back to that now. So rather than sort of have a conversation about that in the midst of a climate where there's this threat of a looming recession, whether materializes or not, remains to be seen. Maybe we're not quite ready to have the conversation and have an excuse to be one of the ones who, maybe doesn't make it through that job-wise.

But we still want to sort of set that expectation and not go back to where we were cuz it's unsustainable, or we've had some other, breakthrough. And maybe there's health reasons too for those of us, who've been affected by that too, that you cannot do 60 hours of work a week anymore because of what you've experienced. Right? So there's that as well. 

Galen Low: Actually, it's an interesting perspective because, you were talking earlier about, oh, this is how my career was built, and therefore that's how career should be built now. Show up, show up to the extracurricular stuff, sign up for, volunteer for extra things, take on new assignments.

But to your point, I think it, there's no normal to go back to anymore. And so the mindset is "don't drag me". This whole like, turn to the office initiatives everyone is having and this kind of like anxiety around, okay, we need to be productive and catch up because we lost all this time with remote work, which we don't believe is as productive because, not because remote work is not productive. But because we know people were juggling kids, going to school from home, doing virtual learning and all this other stuff.

But I feel like maybe that's where the clash is actually. It's like, okay, back to normal everyone, get back to it. And everyone's like, there's no normal anymore. And it's like this disconnect that is really like creating this friction. It shouldn't have that much friction, right? This is just, everything's different.

Let's find our footing again. But then it gets stigmatized in a lot of ways. Like a lot of the conversations I hear are how to prevent quiet quitting happening at your workplace? Or it's a lens that I don't think it's what we're trying to get to. Anyways, I might be kidding. It's a little off track. 

Sarah Hoban: No, no. I think that's spot on, right?

Like I think too, it's, even if you're somebody who's got, there's a return to office mandate and you're going back, the office culture is not the same as it was even. It's just you may be somebody who's a big fan of being in person and it's just not the same. You don't, like you said, you don't have anything to go back to.

So then it's why would I put the effort and the time to go back? But I think the other piece of it is that there is a level of human connection that we're missing. And I'm a huge fan of remote work. I work remote now, and I was definitely the probably the least likely person to be a fan of remote work because I'm highly extroverted and I love being around people. 

And being at home all day is hard when you live alone, for me. But I think now I wouldn't trade that because of the time that I get back on my schedule from not having to commute, et cetera, the freedom to live where I would like to live, all of those things. But even if I wanted to go back to the office, it wouldn't be the same environment as it was.

So to me it's like that place is sort of lost, but I miss the connection and the spontaneity. And we don't really know how to fix that. So some companies are like, oh, we'll just come in person, and then you'll see someone in the kitchen and you'll have an amazing brainstorm session and we'll make money.

But we all know that's probably not realistic of how that even worked before. We're just romanticizing that notion of it. 

Galen Low: Right. Yeah, I mean there's definitely something there in terms of, it's different when we're in person. And actually, the more we dive into this, the more we scratch the service.

Like it's almost like a language that we're using is creating miscommunication. It's like everyone's hearing, come back to the office where it's normal, do your normal thing again, because we don't trust that you're doing your normal thing at home. Whereas actually a lot of the employers I talk to are like, actually, we just want people to be together.

We get so much like spontaneity, so much collaboration happens like, that we don't have to arrange as a Zoom meeting. And that is good for the business, even if it doesn't directly make money or benefit the organization strategically, it's still a thing that helps build whatever it is that we have here. I don't know if every organization is explaining that, so it sounds like a command to pull someone back to a normal and that person's like normal doesn't exist anymore.

But in a way I think we're doing the right thing in terms of re-establishing these terms of work of okay, well, let's agree that come in three days a week or two days a week, or come in on this Wednesday when we're gonna have like a brainstorming meeting. And I think, again, if our language was less tied to some of these like loaded pieces of language, right?

Loaded terms, it might be a much more productive conversation. It's no. I know it's different. Just like I don't wanna see you. Right? Like I, I think it's gonna be great. It won't be great every Wednesday that you come, but guess what? It wasn't great when you came five days a week, every, all five days.

So, but still good things happened. Let's see what happens there. See if we can take advantage of it. 

Sarah Hoban: And honestly, what you said about not wanting to create or schedule things or make a Zoom, right? I think to me that touches on a lot of the challenge we're trying to have with remote work. It does take effort to create a remote work culture that is successful, but it is doable.

And I think where program management is a very useful skill is that we can provide that layer between managers and employees to understand like, how can we create and shape a culture that enables the team to do productive work, whether that's in-person, remote or hybrid. And it does take effort to do that, and I don't know that we've necessarily invested that effort.

And so the easy button is, oh, just make everyone come back on Wednesdays because then they'll see each other and something great will happen. But imagine what success we could see if we put some effort and we're a bit more proactive about what that actually looked like. One thing I read somewhere that I absolutely loved about remote work was, well, I'm not making a spontaneous connection at a water cooler.

It is not a chance encounter. You are telling me and this other person to be there at the same exact day, and that's why we saw each other. I didn't really think about it in that context, but it's very true, right? It was a structure and a system that we had in place to do that. So now we have to create a new structure and new systems to do that in this new normal that we are in.

Galen Low: It's interesting because of the, like what you were saying about, the pandemic as a crisis event. And I think maybe as humans, maybe that's too broad of a stroke, but I think the tendency is to wanna restabilize after an emergency, right? You're like, okay, let's get back to stable ground. And there's this urgency to do it quickly.

Whereas actually to your point, if we took the time, we'd probably find a new better way. But right now, no one's in that mindset. Everyone's we gotta catch up, we gotta get back to it. We have to get past this traumatic event, like this big historical event that happened and keep moving like the species on almost, it's almost like more existential than it is business at all.

Sarah Hoban: Yeah, and that's probably true. And I think that's an interesting point that I hadn't really considered. And I think it also ties to a conversation I've had with some of my millennial friends, right, about the stabilization piece and quiet quitting. And sort of the genesis for this podcast came about from a conversation that I had with a couple of my close friends about - isn't quiet quitting like something we should have just been doing this whole entire time? 

And like we weren't because we, started our jobs during the great recession, it was precarious and we felt like we had to do a certain level of performance to be able to maintain and advance our careers. And then, we got through that period and we had to work early in our careers to establish ourselves.

Now we had this pandemic event and we're just like physically incapable of like really maintaining that pace anymore, which was probably a frenetic and unrealistic pace to begin with. And so now we're just settling into our careers and that's probably healthy/good. So maybe this was like something that maybe we should have been doing the whole time.

Galen Low: I like that perspective, especially because, and I've said this in other forums before, but if organizations can come to rely on people going above and beyond in quantifiably, above and beyond, they're just like, I'm just gonna expect that people are gonna do more than I ask them to do. And then they keep relying on that.

Their business depends on that. And that's very vague. It's a vague dependency and it's not a scalable solution. A) I think even before the pandemic, a lot of organizations started coming to grips with the fact that coming to grips is, it's also a loaded term, but they're like, oh, wait a minute. We're investing in people.

Right? It's knowledge work or it's people work, whatever kind of work it is, we need people, and guess what? We need them to be healthy. So what is the cost of them putting in 60 to 80 hours a week? You know, we might be like, yay, in the short term. That's great. We're getting so much out of this person, right? Out of this analyst, out of this intern, out of this, like junior manager.

The senior manager. We're getting so much out of them and then realizing, okay, well we're syncing all of this, we're relying on them now. What if they suddenly just start injuring themselves, right? Physically or mentally, right? What if they are no longer able to perform what we've come to rely on them to do and they're like, okay, we gotta also take care of, their health and their mental wellbeing as well, because this is an investment in a human. 

This isn't just like a machine. This is something that we need to care for. And that was a good arc in terms of okay, well yes, we're noticing now. People are living longer, they're working longer, and we don't want 'em to burn out and just quit really early and leave our business up the creek, I guess, for lack of a better word, right?

Than there was an interest in taking care of that. I have no idea where I was going with that, but. 

Sarah Hoban: Well, I think what you're touching on is that, the incentive structure, right? So it's like short-termism versus long-termism. So in the short term, you're responsible to your shareholders and meeting a certain metric every quarter, and that depends on just pushing through to do that.

But I think from an employer perspective, a better approach is to take the long-term view, which the market doesn't necessarily incentivize us to do, and I get that. So that's a challenge. But if you're thinking about your like long-term talent management recruitment strategy, if you can figure out a way to demonstrate that, like this is going to pay off for you in the long term to be able to do it this way.

To me, that's a winning formula. But it's hard to prove or demonstrate that with the tools we have. And I think on the employer side, it's the same thing. I think you can build your career particularly early in your career and just being that person who is a hustler, Jack or Jill of all trades.

Participates in like every activity can be a generalist and then you start to advance, it's well what's your specialty? Like that's the next thing they ask you. So it's like you can do that only for so long. So to me, the quiet quitting is like an answer to that of okay, hey, I'm gonna be a little bit more deliberate about what it is that I bring to the table. 

And I think that deliberation creates an advantage as you advance in your career. And maybe earlier in your career too. I just wouldn't know, cause I was definitely the hustler type. So, lesson learn. Right?

Galen Low: I see that. I think I'd like to go back to something you said earlier.

We were talking about always going above and beyond and being that person, and actually to tie it all back to project management, right? We were talking about how a lot of the time it can be project managers who are the ones who are expected to go above and beyond because it isn't just a a list of responsibilities necessarily.

It's like accountability to deliver a project or a program, therefore do whatever it takes. Therefore, if you can spend 60 hours doing it instead of 40 and get more done, then it starts seeming like the obvious choice. But I guess just putting a project management lens on this, right? Coming back to your conversation with your millennial friends, like for folks who are maybe in the same boat as you and I, right?

Where we were the people who were like, oh, let's go above and beyond and let's make some career advancement, like really quick. Now that this is all going on and from the lens of oh, actually this might be impacting my health. What are some ways, like what are some tips or best practices for setting boundaries, like in a positive way?

Because as we've been talking about, I feel like the quiet quitter label is actually a negative thing. But rather than being like, oh, I know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna quiet quit. What is a way that project managers can be like, okay, let me start setting some boundaries and be really clear about what I can and can't do and what the risk is of me doing more.

Sarah Hoban: Yeah. No, I think that's a wonderful question. And I think quiet quit in the way it's used is like a point of desperation where you're probably already burned out if you're like, Hey, you know what, I'm just not gonna try anymore. I think that taken to the extreme is what quiet quitting can mean. And obviously you wanna stop yourself before you get to that point, right?

So what your question is, I think, apt, like what can you actually do to set some of those boundaries? I struggle with this personally still, and I think that's normal and human. And I think for program managers too, the reason this is so tough is because we're accountable to people and we want to do right by our stakeholders.

That's our job. So if there's something that we can do to help them because they have a lot on their plate, or we can spend extra time kind of smoothing things over, like we'll do it. Those things are not necessarily measurable because we're preventing bad things from happening a lot of the time. So, no news is good news and that can be tough.

That being said, I wanted to of preface it with that because I think that's important to consider. This is not easy for anybody and it's very normal. So I think to me it's like a lot about training others and at the same time as it is about training yourself. So if you're the person who answers an email after hours all the time, within half an hour after you get it, like people are going to expect that.

So they will email you more, right? Or they will Slack you more. So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I think it's deciding for yourself, okay, like what am I gonna commit to that's reasonable and like, how am I gonna enforce that? So in a prior job, for me, an example, I started really early. So I was online like seven o'clock.

So I felt like it was reasonable for me to sign off at five and not have to answer any messages because I knew that I was gonna be one of the first people online earlier in the morning. And so I would get to anything that came in and I was like, I'm not an ER doctor here. I don't think anybody's gonna pass on from this life if I don't answer to something tonight.

Right? So that was the decision I made. And some people might say, that's quiet quitting because I set a boundary. But actually I was working pretty hard to be starting at seven o'clock, right? So to me, that's the consideration to think about. I also think, quiet quitting is not something you necessarily need to announce.

Like I didn't go around to people and be like, hi, I'm gonna answer your emails between like X hours and X hours. But like I just did it and people got accustomed to it and nobody expected an answer for me in the evening. It stretches to well, what happens if you get invited to an important meeting that's like outside of your boundary hours?

Like how do you deal with that? Like it's a case by case thing. Like you just have to decide is this worth it? Is this a C-suite level meeting like that I should probably attend, am I presenting? Or is this like a status update that's like being recorded and like I can probably just watch the recording the next day and give my inputs async to the meeting organizer.

Right? It's having that emotional intelligence, which I think project managers are very good at, to be able to assess like what's important and not, cuz you won't be able to go to everything. I think the same applies for taking time off, right? Like you could call into every meeting on your vacation or you could not. And that's a choice. 

Galen Low: I really appreciate that gradient. Do you know what I mean? Where it's not just well, never accept any meeting outside of your working hours, or you have to accept every meeting because meetings, are imbued with some kind of sacred energy. But use your judgment, right?

And find that balance for yourself. The really interesting thing is that it ties back to what you said at the beginning, which is that in some ways quiet quitting is this, like it's a change. It's a dramatic change. It's a sudden change. And I think that's why it's a phenomen. But actually the way humans work is that if you can do it gradually, right? Like you said, you didn't have to announce new boundaries for yourself.

You just started to gradually change that behavior and people follow along. Just like the price of gas. It's if you popped it up two bucks tomorrow, there'll be riots in the streets. But if it just gradually grows, then honestly, we'll probably it will adjust as we go. I appreciate that approach to it where it might not be a sudden, protest necessarily, which might end up becoming something that is seen as a conflict or confrontation, but it's actually just a recalibration.

And if we could treat it as that and demonstrate that through our actions, then actually maybe it wouldn't be this big, trending phenomenon at all. 

Sarah Hoban: Yeah, no, I think that's right. And I think you're right that it has been gradual. Cause we were feeling some of these feelings prior to the pandemic happening. And I think for some people it was just like the straw that broke the camel's back to use a overused metaphor.

And it was like, okay, now they almost got too far and snapped. Right? And maybe it seems more dramatic than it is, but I think it's taking small steps. Another thing that I would recommend too is like really taking the time to document what it is you do for your job. And I know that scares people because it can make it seem like you could be replaced.

But to me, I have never worked at a company where there was a shortage of work to do, right? If I got to a point where I had, demonstrated that I had mastered my work, guess what? There was always more work to come. Like it was never an issue. So whether it's at that organization or another, the approach I take, so I will, record meetings, do meeting agendas, do notes.

Have protocols set up for what it is you do. So when you're out, you can just be like, oh yeah, consult my document for what you're supposed to do, or what responsibilities I take on so that it's a lot easier for me to take some time and stuff out. And it's not like I'm key to every single meeting because things live in my head.

I also think that helps with predictability of working hours. And it's a good way to set boundaries too, where you don't have to spend all day on the phone explaining your job to people. So you are then not able to actually do your job. I get that it's an upfront lift, but it does create a place of control for you that I think is helpful.

And then the last one's a little bit of a exploitative behavior, but I mean, if we have an advantage, we'll take it. So if you're a project manager, you're probably scheduling the meetings, right? Like you're probably driving the schedule and the meetings. So, you know, you can schedule meetings like during times that are convenient for you and avoid times that are inconvenient, right?

Like if there's a deadline that falls on a holiday, like I will never have a deadline fall on a holiday. I will always have it be due the day before. It sounds simple, but things like that, we have the power to change and just, we always wanna demonstrate oh, we're superheroes.

Like, We can deliver this thing even though it's a holiday. Why? Why is it really that important? Let's be reasonable from the start. And I think project managers can inject that voice of reason because I think we are the ones asking the tough questions in meetings does this really make sense for us to do it this way?

And I think that's a way to inject some boundaries too, into the workplace. 

Galen Low: No, I like that. Wonder if we can switch gears a bit and go from the project manager perspective to talking from that employer or like just business owner perspective, maybe even just a manager perspective. But you know, we're talking about quiet quitting and being this thing that maybe some people will notice.

Maybe some people won't notice at all, but in some ways it is a signal. If nothing else, it's a signal of something, going into combat mode. It's not necessarily that this person is a flight risk. It's not necessarily that it's a protest, but it's a signal. So for people who are managing people, what should they be paying attention to or trying to take away if they see their employees or team members suddenly erecting these boundaries for themselves? What should they do? And if they don't do anything, what's the risk of inaction, I guess? 

Sarah Hoban: Yeah. No, I think it depends what we mean by those boundaries, right? If you see that your employees are disengaged, not motivated, you see a change in behavior from how they were normally, like my first signal as a manager is like, is something going on with them personally that I need to be aware of?

Not necessarily the details, but be aware that they have something going on so we can arrange resources appropriately and take care of that person. So that to me is the first thing. Once we've ruled that out and we try to figure out like, what is the reason for this? Like motivation, maybe it's, they feel like they are, not taking on interesting work or they wanna change in project or whatever the case may be.

I think it's usually a conversation that you can have to turn that around. And the best way to correct that situation is to be having regular one-on-ones with your employees and understand and be able to know them well enough to detect that change in behavior and to see when motivation might be flagging.

Like I used to do motivation surveys as a manager for my team anonymously across the whole pyramid. And we would see trends that way and we would talk about it in every meeting and people would say, I'm demotivated because of X event in the world. Or this thing happened at our senior level of our company.

It was irritating. This has explained this, right? And I think that was all super helpful data for me as like a middle manager to be able to course correct. So that's I think the negative signs of quiet quitting. I think the positive of an employee came to me and was like, Hey, this is the boundary I'm gonna set.

Like I would be excited about that for two reasons. One, I would think, wow, this employee trusts me and is being transparent, which means that they care about their job to the extent that they have been thoughtful about this and have decided that they're gonna talk to me about it. So that's awesome. So to me that's like we're gonna have good work quality, we're gonna have better morale, retention, all of those good things.

I think if we see the opposite, right, and it can also be a way for you to assess like, what is the reason that this person is doing this? Maybe it's I haven't hired sufficient staff and I know that's a gap. Or like I could better define roles and responsibilities across these team members, which is sort of an easy fix.

Or we can decide as an organization Hey, we're going to just write down how we expect people to deal with Slack, right? Something like that, right? You don't have to answer in 10 minutes. It's cool. Like I think there's a lot of assumptions being made that aren't codified, right? So I think that's all.

There's all room to do that. But again, I think if you are not having those conversations and these things are not coming up, you're gonna pay for it in terms of your talent management and probably your healthcare costs too, honestly, which is obviously a huge driver. So, yeah, I guess I don't know where I was going with the last thought, but I think hopefully I answered your question.

Galen Low: No, absolutely. What I love about it is like when you really do break it down, it's like, of course that's gonna be a constructive conversation, right? I mean, okay, maybe I'm putting that through a certain lens. Maybe not everyone would think that's a constructive conversation, but I agree with you.

I think that like it shows some trust is there. If somebody's coming to you and being like, listen, I just, I need to start setting some boundaries. I'm on the brink of burnout, or that's where I'm trending towards, or there's this thing going on in my life and I just need to rebalance and have that conversation and transparency.

And to your point, like that's not somebody who's trying to leave. That's somebody who is trying to stay, maybe even stay for the long haul, but just needs things to change a little bit. 

Sarah Hoban: Yeah. Or needs some coaching. This is a problem that you could solve by not necessarily saying, I'm like not gonna do this.

Like I've had employees who will tell me, oh, I'm not gonna deal with this person anymore because they expect too much from me. And you start to dig into it and it's like, well, no, you're the one setting that expectation because you never asked them what their actual need was. You know, it's hard sometimes to assume good intentions. You get wrapped up in your own world.

So I think it's a good coaching moment too, for people of like, well why are you doing all of these things actually? Is this really necessary? Or is this going above and beyond work that is actually distracting you from like the work that's gonna distinguish you and help you get promoted in advance?

And it's stuff that we actually care about as a business. And I think that's another thing businesses don't always do a great job of helping their employees see these are the things we actually care about, versus this piece that you're spending all this time and energy on is like less important.

And nobody wants to have that conversation because it's hard and you don't want people to feel like their work isn't important. But I think it's important for growth. 

Galen Low: Humans are bad at prioritizing and actually coming back to the language thing, right, there's another one that we use a lot in work, right?

What I have on my plate, and guess what? A plate is flat. So all this stuff is kinda like there and it's just amorphous blob of things to do. I agree with you. Like in a managerial role, if you can start stack ranking those things and being like, this is a distraction I've got your back. Don't do this thing.

We'll find some other way to do it, but it's not the thing that's going to advance your career and have a lot of impact. And I think that becomes even more important from the lens of you know, how do people now grow their careers? If it's not about going above and beyond and volunteering for all this extra stuff, it's probably gonna be by concentrating your effort on things that have impact.

And that's probably something that would get rewarded in most organizations, I think. 

Sarah Hoban: Yeah, I think so too. I haven't read it yet, but Chris Bailey, who's one of my favorite productivity writers, he just released a new book about like calming the mind and how he thinks that's like the first step to productivity. 

And basically talks about how if you can get to that level of like focusing on the things that are of greatest importance to you and to what aligns with what you do best. That's gonna be your ticket for success. And I think in the very fragmented, noisy, and increasingly distracted world we live in, that is. But it's so, so hard to do that because it doesn't have the like immediate satisfaction of like, oh, I just sent 15 IMs to all these people.

And they like reacted and they were so happy, which I love too. All of us, we're human. We love that. But it's like, what did I do?

Galen Low: Right. Yeah. It's like I got so many positive emoji reactions. 

Sarah Hoban: Yeah. But what did I do for like strategy today? Like maybe not enough, so it's interesting. 

Galen Low: Hundred percent. Hundred percent. I wonder if we could flip to the other side cuz earlier in the conversation I was like, I don't know if anyone who's quite quitting is actually quitting. And we just talked about, constructive boundary setting, but I'm sure there are actually people who are just genuinely disengaged and like losing interest in their job. 

And as someone who is, managing people, whether you're a business owner, whether you're a team lead, a project manager, like, how do you find that line between somebody just setting boundaries and somebody just being completely apathetic about their, their work and their job situation?

How do you distinguish between those things? Because right now it sounds like we just have one term for it, right? In today's day and age, quiet quitting is this just monolithic thing, which could be constructive, but also might actually be somebody who's just listen, just I'm gonna do as little as possible until you fire me.

And they actually are trying to quit. How do you decipher that and what might somebody do as a manager to try and have a constructive conversation around that side of things? 

Sarah Hoban: Yeah, and it's interesting that you say that because I do think we're taking that quiet quitting and we're conflating it with a bunch of different things.

Because I don't know if you remember, this was everywhere, like before the pandemic, and we still see it. Like all of those surveys that are like, I forget the stats, six and 10 employees like, are completely disengaged and like straight up do not care anything about their job. Like we've seen that all along. So again, I don't think it's new, but I think now we're sort of saying, quiet quitting is this, plus all of these other things that are going on and we're just lumping it together.

So I never thought about it that way, but I think you're right. Yeah, I think it's having those one-on-one conversations and like getting to know your employees and being able to really tell if it's apathy or if it's like they're coming refreshed and renewed and energized. You can tell if you have built a relationship with somebody, whether that's in person, remote I don't care, which you can tell.

When somebody is coming and like tier one-on-ones and they lack new ideas, they're not really driving the conversation. You can tell that there's a change in how that they used to act. And to me that's the apathy, disengagement, lack of motivation part. And that's where you can dig in and be like, oh well, and discover what that root causes.

Maybe they're dealing with a difficult coworker or the client that's unreasonable or they have a personal situation, whatever it is, and you can sort of work and coach and diagnose it that way. I think the quiet quitting thing is more like they're, it's more like proactive to me than like the apathy part. It's really two different things.

You know that they're going to do their 40 hours and that's it, but they do excellent work in those 40 hours and they still like care deeply, but they're just choosing like how they wanna invest their time. Maybe they're not in every like extracurricular group at work, but they're doing a great job in their role.

And I think part of that is as employers and as managers, we have to accept that not everybody is gonna want or be capable of doing that. And also ask ourselves, does that really matter or does that just make us feel good? Right? I mean, nobody wants to have that conversation where they're not fully dedicated and devoted to you, cuz it makes your job as a manager a lot easier.

Right? You then have to try to bring out the best in that person and create conditions for them to be successful. That work is hard. So I think as a manager, it's also keeping that open mind in addition to as an employee. So at the end of the day, I think this is all just like relationship building and stakeholder management.

Galen Low: That's what I love about this is it sometimes it always just boils back down to just, Hey, guess what? We're humans and we need to communicate better. Right? Project management, business, geopolitics, 

Sarah Hoban: we touched on a lot in this episode for real. 

Galen Low: We did. We did. We certainly did. But you know what I really appreciated that I didn't expect coming in was that, some words really jumped out at me in this conversation.

Like proactive and constructive and things that are about dialogue and communication, even if it's just starting by sending a signal or by prioritizing your own self and your identity inside and outside of, work. And it does actually, even though listeners might be like, I don't know. I didn't think quiet quitting was a bad thing, but I just, I felt like it was just attached to so much negativity and there was so much fear around it and it was something you should try and prevent in your employees.

And it's been really enlightening to have this conversation and be like, oh, actually, you know what? It's like potentially a really positive thing and maybe not even new. 

Sarah Hoban: Yeah. You just have to talk to your employees and that's the part that's scary. You don't wanna hear that they wanna quiet quit, but you that's that's a lot.

Galen Low: No, it's fair. That's what we're scared of. The communication part. 

Awesome. Sarah, thanks so much for your insights today. It's always a pleasure having you on the show. I know we could go on and on. We could fill definitely several hours of podcast time just chatting, but I really appreciate your perspectives on quiet quitting, especially our project lens as well, and I look forward to having you on the show again.

Sarah Hoban: Of course. This was really fun. As always, thank you. 

Galen Low: All right folks. There you have it. As always, if you'd like to join the conversation with over a thousand like-minded project management champions, come join our collective. 

Head over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership to learn more. And if you like what you heard today, please subscribe and stay in touch on thedigitalprojectmanager.com.

Until next time, thanks for listening.