The idea of quiet quitting seems disloyal to me. To be clear, the concept isn’t that strange. It reminds me a lot of an idea I first encountered in Robert E. Quinn‘s Deep Change.Before I revisit that, let’s review what quiet quitting is:

…the basic principle is not overworking… Zaid Khan introduced the concept as “not outright quitting your job but quitting the idea of going above and beyond” and linked quiet quitting to the belief that “your worth as a person is not defined by your labor.” (Source)

Who can’t get behind the idea of NOT overworking, of NOT being defined by your work? “I am NOT my job title,” is one way of describing it. Robert E. Quinn speaks to the motivation behind quiet quitting:

According to the author of Deep Change, “old maps drive us into a state of great pain and frustration.” The old map in this case is how work happened and came about PRIOR to COVID-19. But now, we are all finding ourselves in a quest for a new map. It is a map that involves realignment to what is going on in the world. 

Failure to realign leads to what Robert E. Quinn characterizes as “slow death.” We face slow death because the “dominant coalitions in an organization” are seldom interested in making deep change. The bosses and managers want you to keep coming to work, act as if nothing happened because they profit from that…the numbers look better. But their wanting can’t counteract a changed topography that demands a new map. 

Slow Death

Slow death is present everywhere. It involves a violation of trust as people leap from one job to another, to escape the environment. It means that we thirst for a vision, that we need change but no one is willing to engage it. 

Burn-out–and its resulting loss of energy–comes from those who choose slow death. There are three strategies, says Quinn, that people to use to deal with slow death:

• Peace and Pay: By employing this strategy, people become the victims of an oppressor.This is a role that leads people to not rock the boat, maintain the status quo at all costs. They are putting in their time until they have to go home, collecting their pay-check. They reject the work of the organization, noting that it is “dying” and “wrongly assuming they are not.” 
• Active Exit: This strategy involves keeping your options open, staying in tune with what’s happening, and looking to leave. There’s no commitment to the job, only to find an exit to somewhere that is perceived as better.
• Deep Change: This involves realizing that the old map doesn’t work. You need a new one and nothing less than that will work. 

Quinn, author of Deep Change, refers to this last strategy as “realigning ourselves to the environment requires that we exercise the discipline to make an unusual perspective.” Notice that he says “MAKE an unusual perspective.” The way isn’t made or predetermined. 

Instead, you have to figure it out as you go, risking uncertainty and ending up at a box canyon (a “dead end”). When dealing with slow death, deep change requires us to go “naked into the land of uncertainty, knowing how to get lost with confidence.” 

This journey into uncertainty results in the creation of a new paradigm, “one in which we must separate from the status quo and courageously face and tackle uncertainty.”