Gen Z is not disengaged because they are lazy. They are navigating a flooded job market, economic instability, and workplaces that treat them like numbers instead of people. The fix is simpler than most leaders expect: get to know your team one on one, build real human connection, and make people feel seen from day one. This episode is essential for any owner or leader who keeps asking why their best hires do not stick around.
This episode is part of the Retention & Why Top Performers Leave series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“…if someone comes to you saying they’re pretty frustrated, they’re probably already looking for another job.”
“…we have the power in the opportunity to reframe this whole perception completely.”
“…this is an awesome opportunity that I can breathe more excitement and sense of purpose into my team members.”
Episode highlights
Why low motivation is a warning sign, not just an annoyance
When team members are nodding along to the company vision but not really buying in, it is easy to chalk it up to attitude. Lia reframes it differently: people who feel like their work is purely tactical and invisible are probably already scrolling LinkedIn. Waiting for someone to come to you frustrated usually means you are already behind. The cost of losing people, whether that is a real financial cost or the loss of institutional knowledge, makes this worth addressing proactively.
The real cause of disengagement
The root issue is not laziness or a bad attitude. It is that the person cannot see the picture. They are stuck in a loop of thinking no one values their work, so they stop caring about it. Lia’s point is direct: if that was how you felt about your job, you would not be excited either. The responsibility to break that loop sits with the leader, not the team member.
The shift from the ‘what’ to the ‘so what’
Lia’s core framework for this conversation is reframing a person’s role from a list of tasks to a statement of impact. She uses the example of a project manager or administrative assistant who feels like they are always putting out fires and never seen as strategic. Instead of validating the task-level description, a leader can show them what those tasks actually produce: the first touchpoint anyone has with the business, the glue that brings clarity across decisions, the reason stakeholders feel informed and able to do their jobs. That reframe, from note-taker to dot-connector, is the ‘so what.’ Lia saw it change people’s entire sense of purpose when she managed program managers who felt the same way.
How to have this conversation authentically
This only works if you mean it. Lia is clear that this is not a pep talk you deliver and then forget. If you say the work is important but do not recognize it, do not compensate it fairly, and do not bring it up again, people will feel the gap immediately. The conversation lands when it is backed by how you actually treat the role. Show up authentically, name the specific impact you see, and the team member will start to see themselves in the vision instead of outside of it.
Do not wait for someone to come to you
Lia’s final push is to take this off the reactive list entirely. Weave dot-connecting into regular one-on-ones and career conversations. Something as simple as ‘I was thinking about your role today and the impact you have on the company, have you thought about it that way?’ can prevent disengagement from building in the first place. By the time someone sits down and tells you they are frustrated, they are usually already deep into a job search and testing whether you will give them a reason to stay.
Related episodes in this cluster
- Ep 236: What to do when an employee tells you they’re thinking of leaving. When a team member gives you advance notice they may leave, the worst move is writing them off. Lia walks through The Sit Down, a re-engagement conversation that keeps great people invested longer, and explains how to handle the raise or promotion ask that sometimes comes with it. This episode is for any owner, founder, or team lead who wants to stop being blindsided by departures.
- Ep 207: The simple action that keeps your best people from leaving. Retention is not built by perks or promises. It is built by showing up the same way on your worst day as you do on your best. Lia walks through why consistency in your leadership values is the single biggest lever you have over whether your top people stay or go.
- Ep 203: Why top performers leave and the career conversation that keeps them. Top performers leave because they cannot see a future on your team, not because the job was bad. The fix is a regular career conversation, separate from performance reviews, where you ask about bigger-picture goals and then follow up with real opportunities. This episode is most useful for founders, owners, and team leads who want to stop losing good people before the resignation letter arrives.
- Ep 195: What Gen Z actually wants at work (and how to make them want to stay). Gen Z is not disengaged because they are lazy. They are navigating a flooded job market, economic instability, and workplaces that treat them like numbers instead of people. The fix is simpler than most leaders expect: get to know your team one on one, build real human connection, and make people feel seen from day one. This episode is essential for any owner or leader who keeps asking why their best hires do not stick around.
Want to go deeper?
The Unstoppable Team. How to build a team that runs without you in the room.
Full transcript (click to expand)
This isn’t BSing them, okay? It’s not saying, I swear it’s important, and then not really meaning it. You genuinely do mean it because you know everybody in your team is there for a reason. Everyone’s skills and perspectives are needed and you value them and people aren’t going to think it’s bs. If you show up authentically,
welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where I bring a decade of experience working in some of the most influential companies in tech to help you navigate the ins and outs of being a people manager.
From conflicts to feedback to delegating and more, we will leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing, kind of hate it and everything in between. Doesn’t matter if you’re a new manager looking for some tips. Or a seasoned manager looking up their game. Everyone is welcome to hang out with Managing Made Simple. Let’s go. Let’s go, let’s go. Let’s welcome back to the show and it’s Sunday. So we are back with another episode of Sunday Scaries.
Today’s topic is when you are leading a team of people, whether you’re a business owner or in the corporate world, or anything in between, and you’re feeling like not everybody’s bought in, that people kind of get it, but kind of don’t care. Motivation’s a little bit wavering and. You don’t really know what to do about it. And no matter how many times you talk about the profitability and the direction of the company and all the things you see, like people kind of nod along, but you just know there’s something missing.
And this kind of thing as business owners can make us really worried because this is our livelihood and we are relying on our team members to show up and, and actually care about this thing. If we’re managers in the corporate world or in larger companies, We know that it’s costly to be looking for new employees, and maybe we don’t have the ability to hire backfills right now, so if we lose people, so this is a big issue when we see that people aren’t really on board, and this can cause those Sunday scaries on that Thursday, Friday night ruining the whole weekend.
But I think something proactive we can do to address the situation is sit down with folks and connect the dots between what that vision is for our team or company and where they fit into it, where their role really matters. I’ve seen time and again when we show someone you matter because. Your role is important because without you, we wouldn’t be able to do this. When we show our team members, they’re gonna see themselves in it.
They’re gonna feel more like an owner, and they’re gonna care more. And when they care more, they do better at work and everybody wins. So how does this conversation go? We address this by painting the vision for how we see that person’s role breathing some energy and enthusiasm in into what they’re doing so that they can start to picture it too. Because if someone’s not feeling it then, then it’s likely that they don’t really see the picture.
Let’s say a team member comes to you and says, uh, my work feels really tactical. I wanna be doing more, but I, I just don’t see this as a career. Maybe I’m a project manager or an office manager or an administrative assistant, and I feel like I’m always just putting out fires. I’m not seen as a strategic partner. I’m just running from one thing to the next. I can never finish anything. These kinds of things can be demoralizing.
And I mean, think about it. If that was how you felt about your job, yeah, you wouldn’t be very excited about it. You may not see a future there, and in this situation, by sitting down with that employee and saying, I totally hear you, I hear that, that’d be frustrating. I’d feel frustrated too if I was in that situation. But I wanna share how I see the work when you are running in to proactively solve problems.
I see you as that glue between all the things that have to happen in this company when you’re up there answering phone to the desk, when you’re, when you’re handling customer inquiries and making sure people feel supported, you know, you’re the, you’re the first touchpoint that anybody has with our business. And that’s so critically important because that sets the tone for everything else that happens. And there’s so much value there, and we need you there. And you’re creating this experience that makes people wanna work with us for months to come.
And when you feel like, you know, the, the scheduling meetings and follow ups and notes is, is really tactical. Well, I see that as bringing clarity across what we’re talking about, how we make decisions, how we make sure that folks are informed and feel like, wow, I, I, I have the information I need to do my job effectively. When you start to paint the picture of elevating it from something, someone has gotten stuck in this loop of thinking, nobody values the work, nobody cares about it, and you show them all the ways that they could value this, you’re able to reframe this stuck feeling into showing someone why it matters.
And this isn’t BSing them, okay? It’s not saying, I swear it’s important, and then not really meaning it. You genuinely do mean it because you know everybody in your team is there for a reason. Everyone’s skills and perspectives are needed and you value them, and people aren’t going to think it’s BS if you show up authentically. If you say, this thing is so important, I value it so much, but then don’t recognize it again, don’t compensate it fairly.
That’s where we feel like it’s bs, but we don’t feel like that if you put your literal money where your mouth is and you actually value this kind of work, and how we translate this for our team members is what I often call the shift from the what. To the so what? And it’s an incredibly powerful tool that we can use with our team members so that they see the full potential of their work. And I’ve seen it time and again, I used to manage program managers who often felt their work was behind the scenes too, tactical, all the things that I’m talking about.
And when I would share this framing with them that I don’t see it as, Project babysitter or whatever, or like task tracker or note taker. No, I see this dot connector. Bringing clarity to how work gets done, making sure that all the stakeholders are aligned and we take this big, messy vision and make sure we understand exactly what to do by when. That’s literally the most important person on the team to make sure that we can bring that kind of clarity in.
That’s how I see it. And when I’d frame it like this, I would see people light up. They thought about their whole purpose in this company different, and it’s actually really inspiring as a manager when the situation comes up because we have the power in the opportunity to reframe this whole perception completely. Instead of getting caught up in, uh, team’s, morale is low and engagement down and, and getting frustrated and feeling great. I have like one more thing to deal with as a manager.
I encourage you to reframe that and think, Ooh, this is an awesome opportunity that I can breathe more excitement and sense of purpose into my team members. And that happens all from this exercise of dot connecting. I encourage you to give that a try and not only wait till someone comes to you, I think this is something that you can do continually in either career conversations or one-on-ones saying something like, Hey, I was thinking about your role today and how awesome it is that you have this impact on the company.
Have you thought about that way and proactively ward this off? Because, hate to say it, if someone comes to you saying they’re pretty frustrated, they’re probably already looking for another job. I mean, that’s usually the case. And they’re feeling you out a little bit to see if you’ll offer ’em something better, but they’re already like deep into the LinkedIn search. This is the strategy today. Connect those dots, and I really think you can reframe this Sunday scaries into something that’s really empowering both for you and for your teams.
And if you have questions around how to really bring this to life, send me the text manager to 4 15 2 3 4 5 716. If you got questions about this or anything else related to managing teams, I can add your question to an upcoming ama. We can talk about it in my q and a sessions or answer it right there directly. Send your questions to 4 1 5 2 3 4 5 7 1 6. See you next time.
That’s all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple Podcast where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive. I always love to hear from you, so please reach out at liagarvin.com or message me on LinkedIn. See you next time.
Questions this episode answers
What do I do when my team seems unmotivated and disengaged?
Sit down with each person and connect the dots between the bigger vision and where their specific role fits into it. When you show someone that their work matters, that without them the team couldn't do what it does, they start to see themselves in the picture. That shift from feeling like a cog to feeling like an owner changes how much they care, and when they care more, they do better work. Don't wait for someone to come to you frustrated. Bring this up proactively in one-on-ones and career conversations.
How do I help a team member who thinks their job is too tactical and not meaningful?
Reframe the work from the 'what' to the 'so what.' If someone feels stuck doing scheduling, notes, or answering phones, show them the real impact: they're bringing clarity to decisions, they're the first touchpoint customers have with the business, they're the glue holding everything together. Paint the picture of why that matters. When you elevate how someone thinks about their role, you can break the loop of 'nobody values what I do' and replace it with a genuine sense of purpose.
Is it manipulative to tell a struggling employee that their work is important?
No, as long as you actually mean it. This isn't about saying something feels important and not following through. You genuinely hired this person because their skills and perspective are needed. The key is showing up authentically and backing it up with action, recognizing the work consistently and compensating it fairly. If you say it matters but never acknowledge it again, that's when it feels hollow. If you mean it and live it, your team member will feel the difference.
How do I know if a low-motivation conversation is already too late to save the employee?
If someone comes to you saying they're frustrated and don't see a future in their role, they're likely already searching for other jobs and feeling you out to see if you'll offer something better. That's why it's important not to wait for that conversation. Proactively connect the dots in regular one-on-ones and career check-ins. Ask your team members if they've thought about the impact their role has on the company. Getting ahead of the frustration is far more effective than responding to it after it has built up.
What does it mean to shift from the 'what' to the 'so what' with your team?
The 'what' is the surface-level task: taking notes, answering phones, tracking projects. The 'so what' is the real impact that work creates: bringing clarity across the organization, making sure stakeholders are aligned, setting the tone for every customer relationship. When you help a team member see the 'so what' behind their daily work, they stop feeling like a task tracker and start feeling like a critical contributor. That reframe can completely change how someone thinks about their purpose on the team.