I spent some time this week reading about the “quiet” workplace trends. Quiet quitting. Quiet cracking. Quiet firing.

Quiet quitting is the employee who checked out and stopped saying so. Quiet cracking is the one who still wants to do well but is quietly drowning. Quiet firing is the employer who decided it’s over and communicates that through silence and shrinking opportunity.

Three labels. One event: something true that nobody said out loud.

Here’s the part that has me optimistic.

Gallup has measured this for years, and the number is blunt: 70% of the variance in team engagement comes down to the manager. One variable. A person.

That’s the best news in the whole topic. The fix costs nothing and starts today. A manager sits down, asks a direct question about what’s going on in somebody’s world, and then actually listens.

The whole thing fits in a calendar invite.

And there’s plenty going on in people’s worlds right now. Workloads are shifting, AI has people wondering about their own roles, and life keeps happening outside the office. The job shows the symptoms. The conversation finds the cause.

I think the “quiet” era is an invitation. Every silent workplace is a market opening for the direct ones: teams where expectations get said out loud, where struggling is safe to admit, where “this role has changed” gets discussed before it gets resented.

The scoreboard I watch is regrettable attrition, the people who leave that you’d have paid more to keep. Honest conversations push that number toward zero.

If you manage people, the move this week is simple. Pick the person you’ve been avoiding. Book 30 minutes. Ask what’s going on in their world. Then be quiet and listen.

The manager who’s willing to have the conversation is how we build past the “quiet” phase of employment.

Ryan Cadwell

Resolute RDM, Managing Partner

Currently saying the quiet parts out loud.

P.S. Run a business and want a sounding board, on your team, your building, or both? That’s exactly the conversation I like having.