<sub>By now, you’ve likely been exposed to frenzied coverage of the phenomenon called “quiet quitting,” a phrase that began on Tik Tok and quickly spread throughout the media this month. The term has a negative connotation and conjures images of loafers lazily idling away their work hours. But a closer look reveals that the term is a misnomer: It doesn’t mean giving up on your work duties or shirking your responsibilities, it doesn’t mean “quitting” at all—it simply means delivering a satisfactory performance while exercising boundaries around going above and beyond the agreed upon scope of your job description. Because the term is deceptive and confusing, a backlash to its use has sprung up online.

Jo Constanz from Bloomberg News writes in this recent coverage, “Pushback against the latest workplace buzzword is mounting, and not just on Reddit. Commentary on Twitter has pointed out how quiet quitting is a confused, flawed expression.” Rahaf Harfoush, an anthropologist who studies work-life culture and is quoted in Constanz’s piece explains, “the ideals of sacrifice, giving it your all and exceeding expectations,” while they are widely accepted elements to hustle culture, “can result in illness, exhaustion and burnout.” So a rejection of these values is not surprising even as the misleading phraseology, “quiet quitting,” which is intended to describe a cultural recalibration, “exposes the internal conflict people face when it comes to setting work-life boundaries.” Get the full story here.

Go deeper on this topic:
> Read National Post’s exploration of what the term ‘quiet quitting’ means</sub>

_{> Check out NPR’s coverage of how the ‘quiet quitting’ trend nests into the current cultural moment in the wake of ‘The Great Resignation’}

_{> Find out in Forbes what the professor who coined the term ‘engagement’ thinks about the ‘quiet quitting’ trend}

_{> Explore Care.com’s coverage of the phrase ‘quiet quitting’ from the perspective of parents and caregivers}

_{>Finally, see The Wall Street Journal’s recent coverage of the ‘quiet quitting’ debate (this may appear behind a paywall)}

Don’t Let ‘Authority Bias’ Impede Innovation

“Much of the know-how required for innovation comes from the bottom of the organization,” writes Timothy Clark in this Harvard Business Review article on the topic, but “many non-management employees consider innovation outside the scope of their jobs,” largely because “the organization’s tacit norms” discourage their input, which means lots of great ideas aren’t ever expressed or acted upon. Clark’s research with hundreds of teams has identified the “cultural barrier” behind employees’ reticence to speak up, and it’s called “authority bias.” He defines authority bias as “the tendency to overvalue opinions from the top of the hierarchy and undervalue opinions from the bottom, and it eventually turns into exaggerated deference to the chain of command.” When this bias is pervasive throughout a culture, it “chokes innovation” and the entire enterprise can be “hobbled in its creative output.” If leaders want to tap into the power of “bottom-up innovation,” they must “neutralize authority bias,” and embrace “cultural flatness,” which is a condition in which hierarchies do not “restrict collaboration or the flow of information.” Clark offers three practical steps for dismantling the pernicious effects of authority bias, the first of which is to “grant irrevocable participation rights” to both new and existing team members. Get the full story here.

Conversation Starters for the Conflict-Adverse

Is the Key to Happiness a ‘Dual-Growth’ Mindset?

The Power of Asking ‘How Can I Help?’