I swear, I’m pulling my hair out over this. I run a mid-sized company, and it feels like no matter how much we talk about goals, productivity, and accountability, there’s this growing sense of apathy in my team. We have deadlines flying by, projects falling through, and no one seems to care unless it’s their paycheck. I’m genuinely lost here. I’ve tried everything leadership workshops, incentives, team building exercises… but nothing sticks.
Is anyone else dealing with this? How do you wake your team up before everything collapses? I’ve been thinking about slashing half the staff just to see if that’ll light a fire under the rest. Has anyone ever been in this spot? Is that too harsh? I’m desperate for real solutions. How do you balance empathy and running a company that doesn’t fall apart?
How many of you are running your company with a team that just doesn’t seem to care? [Serious Discussion]
byu/holmes1997 inEntrepreneur
Posted by holmes1997
35 Comments
Sounds like you’re running your company like a dictatorship. No wonder your team doesn’t care if they’re just cogs in your machine.
Create company values that leadership lives by day in day out.
You’ve probably done this but make those values the road map.
Lead by example, foster the culture, give ownership but be stern.
It’s going to take time to see change.
If you have to threaten layoffs to light a fire under your staff, your company is already doomed. People don’t perform better under threat—they just look for the exit.
Your problem is simple: your employees don’t respect you. Throwing incentives at them isn’t going to fix a fundamental issue of leadership.
Give them equity. At least to the leadership team. Would you be motivated just working for a paycheck?
If you’ve done leadership workshops and they still don’t care, maybe it’s because you’ve only been working on the surface issues. Have you really dug into what’s making them apathetic?
Wait you’re telling me your employees didn’t love team building exercises and leadership workshops???
What are your expectations?
“Be less apathetic l” is not a goal.
The first thing you need to do is have a sit down, with yourself and have a serious, thoughtful conversation about how you would feel motivated working for someone, like yourself. Think of how you treat every direct report and how they treat their direct reports and REALLY think hard about what it would feel like to be one of those people down the line.
Is that a position you would like to be working in?
99% of the time, situations as you describe happen because of leadership doing it wrong. It could be lack of mentorship, lack of truly listening to or soliciting ideas, it could be how leadership deals with mishaps, mistakes or whatever challenge that props up and causes setbacks.
I don’t know what your company does, but most employees are there for the paycheck, period. They will never CARE like you CARE. It’s not their business.
That approach sounds like it really shook things up. Making everyone face how they actually spent their time must have hit hard. Seeing numbers like that can really make people rethink how they’re working.
What’s that calculator you used to show the time breakdown? Was it something you found or made yourself? Sounds like a cool tool… would be great to hear more about it!
People work for paychecks – that’s it. Adjust your actions accordingly. Your goals and desires don’t pay their bills.
Are they getting the same pay/share as you do?
If not even close, then why should they care in the same way?
You sound like someone avoiding the real discussion here, throwing money at external things instead of asking your team members, one by one, what they need in life.
And the fact you consider threatening them with job loss to “motivate” them is a major red flag from you.
The employee-employer relationship is more adversarial than people think. Their interests are in direct competition with yours. Most people want money so they can return to their families and do what they want to do with their lives.
In addition, you may have a couple of bad apples damaging morale.
Maybe the issue isn’t that they don’t care, but that they’re burned out. Constant deadlines and pressure can make anyone disengage.
Employee interviews.
Hire an outside consultant to interview every employee to understand what’s going on, chances are your employees probably hold the solution, someone just needs to get it out of them
no one will ever care as much as the founder
Hello, I would highly recommend the book “Traction” by Gino Wickman and maybe even consider an EOS implementer. I think what you are experiencing is the “black hole” stage of business many owner/operators find themselves.
Lol why would they care? They are there to do the work and get paid. Most would rather avoid work and get paid. No employee gives a shit about the business because they have no actual ties to it. Only super major companies like space x etc would have motivated people. Companies doing world changing stuff will attract people who want to see the outcome and be apart of it. Most companies just sell random crap and the employees know it. It’s just a job to them
As a business owner, it’s important to remember that no one is as invested in your company as you.
With that being said, you are, or at least should be the one leading the direction of your business and the culture.
Most independently owned companies that I’ve worked for or worked with that have a team problem usually have a leadership problem. Whether it’s a lack of empathy or a lack of a clear vision, you hired each team member for a reason.
At one point you saw potential. The question is what happened between that point and now. In order to get a clear picture you have to be self aware and then aware of the dynamic of your team. Do they feel like they can talk to you about how they are feeling? If they can’t then they are definitely going to talk to each other about it.
Sounds like you have no idea how to run a mid-sized company. Good luck with that.
Look. Some people live paycheck to paycheck. Even if they don’t, they’ve probably realized they’re gonna have to work until they drop dead, like rats in a constant treadmill, unable to escape this prison. Nobody gives a shit about your company. Everybody just wants to live, but people have to spend the majority of their waking life in a cubicle making other people (you) rich, and when they get home, they have to do chores, take care of children, and are too tired to care about their hobbies. There’s no life energy left in them because of this stupid system. Nobody was passionless as children. Passion was taking away from them by greedy people. Expecting people to care about anything to do with a company that doesn’t give a shit about them is just … never gonna happen. Everyone in your company has realised that hard work = more hard work.
Although my consulting work is mostly about business growth, I think about 40% of the problem-solving is rooted in getting team members to perform adequately.
I’m not saying this to insult you or to call you out, but 100% of the time, the problems start at the top.
Set aside the rest of the company for a second. When you look at the relationship between you and your *direct reports*, are you getting adequate performance out of them? Are you able to engage their initiative, support their work, hold them accountable, improve their skills, and increase their capacity in a dependable, predictable way?
If you are, awesome: get them to do the same with their reports, and then their reports’ reports, all the way down the line to the individual contributors. You can coach them.
But if you aren’t, then clearly you need to solve that problem first.
What you’ve described results from setting goals incorrectly for key employees. Goals should be a practical tool, ensuring employees know they’ll be rewarded for completing tasks. They should encompass both personal achievements and the company’s overall success.
Are you paying them enough? Giving employees a competitive and generous compensation will make them care more, respect you more, and put more effort into the company’s success.
As a leadership coach, leadership training program is not effective unless you can actually apply it.
If you want them to care about your business, you need to care about them. Do you know what makes them tick? First spend time to get to know your people.. People are different, some want incentives, some cares about recognition, working environment, flexibility… paycheck is necessity, but. Nice team building only effective if it’s consistent company culture mixed with a bit transparency about the business .
Lastly, hard truth, no one will care about your business more than you do! Even in big corporations, the top performers are after their own personal goals.
It’s because YOU don’t care about THEM. They can tell like I can predict from your language and post that you are insincere about building a good team. Treat people like they value and they will have your back.
It’s a mindset not something you should fake.
At the end of the day all people care about is money; if they’re that apathetic your incentives aren’t good or they can easily get a job making similar or better elsewhere.
How about coming up with a promotion that gives the 1st place an second place winner a % of the business, if sales numbers are met?
End of the day, what do you want? All people listen to you, behave well? Or profit? Or satisfaction?
I’ve been similar situation. I have reflected that I’m a “control” kind of person. Have you reflected your style? On other hand, if you can slash half the staff, what’s the reason for you not to do that? Have you calculated for if with half employee, what will happen? If your profit not going to change much, why not make a change?
I’m only speaking from my career experience as an employee, but I only typically felt apathy at organizations where I didn’t feel empowered. The places where I felt empowered and enjoyed what I did, I didn’t feel apathetic. I don’t know if this insight is helpful to you, but figured I’d share incase you spark an ah-ha moment.
Sounds like a massive culture and management problem. Hire an HR consultant.
Give them a stake in the company if you want them to care as much as you.
It’s stupid to expect the same level of effort as you as they do not get the participate in profit-sharing.
You can try a contractual realistic bonus scheme to motivate them.
Don’t expect you from others.
Profit sharing works to an extent but people are incentivized by different motivational tactics. You need to understand what motivates each individual employee and lean into that for them. What some love, others will despise. Praise and recognition in front of peers is a good example.
I think a lot of the business books are out of date. In good time people care about purpose. We’re not in good times, all people really care about now is money.
If you want people to care about your success you need them to see how it will directly benefit them.