There’s been quite a lot of discussion recently about “quiet quitting”—the act of doing the bare minimum of your assigned tasks and no more.
Most of these discussions revolve around the balance between finding life-work balance vs. putting everything into your career to maximize one’s chances of advancement.
Although these discussions have some value, for many I think they are the wrong discussions to be having—especially with oneself.
Here, I think, is the key question (self-discussion) to be having with yourself:
To what extent does your personal (written) and professional (written) mission overlap with your employer’s (formal and informal) mission?
( Note my addition of the word written. I find that for most people, if they don’t have a written personal and written professional mission statement, this puts them at a massive disadvantage navigating their relationship with their employer.)
Although there are times when your personal and professional missions don’t need to overlap with your employer’s mission(s) (for example, when working a part-time job in college), I believe the disconnect between career-focused employees and their employers is that the employees haven’t spent enough time considering the extent of overlap between their own personal and professional mission, let alone how these will overlap with their employer.
Bottom line: having a written personal and written professional mission statement may not make the decision about work effort level and quiet quitting easier, but it will make the decision clearer.