Disengagement is what gets the job done in a poor environment

Nobody with integrity will stay engaged in corporations

The more I understood the corporate environment, the less I wanted to be part of it. Disengaging wasn’t just a choice, it was necessary for me to function, produce, and perform. That’s why I don’t see disengagement as a bad thing.

Disengagement is a coping mechanism - forced on employees by the organization - allowing them to function in a poor work environment. If companies aren’t willing to fix the conditions that drive disengagement, they should stop pretending engagement is the goal.

Nobody with integrity will stay engaged or as I like to call it motivated in corporations (I hate the term employee engagement as it doesn’t exist but let’s go with it for this article).

Organizations are filled with practices that challenge one’ integrity, forcing employees to protect themselves to survive. When they first join, they’re excited, engaged, and eager to learn, ready to give their best in exchange for growth. But soon, they encounter baffling policies, pointless restrictions and rules, and a culture that resists change. They see favoritism, unfairness, inefficiencies, broken HR processes, poor leadership, mediocrity being rewarded, low performers coasting, and leaders more focused on preserving the status quo than driving progress. The bring ideas to address these but their ideas are rejected.

So, they look for another job, hoping things will be better.

Over the next five or so years, they move from one job to another, searching for a place where their integrity can remain intact and where they can meaningfully contribute but that place is nowhere to be found. Eventually, they are labeled an “unreliable job-hopper,” with fewer and fewer chances of securing a new job and finding that ideal workplace. Enthusiasm slowly fades, reality sets in, and they realize they must spend the next 40 years in this kind of environment. To survive, they do the only thing they can - they disengage.

Disengagement is a coping mechanism for people stuck in an environment or circumstance they don’t enjoy but, temporarily or permanently, have no choice but to stay in. It helps them keep going, get the job done, and maintain performance at work. Of course, their performance won’t match that of someone who is happy to be there, but it’s good enough to avoid getting fired.

Employees keep themselves motivated by disengaging - motivated enough to get the job done.

When companies create an environment that leads to disengagement, employees take matters into their own hands, finding ways to stay motivated by disconnecting from the nonsense they can’t tolerate. Even in these conditions, it’s the employees who demonstrate a higher level of maturity—not the leadership teams that try to "fix" employees while ignoring the broken system.

So maybe companies shouldn’t be fighting against disengagement unless they are willing to fix the environment. That’s the only way to address disengagement - by creating an environment that people enjoy being in and that motivates them. That’s all there is to it.

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