In April 2021, a former factory worker named Luo Huazhong posted an essay on a Chinese forum. The title was "Lying Flat Is Justice." He'd left his job in 2016, cycled from Sichuan to Tibet, and lived on odd jobs and about $60 a month. According to the Wikipedia summary of the movement, the post spread across Weibo and Douban, censors pulled discussion groups, and by May the state news agency Xinhua was reposting an editorial calling lying flat shameful.
Fifteen months later, a young engineer in New York posted a TikTok. NPR traced the viral video to a July 2022 post by @zaidleppelin. The idea: you're not quitting your job. You're quitting the idea of going above and beyond. The hashtag exploded.
Two countries. Two political systems. Two languages. One shrug.
Bosses on both sides of the Pacific read it the same way. Lazy kids. No work ethic. Nobody wants to work any more.
I think they read it wrong. And I think the person who explained why best was Zach Mercurio.
What Zach Said on Our Podcast
Debra and I had Zach on Corey-osity Unleashed to talk about his book, The Power of Mattering. Near the end I asked him about the warning signs. How does a leader spot people pulling away before the resignation letter lands?
His first answer was withdrawal. Silence. Withholding information. And then quiet quitting.
He pointed out the TikTok idea went viral "at the same time the lying flat movement in China went viral where people were taking pictures of themselves laying down on their bed to renounce a society..." A society, in his words, which "didn't care about them."
Then he said the line I keep chewing on: "When we feel... we don't matter, we withdraw in any relationship."
Not "when we're lazy." Not "when we're spoiled." When we feel we don't matter.
I'm not sure about this part: Zach described the two trends as going viral at the same time. By the dates I checked, Luo's essay came out in April 2021 and the TikTok in July 2022, so about fifteen months apart. Close enough to feel simultaneous on the internet. I couldn't find a study linking the two directly, so treat the connection as Zach's reading and mine, not a research finding.
Withdrawal Is a Signal, Not a Character Flaw
Here's the part I wish every manager would tape to their monitor.
Withdrawal is the oldest human response to being ignored. You stop talking to the friend who never asks about you. You stop bringing ideas to the meeting where nobody writes them down. You stop staying late for the boss who never notices you stayed late.
Nobody sends a memo. They simply do less. Then less again.
Zach went further. He said turnover is "a nicely branded name" for the same response... leaving the relationship because you feel insignificant in it. Quiet quitting is the same exit, minus the paperwork.
Lying flat is the same exit at the scale of a whole society. Luo didn't leave one bad boss. He left the deal. Work hard, compete hard, buy the flat, get married, have the child, and somewhere in there you'll feel like you count. A lot of young people in China looked at the deal and decided the last part wasn't coming.
A lot of young people in the West looked at their own version and decided the same thing.
The Numbers Back Him Up
Gallup's January 2025 report on U.S. engagement found only 31% of employees engaged in 2024, the lowest level in a decade and a match for 2014.
The number I care about sits further down the page. Only 39% of employees strongly agree someone at work cares about them as a person. In March 2020, the figure was 47%.
Eight points in under five years. On the one question about being seen as a human.
Zach put this on the podcast too. Over a billion dollars poured into engagement services as an industry, plus wellbeing programs, perks, kudos platforms and recognition schemes... and engagement still sank. I'm not sure about this part: I couldn't find a source for the billion-dollar figure, so I'm repeating it as Zach's claim, not a verified number.
His explanation for why the spending missed: "Only people value people." A confetti emoji on a platform is an object. Objects don't value anyone.
William James Saw This in 1890
Zach quoted William James on the episode, and I went and found the original. In The Principles of Psychology, James wrote the most fiendish punishment he'd dream up would be for a person to:
"...be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof."
Read it again with your team in mind.
Some of the people on your Teams call this morning feel exactly like this. Present. Visible on screen. Unnoticed.
James thought the punishment would drive people to rage or despair. Zach's research says the reaction splits two ways. Some people withdraw. Others act out... complaining, blaming, gossiping, the behaviours we slap a "toxic" label on. He called those behaviours "the language of the unheard and unseen."
So the quiet quitter and the office troublemaker sit on the same coin. Both are telling you something. One whispers it. One shouts it.
Where I've Seen This Up Close
On the episode I said something I believe more each year. Burnout isn't always about working hard. People who see the purpose and the impact of what they do work long hours and come back for more. And you burn out in eight hours a day if you never see the value of what you do. In other words, you don't matter.
I also told Zach about the part of running teams I miss most... the one-to-ones. Sitting down with someone and finding out what they're aiming for. Their job title says X today. In two years they want Y, or management, or something nobody else on the team knows about.
You won't find any of it out unless you ask. Regularly.
And here's the thing I still don't understand. When I told the managers who reported to me to hold regular one-to-ones, a lot of them didn't want to. Not "couldn't find the time." Didn't want to. I was mystified then and I'm mystified now.
Those micro-moments cost nothing. Thirty minutes. A question. Remembering the answer next week. Zach's survey of thousands of people across 22 industries kept landing on the same answer: people feel they matter through small interactions. A supervisor remembering their name. Someone naming a strength they didn't know they had. Not perks. Not programs. Not awards.
My own research with Debra keeps pointing to the same place. 99.5% of the people we surveyed told us they'd had one or more types of bad boss. Almost none of those bosses woke up meaning to make someone feel invisible. They were busy. They were transactional. They asked "what's the status?" far more often than "how are you doing?"
I wrote about the boss side of quiet quitting in Nobody Quietly Quits a Good Boss. This post is about the person on the other side of the desk, and what they're telling you.
The Question Worth Asking
Zach gave one practical step on the episode, and it's the simplest management tool I've heard in years. Ask each person on your team:
"When you feel you matter to me, what am I doing?"
Write down what they say. Do more of it.
He told a story about a journalist who asked her 13-year-old daughter this question. The daughter said she felt she mattered most on the drive to school, when they sat quiet together and listened to her favourite songs. The mother had always seen the school run as a chore standing between her and the office. For her daughter, it was everything.
I love this story because the answer would never show up in an engagement survey. No checkbox for "the drive to school." You only find out by asking one person, face to face.
What Your Quiet Quitters Are Telling You
If someone on your team has gone quiet, don't reach for the "lazy" label first. Don't reach for a performance plan either. Reach for the calendar.
Here's what I'd do this week:
- Look at your last ten conversations with each direct report. Count how many were about what they owe you, and how many were about them as a person.
- Book the one-to-one you keep cancelling. And keep it.
- Ask Zach's question. Out loud. Then write down the answer.
- Name one specific strength you've seen in each person this month. Not "great job." Something only they bring.
Lying flat was a whole generation telling a country it felt invisible. Quiet quitting was a whole generation telling its bosses the same thing.
Your team is telling you something right now. Are you close enough to hear it?