---
title: Want employees to tune out? Ignore them | The People Plan
description: Want employees to tune out? Ignore them by Diana Southall | Jul 7, 2015 | culture, job fit | 0 comments Perhaps you are you frustrated by a poor performer,
---

[Blog](https://www.atlasalign.com/blog)

# [Want employees to tune out? Ignore them | The People Plan](https://www.atlasalign.com/blog/want-employees-to-tune-out-ignore-them)

 Written by [Diana Southall](https://www.atlasalign.com/blog/author/diana-southall) | Jul 7, 2015, 4:00:00 AM

Perhaps you are you *frustrated by a poor performer*, *so you avoid her* as much as possible (you don’t want to be mean.)

Or you are getting tired of *mentioning the same instructions to the new employee*, so you have stopped giving him guidance at all.

Or you are “too busy” putting out fires and responding to urgent requests, so *you have little contact with your staff* other than the hallway.

After all, your *employees should know their jobs* and should know the company’s goals, so why do you have to keep reminding them?

> ** *Ignoring your team members is actually 20x worse than being a critical boss!***

In fact, a recent study of employees found that of ***employees who feel ignored by their direct manager only 2% reported being engaged with their job***, compared to 45% of employees who report their boss focused on their weaknesses, and 65% of those with a positive focused manager.

**Almost half of these “invisible” team members reported to be “actively disengaged”** – meaning that they consciously perform lower – versus 1% of those with positive managers.

Seriously, *if you are not coaching your team then they are like a boat without a captain*—sailing towards the horizon with no particular place to go. (I just watched Pirates of the Caribbean again- what a fun study in leadership!)

**To be effective, team members need to be**

- *clear on the [ultimate purpose](http://people-plan.com/are-your-employees-aligned-to-achieve-organizations-goals-some-signs-this-is-lacking/)* of their task, jobs and organization,
- given regular [*assistance prioritizing*](http://people-plan.com/employees-get-their-purpose-with-cascading-goals/)their efforts,
- *performance [improving feedb](http://people-plan.com/total-rewards-9-feedback/)[ack](http://people-plan.com/total-rewards-9-feedback/)* and training, and
- [*recognition*](http://people-plan.com/quick-recognition-template/)when they get it right or step up.

> *Still worried about coming off as mean or critical*?

The data is pretty clear—even the negative manager has about half his team pulling in the right direction. This is a huge improvement from 45% pulling in the wrong direction when they are ignored!

So definitely work on your own development to be a *positive focused manager*, but don’t be afraid to start talking to your team. (See our [video training](http://people-plan.com/shop/resources/30-day-training/)for a simple system to do just that.)

{Graph from Zenger Folkman “Extraordinary Leader” webinar series}

[View full post](https://www.atlasalign.com/blog/want-employees-to-tune-out-ignore-them)

```json
{
  "@context" : "http://schema.org",
  "@type" : "BlogPosting",
  "author" : {
    "@type" : "Person",
    "name" : "Diana Southall"
  },
  "dateModified" : "2022-10-01T18:29:43.455Z",
  "datePublished" : "2015-07-07T04:00:00Z",
  "headline" : "Want employees to tune out? Ignore them",
  "image" : {
    "@type" : "ImageObject",
    "height" : 60,
    "url" : "/hs/hsstatic/content_shared_assets/static-1.4092/img/default-amp-logo.png",
    "width" : 60
  },
  "mainEntityOfPage" : "https://www.atlasalign.com/blog/want-employees-to-tune-out-ignore-them",
  "publisher" : {
    "@type" : "Organization",
    "logo" : {
      "@type" : "ImageObject",
      "height" : 60,
      "url" : "/hs/hsstatic/content_shared_assets/static-1.4092/img/default-amp-logo.png",
      "width" : 60
    },
    "name" : "Blog"
  }
}
```