Revive Stagnant Employees: Leadership Tactics That Actually Work
“How Do I Fix an Employee Who’s Stopped Trying?” (Spoiler: You Don’t.)
Picture this: You’re staring at Sarah’s quarterly review. Six months ago, she was your go-to for debugging existential crises in the codebase. Now? She’s mailing it in like a DMV clerk on a Friday. You’ve tried the “carrot” (a vague promise of promotion), the “stick” (awkwardly referencing “performance expectations”), and even the “carrot-stick smoothie” (free LinkedIn Learning access). Nothing.
Let’s cut through the managerial folklore. Stagnation isn’t a personality defect—it’s a systems failure. And fixing it requires less “fixing” and more gardening.
Myth vs. Fact: The Stagnation Standoff
Myth 1: “They’re just lazy/bored/checked out.”
Fact: Stagnation is usually a symptom, not the disease. A 2023 Gallup study found that 67% of disengaged employees cite unclear growth paths as the root cause [1]. If your mentorship resembles a 1990s corporate training video (“Here’s a PDF about teamwork!”), you’re part of the problem.
Myth 2: “A promotion will solve this.”
Fact: Throwing titles at burnout is like giving a drowning man a snorkel. Growth ≠ climbing. Sometimes it’s lateral, sometimes it’s depth. I once spent a sprint planning meeting debating the word “sprint” with a PM who insisted it evoked “marathon vibes.” Priorities, people.
The Step-by-Step Guide to Un-Sticking Stuckness
Step 1: Diagnose the Soil (Not the Plant)
Ask: What’s rotting in their environment?
Tactical move: Schedule a “What’s Not Working” 1:1. Frame it as process feedback, not personal critique. Example: “If our team were a Netflix show, what’s the plot hole?”
Watch for: Complaints about “blockers” (clues!) vs. nihilistic shrugs (bigger clues).
Step 2: Prune the Nonsense
Eliminate friction points ruthlessly.
Tactical move: Audit their workload. Are they stuck in “maintenance mode” (fixing legacy bugs, attending 17 recurring meetings)? One engineering manager freed up 30% of a stagnant employee’s time by killing redundant standups. Output tripled in two weeks [2].
Step 3: Water the Roots (Mentorship ≠ Monologues)
Tactical move: Assign a “reverse mentor”—pair them with a junior employee to teach a skill. Forces ownership, and refreshes perspective.
Script: “I need your help upskilling Sam in API design. You’re the Yoda here.” (Note: Do not actually call them Yoda.)
Step 4: Fertilize With Tiny Risks
Stagnation thrives in risk-averse soil.
Tactical move: Delegate a “stretch project” with a 70% success threshold. Example: “Lead the migration to the new CMS. If it explodes, I’ll handle the fallout.”
Step 5: Repot (When All Else Fails)
Sometimes the soil is toxic.
Tactical move: Propose a team swap. A stagnant marketer thrived after shifting to product—turns out, she hated writing emails but loved UX analytics.
From Stuck to Unstoppable
Before: Sarah’s commits dried up. Her Slack replies? “👍.”
After: You axed her 4 PM daily sync, assigned her to mentor a new dev, and handed her an experimental feature build. Suddenly, she’s proposing wild ideas (“What if we gamified error logs?”).
Resources for the Weary Gardener
For mentorship: The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier (No TED-talk fluff. Just seven questions.)
For pruning: “The Meeting Calorie Counter” (A brutal spreadsheet to audit time-sucks)
For repotting: Range by David Epstein (Why generalists thrive, and how to spot transferable skills)
Final Advice from a Manager Who’s Watered Plastic Plants
Stagnation isn’t failure—it’s a cry for oxygen. Your job isn’t to “fix” people. It’s to till the soil, pull the weeds, and occasionally yell “GROW, WHY DON’T YOU, GROW” at the sun.
Now go water your plants.
References
[1] Gallup, 2023, State of the Global Workplace
[2] Internal case study, software engineering team, anonymized