A colleague of mine — she owns a small business — told me a story over breakfast this week that I haven’t been able to shake. A young employee, a couple years in, just quit. No conversation, no two weeks’ notice conversation, no exit interview. He left a note on his desk and didn’t come back. When she finally got him on the phone, he was polite but firm: this just wasn’t the right business for him. That was it. No specific complaint she could fix, no single moment she could point to. Just gone.
It happened several months ago now, right before one of the most critical stretches of her business year — timing that made it sting even more. She hasn’t asked me outright, over and over, “what could I have done?” But I could tell she’s been grappling with it since, turning it over quietly, wondering if there was a sign she missed.
I’ve been thinking about that question all week, because I don’t think it’s really about her, or even about him. I think it’s about something bigger that every single owner I talk to is running into right now, whether or not it’s shown up as a note on a desk yet.
Two weeks ago I wrote about the labor quality problem — how every industry, no exceptions, is fighting over the same shrinking pool of good people. What I didn’t say enough is that finding people was never actually the hard part. Leading them is. And leading a team right now is harder than it’s been in my 30-plus years in business, for a very specific reason: you’re not leading one team anymore. You’re leading several teams that happen to share a name.
You’ve likely got Boomers and Gen X who built their careers on “show up, put in the time, earn your stripes.” You’ve got Millennials who watched that model burn out their parents and want work that means something, not just pays something. You’ve got Gen Z, like the young man at breakfast, walking in the door already asking “why” before they ask “how” — and walking right back out if they don’t get an answer that satisfies them. That’s the easy version of the problem, the one where everyone’s at least in the same building.
Now take away the building. Half your team might be remote. You might have someone two states away, someone else on a different continent, people who’ve never once stood in the same room together. You’re trying to build one culture across time zones, working styles, and life stages that have almost nothing in common — using a Slack channel and a couple of Zoom calls to do what used to happen naturally over a shared coffee pot.
Here’s what I told my colleague, and what I’d tell any of you feeling this: none of that is really a scheduling problem or a generational problem. It’s a belonging problem. People — every generation, remote or in-office — are not looking for a place to clock in anymore. They’re looking for something to belong to that’s bigger than the job description. A reason. A
“why.” Something they can point to and say, “That’s mine, I’m part of that.” When they can’t find it, they leave — sometimes loudly, sometimes with a note on a desk.
This is exactly why I’ve never bought the idea that Vision and Core Values are the soft stuff. They are, quite literally, the only tool an owner has for building belonging across a team that no longer shares a hallway, a generation, or sometimes even a time zone. A clearly written Vision — one your whole team has actually seen and can repeat back to you — is what gives a 24-year-old in another state a reason to stay through a hard quarter. A real set of Core Values, used to hire and fire, is what tells a Gen Xer and a Gen Z hire they’re on the same team even if they’ll never work the same hours.
So if you’re feeling this — if you’ve had your own version of the note on the desk, or you’re dreading it — here’s where I’d start:
- 1. Put your Vision in writing and say it out loud, often, especially to remote and newer employees.
- 2. Build belonging on purpose, not by proximity.
- 3. Have the real conversation before the note on the desk, not after.
Don’t assume it’s “obvious” or that people absorb it by osmosis. The people most likely to walk are the ones who never heard it directly from you in the first place.
If your team isn’t sharing a building anymore, you can’t count on shared physical space to create connection — you have to design it. A weekly Level 10 Meeting, done well, does this even across time zones: it’s a standing place where every person, wherever they are, sees the same priorities and knows they’re part of the same push.
Regular one-on-ones aren’t a nice-to-have anymore — they’re how you catch “this isn’t the right business for me” while there’s still time to do something about it, instead of finding out from an empty desk.
The businesses that will hold onto good people this year and next won’t be the ones with the best perks or the flashiest office. They’ll be the ones where every person — no matter their generation, their zip code, or their time zone — knows exactly what they’re part of, and why it matters.
If you’re wrestling with this on your own team, I’d genuinely like to hear about it. Reach out — this is exactly the kind of conversation worth having over coffee.