Your Team Doesn't Lack Commitment. They Feel Invisible.

No.

Your collaborators don't lack commitment. They lack feeling seen.

And that truth is uncomfortable. Because it’s much easier to think your team is apathetic, lazy, or complacent than to accept that maybe they faded due to your indifference.

Yes. Due to your indifference.

The Exam

Imagine this.

You’re 8 years old. You’re in second grade. And you just got a 4.5 on your math test.

Your teacher tells you to take it home and come back with your parents' signature.

You leave school with a knot in your stomach. You’re thinking about the scolding. The punishment. The disappointment.

You get home. Your parents aren’t there. You spend the whole afternoon with the exam right there. Pacing. No desire to play. No peace. Just waiting.

At night, your mom arrives. She’s busy making dinner. You approach her and say:

“Mom, will you sign my test?”

Without looking at you, she sends you to your dad.

So you go to him. He’s lying on the couch. Watching football. Tired. Distracted. Distant.

“Dad, will you sign this test?”

First he brushes you off. Then, when you insist, he says: “Alright, hand me a pen.”

You go closer. You give him the pen. You give him the test. Your heart races. You stand there. Waiting for the scolding. Waiting for a question. Waiting for someone to at least look at you.

And then it happens.

Your dad signs the test without taking his eyes off the television. He doesn’t even realize you failed!

That’s Not Relief

How do you feel? It seems like relief. But it’s not.

Because yes, you escaped the scolding. But you got something worse: indifference.

And indifference hits incredibly hard. It doesn't yell. It doesn't punish. It doesn't make a scene. But it leaves you feeling something devastating:

“Not even this mattered. Not my problem. Not me.”

The Same Happens in Teams

That same thing happens in many teams. In Sales. In Customer Service.

People feel invisible. So they stop making suggestions. They stop paying attention to details. They stop putting their heart into it.

The leader concludes: “they lack commitment.”

But no. It's not that they lack commitment. It's that they’ve been feeling invisible for too long. And people don’t commit to places where they feel they don’t matter.

That’s why I've been pursuing a very simple idea for over 15 years: #noindifference

Because serving a team also means seeing them. Listening to them. Correcting them. Recognizing them. Making them feel like they matter.

What to Do About This

If you want more commitment in your team, start with something much more basic: make people feel seen.

Not with a quarterly award. With something daily: a specific question, a real correction, a comment that shows you truly noticed what they did.