Have you noticed that when workplace performance dips, people's first reaction is to rush to explain it? What they rarely do is slow down long enough to notice how the work started to feel different first. 

And that doesn't show up in dashboards - but it does show up everywhere else.

The teams that recover fastest are the ones that say, 'Something feels off. Let's talk about that.' And that's irrespective of incentives, or even tighter processes. 

In my experience, performance doesn't fall off when people stop caring, it falls off when people stop being sure about what caring looks like anymore.

This probably stands out to me because I spend a lot of time inside teams when performance is under pressure. 

If you have any perspective on this, I'd love to hear your thoughts.