The weirdest workplace KPI is desire. You can’t put it in a dashboard, but you can feel it in your ribcage… He walked into coaching, set his notebook down, and said, “I’m being professionally ignored.”
Not “I’m frustrated.” Ignored. The word people use when they’re trying to sound objective while their pride is doing parkour.
ME: “Ignored how?”
HIM: “My leader is giving others roles in the project I want.”
ME: “The project… or the signal that comes with it?”
HIM: “What signal?”
ME: “You tell me… Trust? Visibility? Feeling chosen?”
He exhaled like I’d just heard his inner monologue. He laid it out: the project has cross-functional reach and a line of sight to senior leaders. He’d done the prep, been consistent… and still kept getting the supporting role.
He leaned back. “I just want a real shot.”
I nodded and did the thing coaches do when we’re about to be annoying: I zoomed out. Not to minimize, to find the pattern underneath. Because if the pattern is driving, details are just set dressing.
ME: “How’s your coworker?”
He blinked.
HIM: “Why are we talking about that?”
ME: “Because the way we chase ‘chosen’ tends to repeat.”
I let the silence sit. Not hostile, just uncomfortable.
HIM: “Fine. She said, ‘good morning’ and I swear she made eye contact a little too long.”
ME: “You’re collecting evidence.”
HIM: “It’s safer than asking a direct question…”
He laughed with the betrayed quality of a person realizing the joke is on them.
HIM: “Same move, different arena?”
ME: “Was that on your bingo card?”
Next, we lined it up:
-With his leader: he said he wanted the project, but he really wanted the message that comes with the role.
-With her: he liked the attention, but he kept it in the realm of maybe because maybe never asks a risk to your dignity.
And his clarity turned out to be that the “almost” stage is comfortable, it lets him feel wanted without being known. So, he traded guessing for two clean actions.
1) To his leader: “I want to contribute in a bigger way. Here’s the outcome I’d own, the plan to deliver, and what I need from you. If I’m not the right fit now, what would make me the right fit next time?”
2) About the coworker… he paused.
HIM: “If I say something and it goes weird… I still have to work here.”
ME: “Correct.”
HIM: “And if I don’t say something, I’m going to keep doing mental gymnastics.”
ME: “Also correct.”
He sat with that for a beat.
HIM: “I’m going to let it go.”
ME: “Because you don’t like her?”
HIM: “Because I do. This feels like something for therapy.”
ME: “A wise choice.”
He left with a plan that didn’t require anyone else to behave perfectly:
1. Ask for clarity at work instead of trying to earn it through silent effort.
2. Stop treating small signals like they’re a binding contract.
3. Keep his workplace a workplace, not a stage for unresolved feelings.
Where do you notice yourself collecting signals instead of making a clean ask?
