Proximity
Nobody plans to become the loud version of themselves. The quiet version just stopped working.
There is a version of every unresolved request that was, at some point, calm.
It went out weeks ago — worded carefully, no exclamation points, nobody cc'd who didn't need to be. It asked for something small and fair. It is still, technically, unanswered.
Nothing about that silence was intentional. The request simply never became urgent enough to act on — not until the version that finally got a response wasn't reasonable at all.
Leo ran a nine-person analytics team and genuinely believed in his open door. Dana, one of his senior analysts, had flagged the same reporting bug three separate times over two months — a polite Slack message, then a calm email, then a mention in her one-on-one. Each time, Leo said some version of "good catch, let's sort that soon" and then didn't.
In week nine, Dana sent one more email. Same issue, same facts, but this time marked urgent, cc'ing the department head, subject line in caps: NEEDS IMMEDIATE ATTENTION — CLIENT-FACING RISK.
Leo replied in eleven minutes. The bug was fixed by the end of the day.
Dana didn't feel relieved. She felt informed. She now knew, with total clarity, exactly what got a response on this team. It wasn't being right. It wasn't being early. It was being loud, and being seen being loud by someone above Leo.
She never went back to the quiet version again. Neither, it turned out, did anyone else on the team who'd been paying attention.
Deep Reflection
Deep Reflection 1: Urgency Is a Trained Behavior, Not a Personality Trait
People don't escalate because they're dramatic. They escalate because they already tried the calm version and watched it disappear into silence. By the time someone raises their voice, loops in the wrong person, or writes the subject line in all caps, that's usually not their first attempt. It's the fourth.
“Nobody starts with the fire alarm. They start with a text, then an email, then a fire alarm — because the alarm was the first thing that got a reply.”
Deep Reflection 2: What Gets Rewarded Gets Repeated — Including by You
Every time a calm request goes unanswered, and an escalated one gets same-day action, the lesson lands whether you meant to teach it or not. You are not rewarding urgency. You are training it, one ignored Tuesday at a time — and the people watching learn faster than you'd like.
"You are always teaching people how to get your attention. The only question is whether you're doing it on purpose."
Deep Reflection 3: The Fix Isn't Faster Responses. It's Earlier Ones.
This tracks with something well documented in decision research: we are wired to react far more strongly to threat and loss than to a slow, reasonable ask — a siren gets a nervous system's full attention in a way a memo never will. Which means if urgency is the only thing that reliably works on your team, you haven't built a responsive culture. You've built a culture that has learned to manufacture emergencies, because emergencies are the only channel you've proven you'll actually open.
"A system that only answers alarms will eventually run entirely on alarms."
Coming Soon
Keep a Lookout in This Space
Something is coming to Proximity that's built entirely around this idea — a way to practice responding on the ordinary Tuesdays, not just the loud ones. It's free, it's practical, and it's for people leaders and the HR teams supporting them.
I'm not launching it today. But when it opens, if you join within the first month, your first full year is free. Watch this space — I'll tell you the moment it's live.
The Essentials
2 Tiny Turns
Some requests don't need to be reopened. They need to be answered, finally.
If you lead people:
Think of the last request that got ignored until it got loud. Go find whoever sent you the quiet version of it. Follow up today — not because it escalated, but because it was right the first time. Tell them plainly that you should have acted sooner.
Ask enough managers the same question, and the pattern stops looking like coincidence.
If you're in HR, watching this across many teams at once:
Ask a few managers one honest question: name something an employee asked for calmly that only got approved once they threatened to leave, or escalated hard. If every manager you ask has an answer ready, that's not a coincidence. That's a system quietly trained to respond only to alarms.
A CONVERSATION WITH SWATI MUKHERJEE
Swati Mukherjee spent over a decade in HR before realizing people don't leave jobs — they leave relationships that were never built properly. Now an ICF-certified Relationship Coach and Corporate Trainer, she helps leaders build the proximity that keeps good people from quietly checking out.
A Final Note
NOTES FROM PROXIMITY -
1 FOUNDATIONAL TRUTH
"The version of you that responds before anything is urgent gets an entirely different team than the version who only shows up once the alarm is already ringing."
Until next time,
The habit becomes the relationship.