More people than ever feel they are invisible and ignored, especially in their workplaces. To stop people from staying silent and isolating themselves, leaders must create a culture of significance where everyone is genuinely valued and cared for. Darrin Tulley sits down with Zach Mercurio, a researcher, leadership development facilitator, and speaker specializing in purposeful leadership, mattering, and meaningful work. Together, they discuss what it takes to address the worsening loneliness epidemic through the powerful practices of noticing, affirming, and needing. Zach talks about going beyond money to get rid of transactional approaches in favor of transformational leadership. Learn how to “improve the moment” in your next interaction to make everyone around you feel seen, valued, and needed.
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How To Create A Culture Of Significance With Zach Mercurio
Our guest is Zach Mercurio. He is a researcher, leadership development facilitator and speaker specializing in purposeful leadership, mattering and meaningful work. He is the author of The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance. Zach advises leaders and organizations worldwide on practices for building cultures that promote wellbeing, motivation and performance.
He holds a PhD in Organizational Learning, Performance and Change from Colorado State University, where he serves as a senior fellow at the Center for Meaning and Purpose and as an instructor in the Organizational Learning, Performance, and Change program. Sit back and enjoy this breakthrough conversation about the power of mattering and how to start practicing now.
Zach, great to see you again. Welcome back to the show. How are you doing?
I’m doing well. It is good to see you again, Darrin. Happy to be back. Thanks for inviting me.
Why People Feel Invisible, Lonely, And Ignored
It’s exciting. I got to tell you. I have so many questions for you, but let’s start here. What have you been up to the last couple of years?
I wrote a new book called The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance. In my first book, when I was here, we were talking about purpose. One of the things that we had discovered since that book is that many people wanted to have a purpose in their contribution but they just didn’t feel worthy of contributing. Many people were struggling with seeing their strengths, their gifts and believing that they make a difference. What we had found in our research was that those interactions where others show us our worth and significance were so important to whether someone develops a sense of purpose or not to whether someone thrives or not.
There’s a name for that which is experiencing mattering, experiencing that you’re significant to the people around you. You’ve been here for the last five years. That sense of that, we’re seeing, heard, valued and needed has been eroding pretty steadily over the years and so, we were working on how we codify and name the essential skills we need to have and rebuild with one another to make sure that the people around us do feel valued and know exactly how they add value.
That sounds like some beautiful and necessary work that you are in the midst of, researching and putting out to the world. I’d love to focus our conversation a bit around this. I would love the readers to take part in this to figure out where they are and what they could start to do from here to have an impact with this work.
We need it. More people than ever feel that they’re in a room full of people and they feel completely invisible. I don’t know if anybody reading has ever gone to a meeting where they knew people but nobody knew what their perspective was. Nobody asked for their opinion. Nobody named their strength. Nobody reminded them that they were needed. How many of you all have gone into relationships with people that you see all the time, but they know nothing about you? They know nothing about what you’re struggling with on a day-to-day basis.
That feeling is the feeling of not mattering. Usually, what happens is we withdraw. We isolate ourselves. We stay silent when we don’t feel that we matter or we act out in desperation. We act out in toxic ways trying to get the attention that we’re not getting. Many people are feeling that feeling of being in a room. Maybe with friends and having no one notice you.
They feel so empty. You talk about this as almost like a pandemic.
It is pretty widespread. Workhuman did a study in 2024 that was very revealing. It was surprising even to them. They found that 30% of people self-reported felt “invisible” or flat-out ignored in work. In fact, everybody talks about engagement. Gallup released their latest engagement finding. No surprise. It’s low. It’s been low for many years, but it’s the lowest it’s been in a decade. This was a little bit surprising because we’ve invested more in the employee experience in the last decade than ever, billions of dollars in DEI programs, wellbeing programs, billions of dollars in perks, more benefits than ever, and more programs in organizations meant to improve the employee experience. Over 100 validated surveys to measure engagement.
People are more connected than ever. We send about 30 to 40 text-based messages to peers a day. We’re on more platforms than ever. There’s 38 million people on Slack and we’re lonelier and more disengaged than ever. What’s going on? There’s one data point that was striking in the Gallup report that no one’s talking about as much, but this was the lowest this has ever been. Thirty-nine percent of people said that they could strongly agree that someone at work cared for them as a person.
You can’t solve that in a program or a perk or an initiative or pay increase. You can only solve that through a better interaction. This is an interactional level problem. This is good news in the hope of this show because I know it’s possible to live your possible. What’s possible is we can do something about this in our next interaction but it takes us all taking captive of those interactions, learning the skills, relearning the skills to show up in those interactions in ways that help people feel that they matter and then scaling those interactions in the communities and organizations that we work with.
It’s daunting. As far as the stats, however, as you’re saying it’s very hopeful and it’s possible based on the impacts we can make and what we’re going to talk about in more depth. I also think about stats related to pre-COVID to now where people feel like they’re being cared for at work. We’re back in the like 20% range. We got up to like close to 49% when COVID hit when we all cared for each other a little bit differently. I don’t know why we’ve gotten back to this place that you’re describing.
There’s a couple of reasons. There’s a couple of things that are getting in the way. One is that we’re losing the skills to see, hear and value each other. I think it was about in 1993, in December, we sent our first text message as a species and since, one of the things that we’ve been doing. Which is great as we’ve used digital technology to be more efficient with one another. We’ve been communicating efficiently but there’s this phenomenon in psychology called Social Skill Decay. It’s basically what it says.
If you don’t use a skill like active listening, within two weeks, you can start losing it. Let’s think about what’s happened, though. If you give me some bad news, I can now go on one of my platforms or send you a text message with a sad face emoji and say, “I’m sorry to hear that,” and I’ve done my moral duty. It may make you feel good but what I lose out on is sitting with you, seeking understanding, showing compassion and actively listening.
Think about this. Every time, over the last 25 years, I’ve been able to get out of that social situation. That is a social rep of using the skills that I have lost. What’s happened is we have a collective social skill decay. There are probably people leading teams. There’s probably people reading this that have not had to show compassion to another human being in real time in the last few years because of our interconnectivity. What does that mean in an age when we need these skills more than ever? We need to upskill.
It’s obvious to see, hear and value, listen to one another and hear people’s voices. The other thing that’s getting in our way is our attention is frack more than ever. Gloria Mark, an American psychologist many years ago, did some studies. She found that our average time span of paying attention to one thing or even a person without getting distracted was about two and a half minutes. It’s not bad. Think about that, but now it’s about 47 seconds. It’s more competing for our attention than ever.
We’ve just called these things soft for 50 years. When we see something as soft, we approach it with lesser rigor. Here we are. Lower quality interactions are happening. We haven’t robustly invested in relearning and scaling the skills to have better interactions. Organizations especially don’t expect leaders to exhibit these skills on a wide scale basis and they promote people who are high performers that treat people poorly and here we are.
It’s interesting. I was at a restaurant and there were two people at the table. They were both on their phones. They’re not looking at each other. They’re both staring at their phones.
I’ve noticed. I was at a coffee shop in an airport and I saw these two people because I observed people. There were three people around the table and it looked like friends traveling with each other. They were on their phones and they all collectively realized they were on their phones. They put their phones down and they still didn’t talk. I had that thought again, and there’s a lot of social psychologists who say we need to put away our phones.
Putting away our phones is not going to solve our disconnection. What we do when we put down our phones will. If we just tell everybody to put down their phones but we don’t reskill them to see, hear and become interested in one another again. People don’t make the choice to do that. That’s not going to heal this connection. It’s just going to be disconnected while looking at each other. I always say this. This is important, social contact is not social connection.
Social contact is not the same as social connection. One of the things we’ve gotten wrong about loneliness is we think loneliness is the outcome of not having people around you but it’s not. The research is very clear. It’s not the quantity of interactions that matters. It’s the quality. What makes a quality interaction? Feeling that someone’s paying attention to you, listens to you or someone needs you. The opposite of loneliness is not having more people around you. It’s a feeling that you matter to the people around you.
What Is The Feeling Of Mattering
I love how you say it’s not about being alone. You don’t feel like you matter in that group when you’re with them, as you’ve described very well. Being in that moment too where you’re awkwardly staring at each other like, “What are we going to talk about?”
Related to my story, I remember all this came about because I put my phone down and I paid attention differently to my daughter and found this one-eyed smile. That’s the logo of this show that you know about. It’s funny because I had to make an intentional change. I had to stop doing what I was doing. Put my phone down and just slow down to recognize what was right in front of me.
I’m curious. What is mattering? I’m getting a sense but how do you define it?
Mattering is being on the recipient of your attention. Mattering is feeling that you’re significant to the people around you. Psychologists find it comes from two things, feeling valued and knowing how you add value. Mattering is the experience of having the fundamental need to matter met. It is also a survival instinct. One of the first things we do when we’re born is we look for someone to care for us. We have to be important to someone to survive. Think about that.
Everybody here had to matter to someone to survive. That survival instinct as all instincts do, turns into the psychological need to feel seen, heard, valued and needed by those around us. When we experience it, that’s called mattering. The experience of mattering. It’s different from belonging in a group and being included in a group. Belonging is feeling part of. Mattering is important too.
Inclusion is being able to take an active role in. Mattering is feeling significant while you’re doing it. What’s interesting is that matters happen in interpersonal interactions. You can’t feel important to another person because they made a training program on how to be important to other people. You can only feel important to another person because that person shows you that you’re important to them.
Inclusion is being able to take an active role. Mattering is feeling significant while you are doing it. Share on X
What part does listening have in this whole equation?
There’s a general mattering scale. The number one item in the scale is a validated scale to measure the experience of mattering. It’s five items. The first item is a strongly agree-disagree scale. People pay attention to me and listen to somebody. Inviting out their voice. Deeply listening. Looking for the meaning behind the words. They are two parts of a message, the word someone says and how they say it, what they mean when they’re saying it. That is an elementary form of mattering.
William James is an American psychologist. He has this quote that depicts this well. He says, “There is no fiendish punishment that could be devised than someone set loose in society and remaining absolutely unnoticed.” To be heard and to be listened to is to be noticed. When we share our voice, we’re sharing part of ourselves. When somebody doesn’t hear that voice, we become unheard.
Difference Between Being Heard And Being Listened To
All the elements of being unseen, unheard and unnoticed. I love the word notice because you got to pause. It takes time. It takes a moment to recognize what’s there and what’s not. Back up. Before we go there, because we are paying attention. You talked about how distracted we are. How do we optimize those 47 seconds so we don’t lose sight or go somewhere else or jump on our phone. Also, I’m listening and am I hearing? I’m sure there are other differences there, too. Is there a difference between like you’ve been heard or you’ve been listening to this type of thing?
There was an oncology nurse who helped people through their most difficult life circumstances. We interviewed him for our research on mattering. He described it this way. He was on the front line. He had seen the total schedules were taking on his nursing team. He noticed some things that they could do differently to improve patient care. He would go into these meetings with his supervisors who were doing these listening tours called Listening Tours and he shared these ideas.
They would listen. They would do all the things. They would nod. He said they would reflect back what he was saying but he said, “I knew they were all listening but I knew none of them cared. It was like I was in a room yelling and no one was listening.” You can be listened to physically and not feel heard. This is a very important distinction. I always know when one of my friends goes to an active listening training because they always come back and they’re like, “What I heard you say was.” I’m like, “You got it.”
We can have all the physical techniques of listening to somebody and that person could still feel unheard. Here’s an example. Let’s say someone comes after a meeting and you say, “How did the meeting go?” They would say, “It was okay.” You can probably move on with your conversation but say someone comes out of his meeting and you say, “How did the meeting go?” They say, “It was okay.” The same objective message with two different meanings.
The person who helps someone feel heard will say, “I notice you may be frustrated. Is that right?” All of a sudden, the person says, “There’s this going on.” “Can you tell me more about that? Let’s dig into that.” That’s the difference. If you had just gone on with your day, that person’s voice becomes unheard. There’s a sociologist named Nick Couldry. He defines a voice as your innermost lived experience. It’s not the words that you say. Through the experience of living in that meeting. That remains silent. That’s the difference between being listened to and feeling heard.
That’s helpful. You’ve seen these stats too, 93% of what we hear is unspoken. As a leader or just as another human being for that matter, it’s like paying attention to the whole conversation of what is there. Noticing what’s behind that tone. Your tone was both very different and intriguing. Tell me more.
A lot of people that I talk to or a lot of leaders that I coach let those things go because they don’t know what to do. It’s an ability to skill problem. It’s not an intention problem. Most people would want to dig into that frustration but a lot of people don’t know how to do that. Even that technique that I just mentioned, is it the right technique? Is this right checking for understanding? Not letting something slip away is a technique that you have to learn. I learned it so I can do it. If someone’s frustrated, I can say, “I noticed you’re frustrated in that conversation. Is that right?” It’s not saying, “Were you frustrated?”
It’s owning that you observed it. There’s a big difference there too. I could say, “Were you frustrated in that meeting?” If I have a power differential over you, do you think you’d say, “It was very frustrating.” If I say, “I noticed you were frustrated. Is that right?” It’s different because it gives the power back to you. Even in that, is that right, that is a technique. It is a skill that has to be learned and practiced. It’s a hard skill. Those are the types of skills we need to relearn to address this mattering deficit because the reason why we call it noticing is because in our interviews, people were not describing feelings known.
They weren’t describing deep relationships. They were just describing that a leader or someone in their life noticed little nuances or details of their lives and then offered actions to show them what they were thinking about. You can know your best friend but not notice that they’re suffering. You can know your team members very well but not notice that one of them is feeling left out of discussions or they’re a little less energized on a project. It’s that noticeable, as you mentioned. That deliberate practice, that way of being, that discipline of showing up in the world and seeing these details and paying attention to them. In our example of listening for total meaning that is so critical for us as a species to relearn.
It goes beyond the head nods as I’m nodding my head saying, “I’m on the same page with you.” It’s a sense of being there was someone genuinely caring and listening through to see what’s there with that human being. What are they here for? What are they showing up at? Some of the work we do at Be Generative includes Generative Listening and you’re going to be on that show soon.
You will have a wonderful conversation in this space just around trying to get people to understand what’s behind their ideas or thinking. It’s asking that question. It’s having that level of inquiry to open up a space for a conversation. That’s where possibilities exist. In the absence of asking the question, you won’t be able to listen to what’s truly there and to see what this person’s made of. Maybe getting to their actual identity for why they exist and maybe why they matter for them.
The Power Of Asking The Right Questions
Another part of noticing is asking good questions. If you go around and just listen to the questions that are asked in everyday conversations. We ask some pretty bad questions nowadays because I don’t think we know how to interact.
Give us a couple of good ones.
How is it going? How was your day? How was work going? How is the meeting? Are you going to get that done by Friday? What’s the status of that? A supervisor will start a meeting, “How’s everybody doing?” Good.” Can you imagine if you weren’t good? Would you be like, “Not me,” or “I hope everybody’s doing well or let’s go around and do updates.” These are not questions. They’re greetings. They open up conversation. They’re important like how is it going? That’s a good greeting.
What I’ve noticed in my work is that leaders who notice people go beyond the greetings and they ask questions people can answer. One of the things that we found in our interviewees is that there tend to be three characteristics of a good question. When people feel that someone’s interested in them and that they can share their experience. They ask one of three types of questions. One, it’s either a clear question and not a vague question.
A vague question is, how was your day? A clear question is, what has your attention most this morning? The reason why it’s clear is because there’s an object, your attention and a time frame, this morning. What have you been working on before we got on the call is a clear question. A vague question is, how’s it going? They have to be clear. The second is they should be open and not closed. Did you like the show? That’s a closed question. Is your day going well? Are you having a good day? That’s a closed question. We’re not going to get anything. An open question is, what’s the most insightful thing you’ll take action on from that show?
The third, though, and this is a sneaky one. This is a life lesson for me having an eleven year old who plays sports. We tend to ask too many evaluative questions and not enough exploratory questions, especially in work. A lot of people talk about this as being core to feeling that they don’t matter. An exploratory question is one in which we’re seeking the experience of someone else. An evaluative question is one in which we’re judging the quality of someone’s response.
Anytime we ask an evaluative question, someone will give us a self-protective answer. For example, I remember I did this. My kid comes over from soccer practice and I say, “Did you hustle?” Do you think he’s going to be like, “No, dad. I did not hustle.” “Let’s talk about it.” No. He’s just going to say, “Yes,” and move on with his day. That’s an evaluative question. There’s no way he’s ever going to be like, “Not at all.”
It’s like when we asked somebody, “Are you going to get the project done by next Friday?” You’re the supervisor and you’re going to be like, “Not a chance.” You’re going to give something. “Sure, I’ll get it done.” Meanwhile, you’re freaking out inside because of all these things that are getting in the way. Exploratory questions are ones like this. Instead of me asking my kid, “Did you hustle?” I could say, “What’s an effort you’re proud of from practice? What’s an improvement that you notice?”
If you’re a supervisor and you need someone to get something done for you, say, “What are some roadblocks you’re coming up against getting that project done by Friday? Can I help remove any?” It’s drastically different because what you do is you give the power back to the person. You get the same information but you get better data on the person’s experience. Asking better questions is a skill.
We could practice that while we’re in dialogue. For anybody reading, just explore. How are your words being presented? What’s your intention to get out of that? That’s a healthy thing for us to experience ourselves. Try now.
One of the things I asked a group of people I was working with, they are a group of managers. I said, “Tell me what you think your direct report’s response would be if they saw your name on their phone out of the blue now.” I was like, “Tell me. What do you think?” Someone in the audience was like, “Honestly, terror.” This is how most of us would feel, especially if our leaders called us out of the blue. That’s not normal. That is not acceptable in any human relationship.
It doesn’t mean you’re a bad leader, but what it means is in a leadership context is that probably too many or interactions are transactional. You’re asking people for things. You’re asking for things from people. You’re asking people to solve a problem to do something for you and they’re not transformational. You’re not asking them how they’re doing or their experience. I would argue that especially in the workplace but also in family life and community life. Too many of our interactions are transactional. What can you do for me? What do I need from you? Not how you are and what it is like to be you.
Too many of our interactions are transactional. We often ask “What can you do for me?” instead of “What is it like to be you?” Share on X
Those are excellent and generative points. It opens up the space for true dialogue that you could dive into. You could experience it together. You can notice. To your point, I noticed what you’re saying there. Tell me more. This is very interesting and what a way to open up a conversation. It opens up people’s minds, their hearts, and what’s got them animated inside.
I’m an introvert, so this does not come easily to me. I learned from others. I was on a networking call with somebody. I didn’t know them and I never knew how to start those calls. He got on and asked me, “What were you working on five minutes before this call?” It was hilarious because I was trying to cover my shades because during that day there’s this glare that comes in. It shines right on me at the specific time of year and I literally told him that.
We got into this big discussion about working from home and home offices. It was so much better of a connection in the meeting than if he had been like, “Tell me where you’re zooming from.” The basic things we learned. I thought it was a brilliant question because it was so clear I could answer it. Especially as an introvert. I didn’t have to think hard. I know what I was doing five minutes ago.
The Magic Of Having Someone Remember You
Exactly. I love the point you made about even asking, “What’s got your attention or what’s got your attention this afternoon?” That’s a wonderful one. Let’s just say you’re a leader with your folks, your team to learn if people are distracted or the things going on in the world. How much coaching or how much exploring can you do? It’s almost like you could only speak into what their listening that’s available until you understand where people are coming from.
I would say that to go one step further is when you do ask these questions, write down what they say. Write it down. You asked about how we relearn and how to pay attention. There’s one practice that consistently has helped us pay attention. It’s called noting. Note down what you observed and then make sure that you look at that regularly and check in with the person on what you observed. There’s so many times we just let conversations go.
For example, one thing you could do is think of a conversation you have. Everybody can think of one. Think of something that either stayed with you that you wanted to follow up on or that didn’t seem quite right. Something you notice about and whatever time it is for you. Call that person and just say, “I was thinking about you in the conversation you had. I noticed that maybe you were a little bit nervous about that meeting you had. How did that go?” Watch what happens. It’s magical when somebody feels that they’re remembered by you.
What does that look like?
When we see it, when we talk to people about what this feels like or when somebody out of the blue thinks about you and you’re not there and then gives you that action. To say, “I remembered you. I was thinking about you.” It’s like someone sees me. It’s like I’m seen. One interviewee told us, “To be seen is to be real.”
It almost helps you feel that you’re like a real person that’s out there. Having some process if you want to be a better notice or to observe, ask better questions, generative listening is such an important step to observing. Note down what you see and then share back what you observe. That loop. Observing, noting and sharing is powerful.
Addressing The Heavy Burden Of Burnout
It shows that they’ve been heard, to your point. They’re validating their existence. You’re validating what matters to them. I’m going to throw one at you from a couple years ago. We had talked about a hospital in Florida, Henry Regional because we’re talking about power and purpose and how it went to the level of belonging and then matter. We were talking about it even then. I’m curious. Did you ever have a conversation with them? How did it go?
I never got connected with them after that but I wanted to. Have you been connected with them? How are they doing?
We stayed very well connected. They continued to win awards. Now they’re being invited to the big hospital table, if you will, because they were at the regional hospital level. They were basically like, “They’re doing these programs where they’re being proactive. They’re focusing on the people instead of their patients.” Even though they’re focusing on your people, having them bring solutions to the table and have them be listened to and heard. Everything you’re saying turned the hospital around so the patients were safer in that whole environment.
Even this one woman said after like six months of this work with the CEO their meeting. He had said, “Let’s just share what we’re grateful for.” She basically said, “I’m grateful for enjoying my job again because he has let me show up the way I want to show up and contribute in meaningful ways.” It’s so powerful.
It’s important in a context like that because people can have a job that matters and not experience mattering in their job. A lot of people think that burnout comes from doing too much but it comes from doing too much and feeling insignificant while you’re doing it. Having no one to notice. Having no one recognize you and no one see your effort. We’ve been doing the same amount of work in healthcare and in education for many years. Workload has always been high in these fields and struggle has always been high.
Burnout comes from doing too much and feeling insignificant while doing it. Share on X
What’s increasingly happening is that more people are struggling alone. Social support has always been one of the key mitigators at burnout. I’m not surprised to hear that a hospital that is prioritizing the human experience through ensuring people see how their work is meaningful, how they don’t forget that purpose every day, and how they can feel loved while doing a job that they love. I can see how that’s moving the needle.
The burnout rates and turnover rates were 50% plus when it started and they’re down in the single digits. It’s unbelievable people want to work there just because the fact that they matter here. They’ll take less pay because they’re showing that they matter. It’s beautiful. I love it. They’re such a great story. I shared your book with them and you’re thinking about it with them. You had an impact with them too. Collectively, it’s giving them the strength, the fortitude to say, “This soft stuff is real.”
More entities like health care and education where burnout susceptibility is very high are leaning into this work. The people who love their jobs need to feel loved in their job. We can’t keep expecting people to care if they don’t feel cared for. For too long, we’ve expected people to care without doing the rigorous work to ensure they feel cared for. That’s why we don’t think we’re in a disengagement crisis, a burnout epidemic or a loneliness epidemic. At its core, it’s a mattering deficit. At its core, people feel more insignificant than ever, which is manifesting these symptoms but it’s very hopeful to hear a case like that.
Three Major Practices In Creating A Culture Of Matter
You say all these elements and it’s everywhere to your point. Anyway, I’d like to get to how we get leaders to be thinking about this. I know you have some approaches. You talked about it in the book about noticing. You’ve already talked about it a little bit about noticing, affirming and needing. Can you talk about that a little bit then we could dive in a little bit more into the workplace and help leaders get going on this.
There’s three major practices that create a culture of matter and noticing people. We’ve talked about some of those. That’s true seeing people, observing, noting and sharing and truly hearing people. That generative listening. Looking for the meaning behind the words and knowing how to do that but then we have to affirm people. Affirmation is showing people how they’re uniqueness makes a unique difference.
A lot of organizations I’ve worked with have recognition programs, appreciation programs, platforms, and peer kudos awards. Those things are great but they are symbols of value. You could have a symbol of value like a perk program or award, but someone could still come into work and feel overlooked by their supervisor. They feel that no one checks in on them. Feeling that no one shows them the difference they make. It’s important to recognize that a symbol of value can’t make up for the daily experience of feeling unvalued.
That’s where affirmation comes in. Recognition is, I see what you did. Appreciation is, I value your presence. I value who you are but affirmation says, I see how only you could have done it. Affirmation is showing someone how they’re uniqueness makes a unique difference. There’s two sides of affirmation. One is revealing people’s unique gifts. Making sure we can name those. The second is showing them the difference that they made. I like to say this. Affirmation is about showing proof of impact. There was a National Park Service supervisor who was hired. Before he was hired, these couple national parks out in the West had high turnover and low morale. It’s a tough position.
It was a maintenance position to recruit for and he took over. In about a couple years, the turnover went down. The morale was soaring. The people were telling their friends about these jobs and I asked him what he did. He had a very small practice but he would take his camera around and take pictures of projects his team worked on every week. If his team repaired a bridge, he would take a picture of it. If they repaired a bathroom and opened it and there was a shorter line for the bathrooms. He would take a picture.
If there were people using a trail that was reopened, he would take a picture. He just sent this email on Fridays and it just said, “Look what you did in the subject line,” then he attached the 40 or 50 pictures. He said he would go through it in the brake cubicles. People would be scrolling through the pictures and be like, “Look what I did.” “Look what I did.” “Look what you did.” It created this culture of looking at what we did. That’s affirmation. It’s showing somebody the proof of their impact. It also means going beyond, thank you or good job and showing people exactly how they make a unique difference in the organization.
I have some leaders at my push back and say, “They’re doing their job. That’s what they’re supposed to do.” They’re thinking on a whole different level.
Some people say to me, “Zach, should I just thank people for doing their job?” Of course, you should. They are spending one third of their one-way waking life away from the people that love them and loaning their time, energy and skills to you. If you’re thanking them for that, you should think about that. Some people say to me, “Zach, that’s what the money’s for.” This is also important. Money is compensation. It’s called compensation for a reason. The word compensate means to make up for. All money does is make up for their lost time and their skills that they’re loaning to you. That’s all money does.
It just puts you on an even playing field. You’re making up for what they’ve lost by giving their time to you. Money can’t value another person because it’s an inanimate object. An award can’t value another person. It’s an inanimate object. Only people can value people. If you want your people to feel valued, there has to be an interaction in which people show them how their unique gifts make a unique difference. It has to be consistent and it has to be authentic. Leaders have to be skilled at doing it.
The authentic part is so important.
I don’t want anybody to just go start saying, “I listen to this show. Now, I’m going to give you meaningful gratitude.” You have to think in your own style and how, where, and when you are thanking people or praising people, how you can go a step further and name their gifts in your way, and show them the difference that they make. Oftentimes, some people reading may have not grown up and I mean grown up, socialized in an environment that does this.
Work might be just work. You just get your work done. You may not feel like doing this. It’s important that you can’t feel your way into acting but you can act your way into feeling. What I mean by that is start doing this. Do this once. Name someone’s gift. Say, “I just want to let you know. I noticed your work and I noticed the difference that it made. I want to show you that.” Try that and see how it makes you feel as a leader. You will see the difference.
Zach, I love the language. It’s different in the sense that it feels that if I’m receiving that, I’m like, “You saw that? You noticed me?” It’s almost like I want to hit you in the arm. You have to appreciate it.
It’s like, “I’m seen,” but we have to be specific. Also, instead of just saying good job. Name the gifts the person used. People generally give us four gifts, their purpose and the unique impact they make. What’s missed when they’re gone? When someone’s not at a meeting, do you tell them what you missed? Instead of, “We could have used you at that meeting.” Do you say, “I wrote some things down. I need your perspective on it?” That’s much different from their perspective.
People bring us their perspective, how only they see the work in the world. “I got this email. This problem came in and I immediately thought I needed your perspective.” That’s much different. Third, their strength, what they love to do and what they are good at. “One of your colleagues is struggling with this. I thought about how you’re always so good at that. Would you mind helping them out?” Fourth, everybody brings us wisdom that only they can teach us. “I know you had a pastoral in which you went through something similar to this. Would you mind teaching the team how we can overcome this?”
Everybody brings us wisdom that only they can teach us. Share on X
That’s putting it to work, too. You’re not just saying it. You’re saying, “ I trust you so much that I want you to share it with the team or I want you to share it with me or teach this group of folks.” That’s a key part back to listening and being heard to. As we’re asking these questions, we’re opening amazing doors. Don’t shut them. Make sure we’re wide open.
That’s how the noticing piece links onto the affirming piece. That’s why being a good listener, seeing and hearing people helps you identify those gifts so then you can name them. I had a coach who once told me he noticed something in me I did not notice in myself. He said to me, “Zach, you can’t read the label when you’re inside the jar.” I loved that because it shows us the power that we have and reflecting back and illuminating something in someone that they don’t know that they have.
That is the role of an awesome relationship with one another to illuminate in others that they can’t see in themselves. The best leaders that I’ve observed or that I’ve had people talk about, they consistently specifically name why that person adds value and how that person adds value. They don’t just tell people that they matter. They show them exactly how they matter.
That feels nice, especially if I’m hearing that from you, Zach or any other leader. That makes an impact. You said something about needing, too. It almost gets to a third layer to this.
This is the quintessential element that we have to feel needed. As human beings, we’re at our best when we’re relied on. We’re at our best. We’re at our mentally best and physically optimized. There’s been studies on this one. We are called to spring into action to help someone who’s in need. It doesn’t matter how much sleep we’ve gotten, whether we’ve eaten breakfast. Your body is optimized. We’re built to be interdependent and to be needed. The most powerful five words you could say to somebody is if it wasn’t for you.
We’ve heard this in our interviews. We asked people, “When do you most feel that you matter to a leader?” What do they say? It’s some version of, “There was a problem and they needed me.” Someone told me, “If it wasn’t for you they reminded me of what my absence might mean. They reminded me of how I’m needed.” Guess what? When people feel replaceable, they act irreplaceable. They show up. They commit. When we know that we’re needed, we act that way. Too many people feel like a cog in someone else’s machine.
How Leaders Can Make People Feel They Matter
How can leaders start to put this to work? How do they put it together?
One, I think that gathering data first on how people feel that they matter in your teams or organizations is critical. One of the questions that every leader should ask their people is when you feel that you matter to me, what am I doing? If they don’t say anything, that’s a big red flag, or when you feel that you matter here, what are we doing? Write those things down and start exploring. That question will give you better data than any engagement survey or culture survey. Think about those behaviors.
The second is to look for skill gaps in yourself and others. One of the things I recommend people do is doing a self-assessment on the frequency at which you’re noticing people, affirming them and showing them how they’re needed on a weekly basis. You’ll very quickly realize that you may know that your people matter to you, but the actions that you’re taking to show them do not often match up to your intention.
The John Templeton Foundation did a study. They found that about 90% of respondents in this survey on gratitude could name someone they were grateful for. Less than 20% said they told them in the last week. This often happens with leaders. We have these intentions but we don’t have these practices. We should be self-assessing these things. We should be telling all of our team members that this is what you can expect here. You should expect to feel noticed, affirmed and needed and here’s how. Those people should be evaluating their leaders on it.
You should be having a leadership development program that introduces these skills and evaluates these skills. The only people who enact these skills, the only people who have teams that feel that they matter get promoted. High performance becomes redefined. It’s not just achieving results. It becomes achieving results while treating people with dignity, respect, kindness and compassion. That is high performance. That’s where you start moving this flywheel that we start treating leadership as an occupation. We try treating these things as hard skills that can be scaled.
You’re backing it up. You’re walking the talk. As far as that, we believe in this so much. We’re going to promote. We’re going to expand. We’re going to have a great opportunity for folks that are doing this well, to your point. I love that. We have to do that.
You should be approaching this with as much rigor as you approach rolling out a new product strategy. We have to approach this with as much rigor and evaluation and quality control as any financial change in the organization. I firmly believe that leadership is a separate occupation that requires a separate set of occupational standards, has a separate set of occupational hazards, and requires a minimum qualification.
I do believe the minimum qualification for a leader has to be to demonstrate care for your people. If people don’t know how to do that, they’re not qualified for the occupation of leadership. Organizations need to bring leadership out of the intuitive that will just hire the right people or this person was technically great at their jobs so they should now lead a project team. To make sure that leadership is treated as a separate occupation with a separate set of standards in the organization, we’re providing that support for leaders. A lot of bad leaders are good people who were untrained for leadership positions.
A lot of bad leaders are good people who were untrained for leadership positions. Share on X
I believe you get what you allow and you get what you demonstrate. Once you put it out there and you follow through with it, you’re going to get an abundance of that. Which path do we want to take as a leader? That’s a question. I would suggest read Zach’s book. Maybe bring Zach in and do some approaching. What would you suggest?
One of the things you can do next is just focus on your next interaction and ask someone exploratory curiosity-based questions instead of an evaluative question. The next person you’re going to interact with, remember something you wanted to remember about that and tell them, “I recognize this. I saw this. I saw you in this or I was thinking about you.” Also, think of that person you’re grateful for and think about the last time you told them then tell them. Tell them why you’re grateful for them and the impact that they make.
What Living Your Possible Means To Zach
That’s beautiful. Zach, I love our conversations. One last question for you is, would you mind defining what life your possible means to you and how mattering relates or correlates into what you’re thinking?
My grandfather is 102 and he always wrote me this card for my birthday. In this card he wrote this one little saying every time, “How do you improve the moment?” I think live your possible is regenerating energy in the moments you have instead of extracting them with people. How are you improving the moment that you’re in? That is the question we can ask ourselves every day.
Again, beautiful, Zach. I appreciate you joining the show. I love the work you’re doing. I love you. I hope to see you out in the world. I wish I saw you over in Utah with our friends at O.C. Tanner. You did a great job there. Sorry to miss you there but thanks again for joining us.
Thanks, Darrin.
Important Links
- Zach Mercurio
- Zach Mercurio on LinkedIn
- Zach Mercurio on Instagram
- The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance
- Workhuman
- Gallup
- Be Generative
- John Templeton Foundation
- 3 Ways to Make Sure High Performers Feel Valued
- Zach Mercurio on LinkedIn
About Zach Mercurio
Zach Mercurio, Ph.D. is a researcher, leadership development facilitator, and speaker specializing in purposeful leadership, mattering, meaningful work, and positive organizational psychology. He is the author of The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance, and previously, The Invisible Leader: Transform Your Life, Work, and Organization with the Power of Authentic Purpose.
Zach advises leaders in organizations worldwide on practices for building cultures that promote well-being, motivation, and performance, with clients including the U.S. Army, USA Wrestling, Delta Airlines, J.P. Morgan Chase, Marriott International, and The National Park Service. He also serves as one of author Simon Sinek’s “Optimist Instructors.”
Zach earned his Ph.D. in Organizational Learning, Performance, and Change from Colorado State University where he serves as a Senior Fellow in the Department of Psychology’s Center for Meaning and Purpose and as an Instructor in the Organizational Learning, Performance, and Change program. His research on meaningful work has been awarded by The Association for Talent Development, The Academy of Management, and The Academy of Human Resource Development.
