Is Meaningfulness The New Measure Of Success at Work? with Zach Mercurio Ph.D.
Zach Mercurio Ph.D. - CEO, Researcher and Author
Zach Mercurio, Ph.D. is an author, researcher, speaker, and consultant specializing in purposeful leadership, meaningful work, and positive organizational psychology. He wrote "The Invisible Leader: Transform Your Life, Work, and Organization with the Power of Authentic Purpose," which was praised by Arianna Huffington as "a compelling book filled with powerful stories, cutting-edge research, and practical tools that show us how to lead with purpose."
Have you ever experienced work with a true sense purpose and meaning? Knowing that what you’re contributing has an impact on outcomes greater than yourself?
How did that make you feel? If you’ve never experienced this, you’re not alone. Many of us struggle to find meaning in the work we do everyday, it may not be your fault.
In this conversation with Zach Mercurio we explore how meaningfulness at work can transform our lives and workplaces.
In this episode we explore how organizations who drives cultures where employees experience meaningful work can not only find profitability and success, but can positively contribute to the lives of their employees.
Zach works with hundreds of companies, governments, and schools around the world to forge purposeful leaders and cultivate positive cultures that enable more meaning, mattering, motivation, well-being, and performance.
Zach earned his Ph.D. in Organizational Learning, Performance, and Change from Colorado State University where he serves as an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Psychology's Center for Meaning and Purpose and as an Instructor in the Organizational Learning, Performance, and Change program.
This conversation will elevate your thinking around work, and powerful opportunity we have as Leaders to create a meaningful experiences for the human beings we lead.
Find Zach Mercurio’s book, research and consultancy work directly here.
For accessible access, view the podcast with closed captions below and access the full conversation transcript.
Episode Transcript:
Spk0 Alexis Zahner Spk1 Sally Clarke Spk2 Zach Mercurio Ph.D.
[00:00:09] spk_0: Have you ever experienced work with a true sense of purpose and meaning, knowing that what you're contributing has an impact on outcomes so much greater than yourself. How did that make you feel? If you've never had the experience, you're not alone. Many of us struggle to find meaning in the work that we do every day. And in today's conversation, we're going to dive into how we can find this. Welcome to. We are human leaders. I'm Alexa Zahner and together with Sally Clarke, we're in conversation with Zach Mercurio on how meaningful work can transform our workplaces. In this episode, we explore how organizations who drive cultures, where employees experience meaningful work can not only find profitability and success but can positively contribute to the lives of their employees. Zach Mauro phd is an author, researcher, speaker and consultant, specializing in purposeful leadership, meaningful work and positive organizational psychology. He wrote the book, The Invisible Leader Transform Your Life Work and organization with the power of authentic purpose, which was praised by Ariana Huffington as a compelling book, filled with powerful stories, cutting edge research and practical tools that show us how to lead with purpose. Zak works with hundreds of companies, governments and schools around the world to forge purposeful leaders and cultivate cultures that enable more meaning mattering motivation, well-being, and performance. This conversation will elevate your thinking around work and the powerful opportunity we have as leaders to create a meaningful experience for the human beings we lead. Now, let's dive in.
[00:01:54] spk_1: Welcome to the We are Human Leaders podcast, Zach. It's such a delight to have you with us. And before we delve into the incredible work that you're doing now, we'd love to start by understanding a little bit of your own personal journey and how you've come to this point in doing the work that you're doing right now.
[00:02:11] spk_2: That's a great question. And when I think about my work right now and, and really helping people to realize their own significance both in their lives and in their work and in their leadership, it really starts with seeing and feeling a lack of significance for myself. One of my first jobs was in a large advertising firm and I remember all of the meetings that I was in. All we talked about was how much money we could make, how to acquire and achieve more. And I was never asked why I was there. Meanwhile, I was in a sales role when I was out talking with human beings who are trying to start their businesses and needed our help. But we treated them as resources that we could extract from instead of human beings. And I also reflected on the toll that that took on the people that I worked with people would come in on Monday morning and they talk about what they did the last weekend or what they were doing the weekend coming up. And I was astounded at how many people around me were living for two sevens of their lives, the days that begin with the letter S and that is when during that time I was in Washington DC. And I really got interested in observing other people doing other work. And I found these really joyful people in these everyday occupations, like the cab drivers and bus drivers and people who were just joyful. And I started talking with them. And a lot of people that I encountered that experienced true joy in their work. They spent a lot more time talking about the contribution they made and a lot less talking time talking about what they do or what they get for what they do. And I became obsessed with that. So after that, I quit that first job, actually went back to work in higher education. And I was counseling students on future careers because I wanted to make sure no one ended up like me. I wanted to make sure people asked why uncovered their strengths would learned how to critically reflect and take a human centered view of themselves and others. And then those students ended up graduating going out and working in organizations. And they said, Zach, we need this here. And so I started going into organizations working with leaders. I realized you could study it and it ended up doing my doctoral work on meaningful work and mattering and purpose in work. And that's led me to where I'm at today. But it was that experience of seeing the cost and toll of not realizing your significance, not asking why on people and myself. That really led me to this work.
[00:04:44] spk_1: Thanks so much for sharing that Zach. And I'm curious just for a moment, if we can maybe just zoom in on what that cost and that toll was. What did you see was happening to people as a result of that dynamic in the workplace?
[00:04:55] spk_2: Well, I always say that when people don't feel like they matter, it's almost impossible for anything to matter. And the research that I'm doing now has really brought to life that it's hard for people to care about anything until they feel cared for. And what that resulted in was a lot of blame and a lot of people blaming a lot of experiences of shame, a lot of fear. And when people experience fear in the workplace, they try to control every variable that they can through gossip and exercising control of their life or trying to find meaning elsewhere and other things, whether it's alcohol or happy hour culture or whatever it is. I noticed that toll that those experiences of anti mattering were really resulting in screams for significance from the people around me. And I have a name for that. Now, after doing this research, that experience of antimatter, but just seeing the toll and how difficult it is for somebody to wake up every day and wish it wasn't that day. I wish it was the weekend and seeing that effect firsthand. And then, and now researching that effect is really what's set me on this path to make sure that doesn't happen for anybody.
[00:06:04] spk_0: I personally really resonate with your story there. Zak and interestingly started my young career in the marketing agency space as well and had very early in my career, I guess quite an existential crisis as to what I was doing. And, and if I was even doing anything that the world needed, and I can't help but think there's also this internal sort of misplaced idea of what success looks like. And certainly in my case, the message I'd got through university and then through my first role and I guess from society at large as well is that success was really status driven thing. And I think the industry I went into really exacerbated and reinforced that. And so as much as I think the workplace for me, reinforced all of those things that you mentioned the lack of significance and meaningful work. I also personally just had a completely internalized misunderstanding of what success should look like or could feel like I think more importantly and it sounds like that might have been your experience as well.
[00:07:02] spk_2: Absolutely. And one of the things that I noticed in higher education is exactly what you were talking about in good architecture. Right? Form follows function. The form of a building follows why it exists. We wouldn't do it backwards. Uh It's not good design, but we do it backwards with human beings all the time. We educate people in the form of their life. Here's your career, here's your job. Here's what it should look like, helping them understand their function. What are their strengths? Why are they here? What is the contribution they want to make and inevitably that existential crisis, that early one which I'm so glad you had, that's the inevitable tension that results with bad design and that tension bubbles up either in your early twenties or it bubbles up and is known as you're in the States as the midlife crisis. But really, it's when the form of your life doesn't match your function, your strengths, your purpose, the contribution that you wanna make. I will say one other thing though, I know many people in the marketing and advertising space who experience profound purpose and there was profound purpose in that job. It's just one of the things that happened is my leaders. They thought of success as a requirement, achieving as much as possible versus contributing as much as possible. They were real human beings, running real businesses with real important lives, as vivid and complex as my own that needed our services. If we had focused on that, I could probably see the purpose in what I was doing more clearly, which is another side of this, that I'm trying to help leaders to understand how to do because 60% of the workforce is actually in low wage, frontline service work and they can't choose their jobs a lot of times. And so I think that leaders need to have a skill to help people also see the purpose where they are as well as redefining success.
[00:08:46] spk_0: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think for me had that reframe occurred earlier. I wouldn't have been so disenchanted with the path that I had
[00:08:55] spk_2: and
[00:08:56] spk_0: I've seen and been able to connect to the purpose of supporting people to build their brand and build their business and that's their livelihood have been altogether different. But sometimes we need to have those experiences to take us on the journey that we're on now. And I wanna dive into this concept that you speak about in your work, Zach. And that is the power of authentic purpose. Can we just take a moment to get granular on what you mean by this term?
[00:09:19] spk_2: Yeah, there's different types of purpose. So purpose is the reason for which something is done or for which something is created for which something exists something's use or usefulness and authentic purpose is your genuine usefulness, your genuine reason for existence. And what I mean by that is it's where your unique irreplaceable gifts and strengths match up with the human needs around you. And that's why being able to uncover your uniqueness and knowing how that uniqueness makes a difference is important. There's also a researcher, his name is Corey Keyes and he actually originally coined the term authentic purpose as a purpose that's both directed and useful to others and draws on our unique strengths. He said that there are other kinds of purpose. You could have a reason for existence, that's to make a lot of money, but it's not useful to other people. And he doesn't term that authentic purpose either. So that usefulness is one ingredient of authentic purpose. It has to be useful to others. The second ingredient is that your unique strengths, drive it your unique gifts, your unique perspectives, drive it when those things come together. That's where you get a sense of authentic purpose. And
[00:10:27] spk_0: I can't help but thinking of the Japanese term Iai, which I think is the connection of purpose and usefulness. And to me, it feels like it would be a very compelling place to be in because you can both see where your contributions can fit in the world. But there's something so energizing about tapping into the things that you're good at and the things that make you feel good as well and bringing them forward in a way that you can see actually helps other human beings.
[00:10:53] spk_2: I might throw a little wrench into the conversation here. But I also think there's a difference between having purpose and being purposeful. And one of the places that my journey has taken me since I wrote the book was that, yeah, we can find a big purpose, we can state our purpose. We can know where our strengths make an impact, but just having purpose is not the same as being purposeful. I know many people that have created a wise statement that when I ask them what it is, they're like, oh, let me go to my filing cabinet and get it out or search my email, right? Or many statement that's done a purpose statement exercise and it lives at the bottom of an email signature. But yet they view their day as what they have to do. So being purposeful, what I found and what research is showing being purposeful, being contribution centered and how we think how we show up and what we do is actually almost more important than having this big purpose. I love that.
[00:11:49] spk_1: Yeah, I mean, I'm resonating so deeply with so much of what you're saying. I think this is maybe a weird observation to make. But it reminds me of I went through a burnout when I was a finance lawyer and I decided to quit and I was in a privileged position to be able to do so to have that as an option. And I kind of oddly decided to become a yoga teacher after taking some time at the first time in my life at the age of 32 to reflect on who I was and what really matters to me, what makes me come alive. And I realized that for me being a lawyer was a real comfort zone thing. It was about books and it was about the kind of having side of things. Like I know it's all very cerebral and very sort of safe. And for the first time, as a yoga teacher, I had to stand in like yoga pants and like for a bare foot in front of people and connect with them live in the moment and to bring them to a place ideally of peace and calm through the practice of yoga. For the first time, it was really being purposeful, live in my body in my work. And I'm not a yoga teacher anymore. I ran retreats for many years and I shifted into to the work that Lex and I are doing now. But that was such a profound experience for me to have to sort of step out of the comfort zone of the knowing and into the living and active side of that
[00:12:56] spk_2: purpose. And that is so important. And I think it's what's missing in a lot of the purpose work that's out there. Is the active purposefulness, right? And they're a yoga teacher or, you know, in our research with janitors and custodians and people who are cleaners. What we find is that being this of being purposeful, that has more of an impact on well-being. For an example, one of the things that we found was that people who are purposeful, they tend to have a so that mentality. So even if there was a janitor in one of our studies who is doing an Unpleased task, they could say, oh, I'm cleaning this bathroom so that these kids in this dormitory don't get sick and they had come to embody that and to be able to link how their discrete task inevitably connects with a bigger outcome. And it's that mindset that being this, I think that you're talking about standing in front of the room like being totally immersed in the interconnection of what you're doing and the people you're doing it with that is a skill that can be learned, we can learn that so that mentality and it can help you arrive at what that bigger contribution and purpose is. But I also I find that when you tell people to go find their authentic purpose, they get what some psychologists have called purpose, anxiety. Like where do I go find it? But your purpose is not really out there waiting to be found. It's usually right where you are waiting to be acknowledged, everybody listening has strength everybody listening impacts other people today. Everybody listening by the Fall has purpose. I
[00:14:15] spk_0: can't help but thinking Zach that there's an element of mindfulness in this as well, an element of just being where we are on the journey in that present moment. Acknowledgement of what feels right for us. I keep coming back to this notion of how do I wanna feel today versus what do I want to achieve today? Do you find that that's part of it as well as just helping people to not be looking, as you said, outside of themselves and perhaps 20 years down the track, but just coming back to how they want to feel and contribute and move through the world on a day to day basis. That's part
[00:14:45] spk_2: of it, right? That energy, that internal energy, but where it becomes purposeful is when that internal energy connects with some bigger contribution. So I think it's the difference between saying to yourself, hey, what do I have to do today and saying to yourself, how is what I'm going to do today going to impact other people? For example, it's like before you go into your next meeting, how am I gonna get through this meeting? How can I use my strengths to positively impact the people in this meeting? It's like saying, instead of what can I get out of this person, how can I regenerate energy into this person? And yes, the energy that we need need resides in us making sure that we know who we are, what our values are, what our strengths are and being able to take some space to reflect and name those things. It's important to be able to then give those gifts to other people.
[00:15:32] spk_1: Beautiful. And I wonder that if it's also sort of listening to you now, just I realize that I think for a lot of us, we have this sense of I have to go and do things. So for example, you said going into a meeting, I need to say what I need to say and I need to give direction. I need to really perhaps on some level prove to others that I'm smart and I'm got vision and I am innovative when actually it can be so much more powerful in terms of impact on other people to perhaps just listen and to allow other people to have space and to draw people into the conversation, to create that sort of space for other people also to shine rather than it just being about here. I am doing everything brilliantly.
[00:16:11] spk_2: Hm. That's a great point. My grandfather, he's 99 he sent me a card every year for my birthday still and he writes in it every time he writes, how do you improve the moment? And I really think that that's what this is all about. Like being purposeful, is really about like how do you improve the moment? Not take away from the moment, not extract from it for yourself, but how do you improve it? How do you regenerate it? You can improve the moment in even if in disagreeing with somebody, if you're sending an email, instead of sending an email in a tone that would extract that person's energy, you can still send that email in a way that regenerates that person's energy that shows some empathy. And I think that's the long game, right of human vitality and human flourishing is that when we all show up purposefully like that for each other in a non extracting mindset, ironically, we generate more of what we all are wanting to get from an environment or people. So I think that that's right on what
[00:17:09] spk_1: a beautiful sentiment your grandfather brings. And I love that. I think that's like a, a little mind blowing moment for me. What can I do to improve the moment? Did I repeat that
[00:17:19] spk_2: correctly? Yeah, like even if you're having a disagreement or difficult meeting, how are you within that, improving the moment? And I think that that's a purposeful perspective. That's what we mean by a purposeful mindset.
[00:17:30] spk_1: I'm curious in your work, Zach, you also speak to the concept of the kind of the delineation between knowledge and belief. And I think we've already sort of touched on this topic already, but I'd love if we can go a little deeper into what the difference is and why it matters. And particularly in leadership.
[00:17:46] spk_2: Yeah, you can know like a purpose statement and hate Mondays, right? Like, but it's almost impossible to really believe in another centered purpose and wish it was any other day. But today and what I mean by that is like, think about, let's just use an example. One of the examples I used was the NASA Apollo missions to put a person on the moon in the 19 sixties and seventies. And their mission statement was we want to put a person on the moon by the end of the decade to advance science. Now imagine if someone came in to the office on Monday morning being like, oh, it's Monday, I have to go and put a person on the moon by the end of the decade to advance science. I really need some Monday motivation or it's Wednesday hump day, only three more days left of putting a person on the moon, right? If you just read your stated mission statement and then use it in those terms, it's really you can know the difference between knowing something and believing it, right? One of the researchers who studied what NASA did during that time though was he found that they had in every NASA facility at that time, they had what was called a ladder to the moon. So for example, you could see the bigger moon mission on the top, but then every employee group could see how their tasks made a tangible measurable objective possible, how that objective made another measurable objective possible. And then ultimately, how that objective would put a person on the moon by the end of the decade. So they had something in their environment that showed it. And this is what led to the just belief that pervaded NASA during that time that led to when John F, Kennedy was going to the space center. And he said, hey, what do you do here to a group of custodians and one of the custodians just got up and just said, very nonchalantly, oh, I'm putting a person on the moon and then went back to his work, research finds that was having something in your environment that reaffirmed that this was true that what you were doing really did matter that helped to reaffirm that belief. So knowledge is knowing something you can describe it. You can tell somebody believing it is having the mental architecture that helps you say this is true. And the way we get to those truths is through our environment. For example, it's very hard to be purposeful. If you don't think about your contribution in the morning, if you don't think about your contribution in the evening, if you don't think about your contribution, whenever something stresses you out, think about, you know, contribution you wanna make before you react, those are the things that in our environment help to cultivate
[00:20:09] spk_0: belief. And I can't help but thinking that that sort of that mapping of dependencies that NASA obviously did. Like if the custodians don't, don't do their job, then the scientists here can't do their job. The engineers there can't do their job, right? Is a really critical piece of that as well. And understanding that albeit small piece of the puzzle is actually impactful and isn't just fluffy or irrelevant to the big admission. Oh,
[00:20:34] spk_2: exactly. And this is where again, a lot of organizations that are trying to do purpose work or the leaders, they go wrong because they spend all of this time wordsmithing these really aspirational big change, the world purpose statements. But then people don't experience their task in front of them as changing the world around them. And it creates a lot of dissonance. And so I always advocate for people to really make sure that people first are able to experience how they and their task matters, experience the evidence of their significance of the task and themselves, their strengths and their unique perspective daily before you apply some big purpose to them. And I love what you said about mapping dependencies. And yeah, this stuff is only fluffy or doesn't work when it's not real when people can't really see it every day.
[00:21:27] spk_0: And I think many of us have been in those positions where we feel like we're putting our all in, but we can't really see the connection between our contribution and the bigger picture. And eventually you run out of Steam. And I think authentic purpose connected to that bigger contribution or impact in the world is also what allows us to find grit when we need it. When things feel really challenging, perhaps when there is conflict or there's setbacks in project scope and we know that impact is going to in some way change the world. That to me feels like the lifeline to keep pushing when the going gets really tough as
[00:22:04] spk_2: well. And that's that bigger. So that, right, for example, if you don't have a purpose, you're just stressed out because something's stressing you out. But if you're working for NASA, during that time, you're stressed out so that you can put a person on the moon by the end of the decade to advance science, right? It's completely different, right? It matters or even on a micro level, say you're listening and you're like, well, Zach, I work for a company that I can't even see the bigger purpose or I am in a small team and I don't even like what I do think about the person next to you. I'm responding to this. Well, so that Alexis who spends a third of their waking life here can experience the day better, right? When we have that so that it pulls us forward. And that's what you talked about. Resilience Angela Duckworth in her book called Grit, her wide ranging study on resilience. She finds that purposefulness is actually one of the most powerful predictors of high grit. And why is that? It's because purpose pulls us forward where like achievements and results push us for the short term, right? A purpose exerts a pulling force. It's constantly out ahead of us. You can not accomplish anything on your to do list today, not accomplish your projects today, but every day, you can always contribute to another human being.
[00:23:14] spk_1: I think that's so important as well to acknowledge that it's not just these kind of measurable productivity metrics that we so often look to terms of what's my value today, what have I done on the to do list? But come bringing it back to what has my impact on others been? And I'm curious to hear Zach from you, whether you think that I think to some extent, we can find incredible resilience in ourselves in our individual capacity to find purpose to connect with the human beings directly around us. And really, you know, foster that sense of moving forward ourselves and my own experience of working in banks and law firms. I won't name names. But was that sort of almost I perspective of how hard I worked to try and create my own sense of purpose when I was being told that I was replaceable, that what we did was inconsequential, that there was a line of graduates waiting to take our jobs so that real active undermining. And it's almost like disconnection of individuals from the greater purpose to create, I think in some cases, sort of a sense of competitiveness against each other. Like it was quite a nasty environment. And I think us as individuals to work on purpose, but it's so important also for leaders in organizations, see the transformation that is possible, not just in individuals and teams, but for the business when we really take purpose seriously
[00:24:28] spk_2: and you're getting at something that comes before purpose, which is the experience of mattering. It's almost impossible for someone to see their contribution. If they don't feel like they're worthy of contributing, it's almost impossible for people to use their strengths. If they don't first believe they have strengths, it's almost impossible for people to share their voice. If they don't first believe that their voice is important. And this concept of mattering mattering is the belief that we're a significant part of the world around us that comes from feeling valued by people around us and knowing how we add value because people around us show us that. And what you're talking about is it seems like you had a sense of personal purpose, but you were in an environment of anti mattering an environment that did not help you to maintain the belief that you mattered. And that's why and what I hope, you know, as we move forward is that we stop this narrative of self help and individual purpose and really start moving toward a reality where I am responsible for how you see and believe that you have purpose and that's creating a culture, creating cultures around us, of mattering, making sure people around us feel noticed, affirmed and needed. Because when people don't feel like they matter, it can really erode the belief that we have purpose.
[00:25:44] spk_0: And I'd love to dive into that more, I guess, Zach on a perhaps organizational level because I think leaders and organizations understand cerebrally the importance of purpose, but perhaps not the real outcomes of that. And what exactly do organizations risk when they overlook the power of authentic purpose at work? Well,
[00:26:05] spk_2: the first thing is that organizations are individual human beings who organize. So let's just go back when you're a baby, right? And when you're born, the first thing scientists find that you do when you are born is you tilt your head upward to look for someone to value you. In fact, you seek to matter to someone else based on a survival instinct before you seek food, that survival instinct to matter to someone else never goes away and you can't run an organization with individual human beings and ignore a basic survival instinct, which is to matter. It's also a fundamental human motivation. No organism survives if it no longer contributes to its environment, right? It does not human beings are organisms and we were built to contribute, we built to regenerate the environments around us. So if you don't give people the opportunity to do that. You're neglecting a core biological, psychological need. And then the third is that across cultures, the search for meaning and coherence is a common need and desire across every culture, every socioeconomic status, every religion. And you're also ignoring a core longing that people have. And I think what has happened is that we've used this dichotomy of work and life as an excuse to overlook those primal instincts needs and desires because life happens wherever a human being is living and breathing and has a heart that's beating that includes in work. My brain doesn't just stop when I go into work. My survival instincts don't just turn off because I clock in and I think that's what's happened is we've gotten to this point where we've conveniently separated work and life. But really life happens wherever people are alive. And once we realize that once organizations realize that and realize that these are basic human needs and desires and instincts that are never going away, I think that that will help organizations and leaders see that these are the leading indicators for any performance metric, any motivation, metric, any productivity metric that's out there.
[00:28:03] spk_1: Yeah, I could not agree more. Zach, I think the number of times I've pushed back on the term work life balance because me probably like nerdy lawyer brain with the definition. But I'm like, does that mean we're dead when we're at work and we're alive yet? Like, so what is that in fair. And I think as you mentioned, you know, we bring our needs and our basic psychological needs and their minds to work. We also bring our hearts that doesn't stop feeding the moment we, you know, open the laptop or enter the office. So I think it's such a beautiful message that you've just so articulately encapsulated about what we stand to gain, what organizations even societies, I think stand to gain when we really see people in such holistic way and these deep needs that we can absolutely foster also in the workplace to everyone's benefit.
[00:28:48] spk_2: Yeah, I mean, so for example, if I were to ask, say there was a skeptical CEO listening and they were like, well, you know, I don't know people in the street to get their work done, we need to high productivity. If I were to ask a CEO, for example, what do you think the ideal human state of mind and state of being needs to be to produce? Well, they would say the same things we're talking about. They need to be motivated, they need to be energized, right? They need to be. Well, human well-being is the leading indicator of everything else we want. In an organization, you can't expect someone to perform well in an environment that extracts the energy they need to perform. Well, you can't expect people to care about something. If they don't feel cared for first, it's impossible for anything to matter. Including your strategic plans, your product launches, if someone doesn't believe that they matter first. Right. So I think that it's not that all those things are not important, all the results of the profit, those are important that enables you to survive. But every single result is mediated through a human being. You know, a good thought experiment to have is when's the last time you've been energized and at the same time, felt insignificant, it's incompatible, but yet we try to do it all the time by saying this is the fluffy stuff or this is the soft stuff and it's not, it's the stuff. It's the leading indicator. Every result we want in any organization that comprises individual human beings, which is every organization.
[00:30:16] spk_0: And I can't help but think listening to you speak about those as lead indicators, Zach that a lot of the work we do and a lot of the language we hear from organizations is really fixated on those lagging indicators, engagement, metrics, productivity metrics, profit metrics. And there's this reverse engineering of noticing when we're not achieving those things and trying to work back to find out where we've gone wrong or how we increase people's energy so that they can achieve those metrics. And we had a conversation recently with another brilliant recognition specialist from the US, Doctor Misha Anne Martin. And she said that businesses asking the question of what does the business need is the wrong place to start it's about what does the human being need and I can't help but tie that into that conversation as well.
[00:31:01] spk_2: Yeah, it's brilliant. I have nothing else to add to that because that's brilliant.
[00:31:03] spk_1: And you mentioned the word meaning and I'd love to just sort of take a moment to zoom in on that one as well. Is that because it's another term that we hear bandied about sort of in the leadership, organizational space, what meaning is and why it matters. And I hear your perspective on the potential impact, we can see of people having meaningful work and that impacts individual and team and even organizational levels. Well,
[00:31:25] spk_2: the number one predictor of motivation really for the last 40 years is the psychological state of meaningfulness. Meaningfulness is the belief and the experience that I am, what I'm doing is positive, purposeful and significant and worthwhile and meaningful work is one of the most powerful predictors of engagement. It's one of the most powerful predictors again, of motivation. It's one of the most powerful predictors of job satisfaction. And it's one of those leading in now, it's important to know about meaningfulness. And I use the term meaningfulness because it's different than meaning. Meaning is the sense we make of something meaningfulness is when that sense is positive and purposeful and significant meaninglessness is when that sense we make of work or something is negative, doesn't have significance for us. So I think that's an important little nuance there. And meaningfulness that experiencing what I'm doing is positive, purposeful and significant is important in that. Again, it's almost impossible to have energy for something we don't believe matters. And we go back to what Alexis was mentioning, which is the leading indicators. Meaningfulness is a leading indicator. And I would rather organizations, OK. Stop, I don't want to say this but I will say it stop measuring engagement. Yes,
[00:32:40] spk_0: yes. Engagement
[00:32:41] spk_2: is a lagging indicator. Engagement is a lagging indicator. Meaningfulness is one of the most powerful leading indicators. But how do you get a pulse on meaningfulness? Your leaders, your supervisors have to be able to be able to ask questions of, when do you feel like you matter in your work? When do you feel like you don't matter here? Where is it difficult for you to see how your work makes a contribution? Where are you not able to use your strengths? And then they have to have the skills to respond in an interpersonal way. We found that very few organizational level interventions give people meaningfulness, interpersonal relationships, reveal meaningfulness. So it has to be a skill building process amongst anybody who supervises or works with anybody in an organization. It can't be just applied to people, but it's incredibly powerful. And it is again, the strongest predictor of motivation is psychological meaningfulness
[00:33:31] spk_0: and what a beautiful opportunity we have as leaders to take that opportunity on and look at how we can create connection and create meaning for the people that we have the privilege to have on our team every day. And I'd love to hear from you, Zach. This is a challenge as a leader and this I feel can perhaps feel like a, a big onus to take on. And I'd love for you if you could help us help the leaders listening. How do they create a healthier, more purposeful work and culture for their teams? What is just perhaps one thing or the most logical place for them to start to start doing this in their
[00:34:05] spk_2: work? And I think the most logical place to start is with yourself. So if you don't experience meaningfulness in your work, don't expect someone else to experience meaningfulness in their work. I see a lot of that, a couple of ways we can do that one develop a more purposeful mindset. Uh Think about that. So that perspective, where are you missing that? So that where in your job, do you not feel connected to your impact? Who do you need to talk to? And how do you need to think about your work differently to be able to see how your work inevitably affects other people? And I think that's the first thing I'd have to throw that mentality, ask yourself better questions instead of what do I have to do today? How is what I'm gonna do today? Gonna impact other people? Try writing that down every day? For the next seven days in the morning, you'll start to shift your perspective. Instead of at the end of the day, what went wrong today? What am I have to fix tomorrow? Who did I help today? Who helped me today? Right. These are cognitive skills that enable leaders to be purposeful. So do some of those things yourself. First, the second is commit to showing people how they matter. Uh There are three behaviors you could commit to. The first is noticing people, there's a big difference between knowing people and noticing them. You can know your best friend but not notice that they're suffering. Noticing people is the deliberate act of checking in with people. Here's one thing you can do ask better questions instead of asking, how are you ask, what is your attention right now? What kind of day have you had so far? What's something you're struggling with? Those things can be really powerful? So noticing the second is affirming and I don't mean just recognition, I mean, showing people how their unique strengths make unique difference, telling people stories of how their work makes a difference on a real human being instead of saying thank you or good job making sure you're naming people's unique strengths and telling them the story of how their strengths made a unique difference. Right? Often times we just say thank you or good job or give awards out. But those things are really not useful unless we're specific to the individual, it's individualized. So noticing affirming and the last one is showing people how they're needed. Sally mentioned that she was told she was replaceable. When people feel replaceable, they will act replaceable. When people feel irreplaceable, they act irreplaceable. So create your ladder to the moon show people how they're indispensable. Use these five words if it wasn't for you, I mean, if leaders just use it to these three tools, practices on a daily basis and it does take practice, it also takes a lot of courage because it's not the norm of how leadership is done. So if you have the courage to care in this way, you'll see that, especially when you say those five words, if it wasn't for you, and you see what happens to the person on the other end of the email or in front of you, you'll see that there's really few things more powerful than the moment a human being realizes that they matter,
[00:36:44] spk_1: incredibly powerful words, Zach, you just out like some really practical tips and I can almost feel viscerally that sense of if it wasn't for you, right straight into the heart. And I think that immediately meets on such a deep level that psychological need that we have to feel seen and heard and noticed as you alluded to, we could keep talking to you for hours. If not days, this has been such an insight pact and beautiful conversation. Thank you. So much for your time. It's been a delight to have you with us and we are human leaders. Yeah.
[00:37:12] spk_2: Thank you. I enjoyed the conversation.
[00:37:21] spk_0: Thank you for being with us for this conversation with Zach Mercurio of we are human leaders. Zak's incredible book, The Invisible Leader Transform Your Life, work and organization with the power of authentic purpose is available at all good bookstores and we encourage you to check out our show notes for direct links to Zach and his work. How has your perspective changed on the role that work can play after listening to this conversation, connect with us via social media and share your thoughts with us there. I'm Alexa Sana and we'll see you next time on. We are human leaders.