How do you create more significance in your work? In this episode of Happier at Work, host Aoife O'Brien welcomes Zach Mercurio, a renowned expert in organisational purpose, meaningful work, and leadership. Zach shares his deep insights on how to find purpose and meaning in the workplace and create a work environment that brings out the best in everyone.

Zach's passion for values-driven leadership shines through as he highlights the importance of optimising interactions and equipping leaders to create meaningfulness, safety, availability, and support. He encourages us to shift our focus from short-term solutions like signing bonuses to the leading indicators that truly drive employee engagement and retention.

During the conversation, Zach unveils his personal journey, transitioning from working in higher education to becoming a sought-after speaker, consultant, and researcher in the field of meaningful work. His work at the Center for Meaning and Purpose at Colorado State University enabled him to study the essence of finding purpose and significance in both work and life.

The key points:

• The difference between purpose and meaningfulness
• Recognising our own significance 
• Taking responsibility for fulfilling our unique purpose
• Creating a culture of care that fosters growth, engagement, and success
• Recognizing and affirming the unique contributions of each individual
• Fostering an environment where everyone feels valued, seen, and heard

Intrigued? Don't miss out on this enlightening episode! Tune in to Happier at Work today and discover how unleashing purpose and meaning can lead to greater happiness and fulfilment in your work life.

Previous episodes:

Previous episodes:

174: The Role of Emotions in Workplace Dynamics with Dr Lola Gershfeld

https://happieratwork.ie/174-the-role-of-emotions-in-workplace-dynamics-with-dr-lola-gershfeld/ 

136: Excel in your zone of genius with Ian Hatton

https://happieratwork.ie/136-excel-in-your-zone-of-genius-with-ian-hatton/ 

Thank you for being part of our vibrant community, and as always, please feel free to share your thoughts, questions, or suggestions for future episodes. We love hearing from you!

Connect with Zach

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachmercurio 

Twitter https://twitter.com/zachmercurio 

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/zachmercurio 

YouTube  https://www.youtube.com/@zachmercurio 

Do you have any feedback or thoughts on this discussion? If so, please connect with Aoife via the links below and let her know. Aoife would love to hear from you!

Connect with Happier at Work host Aoife O’Brien:

Website: https://happieratwork.ie 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aoifemobrien/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HappierAtWorkHQ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happieratwork.ie/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/happieratwork.ie

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm0FKS19I5qSlFFmkx1YGqA

Zach, you're so welcome to the Happier at Work podcast, and I've been dying to have you on the podcast for ages. I'm a huge fan of everything that you put out on LinkedIn, especially, and how you challenge things, how you sort of challenge our thinking and invite us, let's say, to think about things in a slightly different way. Do you want to introduce yourself to listeners a little bit about how you got to where you are today and what you're doing?

Thanks, SIFA. Thanks for having me. I really see my purpose as to helping people realize their own significance, the significance that they inherently have as people, as leaders. Because when we realize that significance, that's when we can take responsibility for it. And I suppose that all started for me when I was growing up. I was the youngest of three brothers, and when you're the youngest, you get really good at entertaining yourself and comparing yourself. So I was always searching to measure up. I was sort of brought up to search for significance.

And that led me into some really interesting places and a lot of wrong places. The first job out of university, I was in an advertising position, and I had all the outward indicators of success. I was making decent money at the time. I had status. I was in advertising in Washington, DC. But I felt empty and unfulfilled. And I noticed the people around me would come into the office on a Monday and they'd talk about what they were doing the next weekend. And I was really astonished at how normal it was for people to live for two sevenths of their lives.

The weekend the days that begin with the letter S. And that's when I became more obsessed with how people were working than what the work actually was. And that led me actually to leave that first job. And I went back to work in higher education to make sure no one ended up like me. I wanted people to ask the why questions first. We often tell young people to develop the form of their life before they understand their function in life. And like good architecture, if function follows form, there's inevitably going to be a design flaw. Yeah, that's what we see with human beings, and that's what I experienced.

And then as I was in higher ed, some of the students I was working with would go out into private industry and companies and then say, hey, Zach, we need this. We need more purpose and meaning here. And I would start moonlighting, speaking and consulting and studying what's happening in companies. And then eight years after I got my master's and was working, I got my PhD in this. And that's really why I'm here right now. I do research in a place called the center for Meaning and Purpose at Colorado State University. We study meaningful work and life, but then the rest of my time is I'm out with organizations helping to turn creating meaningfulness into common hard practices in our organizations. But really, it goes back to that five year old self right of helping other people to see their own significance now first, so that they can contribute and experience joy.

I love how you describe it as significance because I don't think I've heard anyone else using that term. We talk about purpose and we talk about meaning, but I've never heard anyone describe it as your significance as a unique individual. And I hope people listening today will really take a step back and consider that that you are significant, you are here for a reason, et cetera, et cetera, and then taking that responsibility. So once you realize that you are significant, then you need to take responsibility for fulfilling whatever that is, whatever that means to you. Can we come back to this idea of purpose and meaning and maybe take them separately? But I'd love to get your thoughts on how to define them.

Yeah. Purpose is really defined as the reason for which something exists, something's use or usefulness. It's our contribution. It's where our unique strengths make a unique impact on those around us. I don't think purpose is somewhere out there waiting to be found. Usually it's right where we are, waiting to be acknowledged. Everybody listening has strengths. Everybody listening interacts with another human being today, therefore, everybody listening has purpose by default.

I think what's key is helping people see the purpose they have through helping people to be purposeful. There's a big difference between having purpose and being purposeful. You can have a big purpose statement, know your contribution, but not see how you're contributing every day.

Yeah.

And so that's what purpose is. Meaning is the sense we make of the world around us and what we're doing. When we experience something as meaningful, we're experiencing it as positive as purposeful and significant. When we experience something as meaningless, we experience it as potentially futile or not significant to us or other people. And I'll throw in another word here, because you mentioned it at the beginning, and that is mattering. Because to experience either purpose, our contribution, or positive meaning, we have to first believe that we matter. We have to first see the evidence of our significance to others in our environment, to reaffirm our self belief that we're significant. And that's why yeah, it's up to us to see our significance, but it's also up to our community to reflect our significance back to us, which I believe is the ultimate role of leadership, is to reflect people's significance back to them.

Yeah. I mean, there's so much there that I want to start to unpack. And this idea of the environment and the importance of that environment. And for me, from the research that I did and from the experiences that I've had at work, I've seen firsthand the importance of that environment. And if you don't get that reflected back is that that you're in the wrong environment. For me, it means you're in the wrong environment and you need to go and find somewhere else where that will be reflected back, where your strengths are recognized and that you can thrive. Any thoughts on that kind of the impact of the environment and how people are experiencing work at the moment?

Feelings of insignificant results in two behaviors acts of withdrawal or acts of desperation. Acts of withdrawal are things like quiet quitting. Everybody used the term quiet quitting, right? People doing the bare minimum just to get by. Quiet quitting was the inevitable withdrawal response to having our instinct to matter not met. Just like if our instinct to eat is not met, our body shuts down. The same is true psychologically when our instinct to matter is not met or isolating or withdrawing, or the terminal withdrawal response, leaving an organization. Organizations call that turnover, but that's really a withdrawal response to feeling insignificant.

Yeah.

The ultimate one. Or acts of desperation. These can be louder. Complaining, blaming, gossip, for example. The number one predictor of gossip is called psychological contract violation. It's when the violation of my fair treatment, our agreement of fair treatment between you as my supervisor and me has been violated. So I can't speak up to you, so I speak out to other people.

Okay. Yeah.

Grasp to be heard. Right. But here's what happens. A lot of leaders say, oh, that person's a difficult employee versus I've created a difficult environment.

Yes.

We often try to take a disease model approach to individuals like that person. There's something wrong with that person versus there's something wrong with our environment. And your environment is usually complicit in every behavior you say you don't want. It's not that there's individual characteristics of an individual that they might need to work on to improve on how they're communicating or showing up, but our environment is always complicit in the behaviors we see. And I think great leaders really understand that. And they take what's called an ecological view of employee behavior, which is that before they say, oh, what's wrong with that employee? They ask, how is our environment creating that behavior?

Yeah. I love that there's so many different avenues I go down now. It's a bit like, whoa. The first thing I'd love to share is that a recent episode I recorded, which is from Initial Outlook, completely unrelated, we were talking about emotions at work and attachment theory. I'm not sure if you're familiar with attachment theory.

Of course.

Yeah. So this idea of feeling insignificant and the resulting withdrawal or desperation were exactly the kind of themes that we covered in that. I just find it so interesting, the parallels, because we're talking essentially about the same thing, but from a completely separate angle, if you like.

Right. Almost all mental health issues in the workplace and beyond are the result of unmet needs.

Yeah.

And one of the core needs is that need for attachment. But the attachment theory is really the need for mattering in disguise.

Yeah.

Right from the moment we are born.

We tilt our head I'm important we.

Tilt our head upward to gaze up at a caretaker. That's actually the first instinct we have as babies, because if we didn't matter to someone else, none of us would be listening or participating in this podcast right now. We have to procure care from somebody to survive at some point in our lives. And just like, eating, like I said, that instinct for care doesn't go away. That's why I always laugh when people say this kind of touchy feely or it's just work, or people don't need to be cared for. Caring for people is really about as touchy feely as feeding someone who's hungry. And it's so critical that we see it that way, that it's not nice to have. I mean, it's not something that's negotiable.

Just like, nourishing, someone through food isn't negotiable for survival. And I think leaders who are really doing this well embrace that, and they embrace the responsibility that they create the ecosystem that provides that or cannot provide that.

Yeah, it's so interesting. And again, there's kind of spin offs from that, but I'm thinking that and again, just thinking of another episode that we spoke about, and this is the victim mentality, where, well, I'm not receiving that from my leader, so therefore I'm not providing that for my team, when actually, as an individual, you need to take responsibility. And I'm guilty of doing that as well. That I'm like, well, I'm not getting that from my leader, from my management. So why am I going to give that to my team? That's just how things are done here. Any thoughts on that? Because it's hard to break that culture when the culture is a little bit like that. What can we do as individuals to change it? Or do we end up withdrawing or do we end up leaving? Ultimately?

Yeah. Something that should be, like, both sobering and empowering is that great leadership actually resides in everyday interactions. What I've observed in my work and research is that leadership is actually all about optimizing interactions. You may have, like, a boss. Say, we were both on a team right now, and you had a boss and I had a boss. No, that boss is not here in this interaction. That boss is not controlling. Whether I make you feel like you matter, whether I notice you, whether I affirm you, whether I show you that you're needed, whether I help you see the purpose in your work.

Right. So one of the things I encourage people to do is take your interactions captive, because that's what you have direct control over is your interpersonal interactions with each other. And actually, that's where your legacy is. Know, Simon Sinek has a quote, and he says, be the leader you wish you had.

Yeah.

And I like that because it gets at this idea that we have much more control over our interactions than we think.

Yeah.

And culture ultimately is generated it's not prescribed from above. Generated through daily interactions. The other thing I would say is you may say to me, zach, well, my leader doesn't make me feel like I matter. And then I would say to you, well, do you make them feel like they matter? Oftentimes we think, like, creating significance for one another is conditional or it's directional. Showing someone how they matter is unconditional.

Yeah.

Just like compassion is unconditional, kindness is unconditional. Once you add a condition to it, you're ceasing to see that person as a human being.

Yeah.

So do you do it for the people above you? Do you notice them? Do you affirm them? Do you show them how they're needed? Because we really shouldn't expect, as my kindergartner, is learning someone to treat us in a way that's different than how we treat them.

Yeah. So true. And I think sometimes we have the tendency to fall back into that type of pattern where, well, he's not treating me very well, therefore I'm not going to treat him very well either. It's probably a natural instinct as humans to do that, but then it's, how do we bring more of that kindness and compassion into our interactions? I loved how you say that. It is it's built on these everyday interactions that we have with people. I'd love to come back to this idea of the environment and the culture that we create. And the importance of values is something that came up quite a bit in the research that I've done. I'm a huge believer in that.

For me, it ties into that idea. And again, I'd love to be challenged on this, but for me, finding that environment where the values, your personal values, your core values, align with the values of that organization, and where you feel a misalignment of that, maybe you feel like you don't belong in that organization, and it's harder for you to have those positive interactions.

Yeah. Seeing your values reflected back to you again is another way we can see our significance that, hey, what we believe to be true and important is significant. I would also add on to that that the kind of values matter. You can have values as an individual that are completely self oriented.

Right. Yeah.

Right. So the kind of values matter, like if we value contribution over achievement as individuals, research finds will be healthier and happier as a result. If the organization values contribution over achievement, for example, we'll create an ecosystem where people can see their significance regularly. So I would also investigate the kind of values you have and just do some digging. I mean, do some research and look at what will predict long term fulfillment.

Yeah.

Usually I don't think we do an honest look at our own values and really look at, okay, will this produce long term fulfillment or will it produce me constantly trying to acquire and achieve things or just self righteousness? So I think the kind of values an organization has is important. The kind of values an individual has is important. The alignment is really critical. So I think you're right on with that because values, again, I think values, as you probably know, are the guardrails, absolutely the guardrails that show us how to act. I think of the values values as like our boss, like our hidden boss, the boss of our decision making, the boss of our actions. And if our behaviors and actions follow what we value, if we want to participate in cultures that show people that they are valued and how they add value, then our values have to be really clearly directed in that space. So one thing I encourage people to do is think of the end behavior you would want from everybody else. And do you value what's needed to get there? Do your values, the values that you hold dear, are they the values that will result in the behavior you say you want from yourself and others?

That's a really interesting way of thinking about it, and I had never really thought of it like that. I like the idea that you shared about and the very kind of concrete example of contribution versus achievement. And in an organization where achievement and results is valued over everything else, oftentimes short term financial results are highly valued. And I've been in those organizations where something was due to come in in January. Let's try and move that into December. So we hit the year end and we hit the quarter and et cetera, et cetera. Wall street is going to be happy about that. All of these kinds of things where you're showing what's really important in that organization.

And I suppose part of the message that I want to get out there to people is if that's not the right environment for, you know, that you have a choice. And not every organization is like that as well. So there are kind of other options. I loved how you described it as the end behavior that you would want and do you value the things that will get you there? So I think oftentimes we maybe have aspirational values. Oh, yes, integrity. I really value integrity when actually intrinsically, it's not really something that is inherent in someone's behavior or in the way they're made up, but they think they should be living with integrity or they should have integrity. It's just not there. It's not that they don't do it, but it's maybe not in their top three or their top five values.

Any thoughts to share around?

Yeah, I love the values ranking. I've done values ranking stuff, but it doesn't really matter how you rank your values, okay? What matters is how other people experience your values.

Okay. Yeah.

It's just, like, care. It doesn't matter how much I say I care for you. It only matters how much you feel cared for by me.

Yes.

We don't get to tell people that we care for them. They tell us that we care for them. We don't get to tell people that we value integrity. They tell us that we act in a way that aligns with integrity.

All right. I knew you were going to flip things. Yeah.

Well, I think it's really important because I think it's really important to become clear on your values. But what's so important is not what your values are. What's more important is what's valued through your behavior. You mentioned some of the companies that you work for. One of the great tests that I've heard is that what you risk reveals what you actually value, what you're willing to risk. If you're willing to risk someone's dignity for productivity, you value productivity. You don't value human dignity.

Yeah.

If you're willing to risk people's well being for profits, you value self serving profits over humans well being. And you have to really sit down at the end of the day and say that to yourself.

Yeah.

Because that's what produces change. So I invited people, as we're doing this values clarification work, which is exciting, important work, is to really think about, do your actions, portray your values, ask people around you. Ask your friends, ask your family if you're a leader. Ask your coworkers, hey, what do you think I value? It's a great first step in values clarification. What do you think I value?

Yeah, it shows how you're showing up, right?

How you're showing up.

Everything that you're talking about there. Zach brings me back to this idea of the action versus the intention. So in our heads, we have an intention that we are bringing, but that might not necessarily show up in our behavior. I've heard this story of we judge other people by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions because we don't know what other people's intentions are. So maybe this is where feedback comes in. And that candid feedback, because people may unintentionally be behaving in a way that is not aligned with their values absolutely. In a way that they would like to come across.

That's a great point. I like that. I mean, this is a practice I think people can take away from this conversation is be open to and regularly do a gut check on whether you're living your values.

Yeah, absolutely. Seek out that feedback.

Seek it out, and don't be afraid of it. Be excited about it, because you created those values for a reason. They're important to you for a reason. So I'm glad you brought values up and into this.

I could talk about values all day. To me, it's something that's really important, but you've brought some really great insights into my thinking around that. So I really appreciate that one of the things that and I heard this on a LinkedIn audio event, I think it was you talked about, and I was really fascinated by it was this idea of the leading and Lagging indicators in relation to I think it was in relation to employee engagement, for example. And that being a Lagging indicator. So it's not something that we need to look at as that's too late. By the time it's got to engagement, it's too late. So what are the kind of things that are leading indicators? What are the kind of things that we should be looking at?

Yeah, it's a great question. I'm glad you picked up on that. I think one of the biggest sources of issues in organizations right now is leaders are hyper obsessed with Lagging indicators. So profit, productivity, performance, engagement, satisfaction, those are all Lagging indicators. Right. You can't go and try to make someone satisfied. For example, job satisfaction is actually predicted by autonomy, having some say in what I'm doing, predicted by meaningfulness knowing how what I'm doing matters. Right.

So we can't expect someone to be satisfied if they don't experience those things first.

Yeah.

I would also say that almost everything we want in organizations is actually predicted by how people feel. Let's take productivity, for example. Most people want people to produce or perform well without first helping them be well. Yeah, a well individual who has energy is going to have the energy to perform. But so often we expect people to perform and produce without regenerating their energy to perform. That is a recipe for workplace despair.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So I think thinking about that, like what are those Lagging indicators you say you want and then really think about that every one of those things is mediated through a human being and what is the ideal state of a human being who is producing or performing? And you'll come back to all the fluffy stuff of making sure people are experiencing well being, they're experiencing purpose, high quality relationships, autonomy, meaningfulness mattering. And when you invest in those things and you trust that the effect will follow, that's where you get long term, sustainable Lagging indicators.

Yeah. And I think it's the trust element, isn't it?

Long termism?

Yeah, absolutely. It's not. We're going to invest here and we're going to finish the quarter on a high. It's a long term and knowing that you're going to get there as well, as opposed to looking for the quick wins or things are not happening as quickly as he thought, so he's just going to revert to type and start managing in the same way that you did previously, rather than focusing on well being. And I love the idea before again, another previous podcast episode where she talked about you don't deserve to rest, you don't have to earn your rest, you don't have to work so much and then you've earned it. You take a rest when you need a rest. We don't have to have this philosophy of I have to put in X number of hours and then I deserve it. It's more thinking about.

Again, going back to what you said, Zach, what are the conditions that I need to be well and to perform well on an individual level, but then at scale, at an organizational level? And how does that work and how do we do that at scale?

That's a great articulation of long term thinking and being able to be cause obsessed and not results obsessed. Right?

Yeah.

My kindergartner is learning the difference between cause and effect. Right now, you cannot get an effect by trying to get an effect.

Yes.

You can only get an effect by relentlessly pursuing the cause.

Yeah.

People are always the cause.

I don't know what happened. My light went off for my camera.

Yeah, you can't get an effect by pursuing an effect. You have to pursue the cause. And in organizations, people are always the cause.

Yeah.

There's no result, no financial metric, no productivity metric, no engagement survey. Result is not mediated through a human being.

Yeah.

And I think once we believe that what's ironic is once we believe that the results will be better longer term, our economy, for example, here in the States, I can tell you there'll be mass layoffs in eight years. Every eight years we go through this cycle of uninhibited growth and innovation, tipping on recession, inflation, and then people panic and they lay people off and then we're going to do it again. Right. It's not sustainable. We live in this roller coaster method of production and performance. But when you enable human well being first and consistently create the energy you need for people to solve problems, to innovate, to produce, that's where you get sustainable result. You also mentioned engagement, for example. The three predictors are engagement are psychological meaningfulness.

People have to believe that they and what they're doing matters. Psychological safety, they have to be able to speak up without fear of retaliation. They have to be able to have a voice and then psychological availability, they have to have the resources and that support from those around them. Literally have the availability of a leader there in order to be engaged. So you can't go trying to increase your employee engagement. If you don't obsessively increase people's meaningfulness, you ensure psychological safety and you ensure that you show up.

Yeah. Whereas what we're doing is almost backwards all the time. We're focusing on engagement. We're looking at those results and we're trying to impact the results from or the effect, I think is the term you use. We're trying to impact the effect with another effect. We're trying to hold conversations about employee engagement and how to increase employee engagement without talking about the things that are really important that drive employee engagement. Essentially. Brilliant.

Absolutely love that.

How do we get people to stay if you're struggling with turnover is the wrong question. How do we ensure people experience psychological meaningfulness safety and availability? Is the right question.

Yes.

Because once you start focusing on how do I get people to stay? You start coming up with tactics. OOH, let's give them a $2,000 signing bonus. Let's put 20 more cents on the hour. Compensation is important, but compensation merely compensates people for their time and their skills. It's one of the only words that actually means what it does. It just fills in the gap. It's an exchange. Money, as an inanimate object, cannot value another person.

It could be a symbol of value, but it cannot say, I value you. IFA right. People value people, people appreciate people. And so unless we're, again going full circle, optimizing those interactions we have and equipping leaders in our organizations with optimizing those interactions to produce meaningfulness safety, availability, a feeling of support, then your turnover rates will be perpetually high. You may make a dent when you offer the $2,000 signing bonus, but the manufacturer up the street is going to put up their billboard tomorrow. So it's not a sustainable way to address that. So, yeah, focusing this is such an important point because refocusing on leading indicators is, I think, one of the most crucial leadership skills that's needed to produce sustained results.

I think for me, the question is, and this can be based on what I'm exposed to. What you're exposed to? I'm like, why isn't everyone doing this? What's stopping people from doing this? Is it a knowledge issue or is it a knowing doing? Like, they know this stuff, but they're not implementing it themselves.

I think one thing is, like, just human neurobiology, right? We have a little thing called the amygdala that's scanning the environment for threats, but then our systems take advantage of that. I have a lot of empathy for leaders. I don't think this is all like a leader's fault. If I said that, I would not be using the ecological approach that I champion. Right. We can't rely on people to be morally good in a system that incentivizes them not to be.

Yeah.

We live in a system that especially for leaders, especially for executive leaders of large, influential companies where they're in an environment where their worth is tied to a quarterly earnings report.

Yeah.

Like, they will be eliminated if they don't produce value for their shareholders in the next quarter. If I were living in that reality and I woke up every day and that was my worth, I would certainly try to achieve results at any cost because my biological threat indicator is on and I'm trying to survive. And when people try to survive, they scratch and claw. And a lot of organizations are scratching and clawing for survival and more money and more security. And so I think we have to also look at our systems and look at our incentives and what we incentivize. Do we incentivize. Short term gain, or do we incentivize long term stability? Do we incentivize high employee production or do we incentivize high employee well being and production? So, like, for example, I don't think a leader who gets their people to produce a lot but burns them out should be rewarded. I think they should be terminated just like anybody else.

Anybody else who allowed an asset, quote unquote, asset in their company, a piece of machinery to fall into disrepair that was worth millions and millions of dollars would be held accountable.

Yeah.

Yet we let leaders and organizations do it all the time to human beings.

Yeah.

The most valuable, literally the only reason why any of the other assets exist.

Yeah. The people, the number.

We have to have an environment that incentivizes a focus on leading indicators, incentivizes long termism, incentivizes the regeneration of human energy, because what we reward is ultimately who we become. By the way, this starts in elementary school. Here, take this test. So I'll give you this arbitrary letter grade. Here, do this so you'll get this starting salary.

Yeah.

Here, put in your time here so you get this benefit. And we have to flip out of that.

It's the reward center in our brain. Then the goal, most of it is.

Like, do this for yourself, do this to get yourself ahead, and I'll give you something for it.

As opposed to collaborative. Yeah. The individualism versus collectivism type of approach.

I once had a sales leader for a company say to me, zach, Zach, I need people to collaborate more. We don't collaborate. And I said, oh, cool, could you email me your incentive structure? And she did. She emailed it to me. It was all self based commissions.

Yeah.

People got rewarded for how much they sold as an individual.

Yeah. Backstabbing clients.

Until you start rewarding people for helping each other sell, doing team selling or collaborative team rewards for selling, you will get non collaboration.

Yeah, but what are we going to do?

Everybody in our industry is doing that. That's just how things are. We're going to miss out on we're not going to drop, right? Yeah.

You could be the trailblazers. This is what I was going to ask about. So let's assume that there's companies out there and they're short term focused, and it's all about Wall Street. Every quarter, every three months, it's all about Wall Street. It's all about the numbers. Let's forget about them for a second because I presume that either people are listening and they're relating to that and thinking, I want to get out of here, or they're not listening at all. So let's bring it back to the people who care about people and the people who are listening to the podcast today, but they're not quite there yet. What are some of the things you think they can do to get started on this journey?

I think one of the things to focus on the leading indicator of human well being. I think the first thing we need to do is notice people, right. Learn the skills to actually see and understand people. Create the space to be able to ask questions of people where you can get data from them to actually help them feel more seen. And I'm talking at a micro interaction level. Like, instead of just saying, hey, how are you? Ask, hey, what is your attention today? What have you been thinking about most today? What are you struggling with? What's everybody here thinking but not saying? Right?

Powerful question.

Those are the type of interactions that start cracking open the space. And then you as a leader, someone who cares about someone, you can get some really valuable data on what's really going on, on how people are doing before you jump in and ask them to do something. So creating that space to notice people. Another thing is affirming people. So we have employee recognition programs or an employee appreciation programs. There's a big difference between recognition, appreciation and Affirmation. Recognizing people is showing gratitude for what someone does. Okay, here we're going to recognize your work.

Appreciation is showing gratitude for who someone is. Hey, we're really glad you're here. Affirmation is showing people the evidence of their significance. So showing people specifically how their unique strengths make a unique difference. So when you say thank you to someone, instead of just saying thank you, really describe what they did and name some of the strengths they use and then show them the difference that they make regularly. That's one example. And then I think the last one is we have to make sure people feel essential and needed.

Yeah.

Right. And I say this all the time, but don't be surprised when someone who feels replaceable acts replaceable.

Yeah.

Right. Making sure people feel like they and their unique perspectives and personalities are indispensable to you and the team and the organization is really critical. And I think that those three things are really of a foundation that's accessible in every interaction that we have. I will also say one thing about the Wall Street crowd.

Go for it.

The results are not the problem. I don't think it's a major problem that there are results. Right. Because profit and revenue, they enable organizations to deliver more purpose. They enable organizations to create environments where people can feel like they're making a contribution. So I don't think it's bad.

Okay.

And I think that's important. I do think that if you're in an environment, if you're an executive leader listening, if you're a leader in an environment of a results based business, I always get that we're a results based business. I want you to think about how you might have control over how you get to the result.

Okay? Yeah.

Can you get to the result by investing obsessively in human well being? I would say yes. It might take a little longer, but over time you'll start producing more sustainable results. So if you don't have control over the system changing and what you're incentivized for, you do have control over how you get to what's incentivized.

Yeah. And people wondering how you're doing it as well.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. How are you doing it? How are you retaining people in an industry that we've just normalized high turnover.

Yeah, exactly. I love that. But I love the differentiation that you gave between recognition, appreciation, and affirmation. So I think oftentimes we treat people as if they're replaceable. We treat people as if they're just a number, and if they leave, well, we'll just get someone else in to do that same job, when the reality is that other person won't necessarily do the same job to the same level, to the same degree, with the same strength, with the same ease. Whatever it might be, they'll do it in their way, which might have different types of strengths. So I think recognizing the unique contribution that people make is really important, and I hope for people listening today that they take that away and think, who can I recognize in my team or in my community, whatever it might be? Who can I recognize today? Sorry, recognize? Who can I affirm today? I should say, who can I affirm today? Who can I give that meaningful feedback? And not to use kind of maybe a terrible example, it shows who I am and what I watch, but there was something in below deck and giving feedback, and he basically just said, thanks for doing a good job, and didn't explain what he did, didn't explain anything about the way he did it or anything. It was just, thanks, I saw you did a good job.

Thanks for that. And I think it's moving beyond that to explaining to people exactly how they contributed. And I think having that link between what you do on a day to day basis, what the team is achieving and what the company is achieving and how you're contributing to that is so important. Going back to this idea of significance, I think yeah.

And what you're describing is these are skills. And oftentimes we've just relied on intuition to lead. Like, I'm just going to be a good person because I'm a good person, or we'll promote this person because they're nice and they seem like they like people. But intuition doesn't scale. Practices and skills do. Like the practice of affirming. Giving an affirming thank you is a skill. The practice of asking different questions to notice people is a skill.

Saying these five words, if it wasn't for you to show someone how they're needed, is a skill. The reason why I focus on this is because it's really hard for anything to matter until someone feels like they matter. Yeah, right. So nothing your strategic plan, staying there, your company cookout, whatever it is, nothing's going to matter to someone who doesn't first believe that they matter. So that's why that precursor of engagement, of psychological meaningfulness, of knowing that I and what I do matter, of availability, of showing up and noticing people, of safety, asking people for their voice through these practices we just discovered. That's why I focus on those. It's not that I'm not focused on employee engagement or all the tactics you can do for employee engagement. Notice I didn't advise you to create some new program or awards program.

Right. Because that's not where meaning is made. Meaning is made in interactions. So this should be empowering for people.

Exactly. Yeah. No, I love that it's a skill because it means that you can learn it. And maybe the first time you do it, you crash and burn. It's not very good, but then the more you do it, the better you get.

Yeah. And if you have to blame it on me and us in this podcast.

You can tell me to do it.

No, I love this. So I tell leaders to do this all the time. I say, hey, just tell them what you're trying to do, and that it's going to be weird and awkward at first. For example, if you're not someone who asks deeper questions about people you're working for, if you're not usually someone who does that, you can say to your people, hey, I'm trying to notice people better. I listen to this podcast and I'm trying to do this better. So I'm going to start asking different questions. Let me know how it's going for you. Just knowing that you're trying when people know your good intentions and you don't keep them to yourself, that's a powerful leadership skill in itself.

It's invite people into what you're trying to do because otherwise yeah, you lose the humanity. And this can all become inauthentic and robotic. I mean, you could do all of what we said in an inauthentic way.

Yeah.

So it has to be true to you.

Brilliant. I love that. Zach, the question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, what does being happier at work mean? To.

Had to. There's someone who already wrote it better than Victor Frankl search for meaning.

Yes.

And he writes, for success, like happiness cannot be pursued. It must ensue. And it only does as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the byproduct of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success. You have to let it happen by not caring about it.

I love that.

And what's great about that is, what is this? Happiness is a lagging indicator.

Yes, it is.

Happiness is a lagging indicator of seeing and enacting and believing that we matter.

I love that it's such a nice way to end the podcast. If people want to connect with you, what's the best way they can do that?

So I think there's only one of me on LinkedIn, but you can go to Zach Mercurio. I'm on LinkedIn. I like LinkedIn. We've developed a really fun community. We disagree, we agree, but we just dig into some of these. Um, and then you can also go to my website, Zachmercurio.com. I've started more writing on my blog again and you can check that out, let me know what you think.

Brilliant. I look forward to doing that. And for anyone who wants to connect, I love the content that you put out on LinkedIn.

Thank you.

Definitely give Zach a follow. Really appreciate your time today. I so enjoyed this conversation. Love digging into it and challenging some of my own perceptions as well. So appreciate your time today.

Yeah, no, thanks for bringing out all you brought out and for creating this platform.