The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance

In a world where so many feel unseen, undervalued, and unheard, creating a culture where people know they matter is powerful—and essential. Join Dr. Zach Mercurio as he shares how mattering fuels performance, belonging, and well-being, and why this often-overlooked leadership skill may be the most important one of the next generation. Building a culture of significance isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s a competitive advantage. Learn to lead with intention, create mattering, and inspire lasting impact.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:05):
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Speaker 3 (00:28):
What's working on Purpose?

Speaker 4 (00:29):
Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question.
People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute
their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They
crave being part of an organization that inspires them and
helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can
be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity.

(00:49):
In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help
usher in this world we all want working on Purpose.
Now here's your host, doctor Elise Cortes.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Welcome back to the Working and Purpose Program, which has
been brought to you with passionate and price since February
of twenty fifteen. Thanks tuning it and again this week.
Great to have you. I'm your host, doctor Leix Cortes.
If we have not met before and you don't know me,
I'm an organizational psychologist, management consultant, LOCO therapist, speaker and author,
and my team and I at Gusto Now help companies
to enliven and fortify their operations by building a dynamic,

(01:25):
high performance culture and inspirational leadership activated by meaning and purpose.
And did you know that inspired employees outperform their satisfied
peers by factor of two point twenty five to one.
In other words, inspiration is good for the bottom line.
You can learn more about us on how we can
work together at gustodeshnow dot com or my personal site
at last Coortes dot com. Before we get into today's program,

(01:45):
I am thrilled to announce that registration has been opened
for a fabulous neoth conference for women which i'll service.
The MC is called Thrive in twenty five and is
a jam packed few days in Chicago June twenty fifth
through the twenty eighth, twenty twenty five, and it's designed
to devot women as whole selves from bolstering your mindset
to your financial acumen, to leadership, to incorporating nature and

(02:06):
art into your life to raise consciousness and much more.
You can visit to Thrive in twenty five for information
and to register. Use my promo code of Gusto all
caps to gain access to the free books and programs.
I'll be gifting registrants as well. See you there now.
Today's program has with us Zach mccurio, our researcher, leadership development, facilitator,
speaker specializing purposeful leadership, mattering and meaningful work. He is

(02:30):
the author of the Power of Mattering, How leaders can
create a Culture of Significance, which we'll be talking about today.
He joins us from Port Collins, Colorado. Zach, welcome back,
I think a third time to working on Purpose.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Thanks, Elise, It's good to see you.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
You're right. I just really appreciate the work that you're
doing in the world. You know, I'm a huge fan.
Of course, I've been following you since at least twenty
seventeen when you first book come out, So I'm in
for this.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, you have at least one fat in your corner, Zach.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
You know that, Hey, all I need.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Okay, Well, actually we have a lot of work to do,
and I want to start with this notion that you
have in your book, which I think is a good
place for us to start. Is you talk about how
we can't really have healthy organizations with unhealthy people in them.
So let's start there. The idea of unhealthy organizations.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Well, an organization is simply comprised of individual human beings
who organize, So the health of an organization is really
determined by the health of its individuals. A lot of
the way that we've structured organizations and thought about organizations
and led organizations since the industrial revolution has obsessively focused

(03:41):
on lagging indicators productivity, performance, profit. All of those are
lagging indicators. There is no performance metric that is not
mediated through a human being. And how would you want
that human being to feel to produce and perform. Most

(04:04):
people would say, we want them to feel motivated, we
want them to feel energized, we want them to feel
that the work matters. We want them to feel that
they matter. And when you start thinking like that, you'll
realize that the leading indicator for every lagging indicator we
want is human energy. And so I think the time

(04:25):
is now for leaders to begin to think about how
they're thinking about their organizations in terms of human energy.
Are you regenerating the human energy needed to accomplish all
the things you say you want to accomplish? And the
answer in many of our organizations right now is no.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
I tend very much to agree, of course, because we're
doing some similar kind of work. And I really like
how you really situate, you know, really the importance for
leaders or anyone who influences anyone. Course you say, filling
people's fundamental need for significance isn't imperative. And so when
I think about, like of other people on the podcast
that I've talked about the experience of having really shotlet's

(05:11):
just say, terrible leaders that had no idea of the
negative impact and shrapnel that they were cascading through their
organizations and through their people. On the other side of that,
the opportunity to really lift lives on and love the
word significance to be able to fuel their need for significance. So,
if you could say a bit more about that particular
need and why is it so important for leaders to

(05:33):
impact that.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Every single person that you lead was born searching for significance.
It's a biological fact. The first thing you did as
a human being was you reached your arms out for
someone to care for you. In fact, scientists find that
we have a reflex to grasp on to somebody a
caretaker before we have a reflex to eat food. Well,

(05:57):
nobody would be here listening to this show right now
if we all did not matter enough to someone else
to keep us alive. Now, as we grow up and
grow into adulthood and go to work, that instinct, just
like the instinct to eat or the instinct to sleep,
does not go away because we clock in somewhere. We

(06:17):
like to conveniently think that it does, but it does not.
It turns into the fundamental need to feel seen, heard, valued,
and needed by those around us, and so that need
for significance. It is first and foremost a survival instinct.
Someone on said to me, Zach, you know this is
kind of the soft, touchy feely stuff, and I responded,

(06:38):
it's just about as touchy phelia as feeding someone in
front of you who's hungry.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
It is a prerequisite, and for leaders it's essential because
if you want anything to matter to someone, they first
have to believe that they matter. Think about the last
time you felt energized to do something when you felt unimportant.
If you want someone's voice, if you want someone to
share their voice, they first have to believe their voice
is significant. If you want your team members to use

(07:05):
their strengths, they first have to believe they have them.
If you want your team members to contribute, they first
have to believe they're worthy of contributing. And that's why
this fundamental need is I think the prerequisite. I don't
think there's anything more important for a leader than showing
people how they matter. If you're a leader, anytime you

(07:28):
hear the word fundamental human need, you should be thinking,
do I have that fundamental skill?

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
A leader's craft is people. Leaders influence people. That's why
I say anyone who influences anybody, so the best leaders
hone their craft. They practice the fundamentals of being human.
The fundamental need that all humans have is to matter,
to feel significant.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
All right, Two things to that, Zach. One, I need
you to tell the story about the the woman who
every day cleaned the windows and then the sprinklers came on.
So tell that story. And then the other thing I
wanted to say is what I appreciate about the work
that you do and then I get to do as well,
is that when we do teach people to be able

(08:14):
to use these kinds of skills, what happens is all
of their relationships across their whole entire life as individuals
improve radically. So whoever they're connected to, whoever they're loved,
one is at home, if they have children, if they
have pets, all of those relationships get better immediately too.
I love it when I occasionally get an email from
somebody's spouse saying thank you from what you're doing right,

(08:35):
And it's so beautiful, right, and so lifting lives by
being able to help develop and fortify these skills and
leaders it's such a it's such a beautiful work to
get to do.

Speaker 3 (08:46):
And I'm an optimist. I don't believe that any leader
wakes up and is like I would like to be
an uncaring leader today, right. I think we have many
people in leadership positions who aren't trained right human skills.
And what's what's hopeful about all this is that we
can relearn these skills to see here value one another.

(09:08):
And you're right, it makes us better people. But that's
what being a leader is. When I ask people thousands
of people, think about the most important impactful leader in
your life, they do not talk about quarterly earnings reports,
product launches, or achievements. They talk about feeling seen, heard

(09:29):
and valued in everyday interactions. That's why you know. I
often say the next your next great leadership act is
your next interaction. And I think uncaring leaders happen because
they're untrained. And I want to give you an example
of what happens when a leader creates that environment, and

(09:51):
I'll share the story of that woman, the window watcher.
So just as mattering is a fundamental need, when that
instinct is not met, our minds in our bodies react accordingly. Typically,
what happens is we either withdraw also known as quiet, quitting, silencing, withholding,
or react out in desperation, complaining, blaming, gossiping, other so

(10:13):
called toxic behaviors. Are often cries for significance, reaching out
for significance, And a perfect example of this is I
was asked to work with a group of maintenance workers.
One of their roles was to clean the windows of
this bottom floor of this industrial complex in the summer,
and this woman had her team go in every morning,
and she was leading the team and had them do it. Now,

(10:35):
the first week on the job, she noticed very soon
that the reason she was going in there every day
with her team was because the sprinkler system, the sprinkler
heads on that system were aimed wrong. So at three
pm every afternoon, the sprinkler system blasted on and blasted
all the windows, left all of these avoidable water splotches.
And this is why the client wanted them to come

(10:56):
in every morning during the summer. So she was really excited.
I mean, she came up to her supervisor and she said,
you know, I have an idea. What if we aimed
the sprinklers differently. What if we fix the sprinklers. That
would completely save time and change the morale and the team.
And the supervisor just said, that's the sprinkler people's problem,

(11:18):
it's not our problem. I need you to just do
your job. That was five years prior to me being
called in because quote unquote, this team was unmotivated. Not
an unmotivated team, this was a team that experienced what
psychologists call anti mattering. What happened is is when she
got shut down, guess who she told she told her

(11:38):
team guess what they did. They protected themselves. They said, well,
what we do, what we say is not going to
matter here, so why am I going to bother? It
resulted in the most insidious force in an organization, which
is learned helplessness. I've been conditioned to believe that I
and what I do and what I say won't, can't,
and never will matter. And learned helplessness is contagious in

(12:03):
an organization. And that's the consequence. Just as mattering is
created in moments, anti mattering is created in moments that
supervisor probably doesn't even know that that one moment cascaded
into the quote unquote motivation and turnover issues on their team.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
I never tire if you're telling that story. I think
it's just so powerful and it really lays out just
how insidious this is and just how it can live
and just like catch fire in an organization. So you
mentioned you know that that mattering happens in small, repeatable interactions,
and of course you know for you, your model is that's
through being helping people to feel noticed, affirmed, and needed.

(12:42):
I'm going to go into we're going to go into
more detail into into those but what I want to
situate now before we go into the break, is I
want our listeners and viewers to understand really the science
behind what you've created here, this idea of mattering anti
mattering significance. You know, the ways that you can actually
start to address this, because otherwise people feel like, oh,
it's so soft. I don't have those kinds of soft skills.

(13:03):
Of course, we need human skills. And so if you
could just say a little bit about noticing, affirming, and needing.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yes, So this is based on forty years of research.
The concept of mattering has been around for forty years,
and psychologists find that we feel that we matter when
there are two things going on. When we feel valued,
and then we know exactly how we add value. One
of the things I think that's really important before we

(13:31):
get into the notice, affirmed and needed model, is to
understand that typically we think that people must be valued
once they add value. That's the typical performance merit based
environment in which we've lived for the past fifty years.
But psychologically, people have to feel value to add value, right.

(13:53):
You can't expect someone to care until they feel cared for,
and so researchers have found that mattering results from three things.
When we're paid attention to, when we are shown that
we are important, and when we feel essential when someone
needs us. And so what we did is we went

(14:14):
and interviewed hundreds of people and we worked in many
different organizations from the US Army to large banks, and
we asked, feel that you matter here with to a leader,
what is happening? And there are three behaviors that consistently
came about, the behaviors of being seen and heard noticed,
the behaviors of being shown how your unique gifts make

(14:36):
a unique difference, specifically affirmed, and being told and shown
exactly how you and what you do is relied on needed.
Those noticed, affirmed and needed model builds off of what
we know creates mattering from forty years of research. But
we've also tested this with thousands of employees in twenty
two plus industries, and when we ask them what your

(14:59):
leader does us, they all talk about small interactions in
which someone pays attention to them, someone thanks them, shows
them gratitude, and someone shows them how they're needed. And yes,
they're all skills we can learn.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
It is it makes me happy to say just hearing that,
and of course you know I'm completely in align with
you on that, and that's what we're out, that's why
we're on the planet right. So I know that your
purpose is to help people feel significant, and I love
that that's what you stand for. Let's grab our first break.
I'm your host, doctor LEAs Cortes. We run your doctor
Zach mccurio, researcher, leadership, development, facilitator, and speaker specializing in

(15:37):
purposeful leadership, mattering, and meaningful work. We've been talking about
a few of his concepts from his latest book, The
Power of Mattering. After the break, we're going to learn
about five sources of insignificance to get us started. We'll
be right back.

Speaker 4 (16:05):
Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at

(16:27):
Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your
employees working on purpose. This is working on purpose with
doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to
open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise
Alisee at Elisecortes dot com. Now back to Working on Purpose.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Thanks for stating with us, and welcome back to working
on Purpose. Some of your host doctor at least Cortes
as I too, am dedicated to help them create a
world where organizations thrive because their people thrive and are
led by inspirational leaders that help them find and contribute
their greatness, and we do business set betters the world.
I keep researching and writing my own books, so my
last one came out. It's called The Great Vitalization, How
activating meaning and purpose can radically in liven your business.

(17:19):
And I wrote it to help leaders understand today's workforce
wants and needs and then offer twenty two best practices
to equip them to provide that to them through their
culture and leadership. You can learn about my books at
my personal site at Leastquortes dot com or on Amazon
if you are just now joining us. My guest is
doctor Zach mccurio. He's the author of the Power of Mattering,

(17:39):
How Leaders can create a culture of significance. So before
we get into those five practices of insignificance, one thing
I did want to share with listeners and viewers I
thought was a pretty interesting way of thinking about how
work has evolved over years. Is what you talk about
as if I'm saying this person's name wrong, Minussha Fique,
is that right? Former President of Columbia was talking about

(18:03):
how we're really in a relationship economy and she said,
in the past, she or he She said, in the
past jobs were about muscles, and now and then there
they were about brains, and now in the future they'll
be about the heart. I think that's really really fascinating,
especially when you consider how we are swaddled in AI

(18:23):
and robotics and artificial intelligence and everything else, so that
we are now moving to a place where work will
be characterized by the heart.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yes, and uh, it's a natural evolution. I mean, all
work was purposeful, right. Work was born as an active community.
If my neighbor did not have shoes, I was a shoemaker.
If my community needed food, I grew food. What happened

(18:54):
is is that the shoemaker got put in a factory
and said, hey, I'll give you this amount of money
if you can tolerate just putting the sole on the
shoe and not seeing the whole thing. Yeah, and that's
where work as exchange happened well. And then we got
into machinery and the industrial age, and then we found

(19:14):
ways to automate everything, and got into the information age
and connect everything. And now what's happening is that AI
is eclipsing our operational and technical abilities, and all we're
going to have left as human beings is the ability
to make the person in front of us feel seen,
herd value and needed. As of now, AI cannot mirror neurons,

(19:36):
it cannot produce oxytocin, it cannot produce dopamine in interactions.
So the most coveted skill for a leader is going
to be to develop relationships in which people feel understood.
And that's why I really agree with that sentiment that
we're moving from the information age into the relationship age,

(20:01):
where we're almost returning back to work as an act
of community and relating to one another and contributing to
one another. And that's why the mattering work fits so perfectly,
because mattering happens when we feel valued by the community
around us, and when we know exactly how we add
value to their lives.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, I mean to that end, Zach, I mean, I
don't remember when this happened, but we started using the
tagline at Gusto now of we're doubling down on humanity
in the age of technology. So in SAE there's similar things.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
And some surveys from executives have said recently in the
Age of AI that relational skills I mean, I think
seventy percent in a reason survey and I'll send it
to you said that relational skills would be more important
to the future of their organization than technical ability. Yeah,
and why is that right? Well, it's also because you know,

(20:50):
as people have more options of where, when, and how
to earn a living through gig work, or as we
see educational attainment and literacy rates going up, people have
more choice. As people have more choice, they're able to
discern where and when they want to spend their time, right,
and more people are discerning where they want to spend
their time based on how they feel. So organizations that
don't invest in this will also not have a labor

(21:14):
force I reckon in fifty to one hundred years.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, they're the easiest to displace for sure. Yeah, okay,
so let's talk about those five sources of ben siepecans.
The reason I like to do this sec I mean,
some of this is like the other side of what
you've been talking about, but it helps our listeners and viewers,
as you know, to be able to start to recognize
what this stuff looks like. So the first one, of course,
is being unseen. What's it like to paint the picture

(21:38):
for us? What's it like to feel unseen.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
I'll give an example from one of my studies that
the first studies I've done, and I've talked to you
about this many times, but around university cleaners. And I'll
give you a very odd example that shows you the
opposite of being unseen. But we asked a janitor to
tell us about the most meaning full part of her job.
And she was a janitor at a sports stadium and

(22:04):
at a football game. She said that between quarters, someone
had thrown up in the bathroom entrance, and she said,
and she started telling me this, She said, she went
to clean it, and as she was cleaning it, a
line formed, and she said she put her mop in
her bucket after she was done, and she walked past
and as she was walking past, people in that line

(22:27):
started thanking her, and she said, that was the most
meaningful part of my career because it was the most
amount of people who ever saw me. So the the
what made the work meaningful for her was not this
unpleasant task, it was being seen while doing it. Y.

(22:50):
So being seen is literally being ignomined. Being unseen is
being invisible. It's being forgotten. It's when you were absent
for a meeting last week and nobody said they missed you.
It's having someone saying, having someone not remember that your
parent was in the hospital and that you're struggling with

(23:12):
your energy levels so they pile on more projects to you.
It's about you know, you do something every day that
or it's about being an unsung hero. No organization should
have unsung heroes, Donny think about it. So that's being seen.
And to be seen is to be real as human beings,

(23:32):
like we know that we're real that what we're doing matters.
And that Janitor said that when she saw all those
people seeing her actually looking at her, she said, uh, oh,
I can keep doing this, I really can. And that's
the motivational force of being seen.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
I've got to imagine a distant you know, cousin to
that is of course the idea of being unheard.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Yes, and being unheard is what happened with that? When
washer yes, absolutely, and we share our voice, we're sharing
part of ourselves. So when somebody doesn't listen to a voice,
they're not listening to us yep, and that voice, that
inner experience, when that's not able to be invited out,
we feel unheard. And so that manifests in environments where

(24:19):
people can't speak up because they're afraid. They're in environments
where they get punished for making mistakes, where their reputation
is tarnished if tarnished if they disagree, and you know,
silence in an organization is one of the biggest indicators
of an organization that fosters anti mattering.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yes, yeah, yeah, it's just there was a lot of
activity today on LinkedIn about cultures of of you know,
lacking psychological safety. Pretty interesting that that's kind of an
interesting topic on a Tuesday. I add one little yeah, please.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Psychological safety is a topic that's gotten a lot of popularity.
But all psychological safety is is childhood attachment in the workplace. Yeah,
I know, this is odd for me to go here. No, No,
mattering work was born out of attachment. So, for example,
when you feel that you matter to a parent when

(25:21):
you're a child, you're much more likely to be able
to go out take risks, experiment and learn because you
know you already matter. You can't screw up enough to
not matter to somebody. Yeah, and you know one of
the things that when I see, you know, knowing the
research on attachment, when I go to someone's house and

(25:41):
I see kids being loud in front of their parents
without fear, I know there's secure attachment there.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, I got you.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
And so psychological safety is really just adult attachment. It's
knowing that I have a secure base, knowing that someone
has my back, so I can go out, take experiment
and learn. But we can't call it adult attachment because
nobody would buy the books, right, But that's all it is.
And that's why I just want to I just want

(26:11):
to create this thread for your listeners, because it's very
important to understand that these needs, the need to matter,
maybe called different things. I call it mattering in disguise,
but it all goes back to that child who's reaching
out and grasping for significance.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
I really love that you did that that I didn't.
I didn't make that connection before. I think that's very powerful.
In fact, what's been going through my mind through this conversation,
Zach is we do this work really well together to
help develop leaders capacity to be able to foster these skills,
to be able to help people see how they matter.
And now, what I think happens is we live in

(26:48):
safer societies. We live in places where maybe there's less crime,
where people aren't hurting each other as much physically, emotionally,
et cetera. And that's the kind of impact that I
want to be part of it. When we help our
leaders understand just the ripple effect of this. Please, it's
really worth investing in working on developing this stuff. You
can do this.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah, And I'm actually not trying to convince anybody anymore
to invest in it. I'm essentially saying that you can't
not invest in this anymore.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yeah, Yeah, I compare with you all.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
Almost every human behavioral problem is the result of unmet
needs and a lot of mental health And as you know,
a lot of mental health professionals will tell you that
most mental health struggles are the results of unmet needs.
And we see that in works. And you know, we've

(27:45):
talked about some of these sources, right, being unseen, being unheard.
The other one is being unvalued, not knowing how your
gifts make a difference, not having anybody say thank you.
I think there was a survey that said sixty percent
of people have never had a boss that truly appreciates them. Yeah,

(28:07):
feeling unvalued. Feeling forgotten is another source. This is feeling
and this is interesting because this is for example, one
woman who went on maternity leave said that one moment
caused her to question her whole sense of self worth.
And that was when she was going on maternity leave

(28:28):
and her boss said, don't worry, everything will be fine
without you. Yeah, and it was well intentioned, Yeah, really saying, hey,
you don't matter that much here. Yeah, So being forgotten.
And then the final one is feeling dispensable. When people
feel replaceable, they'll act replaceable, but feeling that you and
your efforts just don't matter, aren't needed.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, and we can easily replace you. I mean, that's
that language has been in the workplace for a long time, Right,
we can easily replace you with somebody who actually wants
to work for us, isn't.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
What's so interesting is that the want to work for
you comes when the person feels needed.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
Right right, I know, I get all of this. It's amazing. Okay,
so let's talk here. Let's talk first a little bit
about noticing it and really help our listeners and viewers
start to get into the idea of how can they
actually start to fold this practice into themselves, so help
us gain some access to behaviors that they can use
for noticing.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
Well. One of the things that's important to know about
all of these practices is that someone once said to me, Zach,
is in this common sense, like why do you have
a job? Yeah, And unfortunately it's not common practice. Yeah right.
There was a study by Work Human in twenty twenty
four that found that thirty percent of people feel invisible
in work. Twenty five percent of those people, A quarter

(29:47):
of people said they felt quote unquote flat out ignored.
And a lot of people say, well, Zach, I know
my team. I know my team. There's a difference between
knowing somebody and noticing them. You can know your BA
friend but not notice that they're struggling. You can know
your team but not notice that one of them is
feeling left out of discussions, or maybe their energy level

(30:08):
is a little bit different that day, or they've been
repeatedly struggling on a project. So noticing has two parts.
It's seeing somebody and it's hearing them. Noticing is paying
attention to the details, the ebbs, the flows of someone's life,
and then offering an action to show them that they're
thought about. A great example of this is I got

(30:28):
to work with a distribution center and there was one
manager for one team that was highly engaged when all
of the other teams in the center were disengaged, and
we went to this team and I was just very
curious because I wanted to know what was going on
here in this outlier. I love outliers, and I asked
the team, I said, what's going on here? And they
all said some version of Oh, it's our leader. She

(30:51):
just gets us. We'd do anything for her. And so
I went to her and I said, well, what do
you do? And she goes zack. Three years ago, I
realized that I was having trouble keeping track of my
team members the details of their lives, and so I
started this notebook. Now she has like ten of them right,
and she writes down her team members' names on Fridays,

(31:11):
and then she writes down one thing she heard them
talk about, complain about a piece of equipment, they were
struggling with a meeting, they were nervous about a kid
who is starting a new sport. And on Monday, she said,
I just start my week by looking at that list
and scheduling in my mind a three minute micro checking
with each of them, and I'll say to them, I
remember last week, you were nervous about that meeting. How

(31:33):
was it got any? And she looked at me in
this interview and she said, Zach, I realized there is
magic and being remembered.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
But what I love about what she did is it's
a practice. Yes, right, right right, That practice of noting
was a way to pay attention. And that's really that
captures the essence of this noticing practice, paying attention, asking
good questions, remembering the details of people's lives, authentically checking
in on how they're doing and when they share with you,

(32:05):
making sure they feel heard.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah, yeah, you know, you're reminding me, Zach. You know,
a few years ago, I was doing some work with
a hospice organization on the East Coast, it was an
engagement sort of survey kind of work and consulting, and
what we discover it is there was so much disengagement
on the front lines because there were people that would say, gosh,
I just want to as I'm walking down the hall

(32:29):
when the CEO passes, I just want to. I just
want them to say hello or even just smile at me.
But instead they just keep walking like I don't exist, right,
I'm invisible. Just what you're talking about, it's so simple,
Like I know you're busy and you're trying to get
you're prepping for their next meeting and such. But notice
the people that are walking past you. They you matter

(32:49):
to those people. They would love to have a smile
from you and acknowledgment a hello from you.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
Yes, hurry and care cannot coexist. Yeah, you cannot care
about your people from afar. But there's a difference between
caring about people and caring for them. Yes, I think
this is missed. To care for anything, you have to
understand it, and understanding takes time and it takes attention.
And one of the things that is especially important to

(33:16):
the noticing practice is retraining our mind to pay attention
to people and that tool of noting, of having some tool,
having some practice to turn this common sense idea into
common practice is incredibly important.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Oh, I want to share a story that I just
saw on Facebook. But we'll scrab it. We'll scrab our
last prat before I do that. I'm your host, Doctor
Early's Cortes. We are on the area with doctor zachs Mercurio.
I'm a research leadership, development facilitator and a speaker specializing
in purposeful leadership, mattering and meaningful work. We've been getting
into the more of the details of his as his
mattering model and the various practices that you can start

(33:54):
to learn to fold in. After the break, we're going
to move on to the next practice, which is affirming.
We'll be right back.

Speaker 4 (34:14):
Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her

(34:35):
at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get
your employees working on purpose. This is Working on Purpose
with doctor Elise Cortes.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
To reach our.

Speaker 4 (34:50):
Program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send
an email to Elise A. L Se at Elisecortes dot com.
Now back to work on Purpose. Interesting with us and
welcome back to Working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor
Ales Cortes. I mentioned in the last break that my

(35:12):
book came out, The Great Vitalization. What I did for
you is I created a very simple three page assessment
that will tell you the extent to what your practices
are meeting the needs of Fay's discerning workforce. You can
find it at my website Gusto dashanel dot com if
you're just now joining us.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
My guest is Zach mccurie, who's the author of the
Power of Mattering, How leaders can create a culture of significance.
So the story I wanted to share with you based
on the idea of noticing paying attention to your people.
I just saw this on Facebook today and it's pretty powerful.
With the story is that a woman, a manager you know,
had been noticing her or one of her employees who
was really starting to follow down on the job. She

(35:47):
was coming in late and just not really really focusing much,
and so she gave her three strikes and then she
fired her. And then she overheard some of the other
employees talking about this employee and saying, gosh, you oh,
you know, her son is dealing with some kind of
major illness. She's lost her apartment. She doesn't she's sleeping
in her car. And she realized, oh, my gosh, I

(36:11):
was saying, you know, she's not doing all these things,
but I wasn't really noticing what was going on with her,
and so I went to go look for her. She'd
been on the street. She'd been getting you know, food
given to her on the streets, and I went looking
for her in various places, and they people would say, oh,
she was here weeks or two days ago, but I
don't know where she is now. But ultimately she does
catch up with her and she finds her. She finds

(36:33):
her and her young son sleeping in the car on
the street, and she comes up and knocks on the window,
and you know, the woman is obviously startled, and she's wondering,
you know, why she's there. But the woman says, I'm
here to give you your job back. I'm so sorry.
I didn't know what she were dealing with, and she did,
she brought her back. But talk about the power of Wow,

(36:54):
what if you had noticed what's if you would simply inquired,
what's going on? Why is that you're coming in late
each day? Was there something happening at home? How can
I help? Right? So, this noticing stuff is pretty powerful.

Speaker 3 (37:08):
Yeah. Most people do not need to be fixed or punished.
They need to be understood right, right, And that is
such a powerful example of that before you evaluate, are
you understanding?

Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, So the affirming piece. Let's talk about
this one of the things I'll say, you know definitely.
I don't know if you used or not. But when
I got divorced in twenty sixteen, I took a job
at another company for a while, and what I really realized,
they're great company, really a fantastic organization. I love their culture,
I love their work. But I definitely was not at

(37:43):
all using all of my talents, be able to know
what my talents were. People have no idea what I
could do, and it's definitely part of the reason I
didn't stay.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Absolutely, So a lot of organizations have appreciation or recognition programs.
But it's very important for leaders to understand the difference
between a preciation, recognition, and affirmation because what you're talking
about is an affirmation gap. Yeah, Because appreciation is showing
general gratitude for who someone is. Recognition is showing general
gratitude for what someone does. But affirmation is showing people

(38:14):
how their uniqueness makes a unique difference. Specific A program
can't affirm somebody, right, A pay or perks cannot affirm somebody.
People affirm people. And there are two sides of affirmation.
One is showing people their uniqueness and two is showing
people how they make a unique difference. Yeah, And there

(38:38):
are four gifts everybody gives us every day. And I
use the word gifts because it's things people freely give us.
They give us their strength, what they love to do
and what they're good at. They give us their purpose
the impact them and they make. They give us their
perspective how only they see the world, and they give
us their wisdom what only they can teach us because

(39:00):
only they have lived their life and had their career.
And great leaders tend to illuminate in others what they
don't see in themselves and can name here is the
difference that you make and how you make it. One
of the great ways to do that is that if
you're going to say thank you to somebody instead of
just saying hey, thanks, good job at the same time

(39:20):
every day, show someone the difference they make and exactly
how they make it. Say I see these here's the
perspective you offered, and here's why it's valuable. Here are
your strengths I saw, here's your impact that I saw,
Here's the wisdom that I felt and heard, and just
that can go an incredibly long way.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
Yeah. One of the things I like to say when
I'm working with leaders to help develop them, especially around
this idea of affirmation, is when you can talk with
somebody in a way and help them see how much
they have uniquely made a difference, and you move them
to tears, you've done it really well.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Somebody said, oh, you want me to make people cry.
I said, I didn't say make people cry. I said
I want you to ideally move toward being able to
win the tears. Big difference.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
You know. That reminds me. I like to say that
affirming leaders give people the indisputable evidence of their significance.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Oh that's gorgeous.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
So someone can't argue with it, and that's where you
get that emotion. One of the leaders at the National
Park Service that I worked with, he worked in facilities
management and he managed a facility steam and a very remote,
difficult to manage area of the National Parks and he
had some of the highest morale and the whole park service.
And so we once to understand what was going on.

(40:36):
I told you, I love the outliers. And one of
the things he told me is he had a practice
on Fridays where he would go around the park during
a week and he'd take pictures of visitors walking over
a bridge that was repaired using there was a shorter
line for a bathroom because one of them was fixed
and opened. He'd take a picture and he would have
a practice on Friday. He would just send his team
an email message with all of these pictures in it,

(40:59):
and all he wrote is look what you did. That's it.
It was the indisputable evidence. Oh like I matter. And
this is the difference between organizations that say they have
a purpose, yeah, and organizations that show people every day
how they deliver that purpose. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Oh so good. Okay, we're coming close to the end
of the show, and I want to make sure and
get at least a couple more things out of you.
So let's talk about the last arm of it, and
that's needing.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
Yeah. In nineteen thirteen, French agricultural engineer, his name was
Max Ringelman. He did this study and he had individual
students pull on a rope as hard as they could,
and he attached this rope to a dyna animeter. It's
a device that measures force, so like how hard they're
pulling on the rope. And then he put these individual
students into groups and he had the groups pull on

(41:53):
the ropes as hard as they could, and he measured
the force readings and he added them up. And you know,
who do you think exerted the most total force? Individuals
or groups? Most people would say, oh, it's obviously the groups.
Who was the individuals every single time? Why? Because they
knew that they and their effort was indispensable. When we

(42:17):
feel that we matter, we act like we matter. The
flip side is true, when we feel replaceable, as I
mentioned earlier, we will act replaceable. So we are born interdependent.
Interdependent people don't like this word dependence, but interdependent means

(42:39):
needed by others. That's the translation. So if you use
that word and you believe that we're interdependent, you know
that we're needed by others and we are wired to
feel needed. So, you know, when we ask people you know,
who is a leader in your life that's helped you
feel that you matter, they frequently mention, you know, some

(43:00):
version of five words that I like to say all
the time, if it wasn't for you, Yeah, that their
leader or someone in their lives said, Hey, I just
want to let you know, if it wasn't for you,
this wouldn't be possible. And this works in our personal
lives to imagine that feedback you get it wasn't for you,
I wouldn't have this job, it wasn't for you. I
wouldn't have moved here. If it wasn't for you, I

(43:21):
wouldn't have gotten through this week. And you know, I
believe that there is no more powerful feeling as a
human being than knowing that just one person relies on
your presence.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah, it's huge, it's really huge. Okay, So there's two
things I want to I want to I want to
do before we have to conclude, and that is first,
if you could just say a bit about now that
we've been really situating, I think everybody that's been listening
and hearing this would say that, all right, I get
the importance of this, but how do I scale it
and create a culture of significance? So I know that

(43:59):
that's you've got a chapter devoted to that. Can you
just kind of talk us through briefly what that would
look like.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Yes. One is you have to foster the motivation to
do it, and really you can't just say, hey, we're
doing some mattering stuff now. Everybody needs to tell people
how they matter or hey, we're going to start focusing
on collaboration. Right. That's like telling someone who wants to
eat better, hey, go search how to eat better. They
get overwhelmed and they don't know where to go. We
have to make it real for people, and one of

(44:28):
the ways you can make it real is to have
them think about, have your leaders think about the time
in their life when they most believe they matter to
someone else, and have them share what that person was doing.
And then your charge is to say we're going to
do that for the people that we serve, and that
gives people a real emotional anchor. The second is make

(44:49):
sure you're developing the right skills. So make sure you're
naming and developing the right skills, and measure those skills right.
Some way for leaders to self assess and then have
some way for their teams to assess them. On behaviors.
One of the mistakes I think we make is we
assess people on emotional ideas like engagement or satisfaction. When

(45:14):
you do those things, they're important, but they're lagging indicators.
When you measure engagement, you're measuring how someone felt when
they took a survey. When you measure the behaviors, your
leader isn't acting to help you feel seen. You're measuring
something that can be changed. It's the leading indicatory. Measure behaviors,
measure skills. And then finally, I would say, make sure

(45:36):
that you're scanning your environment and making these things possible.
If you run a distribution center, you cannot tell people
your leaders to go care for people. If they are
managing people with scan guns, with GPS trackers that track
every hour of their day, your environment does not make
it possible to care. So what you need to do
is scan your environment and make sure your environment makes

(45:57):
it possible that people can do these behaviors. And once
you start doing this, and once you start measuring it,
you'll quickly see that people start having better conversations. The
conversation doesn't become how can we get people to produce more?
How can we get people to be more engaged? The
conversation among leaders becomes who do we need to see more?
Who do we need to notice more? Who's maybe unheard?

(46:19):
Who do we need to affirm more? Who do we
need to show that they're needed so that they can
get the numbers up?

Speaker 2 (46:24):
M okay. So I like to maybe close with this.
I love this and have have you respond to this?
Sac I just you talk about There's a Navajo proverb
that you open the chapter with, and it says that
wisdom reminds us that our assumption drives our actions, and
too often we underestimate how much people feel unvalued, how
much they feel unseen and unheard, and how lonely they are,

(46:48):
the result is that we can overlook their practices and
actions that can alleviate these feelings. Here's a good rule
for every single leader. Always assume the people around you
feel unseen, undervalued, and lonely, and act accordingly. Would you
comment on that, and I'll be our clothes.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
Navo proverb is a proverb on hospitality, and it says,
always assume your guest is tired, cold, and hungry, and
act accordingly. Think about the service that you would provide
if you assumed that. Imagine what your next interaction would
look like. If you assumed that that person felt lonely,
they felt unseen, they felt unhard, you would show up
much differently. And I think that's the impetus, right. We

(47:25):
have an underestimation bias as leaders. As people, we tend
to think that not too many people want to talk
to us. We tend to think that a simple thank
you note won't mean much. But in study after study,
we underestimate our impact and so we don't act. But
now is the time we need to act. More people
than never feel unseen, more people than ever feel unheard,
more people than ever feel lonely, and the driving force

(47:48):
of that is that they don't feel like they matter.
We're facing a mattering deficit, and the solution resides in
your next interaction.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
What a beautiful way to finish sach You are a
gift to the planetat to know you, to learn from
you to be inspired by you. Thank you for coming
back on working on Purpose.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
Thank you Elise Always.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
Listeners and viewers, you're going to want to learn more
about Zach McCurry or the work that he does facilitating
leadership and culture development and his latest book, The Power
of Mattering, so start by going to one of his sites,
it's Powerofmattering dot com. Last week, if you missed the
live show we were on with Howard Lewis talking about
his offline philosophy and his book Leave Your Phone at
the Door. It was a delightfully mischievous conversation about how

(48:30):
we can all benefit by embracing serendipity, randomness and the
joy available in the every day. Next week will be
on the air with Christopher Wong, Michaelson and Jennifer Tosti
Karus talking about their new book The Meaning and Purpose
of Work and interdiscpilinary Face framework for considering what work
is for What work is for? It promises to be

(48:50):
a fascinating and inspiring conversation. See you there, and remember
work is one of the best adventures and means of
realizing our potential and making the impact we crave and
can give us The opportunity to do business in a
way that betters the world. So let's work on Purpose.

Speaker 4 (49:06):
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to
tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes,
each week on W four CY. Together we'll create a
world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion performance
and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning
and purpose they crave See you there, Let's work on Purpose.