September 3, 2025 • 36 mins
What happens when you realize you matter? In this episode, Kevin talks with Zach Mercurio about the often-overlooked human need to feel important and how leaders at all levels can foster this through everyday interactions. Zach explains how his early research with custodial staff showed that small, intentional moments—like being seen, acknowledged, and validated—are the building blocks of meaning at work. These "moments of mattering," he says, aren't about big gestures but about real human connection. Kevin and Zach also explore the link between mattering and trust, the challenge of staying focused in today’s distracted world, and how leaders can create cultures where everyone feels valued and essential.
Listen For
00:00 Introduction
00:35 How to Join the Podcast Live
01:14 About Zach Mercurio
02:15 Welcome Zach
02:55 Why Mattering Matters
04:17 Defining Moments of Mattering
05:03 Discovering the Concept of Mattering
06:14 Leadership Happens in Moments
07:04 Human Interaction vs Symbols of Value
08:09 Why Engagement Programs Fall Short
09:06 The Three-Part Framework of Mattering
10:14 Noticing vs Knowing
11:15 Appreciation vs Affirmation
12:33 Feeling Needed at Work
13:03 The Power of If It Wasn't for You
15:30 Turning Good Intentions into Practice
16:15 Mindset Skillset Habitset
17:19 Translating Ideas into Real-World Action
18:18 The Myth of Being Too Busy
20:11 Relearning the Skills of Connection
21:13 Tech and the Loss of Human Interaction
22:00 Not Soft Skills Essential Skills
22:20 The Best Question a Leader Can Ask
23:00 You Don’t Need Permission to Lead This Way
25:02 You Always Have Interactional Power
26:06 Culture is Non-directional
27:06 Trust Begins with Care
28:00 The Human Advantage in the Age of AI
29:08 Belonging vs Inclusion vs Mattering
30:36 Where to Start Building Mattering
31:33 What Zach Does for Fun
31:58 What Zach is Reading
33:00 Final Thoughts and How to Connect
35:12 Your Call to Action
36:10 Wrap-Up
Zach's Story: Zach Mercurio is the author of The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance. He is a researcher, leadership development facilitator, and speaker specializing in purposeful leadership, mattering, and meaningful work. Zach advises leaders in organizations worldwide on practices for building cultures that promote well-being, motivation, and performance. He holds a Ph.D. in organizational learning, performance, and change from Colorado State University, where he serves as a senior fellow at the Center for Meaning and Purpose and as an instructor in the Organizational Learning, Performance, and Change program.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
What people
really want from work and lifeisn't always what we think of first.
And as leaders, we can help peopleget more of those things
than we might realize.
But first,we have to know what those things are.
Welcome to another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast,
where we are helping leaderslike you grow personally
(00:29):
and professionally
to make a bigger, positive differencefor their teams, organizations,
and the world.
If you are listening to this podcast,you can be with us live in the future.
When we do episodes just like this oneon your favorite social media channel.
I suppose as long as it'sone of them that we broadcast it on.
But you can get accessto when those episodes will take place
(00:51):
and how you can get connected with those.
And the easiest ways to do that areto join our Facebook and LinkedIn groups.
Those aren'tthe only places where we do these,
but the easiest place for you to
connect is to go to remarkablepodcast.com/facebook
or remarkable podcast.com/linkedinto get connected with us.
Get information about when these are goinglive so you can join us in the future.
(01:14):
My guest today, let me bring him in asI promised him I would at this juncture.
His name is Zach Mercurio.
He is a researcher, leadershipdevelopment facilitator, and speaker
specializing in purposeful leadership,mentoring, and meaningful work.
He is the author of The Power of MatteringHow Leaders Can Create
(01:35):
a Culture of Significance.
He advises leaders and organizersand organizations around the world
on practices for building culturesthat promote well-being,
motivation, and performance.
He holds a PhD
in Organizational Learning, Performanceand Change from Colorado State University,
where he serves as Senior Fellowof the center for Meaning and Purpose
(01:55):
and as an instructorin the Organizational Learning,
Performance and Change program.
He lives in Fort Collins.
Not surprisingly, since he works forand teaches at Colorado State.
He lives in Fort Collins,
Colorado with his wifeand two sons and their two adopted dogs.
And so, without further ado, Zach,I've been looking forward to this.
Welcome. Glad you're here.
(02:15):
Me, too. Hey, Kevin.
Hey, everybody, for joining.
Glad you're joining.
I'm really have been looking forwardto, as I told you in the in the preamble,
when we were,when we were out on OnLive, that,
a couple of past guests have mentionedUVic.
You were quoted in a couple other books.
You didn't you I don'tI don't have to quote you from this book.
It's it's all you.
(02:36):
And so,
we're going to dive into this book,but before we do that, like
the book is titled mattering,and I'm not sure
that I think we probably have some cluewhat we think that means.
I'll ask you about that in a second.
But how did that matteringbecome the focus of your work?
It reallystarted for me in my first research study,
(02:57):
and we embedded ourselves with a groupof cleaners, janitors, at the university,
many of whom work overnight shiftsoften are brushed by by people.
It's a very difficult job,not just because of the job,
but because of the feelingspeople get in the job.
It can be invisible.
(03:18):
And so we had embedded ourselveswith them for a year and a half,
and we were trying to understandwhat made this work meaningful.
And what.
What are you. Okay? Stop.
What do you mean by embedded?
Does that mean you became a cleaner?
I did become a cleaner,but we sat with them at their break rooms.
We did repeated interviews of all of them.
We sort of followed them around justto get the ebbs and flows of their day,
(03:40):
what it looked like.
And then we asked all of them,
you know, when they most experienced
meaningfulness in their job,what is happening?
And what was interestingis that almost everybody,
you know, in that group of custodians
said that it was small,very small interactions
where someone look them in the eye,remembered their name,
remembered something interesting about,their lives and, and commented on that.
(04:04):
One custodian told me that it waswhen she had a supervisor
who brought her into a break room,opened a, dictionary, and had her read
the word custodian as a person responsiblefor everyone in it.
That that moment that, responsiblefor a building and everyone in it,
that that moment, changed her entire
(04:25):
belief systems about herselfand kept her in a job for 30 years.
And subsequent to that study,we were studying meaningful work.
But we
didn't have a name for whatthose moments actually were doing.
It wasn't belonging.
It wasn't feeling connected to a group.
It wasn't inclusion.
It wasn't feeling like you can takean active role in the group.
It was something more. And that's where,
(04:47):
I discovered, Gordon Flett work
as a psychologiston the concept of mattering,
which has been in the literaturefor 40 years.
And mattering is the feelingof being significant
to the people around you,and mattering happens in moments.
And we realized, thisthis was it, meaningfulness at work was
(05:08):
it was an outcome of moments of mattering.
And then obviously,that sparked me to think,
how do we create moments of matteringand that led us on our
our research of interviewing peopleand working with organizations and leaders
to ask a question.
When you feel that you matter to someonewhat is happening?
(05:29):
And here we are.
It led to this book.
It led to this conversation.
And, you know,I love that one of the things I really
I mean, I mentioned earlierthat people I had your book,
I had already we had already been workingto get you on the show and,
because I'd seen enough of the bookto tell me that before we started.
And then as other people were telling meabout you
(05:51):
and about some of this work, I became moreand more interested in reading it.
And I really love that.
It's the outcome of moments,this idea of moments.
And you may if you're watching,you may have noticed me smiling
when Zach said that.
And that's in part
because so many leaders in organizations,whether they're the front line,
really almost all the way up
to CEO, but certainly almost all leadersfeel like, well, there's all these things.
(06:14):
Well, I can'tI can't help my folks with that because,
you know, they need a bigger paycheck.
They need this, I need that.
And the next thing and it's that moment,
is that being present with them, it'sremembering that thing.
It's following up on their biopsy.
It's a thousand things.
Yes. And a thousand thingsaccumulated over time.
Culture, for example,
in an organization, is only as goodas your everyday interactions in your own.
(06:37):
Well,that's actually what culture is, right?
It is how we do things. Right.
So so absolutely.
So you can have these symbols of valuefor of people,
these symbols like moneyor perks or awards that symbolize value.
But those things are inanimate.
They can't actually value a human.
Other humans value humans,and other humans value humans
(06:57):
in interactions in which they feelseen, heard, valued, and needed.
That's one of the reasons why I thinkwe've gotten employee engagement wrong.
We've come at it
from a programmatic perspectiveand not an interactional perspective.
No amount of assessing engagement,no wellbeing program, no Dei
program can make up for the experienceof feeling unseen, unheard and undervalued
in your everyday interactions.
(07:19):
And you know, the other thing
we got wrong, I think, was engagementwith engagement stuff.
And and again, the intention is all good.Like no, no misunderstanding.
Oh effort.
But not only has it become programmatic,it's all become about something.
We're doing two people.
Yeah, right.
Because I can't make you engaged.
Like you're goingto have to choose that. But.
But the kinds of moments that
(07:41):
we've hinted atand we're going to continue to talk about
are the kinds of thingsthat create that or.
Yeah, like engagement is all about caring,a caring about your work,
being emotionally invested.
But you cannot expect someone to careif they don't first feel cared for.
And I think that's what we've been doingfor the last three decades,
is we've expected peopleto care about their work.
(08:01):
Why aren't they engagedif we don't first create the conditions
where they feel valued, so they havethe confidence needed to add value?
I have often used in my
and my coauthor and colleagueWayne Jamal have often used the phrase
like when you before you got married,you got engaged,
and you didn't just announce to themthat we are now engaged.
(08:22):
The other person had to say yesand there clearly was caring there.
Let's presume right or we wouldn't.
The other person would have said yes.Right.
So it's it's very true.
You the book is framed around a framework.
Yeah. A framework with three parts.
And, and I want you to diveinto the three parts, of course.
(08:43):
But first, sort of.
How did you come to this?
How has your researchled you to these three?
At least on the surface,relatively simple things.
Right.
There's a lot of there's a lot underneaththis front
that we won't even have timeto unpack all of.
But, on the surface, these are not
difficult.
So how did you come to this place?
(09:05):
And then we'll talk about the three.
Yeah, we. Well, first we asked people.
I mean, we asked people,
we did interviews with you, and we askedwhen you most feel that you matter
to a leader in your job,what are they doing?
And no, it's this is an interesting momentto stop for everybody listening.
When you most feel that you matter andwork to someone else, what are they doing?
(09:26):
But then we started asking,what are the skills that they used?
So we also assessed people,
on their experiences of meaningfulnessmattering and then assessed them
on almost 90 different behaviorsthat their leaders did.
And what we have foundrepeatedly is that moments of mattering,
the architecture of a moment of mattering,is when people feel seen and heard.
(09:50):
So when people truly see usand they truly hear us
and hear our unique voice,that's called noticing.
Noticing is very differentthan knowing somebody I could know.
You say you, we're best friends.
I could know you as my best friendbut not notice that you're suffering.
I can know my team members, but I noticedsomeone has a little less energy
than they used to on a project, or isfeeling a little left out of discussions.
(10:14):
And then that's seeing people,then hearing them.
Well, can I just say, yeah. Yeah, please.
Converse of that though, right.
Because because oftentimes that'ssort of a that's sort of a, a conversation
with leaders, especially new leadersor frontline leaders.
Well, you said I could have someone couldbe my best friend and I might not notice.
Yeah.
It's also true, though,that you don't have to be a friend.
(10:36):
Absolutely. No, converse is not true.
And I just wantedI was confident I would agree with that,
but I wanted to state that because sooften what what you said is 100% correct.
But from a leadership perspective,I didn't want people losing.
They say, well, I'm not tryingto be friends with my people.
Like, yeah, that's irrelevant.
Well, you, you but you can knowa team member, but not notice them.
And the only way to truly understandsomebody is to notice
(10:59):
them, notice the ebbs and flowsand details of their work,
and offer actionsto show them that you're paying attention.
The second thing we found isthat people felt that they mattered when
their leaders affirmed them,
not appreciated them,
not recognized them, but affirmed to them.
Now there's a difference.
Appreciation is showing general gratitudefor who someone is.
(11:20):
It's like we can have an employeeappreciation day and say,
I'm glad you're here.
Here's this gift, I appreciate you.
Recognition is showing gratitude for whatsomeone does.
Like it's giving like an awardfor someone's work.
But affirmation is showing someonethe specific evidence
of their unique significance.
It's revealing what's unique about them,their unique gifts, and then showing them
(11:42):
how those unique giftsmake a unique difference.
The Latin root of the wordaffirm is affirmation,
and it means literally to firm upor make stronger.
And I love that because when we affirmsomebody, we're giving them the evidence
of their significance,which helps strengthen the belief
that they're significant.
And our belief matters so much, right?
Because our belief in ourselvesis so self-affirming and it like an upward
(12:04):
or downward spiral. Yeah.
And we're creating that chancefor that to grow for people.
And again,a lot of us have appreciation programs,
recognitionprograms, peer kudos platforms.
But again affirmation is deliveredinterpersonally.
It takes a human being to reflect backto a human being what's unique about them,
how they make a difference.
(12:25):
And then the third piece
is that people who felt thatthey matter said they felt needed.
They felt indispensableand relied on by others.
Now, not too much.
I'm not talking about Codependencewhere someone makes you feel guilty.
In a relationship.
I'm talking about feeling that you,your talents, your wisdom,
(12:46):
your gifts, your job is not disposable,
that it's needed for some bigger outcome.
One of the one of the things that our,people said to us
is that their leaderswho made them feel like they matter, say
some version or expresssome version of these five words.
If it wasn't for you, right?
If it wasn't for you,this wouldn't be possible.
(13:09):
Because as humans, you know,we're biologically, psychologically,
sociologically,sociologically wired to be interdependent
and interdependentmeans we need each other.
And it's it'sbaked into what it means to matter.
Now, this is especially important rightnow where so many people feel replaceable.
So many people feel like cogsin someone else's machine.
(13:29):
And we can't be surprised
that when people feel replaceablethat they will start acting replaceable.
Right. And
allow themselves to be replaced.
I'm struck again, by this.
If it wasn't for youand I'm thinking about and I'm not,
I'm gonna say somethingand you can respond.
(13:49):
Yeah.
What I'm about to sayisn't meant to be technical,
because I know that you'renot meaning it as technically,
but what I am suggesting toyou all as you're listening here,
and you're thinking about your next oneon one,
the next chance for you to get feedback.
You use some version of those five wordswhen you're giving feedback,
or you're using that that sentiment,
(14:11):
when you're giving feedback, it'sgoing to make a huge difference. Yes.
Yeah.
Can I can I give you a quick examplethat happened a couple weeks ago.
There was a,
a group of educators that I was workingwith as elementary school educators.
This applies into the work contextin a bit, but, these educators, you
one of them, one teacher had like low,very low truancy,
(14:32):
which is like unexplained absences.
She was really goodat addressing student absences.
And everybody in the, organization, like,was an offer wanted to learn from her.
And so we just asked her, how was it?
Why do you gethow do you get it when you come to class?
What are you. Doing it, I mean, right,we always have that outlier. Oh, that's.
She's just so good at that.
She told me that wheneversomeone's absent, whenever
(14:52):
a student is absent, she does not ask themwhy they were absent.
She does not comment that they were absentor that they're going to.
You have to go to the officeif they were absent again,
she says, the first thing I do
is I tell them what I missed about themnot being there, she said.
You know, when someone's absent, I'll say,hey, I noticed that you were in line.
You weren't in line for lunch,and your friends
weren'tsmiling and laughing at your jokes.
(15:12):
It was it wasn't as lively without youhere or our our class discussions.
Like, you know,
you raise your hand,you always bring up these
interesting points,sometimes funny points.
And, we missed that.
And it wasn't as good without you here.
So I really hope that we can see you more.
And, you know, that's really powerful.
And so good. Right?
That is so good.So good. But it's skillful.
(15:35):
It's not technique, it's skillful.
You know, everybody herethink of someone you rely on.
We all have it.It's all coming to mind now.
Think of the last timeyou explicitly told them.
Part ofwhat makes leaders who cultivate mattering
great is that they movefrom having a good intention
to having a good skill,to turning it into action.
(15:58):
And so often we feel feelings of gratitudefor one another.
We we feel that our employees matter.
We know that.
But we tend to not take actionto show them.
That's what this is all about.
It's learning the skills
to close that gapbetween good intentions and good practice.
You know,we call that mindset skill set, habit set.
(16:19):
And you and I are talking exactlythe same.
Like I don't think anybody wakes up.
It's like I want to be an uncaring leadertoday.
You know,I actually resent a lot of the blame
that's placed on leadersfor what's happening,
because I don't think that's helpfuleither.
What I, what I think happensis that when you when you don't know
how to do something or you don't knowhow to turn it into a practice or a habit
(16:42):
when you haven't been practicingthat or never develop that.
It it's, it's a,
it's a failure of the broader systemas well as the individual.
And so but the good news,the good news, right, is that you can
we can learn these thingsand we can practice them.
We can learn these thingsby listening to this conversation.
We can learn these thingsby reading your new book.
(17:05):
Zach Curio,the author of The Power of Mattering
How Leaders Can Createa Culture of Significance, How leaders.
You, Mr. Image Leader, can do this.
And then though it's that last part
that you just said,we have to translate that into new habit.
And one of the things you talk about
another wayis another place that which we agree,
(17:26):
is the challenge with the word busy.
Because,well, I'll just let you lean into that.
Let's talk about the challenge of busy,because now we're talking
about translating whateveryone who's listening is nodding about.
Yep yep yep yep
into the real world.
(17:47):
Yeah. You're not listening to a podcast.
You're not walking down the street.You're not in your car.
You're doing. You're leading.
Yeah.
So let's talk aboutwhat's it gets in the way.
I mean, you know, everybody listeningnod their head.
Everybody I talk to is like, yeah.
Showing peoplehow they matter is a good idea.
Yet 30% of people feel invisibleat work, right?
Just 40% of people say someone caresfor them as a person at work.
(18:09):
Gallup released their latest employee
engagement report that foundthat we're more disengaged than ever,
despite 20 years in a $1 billion industryto try to solve this engagement,
and well-being.
Basically, it's largely been flat.
Yeah, it'sbeen. Flat rate, basically been flat.
We haven't moved. Right.
But if you look at that data pointin that survey, that 40% of people say
they strongly agreesomeone cares for them as a person
(18:31):
at work,
30% of thatsample said that someone invested in
and could even nametheir unique potential.
I mean, this is very clear
that this is an everydayinteractional mattering deficit.
It is not a disengagement crisis.
And so one of the thingsthat is getting in the way is that
our technology has enabled efficiency,but it's also fracked.
(18:52):
Our attention.
Right.
So there are more things we can do.
I just was in a training with a guy whokept stepping out and stepping back in.
He was he was the leader of thisorganization that I was working on.
I'm cultivating matter.
He kept stepping in and stepping outwith his phone to answer emails,
which class dismissed.
We're not going to get anywhere.
(19:13):
Yeah, we're not going to get anywhere.But what?
That we have more fracking our attention?
Again, I don't think it's his fault,but it is his problem.
And what, what's happeningis there's a psychologist,
her name is Gloria mark, and she's foundthat, you know, about ten years ago,
we could spend about 2.5 minutes onany one thing without getting distracted.
Now it's about 47 seconds,
(19:34):
and leaders attention are being pulledin all sorts of different places.
So that's one barriers.
But we can relearn to pay attention.
You know, one of the practicesin the noticing practice
that leaders who tend to do thiswell is they tend to actually note
the details down of the peoplethat they're working with, work and lives.
If you're working ona, manufacturing floor and you're a leader
(19:56):
and one of your employees, one of your 30employees says that they were,
having trouble with a piece of equipment,and then you said you'd get it fixed.
Write that down.
Write down so-and-so was strugglingwith the equipment
and put it on your calendarto check in with them next week.
That there's so much magicin being remembered.
If a leader in that setting comes upand says, I remember last week
(20:19):
you're struggling with that equipment,did we get that fixed for you?
That is the power of being seen, right?
But it takes practice.
So we have to relearn how to payattention.
But the second thing isthat we have to recognize
that we're losing the skills to do this.
And we've been losing them for 25 years.
Kevin, if you.
So we are more connected than ever, yetwe're lonely.
(20:39):
Either that we send about 30 to 40 textbased messages to colleagues a day.
There's 38 million peopleusing slack every single day
now, up from 12,000,003 years ago.
We are on more platforms than ever.
But what this allow has allowed us to dois evade the social situations
in which we learn the skillsto do all of what I'm talking about.
So if you send me some good news,I can just send you a thumbs up
(21:01):
emoji and say, hey, great job,I don't have to sit with you.
Name the gifts I see in you, tellyou how proud I am of you.
That's a skill.
If you give me some bad news,I can just say, hey,
sorry to hear that sad face emoji.
I'll talk to you next week.
I don't have to sit with youand show compassion.
The same is true on virtual callsand remote work.
Like after this session, there's alwaysat the bottom of these remote platforms.
(21:25):
There's a live section like you can leave.
So if you're frustrated in this meeting,when that meeting times up by I can leave
and not talk to you till next week,that's not normal human behavior, right?
To not have to interactand seek understanding.
So the less we're using these skills,the less proficient we've gotten at them.
And so if people can understandthat our attention is getting in the way,
(21:48):
our sense of hurrying aroundis getting in the way
and that we're losing these skills.
I think that awareness is a baselineto move forward, that these are not soft,
these are not it's just not the simplelike extra things you do.
These are skills we need to relearnas as humans and as leaders.
So other than
(22:10):
we really ought to want to,
how do we give us give us a couple
of tangible ideas about,you know, yeah, pick one.
Pick one of the parts of the framework.
I'm actually you be on the phoneand I'm going to go beyond the framework.
I'm going to go beyond the framework
and give you the best questionI think you can ask people.
And this this has come out of workwith leaders, in fact,
(22:32):
with a group of leaders who working ona very complex transformation project.
And we had the leadersgo and ask this question,
and it was absolutely transformtransformative.
I mean, it's it's transformed my life andhow I interact with my own relationships.
But the question is, when you feel thatyou matter to me, what am I doing?
When you
feel that you matter to me,what am I doing?
(22:54):
And and write those things down
and take note and trulylisten to what your people have to say.
And those arethe things that you should be
spending most of your time doing.
That's the first thing I would do is startask everybody that question.
That'll give you more data
than any engagement assessment,any organizational climate assessment.
(23:16):
When you feel that you matter to me,what am I doing?
I was in an interview with a writerwho was interviewing me for a story,
and I brought this up, and she went onand she asked her 13 year old daughter
that question.
After we had this conversation.
And it was pretty emotionalbecause her 13 year old daughter said,
it's when we're just in the car goingto school, listening to my favorite music.
(23:37):
Music. We're not even talking,but we're just with each other
now. She had thought that that moment,that was just a transaction.
It was just a chore she had to do.
But that momentshe got that data, that that moment
was actually the time when her daughter,most felt that she mattered to her.
And she had overlooked that for so long.
So I would start there.
(23:59):
I love that I want to,I want to loop back to something
for all of you listeningthat I already hinted at,
and that is that you don't have to have
you don't have to have signing authority.
You don't have to have a budget.
You don't have to be anything.
You know, you don't even have to haveposition, to ask that question to do.
(24:21):
Really all of the thingsthat we've talked about today
don't require you to have some sort of,
to be to be given some empowermentto do something,
because all those things are choicesthat you can make in the moment
and as you make them and as yousaid, moments put on top of moments,
put on top of moments.
Kevin, that is important.
(24:41):
Because when you think of what makes yourleaders great, when you think of a leader
that's truly influenced you,you're not thinking about big actions.
You're thinking about how they showed upin small interactions.
You may not have positional powerin your organization.
You always have interactional power.
You can always choose
how you show up in your next interaction.
(25:04):
You and I just want to underscorewhat you said.
You don't need your organization'sapproval or permission
to notice a firm and show the next personyou interact with, how they're needed.
And oh, by the way,
even if you asked for it,they would give it to you, right?
Absolutely.No one's going to disagree with that.
(25:25):
But sometimes what happens is, iswe become who we don't want to become.
We become the leaderwho's not doing it for us.
A lot of people ask me, he's asked,
what do I do if my leaders are not doingthese things for me?
I always ask, do you do it for them?
You know, mattering is non-directional.
Culture is non-directional.
Have you checked in onhow your leader is doing?
(25:46):
Have you thanked your leaderand shown them meaningful gratitude
for the work that they did,or what they enabled you to do?
Have you reminded your leaderhow they're needed
and how they enable your projects?
Most of that.
So we also can't expect people todo things for us that we're not bringing
to the relationship as well.
(26:07):
100%.
And and another word that we talk abouta lot in engagement, of course, is models.
Whereas in other words,we talk about a lot these days is trust
and everything everybody is talking aboutthat we're talking about.
It's going to help build trust,because I always say that trust is a noun
and a verb, and the more of the verbwe do, the more of the noun we get.
(26:28):
And that's fundamentallywhat you just said.
Like if, if, if that personthat do it for you, what are you waiting?
What are you waiting on?
Go first.
Absolutely. That's a good a great point.
Great leaders tend to go first.
And what you're talking about istrust is is critical.
I mean going back to that noticingpractice,
noticing people'sall about understanding them.
(26:49):
I mean, you can't carefor something you don't understand
whether it's a
houseplant, a pet, a car or a person.
Seriously, if you don't understand it,you can't care for it.
I give it to a houseplant.I'm looking at one now.
You need to know what, where, how,what kind of light it needs,
how much water it needs.The same is true with people.
It's easyto overwatering it under watering.
(27:10):
It's easyto care about people from a distance.
It's easy to put on your website.
Your people are your greatest asset.
It takes getting up closeto care for people.
And so there's a big difference in caringabout somebody and caring for people.
To underscore your trust comment,I got to speak with the top 200 leaders
in the US Army a couple of years ago, andthere was one guy who came up apt after,
(27:34):
and he was one of the people responsiblefor the interpersonal relationship
section of the of a curriculumfor special forces officers.
Some of the most elite high pressureunits work units, probably in the world.
And he said, you know, thisgave me language for something he said,
because a lot of people thinkthe lethal the, the, a lot of people think
the key ingredient of a lethal unitright behind enemy lines is, is toughness.
(27:58):
But he said it's not it's love.
He said,
no one is going to sacrifice for meif I don't know their kids names.
No one is going to go aboveand beyond for me.
If I haven't gone
above and beyond for them,no one is going to support their peers.
If I haven't demonstratedsupport for them.
I mean, that's the key ingredient.
And what he's talking aboutis that the underlying predictor of trust.
(28:20):
In fact, researchersfind that without care,
trust is nearly impossible.
It doesn't matter how competentyou are at your job,
it doesn't matter how consistentyou are at your job.
If you don't feel like the person
that you're working forhas your best interests at heart,
it's almost impossibleto feel like you trust them.
(28:41):
And so because.
That's that'sthat's the highest form of trust, right?
Transactional trust.They know their job. They're not.
Lying is one thing,but we're talking about something else.
We're talking about.
We're talking about selflessness.
Right? Yeah, you're talking aboutthe focus is on it.
I love yeah,think about the last person you trusted
who didn't demonstrate care for you
or, think about the last
(29:02):
person you trusted in which you didn'tfeel psychologically safe with.
Did it feel like your voice mattered?
Didn't feel like you could speakup? Right?
It's virtually impossible.
Yeah.
There's a bunch of stuff I want to talkto, talk about, but I don't want to.
I think where we've goneis exactly where I wanted us to go.
I'm just going to tell all of youthat, you need to read this book,
(29:24):
and Zach will tell youhow you can get it before we're finished.
But, I've got a couple other thingsI want to do.
Zach, before we go.
First of all, one of the thing first,
is there anything I didn't askyou wish I would have?
I think we talked about it,but I do want to just
underscore the difference betweenmattering, belonging or inclusion.
We touched on it a little bit,
but I because there's so many buzzwordsout there in organizational life,
(29:46):
I think it's really importantto underscore underscore the difference.
Belonging is feelingwelcomed in and connected to a group.
A lot of organizationsdo belonging initiatives
where they make sure people feel welcome,connected affinity groups, all of that.
That's all great.
Inclusion is
being invited and ableto take an active role in a group.
But mattering is feeling significantto individual members of that group.
(30:07):
So there's really no shortcut.
If you want your peoplein your organization
to feel that they matter, everybody inthe organization needs to have the skills
to see, hear, value
and show them how they're neededin their everyday interactions.
And it's very hardfor people who experience long standing,
belonging or inclusion without feelingthat they matter every day.
And I think that's what's been missing
in a lot of the initiativesover the last ten years, is that
(30:29):
people have been told that they belong,people have been included,
but they don't feel that they matterand are seen, heard,
valuedand needed in their everyday interactions.
And so I think it's really importantto underscore the difference, there
and I want to just underscore againthe importance of trust,
especially in the age of AI.
A lot of people ask me about that.
(30:50):
It's I can do your tasks.
It cannot take responsibilityfor your tasks.
Yeah, I, I can do tasks, but
it cannot adopt the moral responsibilitywe have to one another.
And so that's why I believe in this ageof AI, these skills that we're talking
about, that build trust, true human trust
(31:12):
is it's the human advantage.
Because I don't think I will ever be able
to take moral responsibilityover our tasks.
It can do them, butonly we are responsible to one another.
And I agree with that.
So I'm going to shift gearsnow before we finish
with a couple of other questionstotally different from where we were.
And the first oneis, is that what do you do for fun?
(31:34):
I am on my bike a lot,
so I have road bike, gravel bike,mountain bike.
I love biking.That's a big thing in Colorado.
And then I have a ten year old anda seven year old who love the outdoors.
And so we go camping a lot in the summer
especially, and we're always outsideand just playing with them.
That's the most fun I have. Awesome.
(31:55):
And the only thing you knewI was going to ask you for sure,
is what are you reading these days?
So I tend to read two books.
I always read a novel,and I always read a nonfiction book back,
you know, together.
So I'm reading Ways of Being,
The Search for Planetary Intelligence by,
this guy named James Bridle.
Who, they're doing incredible work on,
(32:19):
seeking general
intelligence from other things,like how do we develop
artificial intelligenceusing the intelligence of animals, plants?
You know, our non-human world.
It's just really interesting.
And he talks about how
just this idea that we are all beingwith one another on this planet.
So it's really cool.
(32:40):
And then my novel,as I'm reading the fourth installment of A
is called the Southern Reach, trilogy.
And it's incredible.
It's called it's based on the you may haveheard of the movie annihilation,
but it's called absolution, and it's basedon a great series by Jeff VanderMeer.
(33:02):
We will have links to both of thoseas well.
And Zach's book in the show notes.
I just want to make a commentto those of you who,
maybe you've listened a long time,
or maybe this is the first timeyou've been with us.
And if you're just joining us, come back.
But one of the things,because I have asked this question out
over 500 times of people, Zach,you might find it interesting that it's,
(33:24):
I bet it's
25% of people that say they're reading.
Well, it's more than 25% of people thatare reading more than two things at once.
I get more than one, but lots of times.
But it's it's oftenthe case that I get people
who are consciously reading both fictionand nonfiction. So.
And you fall into that category.
Yeah. I've never I've never made that.
(33:46):
I don't know if. I'm consciously doing it.
I just think I need the,the foil of one to the other.
Like it.
You just said I'm always reading.
Well, I. Always I'm always, I always doit. Two books.
So it is a.
Habit now, you know that.
It's actually it's a habit. It's a has.
Become subconscious, right.
I bet, I bet if I didn't have, nonfictionor didn't
have a fiction book, I somethingI would feel like I needed to get one.
(34:10):
There you go.
So before we go, tell us more about
if people want to reach out to you,where can they find you?
Anything else that you want to sayto folks about connecting with you?
Yeah,you can go to Power of Matter Inc.com.
But I would recommend actually you goto Zach mercurio.com backslash mattering.
And there you can downloadall sorts of free stuff.
(34:30):
So com forward slashMatt or mattering. Yes.
You that's not what I have herebut that's what.
That's all right.
You can download a free self-assessment.
You don't even need to give meyour email address or anything.
Templates.
How to give better thank you to people.
Ways to say that if it wasn't for you,there's cards you can download.
I just want people to go start doing this.
(34:51):
Like closing that gapbetween intention and practice.
I love that.
So everybody, before we go in, beforeI say goodbye
to Zach and say goodbye to you,I don't need to ask you the question.
I ask you every single week.
Now, what?
What are you going to do with this?
What actionwill you take as a result of this?
(35:12):
Oh, Zach. And I've said this throughoutthis conversation.
Like, this is good stuff.
It makes sense.
Everyone's nodding their head.
It doesn't matter unless you take action.
It doesn't matterunless you start doing working.
Excuse me? Working on noticing,working on affirming.
It doesn't matterunless you work on taking the action.
If you're
if you're frustrated because you say,well, why isn't my boss doing this stuff?
(35:33):
The question is,
what are you going to do to startdo this, doing this stuff with your boss?
Like, I don't know what it isthat you took from this.
That's for you.
But it it can't endwith what you mentally thought about
or mentally highlighted as Zach said it.
And it can't be what you just wrote down.
If you're not riding your bike right
now, it's got to bewhat action will you take when we leave?
(35:56):
And if you do that, then I can promise you
that this will be far more valuablethan it would be otherwise.
Zach, thank you so much for being here.
My, my, wait,
was worth it.
Okay. Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate this.
Hey, everybody.
Thanks for being here.
If you like this, make sure you come back.
Tell somebody else
(36:16):
so they come wherever you happen to bewatching or listening, you know the drill.
You can give us a ratingif that's possible. Where you are.
You can make sure you subscribe
so you don't miss any other episodesof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.
And we'll be back againnext week. We'll see you then.
What people
really want from work and lifeisn't always what we think of first.
And as leaders, we can help peopleget more of those things
than we might realize.
But first,we have to know what those things are.
Welcome to another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast,
where we are helping leaderslike you grow personally
(00:29):
and professionally
to make a bigger, positive differencefor their teams, organizations,
and the world.
If you are listening to this podcast,you can be with us live in the future.
When we do episodes just like this oneon your favorite social media channel.
I suppose as long as it'sone of them that we broadcast it on.
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(00:51):
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connect is to go to remarkablepodcast.com/facebook
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Get information about when these are goinglive so you can join us in the future.
(01:14):
My guest today, let me bring him in asI promised him I would at this juncture.
His name is Zach Mercurio.
He is a researcher, leadershipdevelopment facilitator, and speaker
specializing in purposeful leadership,mentoring, and meaningful work.
He is the author of The Power of MatteringHow Leaders Can Create
(01:35):
a Culture of Significance.
He advises leaders and organizersand organizations around the world
on practices for building culturesthat promote well-being,
motivation, and performance.
He holds a PhD
in Organizational Learning, Performanceand Change from Colorado State University,
where he serves as Senior Fellowof the center for Meaning and Purpose
(01:55):
and as an instructorin the Organizational Learning,
Performance and Change program.
He lives in Fort Collins.
Not surprisingly, since he works forand teaches at Colorado State.
He lives in Fort Collins,
Colorado with his wifeand two sons and their two adopted dogs.
And so, without further ado, Zach,I've been looking forward to this.
Welcome. Glad you're here.
(02:15):
Me, too. Hey, Kevin.
Hey, everybody, for joining.
Glad you're joining.
I'm really have been looking forwardto, as I told you in the in the preamble,
when we were,when we were out on OnLive, that,
a couple of past guests have mentionedUVic.
You were quoted in a couple other books.
You didn't you I don'tI don't have to quote you from this book.
It's it's all you.
(02:36):
And so,
we're going to dive into this book,but before we do that, like
the book is titled mattering,and I'm not sure
that I think we probably have some cluewhat we think that means.
I'll ask you about that in a second.
But how did that matteringbecome the focus of your work?
It reallystarted for me in my first research study,
(02:57):
and we embedded ourselves with a groupof cleaners, janitors, at the university,
many of whom work overnight shiftsoften are brushed by by people.
It's a very difficult job,not just because of the job,
but because of the feelingspeople get in the job.
It can be invisible.
(03:18):
And so we had embedded ourselveswith them for a year and a half,
and we were trying to understandwhat made this work meaningful.
And what.
What are you. Okay? Stop.
What do you mean by embedded?
Does that mean you became a cleaner?
I did become a cleaner,but we sat with them at their break rooms.
We did repeated interviews of all of them.
We sort of followed them around justto get the ebbs and flows of their day,
(03:40):
what it looked like.
And then we asked all of them,
you know, when they most experienced
meaningfulness in their job,what is happening?
And what was interestingis that almost everybody,
you know, in that group of custodians
said that it was small,very small interactions
where someone look them in the eye,remembered their name,
remembered something interesting about,their lives and, and commented on that.
(04:04):
One custodian told me that it waswhen she had a supervisor
who brought her into a break room,opened a, dictionary, and had her read
the word custodian as a person responsiblefor everyone in it.
That that moment that, responsiblefor a building and everyone in it,
that that moment, changed her entire
(04:25):
belief systems about herselfand kept her in a job for 30 years.
And subsequent to that study,we were studying meaningful work.
But we
didn't have a name for whatthose moments actually were doing.
It wasn't belonging.
It wasn't feeling connected to a group.
It wasn't inclusion.
It wasn't feeling like you can takean active role in the group.
It was something more. And that's where,
(04:47):
I discovered, Gordon Flett work
as a psychologiston the concept of mattering,
which has been in the literaturefor 40 years.
And mattering is the feelingof being significant
to the people around you,and mattering happens in moments.
And we realized, thisthis was it, meaningfulness at work was
(05:08):
it was an outcome of moments of mattering.
And then obviously,that sparked me to think,
how do we create moments of matteringand that led us on our
our research of interviewing peopleand working with organizations and leaders
to ask a question.
When you feel that you matter to someonewhat is happening?
(05:29):
And here we are.
It led to this book.
It led to this conversation.
And, you know,I love that one of the things I really
I mean, I mentioned earlierthat people I had your book,
I had already we had already been workingto get you on the show and,
because I'd seen enough of the bookto tell me that before we started.
And then as other people were telling meabout you
(05:51):
and about some of this work, I became moreand more interested in reading it.
And I really love that.
It's the outcome of moments,this idea of moments.
And you may if you're watching,you may have noticed me smiling
when Zach said that.
And that's in part
because so many leaders in organizations,whether they're the front line,
really almost all the way up
to CEO, but certainly almost all leadersfeel like, well, there's all these things.
(06:14):
Well, I can'tI can't help my folks with that because,
you know, they need a bigger paycheck.
They need this, I need that.
And the next thing and it's that moment,
is that being present with them, it'sremembering that thing.
It's following up on their biopsy.
It's a thousand things.
Yes. And a thousand thingsaccumulated over time.
Culture, for example,
in an organization, is only as goodas your everyday interactions in your own.
(06:37):
Well,that's actually what culture is, right?
It is how we do things. Right.
So so absolutely.
So you can have these symbols of valuefor of people,
these symbols like moneyor perks or awards that symbolize value.
But those things are inanimate.
They can't actually value a human.
Other humans value humans,and other humans value humans
(06:57):
in interactions in which they feelseen, heard, valued, and needed.
That's one of the reasons why I thinkwe've gotten employee engagement wrong.
We've come at it
from a programmatic perspectiveand not an interactional perspective.
No amount of assessing engagement,no wellbeing program, no Dei
program can make up for the experienceof feeling unseen, unheard and undervalued
in your everyday interactions.
(07:19):
And you know, the other thing
we got wrong, I think, was engagementwith engagement stuff.
And and again, the intention is all good.Like no, no misunderstanding.
Oh effort.
But not only has it become programmatic,it's all become about something.
We're doing two people.
Yeah, right.
Because I can't make you engaged.
Like you're goingto have to choose that. But.
But the kinds of moments that
(07:41):
we've hinted atand we're going to continue to talk about
are the kinds of thingsthat create that or.
Yeah, like engagement is all about caring,a caring about your work,
being emotionally invested.
But you cannot expect someone to careif they don't first feel cared for.
And I think that's what we've been doingfor the last three decades,
is we've expected peopleto care about their work.
(08:01):
Why aren't they engagedif we don't first create the conditions
where they feel valued, so they havethe confidence needed to add value?
I have often used in my
and my coauthor and colleagueWayne Jamal have often used the phrase
like when you before you got married,you got engaged,
and you didn't just announce to themthat we are now engaged.
(08:22):
The other person had to say yesand there clearly was caring there.
Let's presume right or we wouldn't.
The other person would have said yes.Right.
So it's it's very true.
You the book is framed around a framework.
Yeah. A framework with three parts.
And, and I want you to diveinto the three parts, of course.
(08:43):
But first, sort of.
How did you come to this?
How has your researchled you to these three?
At least on the surface,relatively simple things.
Right.
There's a lot of there's a lot underneaththis front
that we won't even have timeto unpack all of.
But, on the surface, these are not
difficult.
So how did you come to this place?
(09:05):
And then we'll talk about the three.
Yeah, we. Well, first we asked people.
I mean, we asked people,
we did interviews with you, and we askedwhen you most feel that you matter
to a leader in your job,what are they doing?
And no, it's this is an interesting momentto stop for everybody listening.
When you most feel that you matter andwork to someone else, what are they doing?
(09:26):
But then we started asking,what are the skills that they used?
So we also assessed people,
on their experiences of meaningfulnessmattering and then assessed them
on almost 90 different behaviorsthat their leaders did.
And what we have foundrepeatedly is that moments of mattering,
the architecture of a moment of mattering,is when people feel seen and heard.
(09:50):
So when people truly see usand they truly hear us
and hear our unique voice,that's called noticing.
Noticing is very differentthan knowing somebody I could know.
You say you, we're best friends.
I could know you as my best friendbut not notice that you're suffering.
I can know my team members, but I noticedsomeone has a little less energy
than they used to on a project, or isfeeling a little left out of discussions.
(10:14):
And then that's seeing people,then hearing them.
Well, can I just say, yeah. Yeah, please.
Converse of that though, right.
Because because oftentimes that'ssort of a that's sort of a, a conversation
with leaders, especially new leadersor frontline leaders.
Well, you said I could have someone couldbe my best friend and I might not notice.
Yeah.
It's also true, though,that you don't have to be a friend.
(10:36):
Absolutely. No, converse is not true.
And I just wantedI was confident I would agree with that,
but I wanted to state that because sooften what what you said is 100% correct.
But from a leadership perspective,I didn't want people losing.
They say, well, I'm not tryingto be friends with my people.
Like, yeah, that's irrelevant.
Well, you, you but you can knowa team member, but not notice them.
And the only way to truly understandsomebody is to notice
(10:59):
them, notice the ebbs and flowsand details of their work,
and offer actionsto show them that you're paying attention.
The second thing we found isthat people felt that they mattered when
their leaders affirmed them,
not appreciated them,
not recognized them, but affirmed to them.
Now there's a difference.
Appreciation is showing general gratitudefor who someone is.
(11:20):
It's like we can have an employeeappreciation day and say,
I'm glad you're here.
Here's this gift, I appreciate you.
Recognition is showing gratitude for whatsomeone does.
Like it's giving like an awardfor someone's work.
But affirmation is showing someonethe specific evidence
of their unique significance.
It's revealing what's unique about them,their unique gifts, and then showing them
(11:42):
how those unique giftsmake a unique difference.
The Latin root of the wordaffirm is affirmation,
and it means literally to firm upor make stronger.
And I love that because when we affirmsomebody, we're giving them the evidence
of their significance,which helps strengthen the belief
that they're significant.
And our belief matters so much, right?
Because our belief in ourselvesis so self-affirming and it like an upward
(12:04):
or downward spiral. Yeah.
And we're creating that chancefor that to grow for people.
And again,a lot of us have appreciation programs,
recognitionprograms, peer kudos platforms.
But again affirmation is deliveredinterpersonally.
It takes a human being to reflect backto a human being what's unique about them,
how they make a difference.
(12:25):
And then the third piece
is that people who felt thatthey matter said they felt needed.
They felt indispensableand relied on by others.
Now, not too much.
I'm not talking about Codependencewhere someone makes you feel guilty.
In a relationship.
I'm talking about feeling that you,your talents, your wisdom,
(12:46):
your gifts, your job is not disposable,
that it's needed for some bigger outcome.
One of the one of the things that our,people said to us
is that their leaderswho made them feel like they matter, say
some version or expresssome version of these five words.
If it wasn't for you, right?
If it wasn't for you,this wouldn't be possible.
(13:09):
Because as humans, you know,we're biologically, psychologically,
sociologically,sociologically wired to be interdependent
and interdependentmeans we need each other.
And it's it'sbaked into what it means to matter.
Now, this is especially important rightnow where so many people feel replaceable.
So many people feel like cogsin someone else's machine.
(13:29):
And we can't be surprised
that when people feel replaceablethat they will start acting replaceable.
Right. And
allow themselves to be replaced.
I'm struck again, by this.
If it wasn't for youand I'm thinking about and I'm not,
I'm gonna say somethingand you can respond.
(13:49):
Yeah.
What I'm about to sayisn't meant to be technical,
because I know that you'renot meaning it as technically,
but what I am suggesting toyou all as you're listening here,
and you're thinking about your next oneon one,
the next chance for you to get feedback.
You use some version of those five wordswhen you're giving feedback,
or you're using that that sentiment,
(14:11):
when you're giving feedback, it'sgoing to make a huge difference. Yes.
Yeah.
Can I can I give you a quick examplethat happened a couple weeks ago.
There was a,
a group of educators that I was workingwith as elementary school educators.
This applies into the work contextin a bit, but, these educators, you
one of them, one teacher had like low,very low truancy,
(14:32):
which is like unexplained absences.
She was really goodat addressing student absences.
And everybody in the, organization, like,was an offer wanted to learn from her.
And so we just asked her, how was it?
Why do you gethow do you get it when you come to class?
What are you. Doing it, I mean, right,we always have that outlier. Oh, that's.
She's just so good at that.
She told me that wheneversomeone's absent, whenever
(14:52):
a student is absent, she does not ask themwhy they were absent.
She does not comment that they were absentor that they're going to.
You have to go to the officeif they were absent again,
she says, the first thing I do
is I tell them what I missed about themnot being there, she said.
You know, when someone's absent, I'll say,hey, I noticed that you were in line.
You weren't in line for lunch,and your friends
weren'tsmiling and laughing at your jokes.
(15:12):
It was it wasn't as lively without youhere or our our class discussions.
Like, you know,
you raise your hand,you always bring up these
interesting points,sometimes funny points.
And, we missed that.
And it wasn't as good without you here.
So I really hope that we can see you more.
And, you know, that's really powerful.
And so good. Right?
That is so good.So good. But it's skillful.
(15:35):
It's not technique, it's skillful.
You know, everybody herethink of someone you rely on.
We all have it.It's all coming to mind now.
Think of the last timeyou explicitly told them.
Part ofwhat makes leaders who cultivate mattering
great is that they movefrom having a good intention
to having a good skill,to turning it into action.
(15:58):
And so often we feel feelings of gratitudefor one another.
We we feel that our employees matter.
We know that.
But we tend to not take actionto show them.
That's what this is all about.
It's learning the skills
to close that gapbetween good intentions and good practice.
You know,we call that mindset skill set, habit set.
(16:19):
And you and I are talking exactlythe same.
Like I don't think anybody wakes up.
It's like I want to be an uncaring leadertoday.
You know,I actually resent a lot of the blame
that's placed on leadersfor what's happening,
because I don't think that's helpfuleither.
What I, what I think happensis that when you when you don't know
how to do something or you don't knowhow to turn it into a practice or a habit
(16:42):
when you haven't been practicingthat or never develop that.
It it's, it's a,
it's a failure of the broader systemas well as the individual.
And so but the good news,the good news, right, is that you can
we can learn these thingsand we can practice them.
We can learn these thingsby listening to this conversation.
We can learn these thingsby reading your new book.
(17:05):
Zach Curio,the author of The Power of Mattering
How Leaders Can Createa Culture of Significance, How leaders.
You, Mr. Image Leader, can do this.
And then though it's that last part
that you just said,we have to translate that into new habit.
And one of the things you talk about
another wayis another place that which we agree,
(17:26):
is the challenge with the word busy.
Because,well, I'll just let you lean into that.
Let's talk about the challenge of busy,because now we're talking
about translating whateveryone who's listening is nodding about.
Yep yep yep yep
into the real world.
(17:47):
Yeah. You're not listening to a podcast.
You're not walking down the street.You're not in your car.
You're doing. You're leading.
Yeah.
So let's talk aboutwhat's it gets in the way.
I mean, you know, everybody listeningnod their head.
Everybody I talk to is like, yeah.
Showing peoplehow they matter is a good idea.
Yet 30% of people feel invisibleat work, right?
Just 40% of people say someone caresfor them as a person at work.
(18:09):
Gallup released their latest employee
engagement report that foundthat we're more disengaged than ever,
despite 20 years in a $1 billion industryto try to solve this engagement,
and well-being.
Basically, it's largely been flat.
Yeah, it'sbeen. Flat rate, basically been flat.
We haven't moved. Right.
But if you look at that data pointin that survey, that 40% of people say
they strongly agreesomeone cares for them as a person
(18:31):
at work,
30% of thatsample said that someone invested in
and could even nametheir unique potential.
I mean, this is very clear
that this is an everydayinteractional mattering deficit.
It is not a disengagement crisis.
And so one of the thingsthat is getting in the way is that
our technology has enabled efficiency,but it's also fracked.
(18:52):
Our attention.
Right.
So there are more things we can do.
I just was in a training with a guy whokept stepping out and stepping back in.
He was he was the leader of thisorganization that I was working on.
I'm cultivating matter.
He kept stepping in and stepping outwith his phone to answer emails,
which class dismissed.
We're not going to get anywhere.
(19:13):
Yeah, we're not going to get anywhere.But what?
That we have more fracking our attention?
Again, I don't think it's his fault,but it is his problem.
And what, what's happeningis there's a psychologist,
her name is Gloria mark, and she's foundthat, you know, about ten years ago,
we could spend about 2.5 minutes onany one thing without getting distracted.
Now it's about 47 seconds,
(19:34):
and leaders attention are being pulledin all sorts of different places.
So that's one barriers.
But we can relearn to pay attention.
You know, one of the practicesin the noticing practice
that leaders who tend to do thiswell is they tend to actually note
the details down of the peoplethat they're working with, work and lives.
If you're working ona, manufacturing floor and you're a leader
(19:56):
and one of your employees, one of your 30employees says that they were,
having trouble with a piece of equipment,and then you said you'd get it fixed.
Write that down.
Write down so-and-so was strugglingwith the equipment
and put it on your calendarto check in with them next week.
That there's so much magicin being remembered.
If a leader in that setting comes upand says, I remember last week
(20:19):
you're struggling with that equipment,did we get that fixed for you?
That is the power of being seen, right?
But it takes practice.
So we have to relearn how to payattention.
But the second thing isthat we have to recognize
that we're losing the skills to do this.
And we've been losing them for 25 years.
Kevin, if you.
So we are more connected than ever, yetwe're lonely.
(20:39):
Either that we send about 30 to 40 textbased messages to colleagues a day.
There's 38 million peopleusing slack every single day
now, up from 12,000,003 years ago.
We are on more platforms than ever.
But what this allow has allowed us to dois evade the social situations
in which we learn the skillsto do all of what I'm talking about.
So if you send me some good news,I can just send you a thumbs up
(21:01):
emoji and say, hey, great job,I don't have to sit with you.
Name the gifts I see in you, tellyou how proud I am of you.
That's a skill.
If you give me some bad news,I can just say, hey,
sorry to hear that sad face emoji.
I'll talk to you next week.
I don't have to sit with youand show compassion.
The same is true on virtual callsand remote work.
Like after this session, there's alwaysat the bottom of these remote platforms.
(21:25):
There's a live section like you can leave.
So if you're frustrated in this meeting,when that meeting times up by I can leave
and not talk to you till next week,that's not normal human behavior, right?
To not have to interactand seek understanding.
So the less we're using these skills,the less proficient we've gotten at them.
And so if people can understandthat our attention is getting in the way,
(21:48):
our sense of hurrying aroundis getting in the way
and that we're losing these skills.
I think that awareness is a baselineto move forward, that these are not soft,
these are not it's just not the simplelike extra things you do.
These are skills we need to relearnas as humans and as leaders.
So other than
(22:10):
we really ought to want to,
how do we give us give us a couple
of tangible ideas about,you know, yeah, pick one.
Pick one of the parts of the framework.
I'm actually you be on the phoneand I'm going to go beyond the framework.
I'm going to go beyond the framework
and give you the best questionI think you can ask people.
And this this has come out of workwith leaders, in fact,
(22:32):
with a group of leaders who working ona very complex transformation project.
And we had the leadersgo and ask this question,
and it was absolutely transformtransformative.
I mean, it's it's transformed my life andhow I interact with my own relationships.
But the question is, when you feel thatyou matter to me, what am I doing?
When you
feel that you matter to me,what am I doing?
(22:54):
And and write those things down
and take note and trulylisten to what your people have to say.
And those arethe things that you should be
spending most of your time doing.
That's the first thing I would do is startask everybody that question.
That'll give you more data
than any engagement assessment,any organizational climate assessment.
(23:16):
When you feel that you matter to me,what am I doing?
I was in an interview with a writerwho was interviewing me for a story,
and I brought this up, and she went onand she asked her 13 year old daughter
that question.
After we had this conversation.
And it was pretty emotionalbecause her 13 year old daughter said,
it's when we're just in the car goingto school, listening to my favorite music.
(23:37):
Music. We're not even talking,but we're just with each other
now. She had thought that that moment,that was just a transaction.
It was just a chore she had to do.
But that momentshe got that data, that that moment
was actually the time when her daughter,most felt that she mattered to her.
And she had overlooked that for so long.
So I would start there.
(23:59):
I love that I want to,I want to loop back to something
for all of you listeningthat I already hinted at,
and that is that you don't have to have
you don't have to have signing authority.
You don't have to have a budget.
You don't have to be anything.
You know, you don't even have to haveposition, to ask that question to do.
(24:21):
Really all of the thingsthat we've talked about today
don't require you to have some sort of,
to be to be given some empowermentto do something,
because all those things are choicesthat you can make in the moment
and as you make them and as yousaid, moments put on top of moments,
put on top of moments.
Kevin, that is important.
(24:41):
Because when you think of what makes yourleaders great, when you think of a leader
that's truly influenced you,you're not thinking about big actions.
You're thinking about how they showed upin small interactions.
You may not have positional powerin your organization.
You always have interactional power.
You can always choose
how you show up in your next interaction.
(25:04):
You and I just want to underscorewhat you said.
You don't need your organization'sapproval or permission
to notice a firm and show the next personyou interact with, how they're needed.
And oh, by the way,
even if you asked for it,they would give it to you, right?
Absolutely.No one's going to disagree with that.
(25:25):
But sometimes what happens is, iswe become who we don't want to become.
We become the leaderwho's not doing it for us.
A lot of people ask me, he's asked,
what do I do if my leaders are not doingthese things for me?
I always ask, do you do it for them?
You know, mattering is non-directional.
Culture is non-directional.
Have you checked in onhow your leader is doing?
(25:46):
Have you thanked your leaderand shown them meaningful gratitude
for the work that they did,or what they enabled you to do?
Have you reminded your leaderhow they're needed
and how they enable your projects?
Most of that.
So we also can't expect people todo things for us that we're not bringing
to the relationship as well.
(26:07):
100%.
And and another word that we talk abouta lot in engagement, of course, is models.
Whereas in other words,we talk about a lot these days is trust
and everything everybody is talking aboutthat we're talking about.
It's going to help build trust,because I always say that trust is a noun
and a verb, and the more of the verbwe do, the more of the noun we get.
(26:28):
And that's fundamentallywhat you just said.
Like if, if, if that personthat do it for you, what are you waiting?
What are you waiting on?
Go first.
Absolutely. That's a good a great point.
Great leaders tend to go first.
And what you're talking about istrust is is critical.
I mean going back to that noticingpractice,
noticing people'sall about understanding them.
(26:49):
I mean, you can't carefor something you don't understand
whether it's a
houseplant, a pet, a car or a person.
Seriously, if you don't understand it,you can't care for it.
I give it to a houseplant.I'm looking at one now.
You need to know what, where, how,what kind of light it needs,
how much water it needs.The same is true with people.
It's easyto overwatering it under watering.
(27:10):
It's easyto care about people from a distance.
It's easy to put on your website.
Your people are your greatest asset.
It takes getting up closeto care for people.
And so there's a big difference in caringabout somebody and caring for people.
To underscore your trust comment,I got to speak with the top 200 leaders
in the US Army a couple of years ago, andthere was one guy who came up apt after,
(27:34):
and he was one of the people responsiblefor the interpersonal relationship
section of the of a curriculumfor special forces officers.
Some of the most elite high pressureunits work units, probably in the world.
And he said, you know, thisgave me language for something he said,
because a lot of people thinkthe lethal the, the, a lot of people think
the key ingredient of a lethal unitright behind enemy lines is, is toughness.
(27:58):
But he said it's not it's love.
He said,
no one is going to sacrifice for meif I don't know their kids names.
No one is going to go aboveand beyond for me.
If I haven't gone
above and beyond for them,no one is going to support their peers.
If I haven't demonstratedsupport for them.
I mean, that's the key ingredient.
And what he's talking aboutis that the underlying predictor of trust.
(28:20):
In fact, researchersfind that without care,
trust is nearly impossible.
It doesn't matter how competentyou are at your job,
it doesn't matter how consistentyou are at your job.
If you don't feel like the person
that you're working forhas your best interests at heart,
it's almost impossibleto feel like you trust them.
(28:41):
And so because.
That's that'sthat's the highest form of trust, right?
Transactional trust.They know their job. They're not.
Lying is one thing,but we're talking about something else.
We're talking about.
We're talking about selflessness.
Right? Yeah, you're talking aboutthe focus is on it.
I love yeah,think about the last person you trusted
who didn't demonstrate care for you
or, think about the last
(29:02):
person you trusted in which you didn'tfeel psychologically safe with.
Did it feel like your voice mattered?
Didn't feel like you could speakup? Right?
It's virtually impossible.
Yeah.
There's a bunch of stuff I want to talkto, talk about, but I don't want to.
I think where we've goneis exactly where I wanted us to go.
I'm just going to tell all of youthat, you need to read this book,
(29:24):
and Zach will tell youhow you can get it before we're finished.
But, I've got a couple other thingsI want to do.
Zach, before we go.
First of all, one of the thing first,
is there anything I didn't askyou wish I would have?
I think we talked about it,but I do want to just
underscore the difference betweenmattering, belonging or inclusion.
We touched on it a little bit,
but I because there's so many buzzwordsout there in organizational life,
(29:46):
I think it's really importantto underscore underscore the difference.
Belonging is feelingwelcomed in and connected to a group.
A lot of organizationsdo belonging initiatives
where they make sure people feel welcome,connected affinity groups, all of that.
That's all great.
Inclusion is
being invited and ableto take an active role in a group.
But mattering is feeling significantto individual members of that group.
(30:07):
So there's really no shortcut.
If you want your peoplein your organization
to feel that they matter, everybody inthe organization needs to have the skills
to see, hear, value
and show them how they're neededin their everyday interactions.
And it's very hardfor people who experience long standing,
belonging or inclusion without feelingthat they matter every day.
And I think that's what's been missing
in a lot of the initiativesover the last ten years, is that
(30:29):
people have been told that they belong,people have been included,
but they don't feel that they matterand are seen, heard,
valuedand needed in their everyday interactions.
And so I think it's really importantto underscore the difference, there
and I want to just underscore againthe importance of trust,
especially in the age of AI.
A lot of people ask me about that.
(30:50):
It's I can do your tasks.
It cannot take responsibilityfor your tasks.
Yeah, I, I can do tasks, but
it cannot adopt the moral responsibilitywe have to one another.
And so that's why I believe in this ageof AI, these skills that we're talking
about, that build trust, true human trust
(31:12):
is it's the human advantage.
Because I don't think I will ever be able
to take moral responsibilityover our tasks.
It can do them, butonly we are responsible to one another.
And I agree with that.
So I'm going to shift gearsnow before we finish
with a couple of other questionstotally different from where we were.
And the first oneis, is that what do you do for fun?
(31:34):
I am on my bike a lot,
so I have road bike, gravel bike,mountain bike.
I love biking.That's a big thing in Colorado.
And then I have a ten year old anda seven year old who love the outdoors.
And so we go camping a lot in the summer
especially, and we're always outsideand just playing with them.
That's the most fun I have. Awesome.
(31:55):
And the only thing you knewI was going to ask you for sure,
is what are you reading these days?
So I tend to read two books.
I always read a novel,and I always read a nonfiction book back,
you know, together.
So I'm reading Ways of Being,
The Search for Planetary Intelligence by,
this guy named James Bridle.
Who, they're doing incredible work on,
(32:19):
seeking general
intelligence from other things,like how do we develop
artificial intelligenceusing the intelligence of animals, plants?
You know, our non-human world.
It's just really interesting.
And he talks about how
just this idea that we are all beingwith one another on this planet.
So it's really cool.
(32:40):
And then my novel,as I'm reading the fourth installment of A
is called the Southern Reach, trilogy.
And it's incredible.
It's called it's based on the you may haveheard of the movie annihilation,
but it's called absolution, and it's basedon a great series by Jeff VanderMeer.
(33:02):
We will have links to both of thoseas well.
And Zach's book in the show notes.
I just want to make a commentto those of you who,
maybe you've listened a long time,
or maybe this is the first timeyou've been with us.
And if you're just joining us, come back.
But one of the things,because I have asked this question out
over 500 times of people, Zach,you might find it interesting that it's,
(33:24):
I bet it's
25% of people that say they're reading.
Well, it's more than 25% of people thatare reading more than two things at once.
I get more than one, but lots of times.
But it's it's oftenthe case that I get people
who are consciously reading both fictionand nonfiction. So.
And you fall into that category.
Yeah. I've never I've never made that.
(33:46):
I don't know if. I'm consciously doing it.
I just think I need the,the foil of one to the other.
Like it.
You just said I'm always reading.
Well, I. Always I'm always, I always doit. Two books.
So it is a.
Habit now, you know that.
It's actually it's a habit. It's a has.
Become subconscious, right.
I bet, I bet if I didn't have, nonfictionor didn't
have a fiction book, I somethingI would feel like I needed to get one.
(34:10):
There you go.
So before we go, tell us more about
if people want to reach out to you,where can they find you?
Anything else that you want to sayto folks about connecting with you?
Yeah,you can go to Power of Matter Inc.com.
But I would recommend actually you goto Zach mercurio.com backslash mattering.
And there you can downloadall sorts of free stuff.
(34:30):
So com forward slashMatt or mattering. Yes.
You that's not what I have herebut that's what.
That's all right.
You can download a free self-assessment.
You don't even need to give meyour email address or anything.
Templates.
How to give better thank you to people.
Ways to say that if it wasn't for you,there's cards you can download.
I just want people to go start doing this.
(34:51):
Like closing that gapbetween intention and practice.
I love that.
So everybody, before we go in, beforeI say goodbye
to Zach and say goodbye to you,I don't need to ask you the question.
I ask you every single week.
Now, what?
What are you going to do with this?
What actionwill you take as a result of this?
(35:12):
Oh, Zach. And I've said this throughoutthis conversation.
Like, this is good stuff.
It makes sense.
Everyone's nodding their head.
It doesn't matter unless you take action.
It doesn't matterunless you start doing working.
Excuse me? Working on noticing,working on affirming.
It doesn't matterunless you work on taking the action.
If you're
if you're frustrated because you say,well, why isn't my boss doing this stuff?
(35:33):
The question is,
what are you going to do to startdo this, doing this stuff with your boss?
Like, I don't know what it isthat you took from this.
That's for you.
But it it can't endwith what you mentally thought about
or mentally highlighted as Zach said it.
And it can't be what you just wrote down.
If you're not riding your bike right
now, it's got to bewhat action will you take when we leave?
(35:56):
And if you do that, then I can promise you
that this will be far more valuablethan it would be otherwise.
Zach, thank you so much for being here.
My, my, wait,
was worth it.
Okay. Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate this.
Hey, everybody.
Thanks for being here.
If you like this, make sure you come back.
Tell somebody else
(36:16):
so they come wherever you happen to bewatching or listening, you know the drill.
You can give us a ratingif that's possible. Where you are.
You can make sure you subscribe
so you don't miss any other episodesof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.
And we'll be back againnext week. We'll see you then.
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