'The Invisible Leader' with Zach Mercurio

Research consistently finds that purpose may be the most powerful influencer of our behaviours, attitudes, and motivation in organizations, work, school, and life. Yet despite the increasing evidence of purpose’s power, many of the organizations, systems, and institutions which dominate human life aren’t built to elicit and leverage the fundamental human search for purpose and meaning. Zach Mercurio, a purposeful leadership expert and author of The Invisible Leader, joined The Way Forward webcast to help us figure out just these problems. 

In The Invisible Leader: Transform Your Life, Work, and Organization with the Power of Authentic Purpose, international purpose and meaningful work consultant and researcher, Zach Mercurio, shows business leaders, educators, students, athletes, and parents HOW to discover, clarify, and deliver their reason for existence―their authentic purpose.

The Invisible Leader takes the next step and details both how purpose works and the research-backed practices to implement it in our lives, work, and organizations.

Episode Transcript

Leon Goren (00:00):
Hi, I'm Leon Goren, president of PEO leadership, a
peer to peer leadership advisoryfirm. We're an amazing community
of CEOs, presidents and seniorexecutives. Ask yourself, are
you learning as fast as theworld is changing? It's time for
Ontario business leaders to bandtogether for counseling support,
it's time for you to tap intothe business with some of our
peer groups and unlock new waysto grow. I want you to come out

(00:23):
of this COVID crisis a betterleader and your organization
ready for what's next, take thefirst step at po dash
leadership.com. Special thanksto Aaron and barillas for
helping us bring you today's p oleadership's way forward
podcast.
I'm going to kick it off. Justwith a quick introduction of p o

(00:45):
and myself. I'm Leon Gore, andI'm CEO of p o leadership and
welcome to the way forward ourlive webcast series. If you're
joining us for the first time,and you're a co president,
business owner and our corporateexecutive, looking to grow your
leadership capabilities andperformance, grow your trusted
network and of course, grow yourbusiness you've landed in the

(01:06):
right spot in this rapidlychanging business landscape. The
importance of expanding yourconnections and having
insightful and meaningfulconversations with the right
peers is now more important thanever. At p OE leadership. Our
members include some of NorthAmerica's strongest leaders
representing almost everyindustry, they lead both SMEs

(01:28):
and multinational organizations.
And they understand the valueand importance of being able to
connect and think with eachother as they all work very hard
to successfully achieve theirpersonal, professional and
organizational goals. If you'rethinking about the future of
your business, and navigatingthrough the many unknowns that
lie ahead, if you're thinkingabout your stakeholders in your

(01:49):
employees, how you continue toengage and inspire and support
them, especially during thistime, if you're thinking about
whether and how you should pivotyour business understand the
importance of being able to stepoutside of your organization to
learn from others. Or if you'rethinking understanding ports of
continued learning and thenecessity for improvement, no
matter what the roleresponsibilities you have today.

(02:10):
And just take a moment to visitour website. It's p o dash
leadership, calm, and justplease connect with us. We'd be
happy to speak with you on howwe can help make a difference to
both your life and yourorganization. So now before I
just didn't I'm going tointroduce Zack, just a couple of
logistics. Zack and I are goingto kick it off. We're going to
do our typical fireside chat. Iapparently had a lot of

(02:31):
questions, so but I will keep itto 3035 minutes. And then really
we want to get you guys. Guysladies all involved in the
discussion. So please use thequestion box throughout the
session. And we'll do our bestto answer as many as we can. So
here we goes. Zack Mercury is anauthor, researcher and
consultant specializing inpurposeful leadership,

(02:51):
meaningful work mattering andpositive organizational
development. He wrote theinvisible leader, transform your
life working organization with apower authentic purpose to
provide individuals leaders andorganizations with the tools to
activate their purpose andcreate cultures where everyone
matters. In his work, he'sworked with over 150 global

(03:13):
companies not for profit schoolsuniversities around the world.
Zack helps sport forgepurposeful leaders and provides
practical tools to cultivatepositive organizational and team
cultures enable more meaningmotivation and well being. Some
of his clients and partnersinclude Hewlett Packard the Food
and Drug AdministrationCaterpillar ghiradelli chocolate

(03:34):
company, crocs the Alzheimer'sAssociation and the list goes
on. He's earned his PhD inorganization learning
performance and change fromColorado State University in
Fort Collins, Colorado, where heserves as an Honorary Fellow in
Department of Psychology centerfor meaning and purpose and as
an instructor in the School ofEducation. His research on
meaningful work has been awardedthe Association for talent

(03:57):
development, the Academy ofManagement and the Academy in
Human Resource Development. Hewrites regularly on his blog and
newsletter and his thoughts onpurposeful leadership mattering
and meaningful work have beenfeatured internationally in
media outlets such as Forbes,Inc, magazine, the Denver Post
Psychology Today in theHuffington Post, Zack lives in
his wife with his wife, twoyoung sons and adopted.in, Fort

(04:18):
Collins, Colorado. Zach, it's apleasure for me to welcome you
this morning on our way forwardlive webcast.

Zach Mercurio (04:27):
Thanks, Leon.
Thanks for having me. Thanks,everybody for joining in. If
you're like me, this delayactually worked for you. I'm
always slightly behind schedule.
So I would have been right ontime if I were you right now.
Perfect start time. So thanksfor sticking with us.

Leon Goren (04:43):
Now. That's awesome.
Yes, thank you. So Zack, Ithought I'd open it up with some
maybe some definitions of whatpurpose is to you and even how
you found your purpose. I'mthinking from an individual
perspective was Start with that.
Yeah.

Zach Mercurio (05:01):
Yeah. So So what is purpose, one of the funny
things that's happening ispeople think purpose is a trend,
or a fad, because it's in a lotof blog posts and articles and
in the popular press, and if youspent time around a toddler, as
I have, I have a six year old, athree year old, there's some
commissioned artwork back there.
You know that one of the firstwords that humans use, when

(05:23):
humans use language to makesense of the world, one of the
first words they use is why Imean, we are wired, as human
beings to search for purpose,it's our seeking system, it
never goes away. The problem iswe get to educational systems
and work systems that depressthat seeking system, but it's
always there, you know, we'remeaning making machines. And for

(05:44):
me, I was the youngest of threebrothers. And when you're the
youngest, if you're the youngeston this call, you know that you
get really good at a couplethings, one, entertaining
yourself to comparing yourself.
I was sort of always searchingfor significance in my own life.
And I was very susceptible tohow we generally educate people,

(06:08):
especially in the West, which iswe educate people for success.
If you're required to achievethese things, then you'll be
successful. If you get this job,then you'll be successful. If
you get this paycheck, thenyou'll be successful. We live in
this perpetual if then argument.
And the problem is, with beingmotivated in a life by those
things, is precisely the factthat you can achieve them. And

(06:31):
then what you have to havesomething else to to generate
your happiness. So that landedme in an advertising job in
Washington, DC. And on theoutside, I was doing well.
Everybody thought I wassuccessful. And I was really
good at it. I remember mymanager giving me some really
big accounts, I was excited. ButI remember being out working
with these human beings who wereour clients, and then going back

(06:54):
to the office and talking abouthow much money we could get out
of them. And I just felt youknow that that emptiness inside,
you know, that seeking system,the toddler brain, why am I
here? Why am I doing this? Iwould also hear everybody, when
they came into the office, theywould talk about it almost the
weekend yet on Monday. And it'sastounding and depressing how

(07:16):
many people live for twosevenths of their lives, the
days that begin with the letterS right. I don't think that's
healthy as a society. So on alunch break, I had this
encounter, I met this cabdriver. And I've told this story
countless times, because it'sthe only reason why I'm in front
of you right now. And I remembertalking with him, and he asked
me how I'm doing and I grumbledIs it the weekend yet, and it

(07:39):
was like a Tuesday at the time,which is embarrassing. And then
I asked him how he was doing.
And he lit up, he started namingall of the people he had picked
up that day, telling me theirstories. And there was something
that was a spark in the sky thatI couldn't quite pinpoint. But I
want it really badly. If youlook up in US News and World

(08:00):
Report, taxi drivers, one of themost difficult occupations, but
but he was able to experienceand I felt that joy in that job.
And why? Because he didn't talkabout what he did. He didn't say
my week is awesome. I'm a cabdriver. He talked about why he
did it. And it was since thatmoment that I was kind of like,
hey, I want to be a cab driver.
But then I was like, I reallywant to learn how we can build a

(08:21):
contribution, focus perspectiveand mindset. And so I've really
been researching that, and inworking on that ever since. And
my purpose is to help peoplerealize their own significance
right now. Because when I lookat my childhood, and what led me
to where I'm at, I mean, that'swhat I what I needed.

Leon Goren (08:44):
So in the book, and I know you've read the book a
couple years, but you taught thedifference between purpose and
authentic purpose. And so howdoes it evolve into the
authentic purpose? And like,what's the difference between
the two?

Zach Mercurio (08:55):
Yeah, so authentic purpose is a genuine
reason for being that takes yourunique strengths, meets those up
with human needs around you. Andit's like your fingerprint,
where your resources, yourunique resources, meet human
needs. That's when you're onpurpose. I don't think purpose

(09:15):
is found somewhere out there ina blog post. It's usually right
where you are purposes and outthere waiting to be found. It's
right where you are waiting tobe acknowledged. You have
strengths you have resourcesthey meet human needs around you
as an individual in anorganization right now. So it's
almost becoming aware of thosethings that are important, but

(09:35):
going one layer deeper. Thesociologist Corey keys has a
great framework for this aroundauthentic purpose. There are
four types of purpose right? Youcan have a purpose that's
aimless and useless, meaningthere's no directed goal, and
it's not useful to anybody, likeI want to make a lot of money.
Alright, aimless. There's nodirect gold number. Useless.

(09:57):
It's not really useful toanybody except for you. And then
there's a, you can have apurpose that directed. So you
have a goal I want to make$50,000 in the next 10 years for
myself, but it's useless toother people. And then you can
also have a purpose that isuseful, but not directed. That's

(10:19):
like, I want to help people.
Right? That's useful to otherpeople. But who are you going to
help? How are you going to helpthem? Where are you going to
help them? How are you going toknow if you do help them. So the
key is authentic purpose keysays is a purpose that is both
directed and useful to otherpeople. And the crux of why
purpose works neuroscientifically and

(10:40):
neurobiologically is thatusefulness piece, UCLA symbol
center for neuroscience findsthere's a part of our brain,
that's hardwired forcontribution. And when we
contribute to each other, weactually get a boost of the
neurotransmitters dopamine andserotonin and oxytocin, which
control for mood, movement andmotivation. Now translate that
to work, right mood, peoplefeeling good motivation, having

(11:03):
the energy to do the work, andthen movement actually doing
things. And that's why purposeis so foundational and
important.

Leon Goren (11:13):
That's great. I get to keep us focused on the
individual. And we'll talk aboutthe organization because we're
going to transform it into theorganization. But I always
believe you got to start withthe leader. And we got a lot of
leaders on the on the calltoday. Yeah. It's an interesting
time, right? We've all gonethrough this whole COVID time.

Q&A from Audience (11:32):
When I think and I listened to a lot of
leaders talking, it's almost atime of reflection now. And it's
funny, because I think purposeis even more important than it
was three years ago, even thoughit's always been important. But
I think people are now startingto think about it more. Woody,
you know, you've worked withmany different leaders, how do
you? Where would the startingpoint for an individual be to

(11:55):
really start to think about whatis my purpose? How, where am I
being useful? How am I impactinghuman beings and relating to
some of their strengths? Like,where do they start?

Unknown (12:07):
Start now, today. And what I mean by that is that you
can get a lot of purpose anxietyas well. I talk to a lot of,
there's a lot of executives, alot of leaders I talked to, that
are thinking about what's nextfor them. And what's going to
happen when they retire. Andthere's this there can be a
purpose anxiety that happenswhen we think about finding this
one purpose. But there's a bigdifference between having

(12:30):
purpose and being purposeful.
And if purpose is ourcontribution, the reason for
which we exist and our use andusefulness, then being
purposeful is being contributioncentered in our thinking, being
in doing. And so today, rightnow, think about the next
conversation you're going tohave, and think about how am I
going to use my strengths topositively impact the next

(12:54):
person. It's just like, youknow, when you wake up in the
morning, right? A couple ofyears ago, I had a bad habit.
Get up, look at this thing, mycalendar, and I'd say, What do I
have to do today? Right. That'show I think about if you're the
voice in your head was amotivational speaker. Hey, Zack,
what do you have to do today?
How are you going to get throughthat meeting? Right. It's not

(13:15):
very motivating. But one of thethings, I realized that it's a
pretty bad question to askyourself. So a purposeful
mindset is looking at your phoneand being like, how is what I'm
going to do today going toaffect others? And it's that
mindset, right? That purposefulmindset where you think about
your contribution, and emphasizecontribution, your cause versus

(13:38):
your achievements and the thingsyou do that you start to uncover
your purpose, you know, as youlive out your day, but it can
start right now. So focus, is

Leon Goren (13:49):
it a statement? Do they do you have to formulate a
statement for yourself that youcan visualize is a different
than a vision, in a sense for anindividual or an essence?

Unknown (13:59):
Yeah. So that's a good question. statements are very
helpful. But more helpful if youhave a statement, but you don't
believe and act in a way thataligns with your statement, then
the statement doesn't matter.
Right? I always say, practiceyour purpose before you proclaim
Your purpose, as an individualand organization. So here's,
here's what I mean by that.

(14:21):
Like, for example, one thingthat you could do if you're a
leader, and really want to workon this, think about the things
like everyday the things thatyou love to do. Think about the
things that you're good at everyday. Heck, you could write a
list each night, you know, whatdid I love doing today? What was
I good at today? And then thethird thing is think about how
those things that I love doing,how is what how is what I'm good

(14:43):
at? How does that affect otherhuman beings? What bothers me
about the world, how do Icontribute? And it's at the
intersection of those threethings, your passions, your
talent, the impact you want tomake, that your purpose will
arise, you'll see trends. Andthen yes, I encourage you this
Start to start then thinkingabout a statement because our

(15:05):
environment informs our beliefs.
So if you wake up every day, andyou read a statement of your
contribution, if you end yourday and read the statement of
your contribution, in 30 days,it's gonna be very difficult for
your brain to not start gettinginto the habit of being
contribution center. So, sothere is there are ways to
create a statement, and it'sbringing to life those

(15:27):
strengths. So your purpose is towhat is a strength and action
verb that brings to life who arethe people you impact with those
strengths? And what do you wantpeople to think feel be do or
have as a result of you being onyour strengths. But first, and
this is what's missed, is youhave to learn to be purposeful.
Because there's again, there's aresults mindset and a purposeful

(15:49):
mindset. Right? I get messageson LinkedIn all the time from
people saying, Zack, I'm aresults driven professional. And
I'm like results of what even mykindergartner knows that you
can't have an effect without acause. You can't pursue an
effect to get an effect, right?
You can't pursue profit to getprofit, this business example,

(16:10):
every effect has a cause acontribution and purposeful
people are contributionobsessed, and they trust that
the effects and results willfollow.

Leon Goren (16:20):
Okay, that's an interesting way to put it. Yeah.
Makes a lot of sense. Are there?
Are there any examples? Likeeven for yourself? Do you have a
statement? And the reason I'masking statement, because when
we go to the organization, I'mgonna ask you the same thing,
like establishing something andI'm even trying to understand
the difference between thatvision and an organization and a
purpose statement that peoplewant? Are they the same? Like I

(16:43):
sometimes I call it the essenceof why we do what we do, right?
But yeah, an example of a greatone that you Yeah, the chat

Unknown (16:52):
might might blow up here, what I'm about to say
this, a lot of people think thatit doesn't matter the difference
between purpose mission andvision, right, that you can use
them interchangeably, I think itmatters tremendously. And I have
disagreements with clients aboutthis. So your purpose is so
mission, if you look at Mission,right, for example, the root

(17:14):
word of mission means to call tosend out, your sending people
out, it goes back to the oldLatin, you know, missionaries to
send out q imagine being sentout with no reason to go out on
a mission. Right? So yourmission is is what you're going
to do what you're going to do.
So purpose is why it matters,why you exist. The reason for

(17:37):
existence, the problem, youexist to solve the reason why
you'd have a mission. So amission without a purpose is
just activity. Right? It'sfinite activity. Purpose is the
reason for your existence, whyyou exist, the human problem you
exist to solve if yourorganization wasn't around in
five years, who would care?

(18:00):
That's a great question to askyour board. And why is that
embedded throughout? And thenmission is how you go about
delivering that purpose, whatyou do how you do it
differently? And then yourvision is, what do you what do
you imagine the world beinglike, if you were done? What

(18:21):
would the world be likesocially, technologically,
economically, environmentally,politically? If you fulfilled
your purpose through yourmission?

Q&A from Audience (18:33):
Okay, I think that actually makes a lot of
sense. You really put it in thecontext, and you can actually
understand it, because I findalso that people get confused
all the time. I love the way youdefine mission. Because if that
makes sense. So jumping intoorganizations today, right? What
comes first, so you're a leader,you've picked an organization,

(18:54):
this is funny, because you're ahired gun a lot, we get a lot of
hire guns, right? They get hiredby these corporations, they get
into the corporation.

Unknown (19:02):
I wonder how many of them truly reflect whether or
not their own purpose alignswith what that organization's
about? I hope they do in mostcases, but I can tell you, it's
probably 5050. What comes first,when you come into that
organization? Or what's moreimportant, the vision or the
purpose? Or if you're workingwith a group? Where would you

(19:23):
lead them first? Would you leadthem to work on the vision and
then come back to the purpose orthe other way around?
So I would go right down to thefront line in the organization,
the front line? I mean, ifyou're a distribution center, go
to the distribution centerpackers and ask them why do you
think we exist? And I startthere, because it doesn't matter

(19:47):
what flashy purpose statement orbranding or slideshow you put
together. If people at the frontline in your stakeholder
community don't believe it. It'snot going to matter. So one The
things I would do is I wouldassess initially do an
assessment. Like if I were goingin, nobody's done this work, I
would ask people, one, why doyou think this company exists?

(20:10):
And I would synthesize that datato I would say, what are the
values that guide your best workhere? And I would synthesize
that data and bring it up to theexecutive team. And I would sit
down with a leadership team ofkey leaders, and then I would
answer those questions as well.
And I would, I would cometogether and find some of those
trends. And this is called as anaction research process. And

(20:31):
this is why it's a little slowerthan a branding exercise. But
but it's the slow work. Thatthat permeates cultures when you
get stakeholders engaged. Andyou know, there's gonna be a lot
of things you don't want tohear. I had one leader say,
Well, if I do this, what if theysay the purpose of the company

(20:52):
is different than what I want itto be? Well, then, what are you
going to do just apply and forcesomeone into believing
something, values and purposearen't prescribed, they're
believed. So you have to startwith that belief, and then use
that data from within to craft.
The purpose, I will also saythis, don't get hung up and

(21:14):
having a purpose. So this isgonna sound odd coming from
someone who wrote a book aboutpurpose. But don't get hung up
on having a purpose. get hung upon making sure people, humans,
individual humans in theorganization can know and see
exactly how they contribute.
Because remember, the reason whypurpose works in organizations,

(21:35):
is it taps into the primitivedesire to contribute and to be
significant. And that'saccessible, whether you have a
purpose statement, or not. Everyjob, you know, I always tell my
college seniors that I teach,they're graduating, I say, the
one mistake I don't want you tomake is think that any job
exists to pay, you know, goodhiring managers, like, hey,

(21:59):
let's give someone some of ourmoney, right? Every job exists
to solve a human problem or filla some sort of human need or
desire. purposeful organizationsmake sure there's a clear line
of sight between the individualthe task and the ultimate
contribution. So if you don't,if you're not creating a purpose
statement, like start startingthere, start with those things,

(22:19):
and then build yourself up towhere you're in a place to craft
an authentic purpose statementusing that that data but just
like an individual, as anorganization, you have to
cultivate a mindset as well.
I've seen so many purposeinitiatives fail, because people
say we have this new purposestatement. But we're still going

(22:39):
to measure you by self servingCommission's. Yeah.
It doesn't work. conflicts. Yep.
Yep. And the role modeling, Imean, you got to live by it.
Right? everyone follows a leaderthat strikes your organizational
culture around that purpose aswell. Right.

Q&A from Audience (22:57):
couple more questions around this stuff. You
know, there's a lot oforganizations out there today
sit on boards do differentthings as well. And they think
they have a purpose. But I'm notsure they actually do have a
purpose. Yeah. Now understandthat. Do you have examples of
some great organizations?
Because you're seeing a lot?

(23:18):
Yeah, that you can share with usthat it really it emotionally
connects with not just thepeople outside their customers,
but internally, like people justlive, eat and breathe and drive
that company?

Unknown (23:30):
Yeah, I'll give you a story of a journey. And it's a
local one for me. And it'sactually a tunnel carwash
company. So a lot of people willbe like, what, what's their
purpose? And I remember sittingdown with Justin, who's the
general manager of this carwashservice, and they're very big,
especially here in the West. AndI was talking about this system,

(23:50):
you know, what's the humanproblem you exist to solve? And
he said, Well, you know, Irealized that a couple of years
ago, but no one wakes up andwants to work at a carwash. So
think about that for a minute.
There's something there, right?
Every carwash is saying we washthis amount of cars, we do this
faster, we do this better. He'ssaying, you know, I realized
that I'm hiring people with thatjust get their GDS, it's a next

(24:13):
step to their future. And so hesaid he spent a year formulating
this purpose that our purposehas to be to prepare people for
their future. And what theystarted doing was they started
asking people like why peoplegot their cars washed. And there
was profound like, stories,right? They were part of

(24:33):
people's everyday routines,whether they're going to a
graduation, going to a funeralselling a car. And so their
purpose is to provide preparepeople for the future and
provide for the community now.
Now, how are they doing thisright? Every time a task is
delegated, they tie the task tohow what the worker will learn
ties to their personaldevelopment plan for the future

(24:54):
and where they want to go. Theyoffer 401k options. There are
Also, right now in the midst ofpandemic working to build an
affordable housing complex fortheir employees. Right now they
have the average tunnel carwashing system brings, you're
going to learn about car washesright now brings about 300,000
cars a year, they wash over amillion cars per year, they get

(25:17):
almost 500 applications forevery one position, people
internationally want to comework for them. Right? Those are
the results of purpose, but notthe purpose. But his journey of
really thinking what is thehuman problem we solve? That was
even detached from their productproduct, which is hard for
leaders, right? Yeah. created aunique culture. And that's why I

(25:39):
say that, you know, anybody cancopy what you do and how you do
it. But they can't really copyauthentically at your core, why
you got started, and why youexist, and people have tried
with them. So it's a it's areally interesting one, because
a lot of people say like, Icouldn't, you know, I couldn't
imagine it, but but I think it'sa really powerful story.

Q&A from Audience (26:04):
Yeah, no, it is. It's funny, I'm reading your
book, and I read your bus driverstory, too, right? Where you
went in there. And I'm, I'mreading and I'm getting
emotional, listening to how youtook those stories and how it
transformed that organization aswell. And created meaning that
mattered for each of thoseindividuals.

Unknown (26:21):
Yeah, can I say one more thing? Yeah, absolutely.
You have purpose. Yourorganization has purpose, you
create value. Like everybodylistening, if you exist, right
now you create some value forhuman beings. The key is to make
that very conscious, very aware,and embedded in at the forefront

(26:43):
of how you approach the work anddo the work. And that's the
practice of purposefulleadership. Right, purposeful
leadership ensures a clear lineof sight between an individual
task and the end outcome, thebigger contribution, the bigger
significance. And yeah, thosebus drivers, I went into work
with a group of bus drivers andmechanics. And I remember the

(27:04):
supervisors being like, Oh, thisis going to be a tough crowd,
they're not going to want thispurpose stuff. And I said, you
know, everybody searches forpurpose, it's probably been
locked away by self fulfillingprophecies, like, they're just
here for a paycheck. Nobody'sjust here for a paycheck. That
may be why someone works, butit's not what they want to
experience in work. And so Iwent into this, and I had them

(27:26):
write down. And this issomething you could do this is
really powerful practice.
Actually, if you're listening,have people if you're still
listening, people write. Peoplewrite down, think of a moment in
your work, where they mostbelieved that their work
mattered, what was happening,who was around what was said,
and go to the people, you don'tthink we'll have a story. The
people, I always get peoplethere behind the scenes, they're

(27:49):
in finance, you know, it's hardfor them to see their purpose
and have them write that. And Iremember reading the stories
that we had 75 bus drivers, theysaid they wouldn't want to talk
about this, I got 75 stories.
One of the first ones I read wasby a bus driver, who said that a
mechanic who said that they wereat the funeral of a pre

(28:09):
kindergarten student. And thekindergarten student who passed
away his parents saw them with abadge, the school district
badge, his mechanic shirt he waswearing, and said, I just want
you to know that the bus ride toschool was the highlight of my
kids young life. And, and hesaid that that's why I come to

(28:30):
work. I need this paycheck.
That's why I work. But why Iwant to keep coming every day is
because of that. And that'saccessible in any organization
and in any job.

Q&A from Audience (28:45):
Yeah, that really that's that was that
really stuck with me. Right?
Yeah, you really hit a corepoint of, and it's funny because
I think about us as leaderstoday, we get so busy, so
carried on in terms of whatwe're doing, and taking your
story and just even being ableto walk the front lines. Right.
You said that was the The firstthing you would do, doing that
on a regular basis and askingthe questions about people and

(29:05):
their jobs making creating theirimportance that they actually
mean something to not just theorganizer, what they're doing is
just so important. And we justwe we don't do enough of that.
Because we're overloaded. Wethink we're overloaded and it is
such a key piece to keeping ourorganization moving forward.

Unknown (29:30):
Yes, feeling seen is a basic human need. If someone
doesn't feel like they matter,it's extremely easy for nothing
to matter. If you have amotivation issue in your
organization, you probably havea mattering issue. Because you
know, and what your point is, isnoticing people, affirming them,

(29:53):
showing them that they'reneeded. I mean, that's a basic
need, but there's been recentstudies that find that over 67%
People in US companies, forexample, indicate that they feel
invisible, that one or moretimes in work. And it's simple
things, right? This is notrocket science, you know, maybe
I'm pricing myself out of a job,but this doesn't cost much

(30:14):
money. It's really going back tothe fundamentals of being human.
Right, the fundamentals ofleadership, and great leadership
is tremendously boring. Right?
great leadership is rememberingsomeone's last name. Knowing who
someone relies on who relies onthem, knowing their kids names,
knowing the new hobby, theystarted knowing whether their

(30:35):
dad's in the hospital, noticingwhether they're suffering and
offering an action to help. Ifyou look on LinkedIn, nobody
posts I remembered someone'slast name today. But it's
actually those things, thoselittle things that create
legacy, not your big productlaunch. Right? It's remembering
someone.

Q&A from Audience (30:55):
It's funny, you're gonna, I don't know if
you read this article recently,but it was on Amazon and Amazon
does some great things. But theytalked about their people in the
warehouses. Yeah. And the ideaaround, it's good, actually,
they turn over every two tothree years. And it increases
productivity, because you know,you get tired in your job, and
it's boring. So when you come inthe first few weeks, yeah, it's

(31:17):
a learning curve, then you canreally productive after a few
years, it probably does makesense to change it up. And it's
totally counterintuitive to whatwe're talking about here.

Unknown (31:26):
Yeah, anytime you use a human being as a means to an
end, they cease to be a humanbeing to you. Yeah, they're a
tool. And it's, let me let me soit's easy for me to say that,
like the luxury of my job is Idon't have to do any of your
jobs. Right. So it's easy for meto study how people work, you're
in it, right? And I'm not sayingthis is a bad thing. I get

(31:46):
sometimes I get this, sometimesI find myself like, I need this
person to do something for me.
Right. But it's the awareness ofthat. And making sure we're not
treating people as simply ameans to an end. And I when I
read that Amazon article, I saidthis could be a bet about 1000
companies. Oh, yeah. It's notit's just indicative of when we
use human beings, as instrumentsfor self serving material gain.

(32:11):
There is no long term positiveeffect. When you play that out
to its end on people,organizations of the planet. You
know, Simon Sinek says that'sthe finite game. Yeah, a
quarterly earnings report isfinite. shareholder return is
finite. It's just like, it'sjust like me, right? If I get

(32:32):
that job, then I'll be happy. Wesort of a lot of organizations
operate like toddlers in thebackseat of a road trip. Are we
there yet? Are we there yet? Arewe there yet, right? versus
sitting down and really thinkingabout why we're going there, the
process of going there. And sothat's the value of shifting
from a results mindset to apurposeful mindset is you have

(32:54):
more long term, more long termthinking, which is so important.

Q&A from Audience (33:02):
So I'm gonna open up for questions. I know,
people are putting questions inthe chat. So I'll look at the
chat. And I'll also look at theq&a. But as please go ahead and
start putting your questions inthere. Zack, in relation to
where we are today, in the postCOVID world, I know the US is
ahead of Canada and stuff. Thebig issues on leaders minds
today. And again, unfortunate,because they sit in all these

(33:22):
different groups, these advisoryboards, one, how am I getting
everybody back to the office,you know, we're going to be
working at home, can I continueto sort of build organizational
culture when they're only inthere two or three times a day
to burn out. Even the leadersthemselves are burnt out right
now. And you and I talked aboutthis quickly, too, like, I don't

(33:44):
think things are gonna slowdown, we're gonna go into a
roaring economy. Now, if youwere burnt out today, I can only
imagine what's going to looklike three or four months from
now. And then the third, that'sgonna lead to a lot of turnover,
people looking for differentjobs. And then the other element
with this changing world,finding talent is going to
become insane, in terms of greattalent, with new capabilities to

(34:07):
allow you to continue to grow.
As I think about these things, Icome back to purpose, right?
What an advantage anorganization has, if they're
driving meaningful, things thatmatter. They're valuing their
employees, they're recognizingtheir employees. If you haven't
been doing that, or they'reshowing empathy during this

(34:27):
time, if you haven't been doingthis, you got some real problems
potentially coming. And thatcomes back to your business
trend, right? Where is purposebecoming a trend, and I'm like,
it may be becoming a trendbecause this is what's going to
happen and is currentlyhappening. Any thoughts like you
must be immersed in this stuffright now?

Unknown (34:46):
I am immersed in it.
And I think that I mean, whatwould you do? What would you
give up to feel significant?
Every day? You know, like thinkabout let's just think about
that. Right? And a lot of peoplesay it's a generational thing
I've talked to rooms of everygeneration, I said, How many of
you would prefer not to feelsignificant in work? No one

(35:07):
raises their hand. Right? We gotto get back to the basics right?
One is, I think that what you'regoing to find emerging from this
is there's, there's a fewforces. In every major economic
or social disruption in history,an existential crisis, mass
existential crisis is followed.
second industrial revolution,Emily Durkheim, the sociologist
did a famous study on suicide.

(35:30):
And what he found was that itwasn't the loss of work, a job
income that caused mentaldistress, it was the loss of the
ability to contribute tosomething beyond the self. In
the Great Depression, it wasn'tthe loss of income was the loss
of a sense of self sense ofidentity. In the Great Recession
there, the four times higherwere the visits to mental health

(35:53):
facilities Stanford found afterthe Great Recession for people
who kept their jobs. So now youhave these forces of one you
have job and health insecurity.
So job plus health insecurity,you have rising social unrest
and rising awareness of socialand racial justice. You have

(36:13):
people who are called essentialby the government returning to
work and asking is myorganization treating me as
essential? And you have peoplewho are unemployed, or
susceptible to feelings ofworthlessness, uselessness,
coming back into work? This isall coming together to create a
meaning deficit. And where isthat going to be filled? Well,

(36:34):
it's going to be filled in theplace where people spend over a
third of their waking lives. Andso I think one of the greatest
responsibilities of leadershipgoing forward is going to be to
create mattering for people. Ithink it's a societal public
health need. I mean, how we makemeaning and work is inevitably
how we make meaning in life,even if we don't want that to be
true. You know, a lot of peoplesay, Well, I just work for

(36:58):
paycheck, I compartmentalize,psychologically, that never
works for the long term. Youcan't compartmentalize 35% of
your waking life, your seekingsystem, your toddler brain is
still going. And I thinkorganizations that can answer
those big why questions can showpeople that they matter, notice,
affirm, show people that they'reneeded, remind people that they
have strengths, show them theirsignificance, and create

(37:21):
environments that areemotionally and physically safe.
Those are the companies that aregoing to thrive. And if you're
not doing those things, it'sprobably going to be in 20
years, just like in the 90speople were like, do I need a
website? Yeah, you know, I thinkin 20 years, people are going to
be like, oh, now people, like,do I really need a purpose is
this purpose thing real? Youknow, I just need to, you know,

(37:42):
make enough money to survive. Ithink that just like if you
don't have a website now, you'reirrelevant. I think that if you
don't have that bigger purpose,invest in putting humans First
you'll you'll be slightlyirrelevant in 20 years. Yeah, I
know. That's a big statement.
But when you look at justsocial, mental public health,

(38:06):
from a despair point of view,like you talked about burnout,
Viktor Frankl, the psychiatristand concentration camp prisoner
wrote Man's Search for Meaninghe wrote, despair equals
suffering minus meaning. Andwhen we think about like
burnout, for example, one of thebiggest causes of burnout that a

(38:26):
lot of people don't talk aboutis depersonalization. So it's
inertia. We do the same thingevery day. And we forget about
why we're doing it. And so ifsomeone asks you, Leon, why are
you doing this today? That'sjust Zack said so. And that
inertia, when we disconnect withthe significance of our work,
can really result in burnout.
And so leaders can bring peoplesignificance of the work back

(38:47):
into the work.

Q&A from Audience (38:50):
Yeah, you know, it's time and effort of a
leader, right? And understandingthe importance of it is to
really slow it down in a sense,and ask, spend the time ask the
people and explain to them howthey're actually inputting, you
know, impacting someone down thechain, not the organization, but
someone who is either going touse that product concern, and
possibly, or changing theirlives. And and it's really just

(39:12):
conversations right andunderstanding most employees, we
don't think about that. Andwe're never asked to think
about, we're just there to nineto five, a lot of them right,
got to get through the worktoday. Right. And

Unknown (39:25):
I think the one thing that to keep in mind is it
doesn't have to be again, itdoesn't have to be huge. If you
can just show people how they'resignificant. It's powerful. I
was working with a bigmanufacturing company. And as
you as you know, supply is amess right now. And so they had
them have a whole shift, coveranother shift of 60 people, so
they didn't have to workSaturdays, and there was a ton

(39:47):
of grumbling like, gosh, youknow, what, why do we have to do
this? And I said, Well, how areyou telling them to do this?
Well, they say, Hey, we got todo this. We got to step up, all
this stuff's going on. And Isaid, Well, what would those 60
people who wouldn't have to workSaturday to be able to do with
their lives on that Saturday.
And then they started talking tome with their kids do what they
want to do. And I said, insteadof telling people Oh, we have to

(40:08):
go help this other building outthis other plant out to make
sure that, you know, justbecause we have to tell them,
you know, imagine that you canhelp 60 human beings have a
Saturday with their families.
Yeah, just say that. Yeah.
You'll be amazed at what showingpeople how they matter can do

(40:30):
instantly just changing the wayyou talk.
Yeah, that's huge. It'sabsolutely it's it's trying to
provide me and again, thecontext is so important here,
you hit it dead on.
And I'm gonna go some leadersare meaning givers. I mean, and
that's the thing. I think thatleaders can be purveyors of

(40:52):
meaning. I mean, you can shapethe storyline, the through line,
the why we're here. But it's adeliberate habit in practice.

Q&A from Audience (41:01):
Yeah. And it can be started at any time.
That's the I think you openedwith that, right? You can start
now you can start doing thesethings. Now. It's not like, oh,
where am I gonna start? I'mgoing to go to some questions
here. Kyle, the tastic. I'mgoing to read the questions.
What are some good questions toask to figure out how our
actions affect our team example?
I don't know what mycontribution has been, if I

(41:22):
don't know how the people on myteam receive what I offered.
Hmm.

Unknown (41:29):
Yeah, so one of the things is some questions, but
also a tool that I like to useit is a cycle and habit of
purposeful affirmation, right?
We have the capability for eachother, of showing each other the
evidence of our contribution,and Kyle's right, like we know,
our meaning based on theevidence of our meaning from

(41:52):
others. And that's all purposeis contribution. That's one of
the only ways to get feedback.
So one of the things that isreally powerful is anytime
you're saying thank you tosomeone, or anytime you're
saying good job, don't just sayGood job, make sure you're
creating a culture where peopleshow people the difference that
they make, describe specificallythe situation that whatever

(42:14):
you're saying, Thank you forhappened, describe this name,
the strengths they used, andthen show them exactly how those
strengths made a differencetelling the story of the impact
on you, as well. So a couple ofquestions, you know, you could
ask your team is like to helpyou feel like you matter. What

(42:35):
might I need to start doing? Andwhat might I need to stop doing?
Like, that's a great questionright there. Or when you leave
conversations with me, What doyou feel? What are you motivated
to do? What are you thinking?
Right? So it goes two ways, Ithink you have to create a
culture where people are givingpeople the evidence of their

(42:55):
significance. And then also asksome of those more targeted
questions that get at yourimpact.
Now, they,

Q&A from Audience (43:07):
you reminded me, we were doing 360s, with our
leaders, and then we had somefeedback systems afterwards. But
the psychologist I was workingwith, the one thing that stuck
with me is every interactionthat you ever have with any
individual, whether it be in thehall, in your office, on the
front line, at the end of thatconversation, and it's not just
a conversate. Now, it could bethrough digital means to put

(43:29):
yourself in that other person'sshoes. Are you leaving them
engaged, inspired? Are youleaving down and out? Like, how
how's that person feeling now?
And it's a starting step, babystep in terms of moving people
and getting,

Unknown (43:44):
I love that. And one of the questions that I use is
like, even if you say you haveto deliver negative feedback, or
have to send an email ask is theway I'm doing it going to
extract from this person'senergy, or regenerate this
person's energy, right? Becauseoftentimes, we want people to
change. We need people tochange. But what we do is we

(44:05):
give them feedback in a way thatextracts the very energy they'll
need to change, right? And weget ourselves into these
downward spirals. But purpose isreally helpful with that. So you
could say, I have to lay someoneoff today. How would my purpose
do that? How would my values dothat? Yeah. And so it can be a

(44:26):
really tremendous guide. Whenyou know when you know why you
are you'll know what to do.
Yeah, sounds good. All right.
I'm gonna go to another guy. Ihave one from Priyanka, I
apologize. if I'm pronouncingnames incorrectly. I'm actually
Tara Zack. How do you think mnC's I hope you know what and C's
are telling me? I don't know.

(44:48):
Companies multinational and theactual company, okay can strike
a balance between yieldingmaterial outcome revenue and
creating a purposeful culture inthe organization? everything
you're saying is insightful. Bythe way. They're loving it.
Thank you for sharing.
Yeah, I don't think you canseparate the two, you know. So
we get into this material gain,and then we get and purposeful

(45:10):
culture, every financial outcomeis mediated through human being.
So what is the quality of themedium? The human being right?
Like, think about it. And so weget into this that we get in the
short game, right? Where wethink about that the outcome,

(45:30):
its material gain, or itspurpose, its profit or its
purpose. No, it's profit becauseof purpose. So you can deliver
more of your purpose. And sothink about that, like what to
get the result you want? Whatwould be the optimal health of
an individual in yourorganization, individual human
being? And how will you supportthat? How, for example, it's the

(45:56):
difference between laggingindicator and a leading
indicator? You know, PeterDrucker once said that profit is
not the purpose of a business,it's the test of that business's
purposes validity in the world.
Right. So the purpose that theoutcomes are lagging indicators
of the leading indicators, whichare people and human beings. So

(46:17):
it's more a matter of emphasis.
And I do think you can do both.
I think that you can. And quitefrankly, I mean, I'm going to go
out on a limb here and saysomething maybe controversial,
but if you're such a greatbusiness leader, you should be
able to figure out how to turn aprofit, and how to care for

(46:40):
people. You know, absolutely.
Your business model. Makessense, right? Yeah, we should be
able to figure that out. And weshould, we should have a
redefinition of what a goodbusiness leader is. And I think
that definition has to be firstand foremost that you are
responsible for where 1000s ofhuman beings spend a third of

(47:02):
their waking lives. If you wantto find a cause or a purpose.
Look inside first, because themost impactful thing a company
can do for the world, is to makesure that where people spend a
third of their lives isdignifying meaningful and
creates mattering. That's theultimate
sacrifice. Now, I know you'resaying on the multinational

(47:23):
corpse. It's interesting,because

Q&A from Audience (47:27):
Canada, for example, has a lot of
subsidiaries, right. So yourhead office could be in France,
in the United States. And often,especially during times that are
difficult. The leader in Canada,for example, will get the call
and just say, listen, kind oflay off 5% of your stuff, your
profits, not there, right. Andso that leader, sometimes even
though their culture, it'salmost like they're running to

(47:49):
culture, sometimes you have aculture, which is not a great
multinational Corp. But you havedifferent cultures in different
countries. And that leader facesa lot of pressure, they actually
have to, they can lead bypurpose, they can have a sub
culture almost, that they'reprotecting their people. But

(48:10):
when you're dealing with headoffice, the pressure Let's head
offices have the same contextand the same belief. It is often
putting these leaders in reallytough situations, and I see it
all the time with multinationalleaders. And on running the
subsidiaries.

Unknown (48:26):
Yeah. And if you if you're in that situation, a one
is, I think, focusing on whatyou can control, right, really
important. If you're one ofthose leaders. A lot of people
say to me, Zack, what what do Ido if my leader doesn't believe
in this stuff? Well, you know,no one can tell you not to

(48:47):
create psychological safetymatter and connect with people
shows show people they'reneeded, right? No one can take
that away from you. So focus onthat, but my hope is, is that it
does have to permeate and start,at some point with beliefs from
the top right behaviors from thetop. And it's just simply, and I

(49:08):
have a lot of empathy for a lotof leaders and executives who
you are responsible for people'slivelihoods. I mean, you get up
every day, and you have to thinkabout that quarterly earnings
report, right? And what that'sgoing to look like, and I have a
lot of empathy for that. I don'thave to do it in my job. So I
have a lot of empathy for peoplewho get up every day and have to

(49:29):
think about that the weight ofthat. And I think the key is, is
is if you're in an organization,having some empathy, upwards in
the organization and starting toopen up where you can some of
these conversations of, well,how can we do both? What are the
leading indicators from a peopleperspective to getting those

(49:49):
numbers that you need to hit?
Really quickly, just a reallyquick example of how, how quick
a shift can be I this VP ofsales, who said to me, Zack, I
like your Work on purpose, youknow, nice little talk on
purpose, I think she said, butwhen people don't hit their
numbers, I need them to hittheir numbers, or they're not
gonna have jobs. And I go, Well,how do you what do you do when
they don't hit their numbers?

(50:12):
And she said, Well, I usuallyget them together. Oh, my Google
speaker. She said, thanks,Google. So she said that, my I
get my leaders together, and Isay, Hey, we need to get the
numbers up. How does that go?
Well, people it's a 15 minutemeeting. I said, What if you
just got them together? Andsaid, How can we contribute more
to our customers to get thenumbers up? The room opens up,

(50:34):
right? And that's an example ofhow you can be purposeful in
pressure. It's great.

Q&A from Audience (50:45):
I'm gonna go to Maria, I'm finding these in
the chat these questions toconcept of languishing is
emerging during this phase ofCOVID. How does a leader stay
passionate about their purposeand motivate others to stay
passionate about their purpose?
She picks it up start withthemselves. Right? And and it's
tough. How do you staypassionate about your purpose
every day? What do you do toreinforce that for yourself?

Unknown (51:08):
Yeah, I remember when I was writing my book, I asked
someone how to write a book. Andhe said, write the book. He
said, he said, he said writerswrite, purposeful people think
about their contribution. Andsometimes you have to force the
action. Right? So like, at thebeginning of my day, I do look
at my calendar. And I do askmyself that question, I just

(51:30):
write it down, you know, how iswhat I'm going to do today going
to impact other people? At theend of the day, what are the
questions you ask yourself? Itstarts with the internal
narrative. And this is whenthings are good. And when things
are bad. Elvis Presley oncesaid, when things go wrong,
don't go with them. Right? Soyou have to you have to take
account to this question. Areyou reacting on instinct? Or are

(51:54):
you responding on purpose, andwhat I mean by that is that
oftentimes when somethinghappens, we feel fear, anger,
frustration, all emotions thatactually narrow our attention on
ourselves and on survival.
Whereas when you think about howwould someone with my purpose
respond here, it helps create alittle space between stimulus
and response. And this is whyall of those things like

(52:15):
emotional intelligence,awareness, all of these
leadership ideas come together,and are critical foundations of
being purposeful. But you got toforce yourself into a habit,
like, how do you write when youdon't want to write, you sit
down and write. You know, youset a timer and you write, it's

(52:37):
just like anything else. So Iencourage people to develop some
habits. Also team habit, likeyou asked in one of your bullet
points you had asked like, howdo you maintain a culture in a
time where people may be workingremotely, make sure that you
have dedicated space for ways ofbeing as much as you do for ways

(52:58):
of doing and what I mean by thatis, we're really good at doing
things with one another onteams. And we jump into a zoom
meeting, here's the agenda. Butmake sure you create space where
people can talk about how we'rebeing with one another. How
we're communicating with oneanother, what we need from each
other. And that can really helpas well. So you can create team

(53:19):
habits where you're collectingand telling stories of the works
impact, you're giving nudges toOh, yeah, this is why we're
doing this. And a leader has alot of power in creating those
habits at the organizationallevel as well.
Oh, that's great. Those aregreat tips, and really important
today in that environment.
Because again, the zoom,everyone talks about the

(53:40):
efficiency of this thing, right?
Let's get on gotta Right, right,right. And we're forgetting that
whole element of sort ofconnecting.
And they're like, updatefestivals. Oh, yeah, they're not
date update, update, update,update, then getting something
of some importance. Now we don'thave time. But just carving out
like five minutes to ask you.
Does anybody have a story ofwhen they experience the work?

(54:01):
We do mattering in the lastweek? Just one one and a half
minute conversation can reorientthe whole meeting?
Absolutely. So I'm gonna go lastquestion here. And I think it's
really curious to know thepurpose behind the title of
Zach's book, The Invisibleleader.
Yeah, there's amazing woman 1928Mary Parker, filat. She's an
activist and also a managementscholar as a woman in 1928,

(54:24):
which is amazing. If you have achance to read any of her
writings, she's sort of likethis oracle of management
thinking that no one knows aboutand she said that both leaders
and followers are following theinvisible leader, the common
purpose. And I really believethat great leaders get out of
the way. And they let thepurpose become the ultimate

(54:48):
leader of the organization. Andin our lives, what if what if
the purpose was your boss? Whatif your purpose was your boss?
What would you do? What kind ofactions would you take and I
will If you if you like plays oryou like books, a good book or a
good play, they all have athrough line. Right? It's the
it's the essence of what thestory is about. And it's

(55:12):
invisible. Nobody says this isthe through line that's keeping
the plot together. No, but justall of the actors know how to
act. They know what demeanor tomake sure they're, they're
aligned with the through line,the books, the structure is
aligned with the through line.
That's the invisible leader.
It's your through line. Sowhat's your through line? What's
your storyline of your work andof your life, and when we don't

(55:34):
have a storyline, we get a lotof wasted energy. But when we do
have that through line, we get alot of harmonized energy. And
that's the power of that theinvisible leader that that
bigger purpose.

Q&A from Audience (55:47):
I think that's a great way to finish off
our call today. Zack, thank youso much for joining us. Well,
here it's this morning. It'sstill the morning and colleagues
it is yes. And really sharingyour insights. Fantastic. I urge
you all to pick up the book. Iknow it was written 2017. But it
is a fantastic book. It'sabsolutely relevant to where you

(56:08):
are today as you think throughstuff personally and think of
stuff within your organizationas well. Must and then Zack,
you're doing lots of writing aswell these days. So easy. Just
Google on Google Zack, andyou'll find a little bit of what
he's writing on his purposestuff. So on behalf of all of
us, thank you so much forjoining us for a great session

(56:30):
today. If you're interested inour way for live webcast, please
visit us appeal leadership.comyou'll find a number of recorded
past webcasts I've included KimScott and traer Brian Erica
Dhawan Morgan housel, JoeJackman, Harry Kramer, the list
goes on. We are going to takethe month of July off. Whoo.
We're all feeling a little it'sbeen a incredible 15 months

(56:52):
doing this. And we'll be back inAugust with Drew traven. Where,
where we'll try and bring somehumor into the workplace. And
Andrew just background. He's anengineer.

Unknown (57:01):
So you go engineering healer workplace, that should be
interesting. So really lookingforward to that conversation.
Until we meet again, I'd like towish you all a fantastic day and
a great first half of thesummer. I don't want to rush it.
We'll see you all in August.
Take care everyone. Thank youZack. Thanks, everybody. Thanks
Leon.

AB Ad (57:27):
aired in Berlin is a prominent Canadian law firm with
a well established local,national and international
practice. We provide strategicadvice in all principal areas of
business law, regardless of sizeor sector. Our professionals are
dedicated to providingexceptional client service. Let
us focus on your legal issues.
So you can focus on yourbusiness. Contact Tony Joya or

(57:48):
bill Chalmers to discuss ways wecan work together please visit
airde birla.com for contactinformation.