19-05-2025
The Secret Driver Of High-Performance At Work? Mattering
When I finished my first year of law school, I clerked for a judge during the summer. I felt nervous about the experience and constantly wondered whether I had what it took to practice law. As the summer progressed, the judge gave me a complicated research project that I fumbled my way through and eventually submitted. Several days later, I found a note on my chair that said this: 'Your report was excellent. I appreciated how you summarized the key take aways – it made my life easier. Thanks – Judge.' It was as though his words were magic and unlocked something that I have remembered almost 20 years later. I still have his note in my office. Why?
That magical feeling from something as simple as a 20 word note has a name – it's mattering – and it's the subject of Dr. Zach Mercurio's new book, The Power of Mattering. I first discovered Zach and his work while I was researching my own book. I had the pleasure of interviewing him about his work because I identified that mattering was an important driver of high-performing and thriving team cultures.
Mattering has two parts. The first part is feeling valued (appreciation & recognition) and the second part is knowing that you add value (achievement). He explains that mattering is created through small, repeated interactions that help people feel:
This work comes at an important time. Gallup recently reported that employee engagement in the US dropped to a 10-year low and globally, both employee engagement and well-being have dropped in the past year, with engagement falling for only the second time since 2009. Managers are experiencing the sharpest decline. In addition, burnout continues to be a problem across industries, and one survey of more than 4,000 workers found that 82% of the respondents have felt lonely at work.
The experience of mattering fuels everything leaders say they want more of in their workplaces: engagement, innovation, and retention. It is also a key driver of intrinsic motivation, resilience, and well-being. Mattering to others is an important psychological resource that enables people to better meet life and work demands. Here are some ways Zach says we can start to increase mattering, using his noticed, affirmed, and needed framework:
One of my favorite questions he suggests asking is, 'When you feel like you matter to me, what am I doing?' I asked my nine-year old daughter this very question while driving her to her Girl Scouts overnight camp. She thought for a second and responded, 'when we snuggle, when you say good things about me in front of other people, and when you whisper in my ear that I'm doing a good job at something or you're proud of me.' Tears welled up in my eyes in part because her answer was so simple, and it's valuable data for me. Those are actions that I can easily replicate. If you're asking this question at work, you can rephrase it to say, 'When you feel like you're a valued part of this team, what am I doing?'
I spent almost four years on a team working with U.S. Army soldiers, many of whom were drill sergeants. As part of this work, the soldiers took a strengths assessment, and our training team would display each of the soldiers' top strengths. For many of the drill sergeants, one of their top strengths was the capacity to love. That always made me smile, as my early perceptions of drill sergeants were anything but loving. When I talked about that with them, though, their message was clear. The way to build a high-performing unit wasn't just through toughness, it was also by truly getting to know the soldiers in their units. If they wanted their soldiers to support others, they first had to feel supported. If they wanted their soldiers to sacrifice, they had to make sure they were first seen as people – valued and respected. As Zach states, for people to care about anything, they first must feel cared for. And great leaders seek to understand the person before the employee. At a time when burnout rates are on the rise, geopolitical and economic uncertainty abound, and we all wonder about the impact of AI at work, know that the path forward is deeply human.
Paula Davis is the CEO of the Stress and Resilience Institute and is the author of the newly released book, Lead Well: 5 Mindsets to Engage, Retain, & Inspire Your Team.
