As humans, the only way to survive and thrive is through our relationships with other people. That means mattering to others is a survival instinct, almost as important as food and shelter.
According to author Zach Mercurio, Ph.D, this instinct hasn’t disappeared in modern times. Even though we’re more likely swapping pet photos and project updates than hunting and gathering tips, we still need to feel like we matter to the people we live and work with.
In his new book The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance, Mercurio draws on his own research into organizational performance, as well as decades of research on the psychology of meaning, to unpack why it matters to matter – and how that translates in practice.
What it means to matter at work
When we feel we matter, we believe we’re significant to the people around us. That has two components – feeling valued by others, and knowing we bring value to their lives. Professionally, mattering is more than feeling like your work matters (though that’s important too). It’s about knowing you matter to the people you work with.
But commonly, we think of mattering in the other way around – something we need to earn by contributing, rather than a precursor for doing our best work. “At work, we often subconsciously think people only deserve to be valued once they add value,” says Zach. “But once people believe themselves to be worthy and capable, they develop the confidence to add value.”
A sense of mattering is crucial for life satisfaction, in or out of the workplace, and that means it shouldn’t be contingent on your performance that week or quarter. “Often, we falsely separate work and life,” Zach shares. “But a lot of people spend more time at work than they do with friends and family.”
“If employees don’t feel like they matter, you’ll have an organisation that makes a lot of mistakes, has constant churn, and is in a perpetual labour crisis,” Zach continues. “Outcomes like performance, innovation, engagement, and productivity are lagging indicators. The leading indicator is whether or not people feel that they matter.”
How to show people they matter: Noticing, affirming, needing
Mattering arises through the interpersonal interactions already happening in your workplace. Every day, these interactions either signal to people they matter, strengthening culture – or that they don’t, harming engagement, performance, and productivity.
In The Power of Mattering, Zach breaks mattering down into three components: noticing, affirming, and needing.
- Noticing is the practice of seeing and hearing people so they feel understood
- Affirming is the practice showing people how their unique gifts have an impact at work
- Needing is the practice of showing people how they’re relied on and indispensable
Every interaction is a chance to show people they’re noticed, affirmed, and needed. “You don’t need a new program or engagement survey to show people they matter,” says Zach. “You just need to optimize the interactions you already have.”
We’re in a mattering crisis
Showing people they matter isn’t complicated – but unfortunately, it’s easy not to make people feel noticed, affirmed, and needed. “We’ve called interpersonal skills ‘soft skills’ since the 1960s,” says Zach. “Anytime your brain sees something as soft or simple, you’re susceptible to overconfidence bias. That’s why we tend to think we’re better at caring for people than we are.”
Today, that’s led to more workers than ever feeling disengaged and demoralized. “Thirty percent of the workforce report feeling invisible, and 39% say they don’t have someone at work that cares for them as a person,” says Zach.
Most leaders want to make people feel appreciated – so what’s getting lost in translation? According to Zach, leaders need to make sure they’re putting real effort into understanding, appreciating, and showing people they’re needed. “There’s a difference between caring about people, and caring for them,” says Zach. “Caring for people means understanding them. You have to get up close.”
Here are some subtle signs your employees might feel like they don’t matter – and what you can do about it.
Your employees are “quiet quitting”
When people don’t feel important, a common response is to withdraw. When you think about it, that makes perfect sense – why should you try your hardest (or try at all) if no one around you cares?
In the workplace, these withdrawal responses can look like:
- A normally enthusiastic employee not speaking up or sharing ideas as much as they used to
- Withholding information, like giving feedback to a peer rather than a manager you think doesn’t care
- Employees isolating themselves and avoiding collaboration
- Absenteeism, chronic lateness, or repeatedly missing meetings
It might be tempting to look at these behaviours as a problem with individual employees. But Zach stresses that if your culture doesn’t show people they matter, you won’t be able to hire your way out of it. “When people feel replaceable, they act replaceable,” he says. “They don’t put forth effort, they don’t go above and beyond.”
The fix: Make a practice of checking in and showing gratitude
If you want people to feel like they don’t matter, a great way to do it is keep all communications transactional. If employees are quiet quitting, Zach suggests leaders reflect on when they last checked in or said thanks.
“Ask yourself, “who am I under-noticing? When’s the last time I showed gratitude to everyone on my team?” he says. This kind of attention isn’t just for employees who are struggling – research shows that half the tim, when high-performing employees resign, their managers had no idea they were thinking of leaving.
Self-audit your interactions for a week. How many are transactional, and how many are relational? A good rule of thumb is that if an exchange could be an email, it’s probably transactional.
- Transactional interactions exchange information: asking for an update, assigning tasks, or giving direction.
- Relational interactions are about personal connection: checking on someone who’s been out sick, resolving a conflict, or asking about people’s energy levels.
Then, systematize checking in and saying thank you. “We tend to underestimate how much small actions, like a thank-you message, will mean to somebody else,” says Zach. Add check-ins to your to-do list or calendar, just like any other task. “The goal is to elevate these moments of connection from common sense to common practice,” he continues.
Gossip and interpersonal conflict are ongoing problems
When people don’t feel they matter, they often act out. In the workplace, that can manifest as gossip – complaining, blaming others for negative work outcomes, or protesting work conditions that feel unfair. “The number one predictor of negative workplace gossip is psychological contract violation,” says Zach. “That’s a fancy phrase, but it just means your expectations to be treated fairly at work have been violated.”
Much like the withdrawal response, these behaviors make an unfortunate kind of sense. If you don’t feel that you matter to your leader, you’re going to speak out to someone else. “Gossip is an attempt to develop secure relationships elsewhere in the organizations, where you and what you say actually matters,” explains Zach.
As a leader, this may or may not be your fault – but it is your responsibility. You can’t control employees’ behavior, but you can do everything in your power to make them feel noticed, affirmed, and needed by those in power.
The fix: Seek to understand behavior, rather than label it
“Some of the most “difficult” employees I’ve worked with, as described by their leadership, are also the most unseen, unheard, and unvalued,” says Zach. “If I label you or your behavior as “negative,” my brain thinks I’ve categorized you, and devotes less energy to understanding you.”
Instead, leaders should reframe the situation. Rather than labeling someone a “difficult person,” try to think curiously about what could be contributing to the behavior. “All behavior is a product of environment,” Zach continues.
This isn’t easy work – dealing with interpersonal conflict is challenging for everyone. But it’s an essential part of leading and managing people. “If someone is under your care, you owe it to them to relentlessly understand them, support them, show them that they matter,” says Zach.
You feel rushed and distracted when talking to your team
Do you cancel or reschedule one-on-ones really quickly? When someone shares an idea or describes a challenge they’re facing, does your mind wander back to your to-do list? These are signals that you’re not deeply connecting with people – and you can trust your team has already noticed.
In the 21st century, everyone’s crunched for time. But for people leaders, people (obviously) are the priority. If employees never have your full attention, they won’t feel heard and valued, and that’s a recipe for feeling like they don’t matter.
“In my experience, this is where a lot of people leaders go wrong,” says Zach. “They’re focused on ‘doing the job,’ not caring for people, even though they’re the same thing.”
The fix: Improve the quality, not quantity, of interactions
The good news? You don’t have to carve out hours every day to talk to people. Instead, just focus on improving the interactions you already have.
Instead of jumping right into the agenda at your weekly kickoff, try asking everyone to share their energy level as green, yellow, or red. This only takes a few minutes, but it’s so much more personal than a perfunctory “hope everyone had a great weekend.”
When Zach worked with the National Park Service, he noticed one team had especially high morale. The reason? Their manager sent out a weekly email with pictures of what they’d worked on, such as paths and bridges they’d repaired. “This was just one email every Friday morning,” says Zach. “But it was impossible for his team not to believe their work mattered.”
You use technology for efficiency, not connection
People have strong opinions about remote work. Depending on who you ask, you might hear that it’s the only model for high-performing teams, or a death knell for collaboration. According to Zach, it’s neither. Technology itself is not the issue; it’s how we choose to use it.
“We’re in constant contact, yet people feel more lonely, disconnected, and disengaged than ever,” says Zach. “Often, organizations use technology for efficiency, so people end up spending less time with one another in remote workplaces,” says Zach.
For example, the average working adult sends and receives 30-40 text-based messages about work every day, through platforms like Slack. While this is a lot of communication, it’s often short and transactional, which doesn’t exactly lay a foundation for mattering.
But he stresses that this isn’t a remote work issue – loneliness is a problem for both on-site and distributed teams. “Where and when you work doesn’t have anything to do with performance or engagement,” Zach continues. “What you experience while you’re working does.”
The fix: Be intentional about building relationships, whether you’re distributed or on-site
The solution? Use technology for connection as well as transaction. This is entirely possible in distributed workplaces – it just takes planning and intentionality.
“In remote work, you have to be especially clear on what could be an email, and what has to be a conversation.” says Zach. Use face-to-face time for relational interactions that could never be replaced by a Slack update.
Transactional use of technology could look like keeping everyone muted on a video call, and taking turns sharing one update each. Instead, imagine noticing a team member seems frustrated in that meeting, and following up afterwards with a voice call.
On-site work doesn’t automatically forge connections
- Blanket RTO mandates can make people feel like they don’t matter
- If an organization is mandating people to come back to the office for the culture, but their leaders don’t have the skills to make sure they feel seen, heard, valued, and needed in everyday interactions, it’s not going to matter where they work
It feels forced when you show appreciation
“If you’re someone who never says thank you, it’s going to seem weird if you start saying things like ‘I’m going to name your unique gifts,’” says Zach. Without a genuine relationship to act as a foundation, these gestures can feel hollow or even insulting. If you never feel like your boss is paying attention, you’re going to be pretty skeptical if they suddenly change their tune and start asking about your personal life.
Additionally, people feel valued and understood in different ways. One employee might respond to verbal thanks and affirmation, while another feels appreciated if you reward them with more challenging projects. It takes sustained effort to get to know everyone on your team as individuals.
The fix: Ask people how to show them they matter
It’s never too late to start showing people they matter; you just need to be open, transparent, and willing to be guided by the people you lead.
Zach recommends being direct – simply tell people you want to start showing appreciation, and invite feedback on how you should go about it.
Here’s what it could look like in action:
- Asking people “When you feel like you matter to me, what am I doing?” – then writing down their response and acting on it
- Owning that this is a new behavior for you: “I know this isn’t normally my style, but I want to start pointing out how much of a difference you’re making here.”
- Creating new routines for existing interactions: “I’m going to start asking different questions in our 1-1s, because I want to get to know what’s going on in your work and life beyond the surface.”
“Simply asking people how you can show them they matter is an intervention in itself,” says Zach. “Even before you’ve taken action, knowing you care can start to show people that they matter to you.”
try the play
If you need a simple tool for learning how people work, try the Atlassian Playbook’s User Manuals. This is a template for collecting information about an individual’s work style, preferences, strengths, and communication habits.
Your employees feel guilt-tripped rather than needed
In the wrong circumstances, making people feel needed can tip into codependence or guilt-tripping. This can happen if people feel like their well-being or non-work concerns aren’t respected, or if they’re not given a voice in how they contribute.
For example, a supervisor telling a nurse they’re “letting the patients down” if they take time off, or sending late-night Slack messages demanding after-hours work, could be creating an atmosphere of codependence.
The fix: Make people feel noticed and affirmed, then needed
To make people feel needed in a positive way, you’ll need to notice and affirm them first. “Once people know they matter to you, they’ll trust that you won’t make unreasonable asks, and they’ll feel safe enough to push back if you do,” says Zach.
You should also give people input on how they add value, to come up with working arrangements that benefit everybody. “The idea is to give up some of your authority, and invite people in to co-create solutions,” says Zach. This shows respect for employees’ time and expertise.
For example, instead of that panicked late-night Slack message, a manager could say something like: “Here’s what we need to get done. I know you have a lot going on – can you help me figure out how we can tackle this?”
Every leader can show people they matter
“Great leadership takes courage, and it’s a choice,” says Zach. “Every interaction is an opportunity to make people feel heard, valued, and needed. Whatever your role, you don’t need permission to do that. No one can take away your power to show people they matter.”
The Power of Mattering is available now. Connect with Zach Mercurio on LinkedIn, and learn more about his speaking and workshops on the Power of Mattering website.