The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:08 - 00:00:35:07
Kevin Eikenberry
What people really want from work and life isn't always what we think of first. And as leaders, we can help people get more of those things than we might realize. But first, we have to know what those things are. Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders like you grow personally and professionally to make a bigger, positive difference for their teams, organizations, and the world.

00:00:35:12 - 00:00:54:05
Kevin Eikenberry
If you are listening to this podcast, you can be with us live in the future. When we do episodes just like this one on your favorite social media channel. I suppose as long as it's one of them that we broadcast it on. But you can get access to when those episodes will take place and how you can get connected with those.

00:00:54:07 - 00:01:14:14
Kevin Eikenberry
And the easiest ways to do that are to join our Facebook and LinkedIn groups. Those aren't the only places where we do these, but the easiest place for you to connect is to go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin to get connected with us. Get information about when these are going live so you can join us in the future.

00:01:14:20 - 00:01:46:11
Kevin Eikenberry
My guest today, let me bring him in as I promised him I would at this juncture. His name is Zach Mercurio. He is a researcher, leadership development facilitator, and speaker specializing in purposeful leadership, mentoring, and meaningful work. He is the author of The Power of Mattering How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance. He advises leaders and organizers and organizations around the world on practices for building cultures that promote well-being, motivation, and performance.

00:01:46:15 - 00:02:11:13
Kevin Eikenberry
He holds a PhD in Organizational Learning, Performance and Change from Colorado State University, where he serves as Senior Fellow of the center for Meaning and Purpose and as an instructor in the Organizational Learning, Performance and Change program. He lives in Fort Collins. Not surprisingly, since he works for and teaches at Colorado State. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado with his wife and two sons and their two adopted dogs.

00:02:11:15 - 00:02:15:15
Kevin Eikenberry
And so, without further ado, Zach, I've been looking forward to this. Welcome. Glad you're here.

00:02:15:17 - 00:02:20:03
Zach Mercurio
Me, too. Hey, Kevin. Hey, everybody, for joining. Glad you're joining.

00:02:20:05 - 00:02:36:08
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm really have been looking forward to, 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 mentioned UVic. You were quoted in a couple other books. You didn't you I don't I don't have to quote you from this book. It's it's all you.

00:02:36:08 - 00:02:55:01
Kevin Eikenberry
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 clue what we think that means. I'll ask you about that in a second. But how did that mattering become the focus of your work?

00:02:55:03 - 00:03:17:15
Zach Mercurio
It really started for me in my first research study, and we embedded ourselves with a group of cleaners, janitors, at the university, many of whom work overnight shifts often are brushed by by people. It's a very difficult job, not just because of the job, but because of the feelings people get in the job. It can be invisible.

00:03:17:21 - 00:03:25:01
Zach Mercurio
And so we had embedded ourselves with them for a year and a half, and we were trying to understand what made this work meaningful. And what. What are you.

00:03:25:01 - 00:03:29:19
Kevin Eikenberry
Okay? Stop. What do you mean by embedded? Does that mean you became a cleaner?

00:03:29:21 - 00:03:46:09
Zach Mercurio
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 just to get the ebbs and flows of their day, what it looked like. And then we asked all of them, you know, when they most experienced meaningfulness in their job, what is happening?

00:03:46:11 - 00:04:17:07
Zach Mercurio
And what was interesting is 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. One custodian told me that it was when she had a supervisor who brought her into a break room, opened a, dictionary, and had her read the word custodian as a person responsible for everyone in it.

00:04:17:09 - 00:04:38:05
Zach Mercurio
That that moment that, responsible for a building and everyone in it, that that moment, changed her entire belief systems about herself and 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 what those moments actually were doing. It wasn't belonging.

00:04:38:05 - 00:05:03:10
Zach Mercurio
It wasn't feeling connected to a group. It wasn't inclusion. It wasn't feeling like you can take an active role in the group. It was something more. And that's where, I discovered, Gordon Flett work as a psychologist on the concept of mattering, which has been in the literature for 40 years. And mattering is the feeling of being significant to the people around you, and mattering happens in moments.

00:05:03:10 - 00:05:29:08
Zach Mercurio
And we realized, this this was it, meaningfulness at work was it was an outcome of moments of mattering. And then obviously, that sparked me to think, how do we create moments of mattering and that led us on our our research of interviewing people and working with organizations and leaders to ask a question. When you feel that you matter to someone what is happening?

00:05:29:10 - 00:05:31:03
Zach Mercurio
And here we are.

00:05:31:05 - 00:05:48:07
Kevin Eikenberry
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 earlier that people I had your book, I had already we had already been working to get you on the show and, because I'd seen enough of the book to tell me that before we started.

00:05:48:08 - 00:06:14:10
Kevin Eikenberry
And then as other people were telling me about you and about some of this work, I became more and 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 leaders feel like, well, there's all these things.

00:06:14:10 - 00:06:28:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, I can't I 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's remembering that thing. It's following up on their biopsy. It's a thousand things.

00:06:28:09 - 00:06:37:01
Zach Mercurio
Yes. And a thousand things accumulated over time. Culture, for example, in an organization, is only as good as your everyday interactions in your own.

00:06:37:03 - 00:06:40:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, that's actually what culture is, right? It is how we do things. Right.

00:06:40:12 - 00:07:04:11
Zach Mercurio
So so absolutely. So you can have these symbols of value for of people, these symbols like money or 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 in interactions in which they feel seen, heard, valued, and needed. That's one of the reasons why I think we've gotten employee engagement wrong.

00:07:04:16 - 00:07:19:06
Zach Mercurio
We've come at it from a programmatic perspective and not an interactional perspective. No amount of assessing engagement, no wellbeing program, no Dei program can make up for the experience of feeling unseen, unheard and undervalued in your everyday interactions.

00:07:19:08 - 00:07:38:15
Kevin Eikenberry
And you know, the other thing we got wrong, I think, was engagement with 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 going to have to choose that.

00:07:38:18 - 00:07:47:10
Kevin Eikenberry
But. But the kinds of moments that we've hinted at and we're going to continue to talk about are the kinds of things that create that or.

00:07:47:12 - 00:08:09:00
Zach Mercurio
Yeah, like engagement is all about caring, a caring about your work, being emotionally invested. But you cannot expect someone to care if they don't first feel cared for. And I think that's what we've been doing for the last three decades, is we've expected people to care about their work. Why aren't they engaged if we don't first create the conditions where they feel valued, so they have the confidence needed to add value?

00:08:09:01 - 00:08:30:10
Kevin Eikenberry
I have often used in my and my coauthor and colleague Wayne Jamal have often used the phrase like when you before you got married, you got engaged, and you didn't just announce to them that we are now engaged. The other person had to say yes and there clearly was caring there. Let's presume right or we wouldn't. The other person would have said yes.

00:08:30:10 - 00:08:53:20
Kevin Eikenberry
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 dive into the three parts, of course. But first, sort of. How did you come to this? How has your research led you to these three? At least on the surface, relatively simple things.

00:08:53:20 - 00:09:06:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. There's a lot of there's a lot underneath this front that we won't even have time to unpack all of. But, on the surface, these are not difficult. So how did you come to this place? And then we'll talk about the three.

00:09:06:12 - 00:09:26:02
Zach Mercurio
Yeah, we. Well, first we asked people. I mean, we asked people, we did interviews with you, and we asked when you most feel that you matter to a leader in your job, what are they doing? And no, it's this is an interesting moment to stop for everybody listening. When you most feel that you matter and work to someone else, what are they doing?

00:09:26:03 - 00:09:50:05
Zach Mercurio
But then we started asking, what are the skills that they used? So we also assessed people, on their experiences of meaningfulness mattering and then assessed them on almost 90 different behaviors that their leaders did. And what we have found repeatedly is that moments of mattering, the architecture of a moment of mattering, is when people feel seen and heard.

00:09:50:06 - 00:10:14:04
Zach Mercurio
So when people truly see us and they truly hear us and hear our unique voice, that's called noticing. Noticing is very different than knowing somebody I could know. You say you, we're best friends. I could know you as my best friend but not notice that you're suffering. I can know my team members, but I noticed someone has a little less energy than they used to on a project, or is feeling a little left out of discussions.

00:10:14:06 - 00:10:16:16
Zach Mercurio
And then that's seeing people, then hearing them.

00:10:16:18 - 00:10:17:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, can I just say, yeah.

00:10:17:23 - 00:10:18:19
Zach Mercurio
Yeah, please.

00:10:18:20 - 00:10:37:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Converse of that though, right. Because because oftentimes that's sort of a that's sort of a, a conversation with leaders, especially new leaders or frontline leaders. Well, you said I could have someone could be my best friend and I might not notice. Yeah. It's also true, though, that you don't have to be a friend. Absolutely. No, converse is not true.

00:10:37:21 - 00:10:52:14
Kevin Eikenberry
And I just wanted I was confident I would agree with that, but I wanted to state that because so often what what you said is 100% correct. But from a leadership perspective, I didn't want people losing. They say, well, I'm not trying to be friends with my people. Like, yeah, that's irrelevant.

00:10:52:14 - 00:11:15:17
Zach Mercurio
Well, you, you but you can know a team member, but not notice them. And the only way to truly understand somebody is to notice them, notice the ebbs and flows and details of their work, and offer actions to show them that you're paying attention. The second thing we found is that people felt that they mattered when their leaders affirmed them, not appreciated them, not recognized them, but affirmed to them.

00:11:15:19 - 00:11:37:20
Zach Mercurio
Now there's a difference. Appreciation is showing general gratitude for who someone is. It's like we can have an employee appreciation day and say, I'm glad you're here. Here's this gift, I appreciate you. Recognition is showing gratitude for what someone does. Like it's giving like an award for someone's work. But affirmation is showing someone the specific evidence of their unique significance.

00:11:37:22 - 00:11:58:03
Zach Mercurio
It's revealing what's unique about them, their unique gifts, and then showing them how those unique gifts make a unique difference. The Latin root of the word affirm is affirmation, and it means literally to firm up or make stronger. And I love that because when we affirm somebody, we're giving them the evidence of their significance, which helps strengthen the belief that they're significant.

00:11:58:05 - 00:12:04:15
Kevin Eikenberry
And our belief matters so much, right? Because our belief in ourselves is so self-affirming and it like an upward or downward spiral.

00:12:04:15 - 00:12:04:20
Zach Mercurio
Yeah.

00:12:04:23 - 00:12:07:21
Kevin Eikenberry
And we're creating that chance for that to grow for people.

00:12:07:23 - 00:12:33:20
Zach Mercurio
And again, a lot of us have appreciation programs, recognition programs, peer kudos platforms. But again affirmation is delivered interpersonally. It takes a human being to reflect back to a human being what's unique about them, how they make a difference. And then the third piece is that people who felt that they matter said they felt needed. They felt indispensable and relied on by others.

00:12:33:20 - 00:13:03:01
Zach Mercurio
Now, not too much. I'm not talking about Codependence where someone makes you feel guilty. In a relationship. I'm talking about feeling that you, your talents, your wisdom, 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 leaders who made them feel like they matter, say some version or express some version of these five words.

00:13:03:03 - 00:13:28:13
Zach Mercurio
If it wasn't for you, right? If it wasn't for you, this wouldn't be possible. Because as humans, you know, we're biologically, psychologically, sociologically, sociologically wired to be interdependent and interdependent means we need each other. And it's it's baked into what it means to matter. Now, this is especially important right now where so many people feel replaceable. So many people feel like cogs in someone else's machine.

00:13:28:15 - 00:13:34:02
Zach Mercurio
And we can't be surprised that when people feel replaceable that they will start acting replaceable.

00:13:34:04 - 00:14:02:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. And allow themselves to be replaced. I'm struck again, by this. If it wasn't for you and I'm thinking about and I'm not, I'm gonna say something and you can respond. Yeah. What I'm about to say isn't meant to be technical, because I know that you're not meaning it as technically, but what I am suggesting to you all as you're listening here, and you're thinking about your next one on one, the next chance for you to get feedback.

00:14:03:00 - 00:14:15:02
Kevin Eikenberry
You use some version of those five words when you're giving feedback, or you're using that that sentiment, when you're giving feedback, it's going to make a huge difference. Yes.

00:14:15:04 - 00:14:33:01
Zach Mercurio
Yeah. Can I can I give you a quick example that happened a couple weeks ago. There was a, a group of educators that I was working with as elementary school educators. This applies into the work context in a bit, but, these educators, you one of them, one teacher had like low, very low truancy, which is like unexplained absences.

00:14:33:07 - 00:14:42:07
Zach Mercurio
She was really good at 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?

00:14:42:08 - 00:14:43:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Why do you get how do you get it when you come to class? What are you.

00:14:43:23 - 00:15:05:02
Zach Mercurio
Doing it, I mean, right, we always have that outlier. Oh, that's. She's just so good at that. She told me that whenever someone's absent, whenever a student is absent, she does not ask them why they were absent. She does not comment that they were absent or that they're going to. You have to go to the office if they were absent again, she says, the first thing I do is I tell them what I missed about them not being there, she said.

00:15:05:02 - 00:15:21:07
Zach Mercurio
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't smiling and laughing at your jokes. It was it wasn't as lively without you here or our our class discussions. Like, you know, you raise your hand, you always bring up these interesting points, sometimes funny points.

00:15:21:09 - 00:15:30:09
Zach Mercurio
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.

00:15:30:09 - 00:15:32:21
Kevin Eikenberry
And so good. Right? That is so good.

00:15:32:21 - 00:15:57:12
Zach Mercurio
So good. But it's skillful. It's not technique, it's skillful. You know, everybody here think of someone you rely on. We all have it. It's all coming to mind now. Think of the last time you explicitly told them. Part of what makes leaders who cultivate mattering great is that they move from having a good intention to having a good skill, to turning it into action.

00:15:57:14 - 00:16:15:04
Zach Mercurio
And so often we feel feelings of gratitude for one another. We we feel that our employees matter. We know that. But we tend to not take action to show them. That's what this is all about. It's learning the skills to close that gap between good intentions and good practice.

00:16:15:06 - 00:16:22:02
Kevin Eikenberry
You know, we call that mindset skill set, habit set. And you and I are talking exactly the same.

00:16:22:04 - 00:16:46:13
Zach Mercurio
Like I don't think anybody wakes up. It's like I want to be an uncaring leader today. You know, I actually resent a lot of the blame that's placed on leaders for what's happening, because I don't think that's helpful either. What I, what I think happens is that when you when you don't know how to do something or you don't know how to turn it into a practice or a habit when you haven't been practicing that or never develop that.

00:16:46:15 - 00:16:59:06
Zach Mercurio
It it's, it's a, it's a failure of the broader system as well as the individual. And so but the good news, the good news, right, is that you can we can learn these things and we can practice them.

00:16:59:08 - 00:17:19:08
Kevin Eikenberry
We can learn these things by listening to this conversation. We can learn these things by reading your new book. Zach Curio, the author of The Power of Mattering How Leaders Can Create a 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.

00:17:19:14 - 00:17:45:23
Kevin Eikenberry
And one of the things you talk about another way is another place that which we agree, 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 what everyone who's listening is nodding about. Yep yep yep yep into the real world.

00:17:46:01 - 00:17:51:19
Kevin Eikenberry
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.

00:17:51:21 - 00:18:18:22
Zach Mercurio
Yeah. So let's talk about what's it gets in the way. I mean, you know, everybody listening nod their head. Everybody I talk to is like, yeah. Showing people how they matter is a good idea. Yet 30% of people feel invisible at work, right? Just 40% of people say someone cares for them as a person at work. Gallup released their latest employee engagement report that found that we're more disengaged than ever, despite 20 years in a $1 billion industry to try to solve this engagement, and well-being.

00:18:19:04 - 00:18:20:19
Kevin Eikenberry
Basically, it's largely been flat.

00:18:20:19 - 00:18:21:10
Zach Mercurio
Yeah, it's been.

00:18:21:10 - 00:18:24:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Flat rate, basically been flat. We haven't moved. Right.

00:18:24:07 - 00:18:43:20
Zach Mercurio
But if you look at that data point in that survey, that 40% of people say they strongly agree someone cares for them as a person at work, 30% of that sample said that someone invested in and could even name their unique potential. I mean, this is very clear that this is an everyday interactional mattering deficit. It is not a disengagement crisis.

00:18:43:22 - 00:19:04:05
Zach Mercurio
And so one of the things that is getting in the way is that our technology has enabled efficiency, but it's also fracked. Our attention. Right. So there are more things we can do. I just was in a training with a guy who kept stepping out and stepping back in. He was he was the leader of this organization that I was working on.

00:19:04:05 - 00:19:11:03
Zach Mercurio
I'm cultivating matter. He kept stepping in and stepping out with his phone to answer emails, which class dismissed.

00:19:11:03 - 00:19:12:04
Kevin Eikenberry
We're not going to get anywhere.

00:19:12:07 - 00:19:30:15
Zach Mercurio
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 happening is there's a psychologist, her name is Gloria mark, and she's found that, you know, about ten years ago, we could spend about 2.5 minutes on any one thing without getting distracted.

00:19:30:20 - 00:19:50:12
Zach Mercurio
Now it's about 47 seconds, and leaders attention are being pulled in all sorts of different places. So that's one barriers. But we can relearn to pay attention. You know, one of the practices in the noticing practice that leaders who tend to do this well is they tend to actually note the details down of the people that they're working with, work and lives.

00:19:50:14 - 00:20:11:02
Zach Mercurio
If you're working on a, manufacturing floor and you're a leader and one of your employees, one of your 30 employees 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 struggling with the equipment and put it on your calendar to check in with them next week.

00:20:11:04 - 00:20:31:15
Zach Mercurio
That there's so much magic in being remembered. If a leader in that setting comes up and says, I remember last week 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 pay attention. But the second thing is that we have to recognize that we're losing the skills to do this.

00:20:31:15 - 00:20:57:19
Zach Mercurio
And we've been losing them for 25 years. Kevin, if you. So we are more connected than ever, yet we're lonely. Either that we send about 30 to 40 text based messages to colleagues a day. There's 38 million people using 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 do is evade the social situations in which we learn the skills to do all of what I'm talking about.

00:20:57:20 - 00:21:13:13
Zach Mercurio
So if you send me some good news, I can just send you a thumbs up emoji and say, hey, great job, I don't have to sit with you. Name the gifts I see in you, tell you 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.

00:21:13:13 - 00:21:36:12
Zach Mercurio
I'll talk to you next week. I don't have to sit with you and show compassion. The same is true on virtual calls and remote work. Like after this session, there's always at the bottom of these remote platforms. 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?

00:21:36:12 - 00:22:00:13
Zach Mercurio
To not have to interact and seek understanding. So the less we're using these skills, the less proficient we've gotten at them. And so if people can understand that our attention is getting in the way, our sense of hurrying around is getting in the way and that we're losing these skills. I think that awareness is a baseline to move forward, that these are not soft, these are not it's just not the simple like extra things you do.

00:22:00:15 - 00:22:06:00
Zach Mercurio
These are skills we need to relearn as as humans and as leaders.

00:22:06:02 - 00:22:20:21
Kevin Eikenberry
So other than 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.

00:22:20:23 - 00:22:39:04
Zach Mercurio
I'm actually you be on the phone and I'm going to go beyond the framework. I'm going to go beyond the framework and give you the best question I think you can ask people. And this this has come out of work with leaders, in fact, with a group of leaders who working on a very complex transformation project. And we had the leaders go and ask this question, and it was absolutely transform transformative.

00:22:39:04 - 00:23:00:04
Zach Mercurio
I mean, it's it's transformed my life and how I interact with my own relationships. But the question is, when you feel that you matter to me, what am I doing? When you feel that you matter to me, what am I doing? And and write those things down and take note and truly listen to what your people have to say.

00:23:00:06 - 00:23:26:07
Zach Mercurio
And those are the things that you should be spending most of your time doing. That's the first thing I would do is start ask everybody that question. That'll give you more data than any engagement assessment, any organizational climate assessment. When you feel that you matter to me, what am I doing? I was in an interview with a writer who was interviewing me for a story, and I brought this up, and she went on and she asked her 13 year old daughter that question.

00:23:26:07 - 00:23:45:00
Zach Mercurio
After we had this conversation. And it was pretty emotional because her 13 year old daughter said, it's when we're just in the car going to school, listening to my favorite music. 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.

00:23:45:02 - 00:23:57:19
Zach Mercurio
But that moment she 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.

00:23:57:21 - 00:24:19:23
Kevin Eikenberry
I love that I want to, I want to loop back to something for all of you listening that 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 have position, to ask that question to do.

00:24:19:23 - 00:24:38:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Really all of the things that we've talked about today don't require you to have some sort of, to be to be given some empowerment to do something, because all those things are choices that you can make in the moment and as you make them and as you said, moments put on top of moments, put on top of moments.

00:24:38:02 - 00:25:02:21
Zach Mercurio
Kevin, that is important. Because when you think of what makes your leaders 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 up in small interactions. You may not have positional power in your organization. You always have interactional power. You can always choose how you show up in your next interaction.

00:25:02:23 - 00:25:15:05
Zach Mercurio
You and I just want to underscore what you said. You don't need your organization's approval or permission to notice a firm and show the next person you interact with, how they're needed.

00:25:15:07 - 00:25:21:08
Kevin Eikenberry
And oh, by the way, even if you asked for it, they would give it to you, right?

00:25:21:10 - 00:25:22:08
Zach Mercurio
Absolutely.

00:25:22:10 - 00:25:23:18
Kevin Eikenberry
No one's going to disagree with that.

00:25:23:21 - 00:25:42:22
Zach Mercurio
But sometimes what happens is, is we become who we don't want to become. We become the leader who's not doing it for us. A lot of people ask me, he's asked, what do I do if my leaders are not doing these things for me? I always ask, do you do it for them? You know, mattering is non-directional. Culture is non-directional.

00:25:43:00 - 00:26:05:22
Zach Mercurio
Have you checked in on how your leader is doing? Have you thanked your leader and shown them meaningful gratitude for the work that they did, or what they enabled you to do? Have you reminded your leader how they're needed and how they enable your projects? Most of that. So we also can't expect people to do things for us that we're not bringing to the relationship as well.

00:26:06:00 - 00:26:27:01
Kevin Eikenberry
100%. And and another word that we talk about a 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 about that 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 verb we do, the more of the noun we get.

00:26:27:03 - 00:26:36:16
Kevin Eikenberry
And that's fundamentally what you just said. Like if, if, if that person that do it for you, what are you waiting? What are you waiting on? Go first.

00:26:36:18 - 00:26:58:23
Zach Mercurio
Absolutely. That's a good a great point. Great leaders tend to go first. And what you're talking about is trust is is critical. I mean going back to that noticing practice, noticing people's all about understanding them. I mean, you can't care for 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.

00:26:59:00 - 00:27:06:09
Zach Mercurio
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.

00:27:06:14 - 00:27:09:00
Kevin Eikenberry
It's easy to overwatering it under watering.

00:27:09:03 - 00:27:40:10
Zach Mercurio
It's easy to care about people from a distance. It's easy to put on your website. Your people are your greatest asset. It takes getting up close to care for people. And so there's a big difference in caring about 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, and there was one guy who came up apt after, and he was one of the people responsible for the interpersonal relationship section of the of a curriculum for special forces officers.

00:27:40:12 - 00:28:00:01
Zach Mercurio
Some of the most elite high pressure units work units, probably in the world. And he said, you know, this gave me language for something he said, because a lot of people think the lethal the, the, a lot of people think the key ingredient of a lethal unit right behind enemy lines is, is toughness. But he said it's not it's love.

00:28:00:03 - 00:28:18:16
Zach Mercurio
He said, no one is going to sacrifice for me if I don't know their kids names. No one is going to go above and 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 demonstrated support for them. I mean, that's the key ingredient. And what he's talking about is that the underlying predictor of trust.

00:28:18:22 - 00:28:40:15
Zach Mercurio
In fact, researchers find that without care, trust is nearly impossible. It doesn't matter how competent you are at your job, it doesn't matter how consistent you are at your job. If you don't feel like the person that you're working for has your best interests at heart, it's almost impossible to feel like you trust them. And so because.

00:28:40:15 - 00:28:52:22
Kevin Eikenberry
That's that's that'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 about the focus is on it.

00:28:52:22 - 00:29:08:11
Zach Mercurio
I love yeah, think about the last person you trusted who didn't demonstrate care for you or, think about the last person you trusted in which you didn't feel psychologically safe with. Did it feel like your voice mattered? Didn't feel like you could speak up? Right? It's virtually impossible.

00:29:08:13 - 00:29:24:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. There's a bunch of stuff I want to talk to, talk about, but I don't want to. I think where we've gone is exactly where I wanted us to go. I'm just going to tell all of you that, you need to read this book, and Zach will tell you how you can get it before we're finished.

00:29:24:17 - 00:29:33:10
Kevin Eikenberry
But, I've got a couple other things I want to do. Zach, before we go. First of all, one of the thing first, is there anything I didn't ask you wish I would have?

00:29:33:12 - 00:29:55:20
Zach Mercurio
I think we talked about it, but I do want to just underscore the difference between mattering, belonging or inclusion. We touched on it a little bit, but I because there's so many buzzwords out there in organizational life, I think it's really important to underscore underscore the difference. Belonging is feeling welcomed in and connected to a group. A lot of organizations do belonging initiatives where they make sure people feel welcome, connected affinity groups, all of that.

00:29:55:20 - 00:30:18:16
Zach Mercurio
That's all great. Inclusion is being invited and able to take an active role in a group. But mattering is feeling significant to individual members of that group. So there's really no shortcut. If you want your people in your organization to feel that they matter, everybody in the organization needs to have the skills to see, hear, value and show them how they're needed in their everyday interactions.

00:30:18:18 - 00:30:36:07
Zach Mercurio
And it's very hard for people who experience long standing, belonging or inclusion without feeling that they matter every day. And I think that's what's been missing in a lot of the initiatives over the last ten years, is that people have been told that they belong, people have been included, but they don't feel that they matter and are seen, heard, valued and needed in their everyday interactions.

00:30:36:07 - 00:31:02:01
Zach Mercurio
And so I think it's really important to underscore the difference, there and I want to just underscore again the importance of trust, especially in the age of AI. A lot of people ask me about that. It's I can do your tasks. It cannot take responsibility for your tasks. Yeah, I, I can do tasks, but it cannot adopt the moral responsibility we have to one another.

00:31:02:03 - 00:31:22:10
Zach Mercurio
And so that's why I believe in this age of AI, these skills that we're talking about, that build trust, true human trust is it's the human advantage. Because I don't think I will ever be able to take moral responsibility over our tasks. It can do them, but only we are responsible to one another.

00:31:22:12 - 00:31:33:00
Kevin Eikenberry
And I agree with that. So I'm going to shift gears now before we finish with a couple of other questions totally different from where we were. And the first one is, is that what do you do for fun?

00:31:33:02 - 00:31:50:17
Zach Mercurio
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 and a seven year old who love the outdoors. And so we go camping a lot in the summer especially, and we're always outside and just playing with them.

00:31:50:17 - 00:31:53:07
Zach Mercurio
That's the most fun I have.

00:31:53:09 - 00:31:58:19
Kevin Eikenberry
Awesome. And the only thing you knew I was going to ask you for sure, is what are you reading these days?

00:31:58:21 - 00:32:29:02
Zach Mercurio
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, seeking general intelligence from other things, like how do we develop artificial intelligence using the intelligence of animals, plants?

00:32:29:04 - 00:33:00:16
Zach Mercurio
You know, our non-human world. It's just really interesting. And he talks about how just this idea that we are all being with one another on this planet. So it's really cool. 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 have heard of the movie annihilation, but it's called absolution, and it's based on a great series by Jeff VanderMeer.

00:33:00:17 - 00:33:27:11
Kevin Eikenberry
We will have links to both of those as well. And Zach's book in the show notes. I just want to make a comment to those of you who, maybe you've listened a long time, or maybe this is the first time you'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, I bet it's 25% of people that say they're reading.

00:33:27:13 - 00:33:45:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, it's more than 25% of people that are reading more than two things at once. I get more than one, but lots of times. But it's it's often the case that I get people who are consciously reading both fiction and nonfiction. So. And you fall into that category. Yeah. I've never I've never made that. I don't know if.

00:33:45:06 - 00:33:49:20
Zach Mercurio
I'm consciously doing it. I just think I need the, the foil of one to the other. Like it.

00:33:49:22 - 00:33:52:07
Kevin Eikenberry
You just said I'm always reading. Well, I.

00:33:52:07 - 00:33:55:03
Zach Mercurio
Always I'm always, I always do it. Two books. So it is a.

00:33:55:03 - 00:33:56:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Habit now, you know that.

00:33:56:07 - 00:33:58:14
Zach Mercurio
It's actually it's a habit. It's a has.

00:33:58:14 - 00:34:00:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Become subconscious, right.

00:34:00:18 - 00:34:08:01
Zach Mercurio
I bet, I bet if I didn't have, nonfiction or didn't have a fiction book, I something I would feel like I needed to get one.

00:34:08:03 - 00:34:17:16
Kevin Eikenberry
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 say to folks about connecting with you?

00:34:17:18 - 00:34:28:06
Zach Mercurio
Yeah, you can go to Power of Matter Inc.com. But I would recommend actually you go to Zach mercurio.com backslash mattering. And there you can download all sorts of free stuff.

00:34:28:08 - 00:34:32:02
Kevin Eikenberry
So com forward slash Matt or mattering.

00:34:32:02 - 00:34:32:10
Zach Mercurio
Yes.

00:34:32:10 - 00:34:34:01
Kevin Eikenberry
You that's not what I have here but that's what.

00:34:34:03 - 00:34:53:14
Zach Mercurio
That's all right. You can download a free self-assessment. You don't even need to give me your 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. Like closing that gap between intention and practice.

00:34:53:16 - 00:35:12:17
Kevin Eikenberry
I love that. So everybody, before we go in, before I 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 action will you take as a result of this? Oh, Zach. And I've said this throughout this conversation.

00:35:12:17 - 00:35:31:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Like, this is good stuff. It makes sense. Everyone's nodding their head. It doesn't matter unless you take action. It doesn't matter unless you start doing working. Excuse me? Working on noticing, working on affirming. It doesn't matter unless 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?

00:35:31:13 - 00:35:48:16
Kevin Eikenberry
The question is, what are you going to do to start do this, doing this stuff with your boss? Like, I don't know what it is that you took from this. That's for you. But it it can't end with what you mentally thought about or mentally highlighted as Zach said it. And it can't be what you just wrote down.

00:35:48:16 - 00:36:08:03
Kevin Eikenberry
If you're not riding your bike right now, it's got to be what action will you take when we leave? And if you do that, then I can promise you that this will be far more valuable than it would be otherwise. Zach, thank you so much for being here. My, my, wait, was worth it.

00:36:08:05 - 00:36:10:16
Zach Mercurio
Okay. Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate this.

00:36:10:18 - 00:36:26:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Hey, everybody. Thanks for being here. If you like this, make sure you come back. Tell somebody else so they come wherever you happen to be watching or listening, you know the drill. You can give us a rating if that's possible. Where you are. You can make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any other episodes of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.

00:36:26:08 - 00:36:27:23
Kevin Eikenberry
And we'll be back again next week. We'll see you then.