In 2005, Gallup Research identified the “four needs of followers” in a study of 10,000 adults in the US. A second study in 2008 across 10 countries confirmed the same four needs.

Since the pandemic shifted many jobs to work-from-home (or anywhere) and the Great Resignation|Reshuffle|Renegotiation|Rethink further upended our work order, organizations have been madly surveying and throwing a lot of stuff at the wall to lure and keep the people they need to run their businesses.

There’s no question that our relationship to work has forever shifted, at least for those whose jobs don’t require a physical presence, and we’ll be wrestling and experimenting with this before we figure it out.

It didn’t start with a pitch deck or a business plan. In 2009 while walking in his San Fernando neighborhood, Rick Nahmais noticed citrus trees bursting with fruit that would mostly end up in the trash. Food lines were growing as the Great Recession ravaged people’s lives and livelihoods. The light bulb went on. The following three weekends, he and a few volunteers harvested over 800 lbs of oranges and tangerines from a friend’s yard and took them to a local food pantry.

Groundhog Day again. Gallup released its State of the Workplace: 2022 report and one headline, Stressed, Sad, and Anxious: A Snapshot of the Workforce, summarizes what is a surprise to no one.

What is a bit different about it, though, is despite the myriad reasons for misery at work shouting at us from headlines daily, Gallup lays blame at the feet of managers.

Too many meetings — meetings without a purpose, redundant meetings, or meetings called instead of a simple email or quick conversation. Even when they’re necessary, too many people are there, many show up late and tap away on computers or are glued to phone screens, loud voices dominate, discussions go long and veer off-topic, and mind-numbing PowerPoint decks zap energy. Nothing useful gets done. And bad meetings can take up even more time at the “meeting after the meeting,” where people let off steam with each other about how bad the meeting was. I often hear “I have to come in early, stay late, or work the weekends to get my work done because I’m in meetings all day.”

Culture woes. They’re a constant: my team isn’t gelling. We’re missing deadlines. Mistakes keep repeating. We’re siloed. We show up late to meetings even though we committed to being on time. Or, even at home: chores we agreed to go ignored, or some sort of disrespect has crept in.

How do we create the culture we’re aiming for?

“I don’t really know how I’m doing” is a familiar refrain. Even when an organization has a 360-feedback process and regular performance check-ins, people are still not sure how they’re doing or why they may not be progressing as quickly as they’d like. As a bookend to this, managers struggle with how to put words to the feedback they’re trying to give. They want it to be clear and actionable, yet they find their conversations often don’t deliver.