🚖 Zach Mercurio: Author of "The Power of Mattering"
Fostering Meaning at Work, Creating Strong Cultures and Empowering Leaders
Welcome to this interview edition of The Switchboard, my newsletter exploring the ways we communicate and connect at work and beyond. I’m Julia, and I’m excited to share my conversation with Zach. Thank you, Emerald, for your help. Here are the top takeaways:
In This Edition
🚕 How a conversation with a cab driver transformed his career
🧼 What janitors taught him about making work meaningful
📓 The ritual of a Noticing Notebook to ensure people are remembered
About Zach
Zach Mercurio, Ph. D., is a researcher, leadership development facilitator, and speaker who specializes in purposeful leadership, mattering at work, meaningful work, and positive organizational psychology.
He’s the author of The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025) and The Invisible Leader: Transform Your Life, Work, and Organization with the Power of Authentic Purpose.
Zach advises leaders in organizations worldwide on practices for building cultures that promote well-being, motivation, and performance. He holds a Ph.D. in organizational learning, performance, and change from Colorado State University, where he serves as a senior fellow in the Center for Meaning and Purpose and as an Instructor in the Organizational Learning, Performance, and Change program.
Zach’s thinking on leadership and meaningful work has been featured in The Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Psychology Today, ABC News, The Denver Post, and Thrive Global. He lives in Fort Collins, CO, with his wife, two sons, and two adopted dogs.
What sparked the path into your field?
20 years ago, I was working in advertising and most people didn’t like their jobs. I was sitting in a cab in DC, and the driver asked, “How are you doing?” I responded with “Is it the weekend yet?” It was Tuesday, and I felt like I was living from one weekend to the next. When I asked the driver the same question, I expected him to grumble with me. But, his response surprised me. He said he couldn’t think of a better way to spend his day.
He had been driving a cab for 15 years. During that time, he shared how he listened to people who no longer talked to their parents and was the first person someone interacted with when they landed in the USA. He took his work seriously. I loved hearing this, but I didn’t expect him to like his job. He saw the purpose in the work he was doing and took joy from the experiences.
Since that moment, I wanted to learn as much as I could about what makes work meaningful. It sparked me to go into education and psychology to study how people think. The topic became my research as I studied interactions with ordinary people and the extraordinary perspective they brought to doing their jobs.
As you look back, is there a pivotal project that’s shaped your career?
It’s definitely my PhD dissertation. I studied cleaners and janitors at a university and what made work meaningful in a difficult and invisible occupation. I sat in the break rooms, went into the custodian closets, observed them cleaning spaces and captured their wisdom and expertise.
There’s one conversation that stands out still. While discussing cleaning college bathrooms on a Monday, which sounded not so glamorous, the custodian told me every time she goes into that bathroom she says to herself, “I’m cleaning this bathroom so that these kids don’t get sick.
That mentality of people experiencing meaning shows that they tend to develop a “so that” mentality. What is purposeful isn’t always pleasureful. I also noticed that the cleaners who experienced meaningfulness had people (especially leaders) who reminded them of their significance.
For example, I learned from this same woman that years before, her supervisor gave her the dictionary definition of custodian, a person who has responsibility for or looks after something, and she never forgot that. Her supervisor told her — that’s you — everyone is dependent on you.
The research shows that when interviewing thousands of people in 20 industries, when you ask people about what they do and if it matters, they don’t talk about big actions, they talk about small interactions in which a leader saw them and showed them the difference they made. It’s the signals we get from others in our environment that show us how we matter.
Can you tell us about your book and a story you’re proud of?
The Power of Mattering is all about the science and practices for creating meaningful moments for other people at work. While writing the book, I observed real leaders engaging in and not engaging in these tactics. I went into a large company with low engagement surveys, but one leader stood out — the team said their supervisor understood them. Even though she was managing 27 people, she had a ritual that helped her succeed — the Noticing Notebook.
Every Friday, she wrote down the names of her team members and one thing she wanted to remember about them from that week. On Monday, she looked at that list and scheduled a 3-minute check-in with each employee. She followed up on that one topic to ask how it went, did we get the challenge fixed, did they need more support and so on.
There’s magic in being remembered. People who really have relationships feel seen. Don’t leave it up to chance. Leaders block time in their calendar to put this ritual into practice. And it makes all the difference to their teams.
What is a value that drives you personally and professionally?
Unnecessary kindness — it’s different than being nice. Being kind is thoughtful and compassionate. It doesn’t mean being soft, but it’s encouraging you to choose your reaction, even if someone cuts you in line or if someone isn’t kind to you, you show up in that moment with kindness. I try to teach this to my kids — it’s the complimentary principle. It’s about being purposeful with your choice.
What’s a hack or habit that grounds you in life and work?
I read a newspaper every day, in particular the international section. It grounds me by taking me out of my experience to understand what other people in the world are experiencing. In particular, the international section is powerful for this reason. I also like reading a physical paper because there’s nothing forcing me to read a particular headline. I read an article to the end, even if I’m not interested in it, I stay committed.
Thank you for tuning into this edition. I’m always grateful for your support in growing this community of caring communicators and connectors. If you enjoyed this article, give it a heart, consider sharing it with a friend or post a learning on LinkedIn. Signing off. — Julia