Make It Matter

CHAPTER 9

Cutting Off Corrosive Behaviors

So far this book has focused on the positive ways you can create meaning at work. These methods will all be for naught, though, if you don’t address the negative behaviors that can drain employees of meaning. Social psychologists Steven Heine, Tracy Proulx, and Kathleen Vohs have found that when we are robbed of meaning or face meaningless conditions, we try to reconstruct meaning—often in other pockets of our work life or life in general.¹ But when we’re striving to compensate, we aren’t striving to elevate, thereby disrupting an organization and dragging down performance.

Where to start looking first?

The mirror.

You might not realize, given all your good intentions, that you could also be engaging ...