Robert McNamara had the figures that said the US was winning. As secretary of defense during the Vietnam War, McNamara rebuilt military decision-making around metrics: body counts, munitions spent, supply lines secured. Each dashboard was pointing in the same direction.
In a recent discussion on my podcast “Passion Struck,” author Mark Manson highlighted McNamara as a cautionary tale for anyone who relies solely on statistics. Manson told me, “The things you can’t measure ended up being far more important in the Vietnam War than the things you could measure,” referring to the North Vietnamese army’s will to continue fighting in spite of defeats. “We all have a bias toward things we can see, count and measure,” he said, and that bias convinces us those things must matter most.
Swap “war” for “org chart” and the warning holds. Because of their visibility and comparability, leaders monitor revenue, retention rates and performance evaluations. What they routinely miss is a subtler question with far more predictive power over whether someone stays, contributes and thrives: Does this person feel like they matter?
Success and mattering are not the same thing, and confusing them is one of the more expensive mistakes a leader can make.
What mattering actually is
Psychologist Gordon Flett, a professor at York University who has studied mattering for more than three decades, defines it as the felt sense of being significant to others: that you’re noticed, people would miss you if you left, and your contribution counts. In a recent conversation with me, Flett sharply distinguished mattering from self-esteem or belonging. You can like your co-workers and still feel your presence adds nothing. You can be confident in your ability and still feel invisible to the people who make decisions above you.
Flett has also researched the opposite condition, which he terms anti-mattering: the experience of feeling invisible, insignificant and uncared for. He cited a study of approximately 400 French adolescents, where two-thirds reported feeling they did not matter in society. Flett makes a direct connection between this and depression, loneliness and, in extreme situations, suicidal thoughts. “It’s another form of double or triple jeopardy,” he said, referring to adolescents who feel cut off from their surroundings and society.
Success measurements were never designed to detect that. A sales target doesn’t inquire as to whether the individual who meets it feels interchangeable. If an employee were to leave tomorrow, would anyone notice? That is not assessed by a performance grade.
Why achievement doesn’t fill the gap
It would be convenient if hitting goals produced a sense of significance. It does not. Richie Davidson, the neuroscientist behind decades of research on meditation and well-being, and Cort Dahl, his co-author on the recent book “Born to Flourish,” argue that the drive to matter is innate, not earned through achievement. “It is our nature to be kind, to be pro-social, to be cooperative,” Davidson told me. “That is our nature. And that is how we are born.” If mattering is a baseline human need rather than a prize for performance, an organization can clear every key performance indicator on the board while still leaving that need unmet.
That’s precisely the gap Flett has watched widen. He described talking with a French researcher whose data linked feeling like you don’t matter in society to criminal sentiment and distrust of institutions. Separately, joint research in China showed the link between loneliness and not mattering appearing as early as grades four to six. The pattern isn’t confined to any age group, country or org chart. It shows up wherever achievement is tracked and significance is not.
This situation is something that any manager who is willing to look for it will recognize. A salesperson exceeds a quota and receives nothing but an automated congratulatory message. An engineer launches a product used by millions and yet never finds out if anyone above their immediate manager noticed their particular contribution. Although the achievement is genuine, another human being might not have acknowledged its significance.
What leaders can do differently
Manson’s account of McNamara suggests the solution is as much a matter for consideration as the problem itself; one should cease the assumption that only what can be measured is important and make a deliberate effort to monitor the rest.
-
Separate recognition from outcomes
Praise linked solely to results teaches people that they matter only when the numbers turn out well, which is precisely the wrong lesson during a difficult quarter, when it is most important to make people feel appreciated.
-
Make recognition specific and personal
According to Flett’s research on mattering, specificity is a key factor in making people feel that they matter. A teamwide thank-you email is simply being courteous. It is only when a manager tells an individual in detail how specific work made a difference to a client or to a decision that this has any real impact.
-
Keep an eye on the quietly successful individuals
They appear to feel secure since their performance figures are satisfactory, which is why they are most likely to be overlooked when a real check-in is being made — and, according to Flett’s research into chronic loneliness, they’re also the ones most at risk of feeling as though they do not matter even though they are succeeding in every visible respect.
-
Ask the question directly
In fact, the very last piece of advice Flett gives when I ask him what he would say to someone who feels unseen is also advice for any manager: Assign them a role in which they can clearly see the difference they make, whether that involves a project, a mentee or being asked.
McNamara believed he was winning a war since all the figures indicated that he was. Today’s leaders are at risk of something analogous: a team that appears to be engaged in theory but in fact is deciding that it doesn’t matter enough to remain. The figures will not pick up on that fact until it is already too late to remedy the situation.