Originally discussed on The Meg and Amy Show - Episode 5

The Gallup engagement survey hit headlines again this year with the usual doom-and-gloom narrative: "Engagement is on the brink!" But here's the uncomfortable truth—the numbers aren't really all that different from the past. What is different is our collective realization that despite decades of engagement initiatives, we're not actually fixing anything.

It's time to ask a harder question: Are we solving the wrong problem entirely?

For years, HR has operated under a simple logic: retention is good because it costs more to acquire new talent than to keep existing employees. But this thinking has created what we call "a spiral of scarcity"—investing energy in keeping things the same instead of equipping people to thrive in a changing world.

The reality is that things are not the same. When we focus solely on retention, we unintentionally create complacency. We end up with HR professionals who believe their job is to make people feel better about staying put, rather than preparing them to achieve business goals in a market-competitive way.

In times of economic contraction, when productivity curves are changing and cost reduction pressures are mounting—whether from AI or economic forces—this retention-first mindset becomes a strategic liability.

Here's the wake-up call: engagement without direction is just theater. You can have highly engaged employees who are completely disconnected from what actually moves your business forward. Even worse, some of your most engaged people might be doing "negative work"—activities that actively work against your organizational goals.

Negative work isn't born from malice. It's almost always a symptom of two systemic problems:

The solution starts with understanding what the most important things actually are and how to put great work toward those priorities. As discussed on the show, this is fundamentally about avoiding "bike shedding"—the tendency for teams to spend time on trivial decisions everyone feels qualified to make (like which coffee to stock in the break room or what size bike shed to add to the facility) while avoiding the complex strategic conversations that actually matter.

When you can clearly differentiate between good work and busy work, and when people understand how their efforts connect to what's most important, velocity changes materially because you eliminate the friction that negative work creates across your entire system.

The one statistically significant change in this year's Gallup data? Manager engagement dropped from 30% to 27%. This isn't a minor blip—it's a canary in the coal mine.

Managers are the differentiator between people loving their jobs and merely surviving them. Yet we're creating a narrative that managers are overhead, that we have too many layers, that flattening organizational structures will solve our problems. We're even seeing headlines about AI replacing the "compassionate coach" role that great managers provide.

This is backwards. In an age of ambiguity and rapid change, the need for great management is greater than ever. But we're not equipping managers with the agency and curiosity to understand what the most important work actually is.

The solution isn't replacing managers—it's redefining management itself. One of the biggest challenges managers face today is the belief that they should know things that are unknowable. No one is an expert on what happens next in our rapidly changing world.

Instead of managers needing to have more expertise than their teams, the role should shift toward mobilizing the collective intelligence of the team. AI can actually help here, not by replacing human connection, but by helping managers:

The goal is helping managers move from being overwhelmed firefighters to being strategic enablers of their teams' success.

For managers feeling the squeeze right now: You're not imagining it—you are being squeezed, and you don't have to feel gaslit about that reality. But within that pressure lies an opportunity to step back and ask: Do I need to shift my approach to leadership and management? There's never been a better time to give yourself permission to redefine what you're doing, especially if what you're currently doing isn't working. This is a moment for managers ready to do something different.

Instead of asking "How do we retain people?" or "How do we increase engagement scores?", leaders should be asking:

"Are people able to do good work, and is that good work moving our business forward?"

This requires shifting from measuring happiness to measuring impact. While we didn't land on specific metrics in our discussion, the framework is clear: any measure should connect individual work to business outcomes rather than tracking retention for retention's sake.

If the answer is no, it requires curiosity, not more retention initiatives. The path forward involves:

Retention as a goal creates stagnation. Equipping people for success creates retention as a natural outcome.

When you focus on equipping employees to achieve business goals and develop market-competitive skills, you create an environment where both the company and the individual thrive. You build something worth staying for, rather than creating barriers to leaving.

The most successful organizations moving forward won't be the ones with the highest retention rates—they'll be the ones that consistently help people understand what the most important work is and how their efforts connect to business outcomes.

What do you think? Are we measuring the wrong things in our organizations? How do you help your teams understand what work actually matters? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Prepared by Amy Wilson, former tech executive and current product strategy advisor. For more insights on leadership and the future of work, subscribe to The Meg and Amy Show.