Author: Emily Priddy

• Statistics reveal that 47% of workers consider meetings the top “time waster” at work, while 45% of all working professionals feel overwhelmed by their meeting schedules.
• The essentials for productive meetings include assigning three specific roles within your team, establishing clear goals, and consistently concluding meetings on times ending in “5” (e.g., 1:55pm, not 2pm).
• Communication expert and Optimist Instructor Lori Zukin explains these tips and more.

Meetings: love them or loathe them, they’re with us to stay. If you’re lucky enough to rise through the ranks, statistics suggest that a significant chunk of your work hours—up to 50% for upper management—could be spent in meetings. That’s a staggering 30,000 to 45,000 hours over an entire career, akin to watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy nearly 4,000 times from start to finish. 

No wonder the refrain “this could’ve been an email” is so common.

But what if meetings didn’t have to be a drain on time and productivity? According to communication expert Lori Zukin—who teaches a popular course in The Optimism Library called “Make Meetings Efficient and Productive”—the key to great meetings lies in one word: structure. With the right framework, meetings can become more than just hum-drum gatherings—they can be opportunities for collaboration, clarity, and progress.

Here are three simple tips from Lori to get you started:

1. Assign Exactly Three Roles Among Your Team for Every Meeting

“Knowing who owns the meeting can drastically improve its effectiveness,” says Lori. “Having clarity on who is the owner, even if it’s a fast meeting, is helpful, especially if you want to keep it fast in the first place.”

Note: This ownership also means owning all follow-up actions. 

Alongside a meeting owner, Lori recommends designated a notetaker and a timekeeper, as well. 

“Assigning someone to take notes and another as a timekeeper ensures that A) important decisions and details are remembered and B) the meeting runs smoothly and respects everyone’s time,” she says. 

2. Schedule Your Meetings to Conclude on Numbers That End in “5”

Instead of scheduling a meeting to run from 1:00pm to 2:00pm, Lori recommends a simple yet effective hack: Schedule it to run from 1:00pm to 1:55pm. Instead of hosting a meeting that runs from 2pm to 2:30, make it 2pm to 2:25pm. 

This slight adjustment provides crucial buffer time between meetings, allowing participants to decompress, address urgent tasks, or simply take a breather. In a remote-work world filled with Zoom calls, this could simply mean giving your team the opportunity to use the bathroom. 

These short breaks are vital for sustaining energy and concentration throughout the day, enhancing productivity and reducing the strain of consecutive meetings. 

“Having 5 minutes in between meetings can significantly enhance productivity and reduce the stress associated with back-to-back scheduling,” says Lori.

3. Yes, Every Meeting Needs a Stated Goal Agreed Upon Beforehand

Every meeting should begin with a clear agenda that acts as a roadmap for the discussion, ensuring that all participants are aligned with the meeting’s objectives. 

“Ideally you’ve done it before,” says Lori, highlighting the importance of preparation. “A well-planned agenda includes the meeting’s title, date, time, location, and participants, along with a detailed outline of what will be discussed.” 

This transparency ensures that everyone understands the purpose of the meeting and is prepared to contribute effectively. This agenda can also be where the aforementioned notetaker can compile the takeaways from the meeting in a place everyone can see them. 

Oh, and if you don’t have a clear goal you want to achieve for your meeting? According to Lori, that’s a surefire sign that the meeting could’ve been an email. 

For more, check out The Optimism Library. 

• Research shows that a strong sense of community at work improves performance, reduces turnover risk, and results in fewer sick days. 
• We can all do our part to build a sense of community with small but effective gestures: asking the right questions regularly, prioritizing praise and recognition, and creating shared lists of interests.
• In this article, entrepreneur, speaker, and Optimist Instructor Rachel Drunkenmiller, who specializes in assisting organizations find purpose and build strong cultures, provides expert tips.

Amid our daily tasks, back-to-back meetings, urgent emails, and ever-growing to-do lists, it’s all too tempting to believe there aren’t enough hours in the day to think about bigger things like fostering a sense of community at work. (After all, isn’t that HR’s job?) 

But research suggests that prioritizing a sense of community at work is well worth our time. 

A study by Deloitte found that those who experience a strong sense of belonging enjoy a 56% increase in job performance, a 50% reduction in turnover risk, and a 75% decrease in sick days. What’s more, research published in the Academy of Management Journal found that stronger work communities are hotbeds for the type of workplace connections that result in promotions and stronger emotional support, while fulfilling a very human desire to serve and give back to others. 

While building a community is, of course, a group effort, there’s a lot we can do individually to help. According to Optimist Instructor Rachel Druckenmiller—an entrepreneur, speaker, and consultant who teaches a class in The Optimism Library called “The 3 Keys to Effective Employee Engagement”—you don’t have to go as far as asking your team to run a marathon together, join a book club, or perform trust falls. 

You can try three simple things.

1. Create a Shared List of Interests

“Here’s a fun thing I advise all teams to do: Create a list called ‘Our Favorite Things,’ and invite people to fill it out,” says Druckenmiller.

The things can range from serious to silly—personal passions, exercise routines, comic-book movies, go-to snacks, coffee orders, television shows, and restaurants.

Once completed, everyone will have the opportunity to get to know their coworkers better. What’s more, it can inspire thoughtful gestures. 

“It’s just this beautiful way to connect,” says Druckenmiller. “And it doesn’t have to just be peer-to-peer, either. It can be boss-to-direct reports, or from one department to another. Anybody in the organization can acknowledge and be inclusive towards somebody else.” 

2. Ask These Two Golden Questions

Druckenmiller singles out exactly two questions that can significantly impact how supported and valued your team members feel: 

• “How can I best support you right now?” 
• “Is there anything you need to do your job better?” 

While these may sound like questions best asked in a yearly review, she advises you to ask these questions regularly. They show a genuine interest in each employee’s well-being and professional needs. They also reflect a curiosity that, as Simon points out, “is core to empathy and all interpersonal interactions within the workplace.” 

3. Repeat After Us: “Praise, Praise, Praise”

“It’s a fact: There are five-and-a-half times more praise and recognition than there is critiquing on high-performing teams,” says Druckenmiller. “On low performing teams, it’s inverted. There are three times as much criticism and critiquing as there is praise.”

Yes, recognizing people matters. “It’s about making sure that we’re focusing on appreciating what is good, and calling out what is good, and not waiting till someone’s on their way out the door to tell them why we value them,” says Druckenmiller.

At the end of the day, she says, it’s a preponderance of small stuff that can turn a mundane office into a thriving community. 

For more, check out The Optimism Library

• Learn how your brain is hardwired to skew towards negative thoughts, and why practicing gratitude helps.
• Gain insights from Omar Brownson, an Optimist Instructor, successful entrepreneur, civic leader, and expert in gratitude and mindfulness. 
• Omar reveals step-by-step instructions for his helpful, one-minute breathing exercise to calm your mind.

Are you stressed out these days? You’re hardly alone. In fact, if you believe the folks at Bloomberg, the single biggest unifying force in America right now is our collective stress level. 

According to LA-based entrepreneur, civic leader, and Optimist Instructor Omar Brownson (who is also one of the most trusted authorities on the subject of gratitude and mindfulness), there are plenty of effective ways you can better cope with your stress on a day-to-day basis. He details them all in “The Gratitude Class,” which you can access in The Optimism Library. But we took the liberty of laying out his go-to one-minute breathing exercise for chilling out that you can try at work—or anywhere else—below.

The Importance of Gratitude

Omar categorizes gratitude as a critical lens through which we can view our experiences in a more positive light. He explains, “If meditation helps us notice each breath, and mindfulness helps us notice change, then gratitude helps us notice good.”

Our brains naturally skew towards negativity. For whatever reason, stress and negativity tend to stack up and store in our thoughts. Gratitude acts as an essential counterbalance. Omar describes it as “an antidote to that negative orientation,” which is vital for emotional well-being and resilience.

This mindset isn’t just about ignoring the negative but rather about recalibrating our focus to appreciate the positive, thereby “rewiring our brains and even rewilding our hearts.” Practicing gratitude should not only be recognizing good but also fostering an environment where positive emotions are triggered more readily than negative ones.

Step-by-Step Breathing Exercise to Cultivate Gratitude

Here’s Omar’s simple yet profound breathing exercise to help individuals anchor themselves in the present moment and foster gratitude. Below is a guided walkthrough from Omar’s class on how to conduct this practice. And the best part? It only needs to take a minute or two:

1. Get Comfortable

“I invite you to get comfortable in a way that works for you. Whether you want to close your eyes or just gently rest them away from the screen, find a position that allows you to feel at ease.”

2. Notice Your Breath

“We’re just going to take a few moments to notice our breath. Notice the seat that is holding us. Notice our feet on the ground.”

3. Focus on the Details of Breathing

“With each breath, maybe bring some attention to where you feel it entering. Maybe you feel it in your nostrils, your throat, your chest, or your belly. And maybe focus on the exhale. Do you feel the heat of the exhale in your nose?”

4. Awareness of Tension

“Bring some attention to your body. Notice your shoulders wherever there might be some tension. No need to do anything about it. Just bring some awareness to it.”

5. Heart Awareness

“The last place we’re going to bring some awareness to is just our hearts. Notice, is it beating fast? Beating slow? Does it have a feeling attached to it?”

6. Return to the Room

“As this last breath invites you to bring your attention back into the room, I came to this space. And open your eyes when you’re ready.”

This practice is designed to slow down the mind, allowing you to shift from a state of doing to a state of being. It’s not just about relaxation but about cultivating an acute awareness of the present, which is crucial for gratitude.

Omar’s perspective on gratitude goes beyond simple thankfulness. It’s a practice that can profoundly affect our emotional and psychological health, helping us to navigate the complexities of life with a more positive, resilient outlook on the days to come.

Use this quick breathing exercise at the point in your day when you feel the most stressed. 

For more, check out The Optimism Library. 

“Can I give you some feedback?”

If you’ve ever had to utter those words at work, you know that what follows can be a seriously stressful tightrope walk. Your colleague hangs on your every word while their heart rate spikes, and they brace themselves for impact. Meanwhile, you’re talking on eggshells, doing your best to be constructive without crushing morale. But the truth is, giving negative feedback doesn’t have to be so difficult. So, what’s the best way to do it?

Well, the short answer is that you should approach feedback with self-awareness and sensitivity, especially if you are in a leadership position. In fact, a study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania found that it is critically important for leaders to be sensitive when providing feedback to employees, with many participants feeling that the more harsh the feedback, the less of a feeling of psychological safety is fostered. This, of course, backfires: it creates a work environment with less communication, collaboration, and openness. 

If you don’t know where to start in your journey to better communication, entrepreneur and leadership expert Kristen Hadeed is here to help. Kristen is the instructor of “Delivering and Accepting Feedback Effectively,” a class you’ll find in the “Leadership” section of The Optimism Library. For her part, Kristen swears by the FBI method, a classic technique she frequently employs within her company to cultivate an environment where constructive feedback can thrive. Here she explains how to do it. 

Understanding the FBI Method

The “FBI” method stands for “Feelings, Behavior, and Impact.” One of the strengths of the FBI method is its versatility. “You can use it for both types of feedback. You can use it for growth feedback, which is what I call critical feedback, right? It’s the way to inspire someone to change their behavior. Or you can use it for recognition, which we also identified is a really important form of feedback,” says Hadeed.

According to Hadeed, this approach is tailored to articulate feedback in a manner that is both insightful and empathetic. “The F is the feeling. How does this person’s behavior make you feel?” Hadeed explains. This initiates the feedback by personally connecting with the emotional effect of the behavior.

As mentioned, the “B” in FBI stands for behavior. “What is the specific Behavior that led to the feeling?” 

Hadeed explains: “When we address the actual behavior, it allows the feedback receiver to understand exactly what action is being discussed. It sounds obvious, but sometimes in our nerves to deliver feedback we cut out details that can be crucial to the point of the conversation. When that happens, the actual sentiment of what needs to be worked on can get muddy.”

“Impact” refers to the consequences or effects that the behavior has had on the team, project, or individual goals. “What was the greater impact of that person’s behavior?” says Hadeed.

So, as an example, let’s use this feedback: 

 “You interrupted me in that meeting and completely blindsided the conversation.” 

In all honesty… Yikes! The language is abrasive and accusatory, and creates an immediate tension with the person you are giving that feedback to. Odds are, they will naturally feel the need to get defensive, and the conversation can turn unproductive very quickly. 

If we recontextualize this feedback through the lens of the FBI method it might sound like this:

“I was really disappointed when you interrupted my pitch in that meeting to bring up your own immediate opinion, because I was unable to explain an idea that I was really passionate about and the idea got shut down because of the way the conversation was derailed.”

The feedback is now based on your personal experience. Your feelings cannot be invalidated or contested, because they’re your feelings. You mention the exact behavior that caused a problem, and the impact of what that behavior was for both your ability to move your work forward as well as your personal morale. Approaching feedback in this way sets a more disarming, cooperative tone from the get-go and is much more likely to usher in a more positive result.

Kristen also emphasizes that it’s also important how feedback is introduced. “I believe you have like 5 to 10 seconds to land the plane in order to have a productive conversation,” she says. 

The Benefits of Effective Feedback

Being able to give constructive feedback is vital to a healthy work culture. Research shows that appropriate feedback can enhance employee engagement, with statistics from Gallup revealing that employees who receive regular feedback are 3.5 times more likely to be engaged at work. Furthermore, a study by Zenger and Folkman suggests that 92% of employees agree that when delivered appropriately, constructive feedback can effectively improve performance.

Effective feedback not only clarifies expectations but also motivates individuals, fosters professional growth, and strengthens relationships within teams by promoting transparency and trust.

Implementing the FBI method can significantly improve the quality of feedback within an organization. It encourages a respectful and empathetic communication style, ensuring that feedback leads to positive outcomes rather than conflict. As businesses and leaders continue to seek ways to foster growth and improvement, mastering such techniques becomes invaluable.

If you thought that Kristen’s lesson on the FBI was useful, try it out next time you’re in a tough spot and need to give some tricky feedback.

For more, check out The Optimism Library.

Too often, we forget that some stress in life is a good thing. When you feel the heightened arousal of stress, numerous scientific studies will tell you that it actually does wonderful things: It helps you focus, enhances your memory, gives your body an energy boost, and can even bolster your immune system. (If you’ve ever been stressed about giving a presentation, you can credit some of that stress for helping push you through what you need to do to prepare and get those first words out.)

However, in today’s fast-paced world, it’s simply a fact that far too many of us suffer from excessive or chronic stress. Left uncontrolled and unmanaged, stress reveals its ugly side: you’ll be less likely to control your emotions, it impacts your heart health, it leads to premature aging, and actually weakens your immune system, among other side effects. One of the most common causes of excessive stress? No surprise here: Work.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by too many Slack messages, an overbearing boss, crazy deadlines, or a combination of them all, Samantha Clarke, author and happiness expert, has some really good advice for you. In her class “Reduce Stress and Anxiety,” which you can find in our Optimism Library, Samantha offers three simple yet effective strategies to de-escalate stress, especially in the workplace. To explore her entire class, feel free to go here, but we’ve taken the liberty of providing just a few of her tips below.

Declutter Your Workspace

Let’s start with your immediate environment—your desk or workspace. Believe it or not, the state of your workspace can significantly impact your stress levels. As Samantha explains, “stress can be triggered even more when we find ourselves working in chaotic environments. Where there’s a lot of clutter and disorganization, our mindset often reflects it.”

A cluttered desk is not just an eyesore; it’s a visual representation of chaos that can hinder your ability to focus and process information efficiently, and science agrees. A study recently showcased in a Harvard Business Review article found that physical clutter in your surroundings competes for your attention, resulting in decreased performance and increased stress.

So, what’s the solution? Take a few minutes each day to tidy up your workspace. File away those papers, organize your supplies, and create a clean, serene environment that encourages focus and calm. The act of decluttering itself can be therapeutic, offering a sense of control and accomplishment amidst the chaos of work.

Practicing Meditation or Tai Chi

If you’re looking for a more introspective approach to stress management, meditation and tai chi are your go-to practices. Both are ancient traditions known for their calming and restorative benefits. 

“The practice of meditation or the slow, meditative movement of tai chi are really good starting places for us to think about how we practice being present with ourselves,” explains Samantha. “I’m not saying that you need to move into like a pretzel and do it for hours on end. But just a starting point of even just 5 minutes is great. Take that time to ask yourself ‘how do I come back home to myself and my mind? How do I lean back and take a moment to keep my mind in a place of stillness?’ Just take a moment to close your eyes and just be still when the stress reaction is there or the feeling of deep uncertainty comes up.” 

Ultimately, meditative actions help you develop mindfulness, allowing you to observe your thoughts and feelings without judgment. This practice can decrease the body’s response to stress, reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression and make it easier to regulate yourself next time that stress starts to rear its unpleasant head.

Yes, Think Happy Thoughts

We know, it sounds like a terrible cliché, but sometimes the simplest methods are the most powerful. When stress levels start to rise, take a moment to close your eyes and think of a positive memory or the silver linings of your current challenge.

“In moments of stress and difficulty, take a moment and think, ‘what about this challenge could pose something positive?’ Or you can recall some happy memory at the moment of stress to reset your mind. Think about a happy memory or positive thought about the challenge that you’re in and hold that thought for at least 30 seconds. It starts to create more neural pathway recognition to override the negativity.”

This technique is not just about distraction; it’s about reminding ourselves of the joy and positivity that exist in our lives, even when they seem overshadowed by stress. It’s a tool that can be used anywhere, anytime, requiring nothing but a moment of your time and the power of your memory. 

A word to the wise, though. As Samantha explains, “when it comes to this particular method, practice actually does make perfect. We need to do this consistently and again through meditation over time when we get stressed. Through repeatedly taking that time to pause, we can start to rewire what’s really happening for us.”

Stress, especially in the workplace, can feel like an inevitable part of life. Whether it’s through decluttering your workspace, incorporating meditation or tai chi into your routine, or simply recalling a joyous moment from your past, each method offers a pathway to greater calm and reduced anxiety.

For more classes like “Reduce Stress and Anxiety”, check out The Optimism Library. Breathe out, dive in, and discover more ways to bring balance into your life.

Imagine a professional golfer standing over an eight-foot putt to win a big tournament. “Don’t choke,” she tells herself under her breath. “And do not pull the ball left of the hole.” 

Now, you probably don’t need to be a mental coach with an advanced degree in sports psychology to predict what happens next: Her putt sails wide left of the hole. 

The golfer has committed one of the most common psychological mistakes known to affect their performance: Negative framing. This phenomenon isn’t limited to professional athletes, of course; it affects all of us, whether we’re focusing on the negatives at work or in life. 

By fixating on what could go wrong, we inadvertently increase the likelihood of those negative outcomes becoming a reality. Negative framing can hinder our confidence, impair our decision-making, and ultimately sabotage our success. 

As Simon explains, “negative framing, such as ‘don’t forget your lines’ before a presentation, or even ‘don’t eat on the couch’ if you’re trying to kick that habit, tends to focus our attention on the very thing we wish to avoid. It’s this sort of thinking that holds us back, dashes our productivity, and makes it much harder to achieve our intended goal.”

So how do we reframe our mindset to be more goal-oriented and productive? The answer is surprisingly simple: focus on the positive and adjust your mindset with positive framing. 

How to Apply Positive Framing to Your Daily Life

In contrast to negative framing, positive framing directs our focus towards the desired outcome, increasing the likelihood of achieving it. So, let’s revisit Simon’s examples. Instead of saying, “Don’t forget your lines,” tell yourself to remember them. Instead of scolding yourself, “don’t eat on the couch,” say, “eat at the table.”

You can try this in almost any situation and it applies to groups, as well. For instance, if you’re a teacher who says, “Do not talk over Jane,” the class is unlikely to quiet down. However, if you say, “I want to hear what Jane is saying,” the students are more likely to lower their voices. 

Similarly, pilots are trained to focus on where they want to go rather than the obstacles they wish to avoid. Skiers navigating through trees concentrate on the path, not the trees themselves. This shift in focus from obstacles to pathways is a powerful metaphor. As Simon says, “If you focus on the obstacles, all you will see is obstacles. If you focus on the path through the trees, all you will see is the path through the trees.”

By consciously choosing how we frame our thoughts and instructions, we can significantly impact our ability to navigate challenges and pursue our goals. Whether we’re engaging in conversations with friends, guiding our children, or setting personal goals, shifting our focus from the “don’ts” to the “do’s” can make a significant difference. It’s about keeping our gaze on where we want to go, rather than fixating on the things we’re trying to avoid. 

So, as you take your next steps, remember that spotting the path through the trees could be your ticket to hitting your stride and unlocking your true potential.

For more advice from us, consider exploring The Optimism Library, which contains the best recordings of our online classes covering personal and professional growth.

If you’re the type of worker who considers your “job description” gospel—and you think that by following it to a “T” is your surest route to career advancement—Tessa White, a career HR leader for multiple Fortune 500 companies and author of the book The Job Gospel, has some tough love for you.

“Your job description is not the key to your success,” she reveals in her online class, Navigate People, Promotions, and Power Dynamics for Career Success, which you can access in our Optimism Library. “The real truth is, your job description was written by HR in a dark room before they posted the job ad the next day to try and get somebody in to fill the role. When people come to me and say, ‘I need to understand my job description better,’ I go, ‘Oh no, they’re not going to make it.'”

According to White, your job description was never meant to be the end-all, be-all. Rather, it was intended to be a simple set of guardrails that define a more general area of where you should be operating as an employee.

It all begs the question: So how should you rethink your role if your role isn’t written in blood on a piece of paper? Well, according to her, the best employees—those who are seen, heard, and promoted—take matters into their own hands and get creative.

“Your ability to get promoted is based on your ability to solve problems in the gap,” she says.

How to Flourish in “the Gap”

To illustrate her concept of the gap, White tells a story of her time working at a company that was having difficulty staffing a sales team. “These were 100% commission, knock-on-doors kind of roles,” she explains. “The company needed us to have lower turnover and bring in more salespeople.”

She did something unexpected to fix the problem. “I brought in a guy named Josh, and his previous job was rehabilitating movie stars by building and improving their social media presence. Now, you may think that is a very strange hire to make Josh my head of recruiting for sales, but in this environment, I knew I needed somebody who thought very differently.”

The salespeople initially rejected the idea, and Josh quickly realized that they didn’t want his help. “But Josh understood how to play in the gap,” says White. “Playing in the gap means helping a company transition from its current state, which is broken, to where they aspire to be but don’t know how to get there.”

Josh realized that his real job was not the one described on paper. “He discovered that his job was to help sales get recruits, and he was going to do it by organizing events and filling a room,” says White. “In effect, he became a fancy events coordinator, not just a recruiter. So he created events with speakers, prizes, balloons, and music. He invited the entire sales team, and his team filled the room with potential candidates who might want to be hired.”

Instead of trying to recruit salespeople one at a time in the traditional way, Josh helped the sales team hire 25 people at once by creating an environment and then completely getting out of the way to let them do their own hiring. “Now that is playing in the gap,” says White.

According to her, it’s this type of savvy that will ultimately make you stand out and be rewarded at work. “Not by working faster, harder, or simply getting more tasks done,” she says. “Playing in the gap is about recognizing those opportunities with fresh eyes and remembering them. Then, within your own sphere of influence, figuring out how to address them. Those are the things that the company will reward you for.”

Click here to Explore The Optimism Library. 

Two Ways to Spot Gaps in Your Organization

1. Listen to Your Leaders Closely

“You can listen to company quarterly earnings reports to gather clues,” says White. “If your company holds meetings where the entire company can attend and the CEO discusses challenges, pay close attention. You can also approach your manager and ask for insights.”

         2. Seek Input from Other Departments

“You can interview colleagues from other departments and ask them about their expectations for your department. Inquire about what is happening and what is not happening. Find out what would be considered a win for them. This will provide you with valuable information.”

Fact: People switch jobs often these days. The era of working decades for one firm until you ride into the sunset of comfortable retirement? Long gone. Still, we can all agree it’s a paramount goal of leaders (the good ones, at least) to retain top talent in the workplace, to ensure the highest performers stick around for as long as possible.

You’d think most employees leave their jobs for one reason: money. And while that’s of course a factor—a 2022 study conducted by the Pew Research Center found low pay as one of the top reasons workers offered for quitting—it’s far from the only reason people leave existing positions. Employee retention is a complex issue situated directly on the fulcrum of human emotions and business necessities.

In other words, it’s fraught stuff! That’s why we asked Simon, our founder and chief optimist here at
The Optimism Company, to share his insights into why people really quit jobs, and what you can do to keep them from giving notice.

Read on to see what he has to say, and how you can apply it to your own organization. And for more great advice, check out The Optimism Library, which is home to over 50 classes on leadership, communication, and more.

Don’t get hung up on the money

In imparting advice on how to retain talent, Simon cited conversations he’s had with members of the armed forces over the years.

Simon recalled one specific instance where Navy SEALs were peeling off for the supposedly greener pastures of the private sector. Military leadership was convinced it was purely for financial reasons, so to stem the bleeding, they would toss huge sums (we’re talking up to six-figure bonuses) at promising young talent.

“The reaction from the SEALs was one of two things,” Simon relayed. “Either, ‘You idiots, I never did it for the money in the first place. I’m outta here,’ because it was insulting. Or, ‘You idiots, I never did it for the money in the first place, but if you’re stupid enough to give me that money, I’ll take it and stay for a little longer. But I’ll still hate it.’” 

So, sure, pay your employees more. Award raises and dole out bonuses to your top performers. It can’t hurt. But know that money isn’t the thing that will prevent your best talent from jumping ship.

Give them purpose

Keeping with the military example, the general consensus among top brass is that rising talent inevitably leaves for money. Simon sees it another way.

“I hear it all the time from senior folks, which is, ‘We can’t compete with that.’ And I always push back and say, ‘They knew that coming in. If money was the thing, they wouldn’t have joined,’” Simon pointed out.

Get this: The same Pew study that found money was a top reason people quit also identified a slew of other reasons, and two of them were neck-and-neck with low pay: “No opportunities for advancement” and “Felt disrespected at work.”

You might think complaints about a lack of advancement are rooted in finance; a loftier title generally equates to a cushier salary, after all. But more often than not, such gripes are about the opportunity to gain more responsibility, to have a greater hand in dictating everyday work. A job can always be better. People want to hope that they can make it better. And if you can grant them the agency to do so, you should.

As for the disrespected thing, well, hey, that’s self-explanatory: Few things are more maddening than constantly feeling like your advice and expertise isn’t heeded. Of course workers would jump ship in that case.

 “Throwing money at the problem didn’t work, because they didn’t truly understand what was missing. When very talented young officers leave, it’s out of absolute frustration,” Simon explained. “It’s not an anomaly, nor is it an overnight decision, nor is it sudden. It’s a slow, steady build of absolute frustration, usually of bureaucracy, or of not feeling connected to a larger mission. And usually that’s a problem with leadership.”

Give your employees purpose, treat them fairly, hear them out, put in the work to mitigate their grievances — that’s what will ensure they stick around for the long haul.