Every employee, at some point before they were hired, whether for a new role, a backfill, or a stretch position, someone made a business case to support the need for their hiring. You might not have written it out, but the thinking was clear:
We believe this person will help us generate revenue, reduce expenses, enhance efficiency, safeguard assets, or drive growth.
In short: someone believed that the value each employee brings to the business would exceed the cost of employing them. But here’s the problem. In many companies, that original rationale is never revisited. After onboarding, the metrics that justified your existence fade into the background. Managers stop measuring contribution. Employees stop asking where they fit. And soon, people fall into the trap John Blackmore describes in his brilliant reflection on The Three Signs of a Miserable Job:
- Anonymity: No one sees you.
- Irrelevance: You don’t know how your work matters.
- Unmeasured: You don’t know if you’re succeeding.
When this happens at scale, a company doesn’t just risk losing talent. It risks drifting entirely away from its mission.
Contribution Value Isn’t Just for the C-Suite
One of the significant leadership failures of our time is the assumption that only executives need to consider contribution value to shareholder growth. Every single role in a business — from entry-level to senior leadership — is an investment. And like any investment, it should have a return. That return might not always be revenue, but it should be some form of measurable impact.
Whether you’re in customer service reducing churn, in design improving product usability, or in HR enhancing retention, every person are either:
- Driving revenue
- Reducing costs
- Improving quality
- Mitigating risk
- Creating efficiencies
If you can’t see your link to one of those outcomes, it doesn’t mean the link doesn’t exist — it means leadership has failed to show it to you.
Employees Are Part of a Larger Machine — and That’s a Good Thing
There is a common fear that being part of a machine means you are just a cog. But machines aren’t bad when they work well — they are systems of interdependent parts, each one necessary for the outcome. Every team, function, and role contributes to a value chain that ultimately delivers something to customers and, in turn, to shareholders.
The problem is that most employees and many managers don’t see this chain. They don’t understand how what they do contributes to the company’s success or to the mission they hear about in the all-hands meetings. And that’s not their fault. Leaders often overestimate the obviousness of the connections. It’s not apparent. It must be explained. Repeatedly. If leaders want people to care about the mission, they must demonstrate how their work contributes to achieving it.
Why Immeasurement Is More Than Just a Management Flaw
Let’s bring this back to John Blackmore’s third sign of a miserable job: immeasurement — not knowing if you’re doing a good job.
This isn’t just demoralizing — it’s dangerous. It severs the link between the employee and the business case that justified their role in the first place.
When people aren’t measured:
- High performers often become frustrated because their excellence is not recognized.
- Underperformers go unchecked, breeding resentment across teams.
- Middle performers plateau because they receive no meaningful feedback.
Over time, the organization becomes a swamp of “busyness” with no clarity on outcomes — and no clear value being created.
And here’s the kicker: when budget cuts come, this lack of measurability becomes the very reason people get cut. Not because they weren’t valuable but because no one could prove that they were. I have always been amazed at layoffs when companies fire thousands of people. If they were not effectively contributing, why were they still on the payroll? That is a rhetorical question.
Mission First Means Measuring People’s Role In It
This is why Mission First, People Always must include a third component: Measurement Always.
- Measurement gives purpose.
- Measurement gives feedback.
- Measurement gives people the dignity of knowing where they stand and why they matter.
Leaders who want to protect their people must also protect their people’s clarity. The best way to do that is to continuously revisit the original business case and reconnect each person’s role to outcomes that matter.
Final Thought: Don’t Let Contribution Get Lost in the Chaos
If you’re a leader, ask yourself:
- Can each person on your team clearly articulate how their work connects to your mission?
- Can they measure whether they’re winning or not?
- Do you still remember the business justification for why you hired them in the first place?
As a leader or owner, ensure your team knows why their contribution matters and how it fits into the broader context, and with the proper metrics, you can see this contribution and then reward and motivate them.
If you’re an employee, ask yourself:
- Do I know what I was hired to do beyond tasks — what value I’m meant to create?
- How do I contribute to business success?
- If not, when was the last time I asked for that clarity?
As an employee, ensure that you understand the expected economic value of your contribution. Unfortunately, in many organizations, you are there to generate profits for the owners, and the more you earn and can demonstrate this, the stronger your case becomes to secure your equitable share.
A mission isn’t just about what the company wants to achieve; it’s about what the people inside it are empowered to deliver – with visibility, relevance, and the ability to measure their impact.
