Strong Leaders Serve with Teri Schmidt

190. Making Work Meaningful to Motivate Your Team with Tamara Myles and Wes Adams

• Teri Schmidt

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Welcome to a new season of Strong Leaders Serve—where we’re going beneath the buzzwords. This season, we’re moving past surface-level leadership advice to explore the mindset shifts, self-awareness, and practices that fuel real, lasting impact. 

In this kickoff episode, Tamara Myles and Wes Adams—co-authors of Meaningful Work—join me to unpack what actually drives motivation and performance. 

We dig into their research-backed framework, the Three Cs (community, contribution, and challenge), and explore the powerful concept of balanced autonomy—a practical way leaders can support growth without micromanaging, even in our ever evolving work environment.

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Hey there. Welcome back. I hope you've had a great summer. If you're in the Northern Hemisphere, I know I have had a wonderful trip with my family out to Northern Idaho. Got to enjoy some time together and I'm happy to be back with you here today for another season of Strong Leaders Serve. But I do have a confession to make. I've been getting a little bit tired of reading posts on LinkedIn that talk about leading with empathy. Or creating psychological safety or giving people autonomy. I know it's pretty surprising that I would say I would be tired of reading posts like that after all. I wholeheartedly believe that it is good advice. It is important advice, but if it's everywhere on LinkedIn, why hasn't our work culture changed more? That's what frustrates me a bit. You see, the fact is we don't need more leadership buzzwords. We need to talk about the deeper shifts within the leader that make those ideas actionable. The mindset changes, the self-awareness, the emotional regulation that turns theory into real sustainable leadership. So welcome to a new season of strong leaders. Serve. If you don't know me already, I'm Terry Schmidt. I'm an executive and leadership coach, and this season we're going to go beneath the buzzwords. We'll look past surface level advice and into the real work of leadership, the kind that transforms how you show up, not just what you say. And I can't think of a better place to start than today's conversation. I am joined by repeat guest Tamara Miles and her co-author Wes Adams. They recently put a book into the world titled, meaningful Work, how to Ignite Passion and Performance in Every Employee As you may know, if you listen to episode 1 0 5, Tamara is a speaker, author, and researcher who helps leaders create thriving teams through the science of human flourishing. And our conversation together back a couple years ago, is one of the episodes that I refer people to the most. Her co-author Wess is a leadership consultant and positive psychology researcher focused on building the conditions for high performing values aligned teams, and their research and hard won experience shines a light on what truly drives lasting motivation and performance. We'll revisit the three Cs framework that Tamara shared with us the first time she was on the show of Community Contribution and Challenge. And we'll also dig into a topic I found especially relevant in today's workplace balanced autonomy. We'll talk about what that is, why it matters, and how to strike the right balance between clarity and freedom in today's rapidly changing workplace. Our conversation goes way beyond just surface level tips and tricks, and I hope you enjoy it. So let's dive in.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Well, welcome Wes and tomorrow to the Strong Leader Serve Podcast. I should say. Welcome back, Tamara. I know you were on back in January, 2023. I can't believe it's been that long. But that episode 1 0 5. Like I was sharing before we got on is one that I frequently direct people back to to listen. So I'm excited to talk with both of you today. I know it's an exciting time with the launch of your book, meaningful Work, how to Ignite Passion and Performance in Every Employee. And so I'm excited to dig into just a piece of that. Because I could talk to you for hours about all the content, but I'm excited to dig into just a piece of it and then of course, encourage all listeners to go out and get a copy and read that book'cause it is so valuable. So with all that being said, welcome. Thank you for being here today.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Thanks so much for

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Great to be here.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

great to be back.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah. Well, I'd love to we're gonna. Do a little bit of review of the three Cs, even though people can go back and listen to more about that on episode 1 0 5. But before we dive into that framework of meaningful work, community contribution and challenge, I'd love to hear more about your stories and kind of what drew each of you personally to this topic. So maybe we'll start with Tamara and then would love to hear from we.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

So I. I was drawn to the topic of meaningful work and specifically how leaders can enable more meaning at work of my fundamental belief that work can provide us with much more than a paycheck, right? I had spent before going back to school, to graduate school, which is where Wes and I met, I had spent the previous. 15 years or so, consulting, writing, and speaking about productivity. I had published my first book and I was traveling and speaking about productivity and I was noticing a virtuous cycle in place. You know, when we have systems in place. That help us focus on what truly matters, right? When we have, when we, we can be more productive, then we have more time and space to focus on meaningful work. And when work feels really meaningful to us, we are much more engaged, motivated, and productive. So I wanted to understand the science behind that cycle, but even more than that, I wanted to understand how leaders can foster that intentionally. So that, that is what drew me to that work.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah. Excellent. Thank you.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

have gone first. I'm gonna have trouble following that. Yeah. I think so I, you know, I come from an entrepreneurial background. I early in my career started and launched a number of companies and, and grew those. And after a while moved more into social enterprise and mission-driven businesses. And when I did that, I think I naively assumed that because they were mission-driven, they were all gonna be amazing places to work, right? that definitely was not the case. For various reasons. And at the same time I was. Expanding into working globally and working, you know, with people from different cultures and backgrounds and expectations of work. At one point I was leading a team that was on five different continents, and that was a huge learning curve for me, and I started getting really interested in organizational psychology and work design and how do you actually deconstruct what it takes to make a great team and. You know, if having a mission isn't enough to make work meaningful, what is? And so that's what took me to grad school, which is where I met Tamara. And yeah, this idea of meaningful work, the thing that drives us, you know, like what, what is it? And, know, is it available in every job or is it just for certain people, you know? And so I think that's what we've been studying for the last number of years.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah. Thank you for that. And, and that is fascinating and I could probably do a whole nother episode of on your experiences of having that team on five different continents and how, you know, people's definition of work even varies.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

different. It was mind blowing for me. There was like somebody in Brazil, which is where Tamara's from? Somebody in France, somebody in Australia, somebody in the uk. You know, and it was just the expectations and the traditions around even just how you get paid and vacation time and what it means to show up, how you communicate with each other.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

different perceptions of those things, so

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah. Yeah.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

to me.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

I can imagine. I can imagine. Please feel free to, to bring that experience in as, as we have the conversation today. You know, and, and your point also about when you're in like social enterprises or, or nonprofit work, just kind of assuming that meaning would just be there really resonated with me. I know tomorrow. You know, a few years before we talked, I had just closed a nonprofit, so I, I founded and ran a nonprofit for five years and kind of assumed that, of course this would be the most meaningful work in my life. And it was, I mean, it, it, there definitely, I felt like I was making a contribution. The challenge in the community weren't necessarily there for me, and that's why I think that that framework is, you know, was such a light bulb moment for me personally when we spoke last time. So I wonder if, you know, again, just for anyone who hasn't had an opportunity to hear you on other podcasts or get your book yet and hasn't listened to the past episode that we did, can you just give us a brief introduction into. What you found and shared in your book, and particularly around the three Cs.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Yeah, we would love to. So we, been doing this research and we're continuing still to do the study, but for the past five and a half, almost about years, and we set out to study the specific leadership. Practices that foster meaning at work, because that was a, an understudied facet of meaningful work and we. Kind of intuitively assumed and knew that leaders played a big role in our individual experience of meaning. So we wanted to understand how much, and also, you know, how can you intentionally foster that? And what we found is that our 48%, so almost half of our experience of meaning at work comes directly from what our leaders do or fail to do.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

So it's a huge impact, much greater. That was something that surprised us in the, in the study. The impact

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

greater than what we expected. But we also found really specific practices that increase meaning at work. And when, when we're speaking about these practice and, and as leadership practices, we, we define leadership really broadly. So even if you are not a people leader you can still lead because you have influence you know, in your colleagues on how you show up at. In a

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

these practices can still apply to you. But the practices fall under the framework that we call the three Cs of meaningful work, which are community contribution and challenge. And I'll let Wes define each one.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Yeah, so community is the belief that you matter in an organization. It's that sense of belonging. The ability to show up authentically and share your full self and your full ideas with the rest of the group. Contribution is about. Understanding how your work matters, how it positively impacts either, you know, larger organizational goals, how you're positively impacting customers or clients, or even just benefiting your team, right? What is the value of your work and understanding that and challenge is the individual opportunity to learn and grow. Am I stretching myself? Am I. Building capabilities, learning new skills. Am I moving in a direction that matters to me? And what we found was that. All three of these things are important. There's kind of a multiplier effect that happens. So when they're all present, they build on each other. And a lot of the practices that we'll talk about touch on more than one of those things at a time. And as I think both you and I mentioned earlier, if one of them is missing, it can cancel out the other two. So if you work

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

driven organization, your contribution is high, but you have no challenge or no community it can really. Wipe away whatever meaning was meant to come from, you know, working in that place. And so, you know, as Tamara said, we really have done a lot of empirical research over the last several years to understand specifically what are the practices that increase these things. And then also we are both consultants and we've been working with companies for a number of years implementing these

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

And measuring those results. So it's

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

pretty fun adventure.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah, I bet. And, and that really comes through in the book. I have to, you know, tell you, and I, I think I wrote this in the review of your book, but you can tell that you are out there doing it and you're out there researching it because the practices that you provide in the book for each of these areas aren't just your run of the mill. Like things that you could read 500 times on LinkedIn. They are, you know, specific they are. Novel in some cases. And they are in many cases fairly easy to implement. It's just having the knowledge that it's important to implement it and having the courage to try new things. And like you said, Tamara, I love that you focused in the book and in your research specifically on what leaders can do as opposed to what the individual employee needs to do in order to make their work meaningful.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Yeah, I mean there's, you know, the, the. The literature on meaningful work before our research was, is, is very heavily focused on what individuals can do. So how can I, you know, increase my own sense of meaning that I derive from my job? And that's of course really important because we all, you know, what's, what's really meaningful to me is not. Always the same as what's really meaningful to you, Terry, or to Wes, right? And so the individual factor is really important, but it's not enough and it it's both and, right? So if And and leaders are 48% together, we can really make a difference.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah, definitely. Well, you know, talking about meaningful work, I know one thing you say in the book that I kind of wanted to clear up. Well, I wanted to highlight, so it could be cleared up because you cleared up in the book, but that meaningful work is not the same as purposeful work. And our listeners are all compassionate driven leaders. So how might these well-meaning leaders unintentionally over rely on purpose and neglect the other pillars

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

This

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

of community and challenge?

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Yeah, this is a great question because it's, it's one that we get all the time, and this idea of having a purpose, having a bigger goal is great. You know, having a calling or work that really has a higher mission is excellent. Not required for you to feel a sense of contribution and, we'll, we'll talk about that in a minute, but just having a purpose, having a goal. create any meaning. It's seeing progress towards that purpose or goal Activates that sense of purpose, Creates that meaning. And so even in a mission-driven organization, you know, I, I did work. Campaigning for L-G-B-T-Q rights in a lot of the countries where it's still illegal to be gay and

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

can be put in prison or even put to death in a couple of them, right? And that was very slow work. Sometimes it took months or years to see any change. And that's very frustrating when you're not seeing any progress towards your purpose or your mission. And so that's a way that that can sort of fall

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

On the other hand, you know what, what we like to say is your job doesn't have to be your life's calling for your work to feel worthwhile, right? We talked to janitors, hairstylists software developers who found a huge sense of contribution in their work because either they felt like they were contributing to their colleagues or they were making a difference in the lives of customers or the other people that were around them. And so. There's a huge opportunity to tap into that source, even if you're not working at a nonprofit or a Or a doctor or whatever, you know, kind of comes to your mind as, you know,

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

calling job.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Right, right. Yeah. That reminds me of the story, and I'm trying to remember the specifics about it, but I, I know it was during COVID and it was an individual who was working, I think, maintaining the server bank or, or something like that. Yes.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

her Keisha in the book. Her

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Okay.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

name is.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah. Yeah. Would you mind just quickly sharing.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

open, we open the book with Kristen's story, you know, after the introduction. Because it's, it's such a powerful example of

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

job. be meaningful, right? If we think about a frame about it, highlights the impact, connect with others, like all the, all the things that, generate the three Cs. But Kristen is a, or was at the time, she's no longer in that role, but she was a worker at a data center in outside of Toronto. And when COVID and for Microsoft when COVID hit, you know, those, those data center workers were deemed essential, right? Because basically all our communications were done, electronically via Zoom, email, FaceTime. And so it was really important that the data centers be operating right? That the cloud, we had to keep that up and running for medical reasons, for, for schooling, for really important essential reasons. And so Kristen was deemed an essential worker and she had to go in. Person to the data center every day. And data center workers work long shifts. Data centers are usually a little bit remote from from big cities for safety reasons. So she was commuting, you know, working these long shifts when most of her colleagues were working from home.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Her family she is an immigrant, so she, her family's from a different country, so she was feeling disconnected for her from her family and kind of resenting having to come in and her experience was very common with the data center workers. And so Microsoft reached out to us and, and asked us to come in and work with their data center. Teams, which again, just highlighting Microsoft is one of the organizations we highlight in the book a lot. It's one of the organizations we study. They're so intentional about building a strong culture, a, you know, growth mindset culture, a caring culture or a meaningful culture. And so they, they had us come in and we worked with teams all over the world actually during that time. But we worked with Kristen's team to unlock. What makes work meaningful for each, each individual. And sometimes it was, you know, being able to provide for my family it was the impact that, that they had on the family. Sometimes it was the impact that they have on each other or sometimes knowing that they're in this together with their colleagues. And as everybody was sharing their stories and what makes work meaningful for them. Kristen just had this flash of insight and she realized that keeping those servers running was literally saving lives during

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

It was how Were suppo, you know, were able to communicate. It's how kids were able to keep learning and she was not just connecting wires, she was literally connecting people. And

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

really changed in that moment, how. How she saw, how she sees her job, how she saw her role, and she took a post-it and wrote down the ways that her job is having an impact and, and

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

on her monitor. We, we

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

it actually inspired the cover of the book.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

and. know that it's, it's not like, oh, that was great and it solved all the problems and she never felt isolated again. She did. There were still moments. She didn't wanna come in. There were still moments she felt demotivated and she would read that. Post it and remind

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

of the bigger impact. And it really

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

her relationship to her job and, and then

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

that it has on her colleagues too, because she was able to contribute to their sense of contribution to their sense of To highlighting for them why their work really mattered.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah, that's, that's interesting. You know, even though she felt isolated maybe in the job, and clearly the tie in with contribution is very clear in that story. But the connection to the greater community, it, it sounds like as well, you know, in addition to the community of her coworkers, but the community

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Right.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

of the world in a sense. It's an interesting, interesting tie in there as well. So like I said, I had trouble figuring out where we wanted to focus this conversation'cause I don't wanna keep you for too long. And I chose to really dig into your topic of balanced autonomy because I think, I mean, community has a special place in my heart, and we could talk about belonging and, and community for a long time. And, and we just talked about contribution a little bit. But I think the challenge piece is one that leaders sometimes struggle with. And it's either, you know, they're too worried about being a micromanager. So they are on one end of the spectrum or they are, you know, I need to delegate everything and give, you know, all my team. Full autonomy. And because they do that sometimes maybe there's not enough clarity. So I was really intrigued by the concept of balance, autonomy, and I, I thought we could spend some time there. So I'm curious, you know, what makes that so important? And I'd love to hear about examples of balanced autonomy that you've seen in practice.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

This is such a critical topic, I think especially for the moment that we're in because the things that worked yesterday are not gonna work tomorrow. We're going. Through such rapid change AI disruption. know, we've got all of these other uncertainties happening in the world and we know a lot of changes coming, and so we can't rely on people at the top to make all the decisions we need People at the ground level to figure out new ways of doing things and tap into that collective creativity and innovation and persistence. And so this idea of balanced autonomy relies on something that we talk about at the beginning of the book which is alignment, and that's.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Okay.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Alignment around values in an organization. Have you clearly communicated what you believe as an organization and what that actually means in practice? Right? What does if, if transparency is one of your values, what does that mean to you? Have you defined the behaviors associated with that? And are the leaders of the organization walking that talk? And have you designed your organizational process around, you know, those values, right? If you have and then you can sort of tap into this balanced autonomy, If you haven't. This is actually something we talk about outside of the three Cs because it was a set of practices that didn't actually increase meaning much, but was the fastest way to kill meaning was to not do So we really As a foundation for Work and necessary, but not sufficient part. And so assuming you What we believe in the organization. ahead and figure out your own way to get there. And of course this involves, you know, some more coaching rather than telling on behalf of the leader. One of the organizations that we studied that does this really well is the Ritz Carlton. You know, they're famous for. They're incredible service and they've been around for over a hundred years, you know, and you would think an organization like that has a very detailed set of rules. And, you know, they've learned all the tricks and they know exactly what to do in every situation, but it's exactly the opposite. They have, set of guiding principles that they teach. You know, when they onboard people, they spend two weeks teaching them to people telling stories about them so people really understand them, and then they turn everybody loose and say, your job is to build Ritz Carlton customers for life. Is to build relationships where people are just like blown away by the service and then they give everybody$2,000 no questions asked to address any customer issues or opportunities

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Hmm.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

that they

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Hmm.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

And so some of the stories there we heard were. You know, there was like a couple visiting for their 10th anniversary and the Ritz Carlton employees found out like what the wedding cake and the decorations were for their original wedding and recreated that and surprised them with it. You know, like somebody left his passport in New York and like one of the employees flew up. Got it. And flew back same day so that he

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Wow.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

international trip. You know, crazy things like that

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

nobody asked for a manager's permission on. You know, nobody had to do any, but they just. There's that culture of balanced autonomy where

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

do those things that matter in a trusted way.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then does the balance really come in from the alignment?

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Mm-hmm.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Okay.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

It's, it's the, the, the alignment creates the boundaries, right? Because I think where leaders struggle with giving autonomy is this all or nothing thinking that I either have to micromanage or it's a free for

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

and then

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Right?

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

control and nobody's gonna know and it's gonna be anarchy. Right?

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

think the, the balance point. The balance in the autonomy is, is the alignment, is

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

What the boundaries are. And, you know, a good way to think about it, I think we opened the book with a story of my daughter, who's my oldest child, who is now about to turn 20. But when she was three, or four, you know, all of a sudden she wanted to dress herself. Right. And you know, the morning routine became a battle because she wanted to wear her princess costume with pajama pants and a tiara and high heel shoes from, you know, princess preschool, which was not. And of course then we were late and there was this whole thing, and what we did was kind of reorganize her closet with, okay, this section is your play clothes, this is your school clothes, this is your dress up clothes. And so then we could give our autonomy because we had created the, the boundaries we had aligned on. Okay, when you get ready for school in the morning, you can choose from this. Section of the closet and it was really easy. And so she felt empowered. She had the autonomy you know, we guarantee pretty much that she wasn't gonna go to school with inappropriate

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

play clothes.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Right.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

it's just like a really simple example to You know, but we offer a lot in the book. Southwest is another example that we highlight there.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah, I, I, I think it, I think sometimes that align, well, oftentimes, unfortunately, that alignment piece might be missing or might not be done as extensively as, like you were talking about with Ritz Carlton. It's done for multiple weeks, where these are specific stories of how the values are in action. These are, you know, the, the principles, what they look like in real life and, and how you might encounter a situation that. Requires you to make a decision and, and these are, you know, kind of ideas for appropriate decisions that you can make. Almost getting back to your daughter, you know, this is an appropriate decision that you can make for your choice of school clothes.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Yeah, it means regularly telling the stories of what your values look like in

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

something we talk about in the alignment chapter, but also in in onboarding when we talk about recruiting and onboarding. This idea of cultural mastery, right? How are you bringing people into the culture and values of the organization by sharing what that looks like, by giving them positive examples that they And they can imitate or learn from. And that creates an environment where we're always talking about what we should be doing and helps people move in that direction.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah. Yeah.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

And I think you'll see values came up again and again and again and again in our research, storytelling values, storytelling around the values. And it's really, you know, some people define culture of culture as, you know what it's really like to work or how we do things around here, right? And that's directly related to values. It's the values that drive the behavior. So whether or not they are intentionally defined and then, you know, told and taught and, and storied around it. They exist and so are

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

are you do you have the values that you want to have? If you haven't done that work, it's so important to do it.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

a manager and you, you don't have the authority to do the values work for the organization, let's say you work for big organization, you can still do that for your team, you know,

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

your team to say, okay, what do we care about? What do we believe in? What do what, how do we want to work together?

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

show up here? You can still do that.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think it's definitely valuable in the onboarding phase, but even like as a team leader, if this is something that you haven't done, coming up with those kind of shared agreements for how we're going to work can be done at any, any point. And I think.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

At the

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Supports that autonomy.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

you know when you bring a new team member on, like whatever it is. Yeah.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Speaking of new team members, I'm curious how does the balanced autonomy maybe look different for someone who is new to the team, new to the organization as opposed to maybe someone who has been there for several years?

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Yeah, I think, you know, career stage differences, tenure with an organization, past experience doing certain types of work. All of these things factor in and you have to obviously flex so that you're giving people enough support. Right. We're not just like turning people loose and saying, go figure it out. You know, we also, and I think this gets to some more of the challenge chapter, right? How do we have high expectations of people and give them stretch opportunities and also support them so that they can actually achieve those things, right? We're not just pushing people outta the nest and

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

fly. We're supporting them in those efforts to spread their wings.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah. Yeah. I, I think that is one of the most challenging parts about delegation. One of the most fun parts too, if you'd like to be kind of a detective and, and figure out exactly where that edge is. For people that kind of, that leading edge or, you know, back to my education, roots of Vygotsky, talks about the zone of proximal development, like where you have just that right amount of challenge and how to scaffold that and, and all that. But I.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

like, so, so much research and education and parenting. You know, we

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

at this concept that we called the zone of possibility, right? Which is this in the matrix. It's like where high expectations kind of meets high

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

But you just mentioned research in education. There's research in parenting and I think it's just like human development at any

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

No.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

of our lives. Right? We need, and the research on flow, Mihai chisem high Miha Chisem

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

on flow is exactly that. It's where, you know, you, you. You have the skills. It's just slightly above your skillset that what you're doing, but you have, you have the skills and the support and all that. To do it. And so I think that that's such an important concept, whether you are a leader, whether you're developing yourself, whether you're thinking about it as a parent, as an educator, as a coach, to really try to find that sweet spot of where, where, where can you expect more of people push them, believe in them, give them those stretch assignments, but then obviously offer the right amount of support.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah. And I guess if I put myself in in the listener's shoes and I'm, you know, I don't know, maybe a middle manager with a ton of, you know, tasks coming from all different directions, pressure coming from all different directions. This could sound like a lot. And you know, there could be a tendency to just. Say, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go back to the natural way I do things, the easiest way to get things done. Why is it worth it for them to care about balanced autonomy and, and even bigger? Why is it worth it for them to care about meaningful work?

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Well, I have an answer. I'm sure Wes' answer is,

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

You go first.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

So I think. You know, I love Einstein's quote, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, right? And I think we start here, like, is is what you're doing currently working for you? Are the results great? Is that what you want? And if so, keep doing what we're doing. Like, we're not here to tell you, like, reinvent the wheel, like I'm sure you're doing a lot of things right. So that's, that's one thing. But the other thing is, you know, most. Most people that we work with, most people that I've coached or that we consult with, and the leaders we interviewed really want to be a great leader. They care about people, they want to develop their people. want their people to perform at their best, to bring out the best in them. They believe in them. And so these are tools to help you do that, to help you bring out the best, to help you push people to, to excellence, to help them perform better, to motivate them. And so I, I think most leaders want to be that leader,

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

so, so these are just resources to help you do

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

there and it's very uncomfortable. And you know, if I'm putting my middle manager hat on, there's a lot of pressure to perform, right? And to hit our deliverables, to hit our objectives. And when something doesn't go smoothly, it can be really frustrating. You're like, oh, oh, this is not what I was expecting from this project and now I'm really frustrated. And, you know, we're gonna have to do this over and. We don't necessarily build in that idea that mistakes, failures are part of the growth process, right? This idea of growth mindset that probably a lot

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

are familiar with, right? Like if we're working on the assumption that 100% of the time people are gonna deliver exactly what we need, we're always gonna be disappointed

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

that's just not how it works. And so figuring out how to build that in to your calculation of. should be happening. That's not to say we should be making mistakes all the time and

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

but, but we want to be learning as we go and thinking about how we're developing people in addition to having them deliver on their, their current responsibilities.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah, and I, I think that development and everything else that meaningful work builds whether that is a, a greater sense of wellbeing, trust community. That makes hitting those deliverables so much easier and avoids so many of the challenges that often come up as the most common challenges for leaders, whether that be how do I get, how do I motivate someone to perform well? Everything that you have in your book are like accelerants to motivation. You know, there, there are ways to make it so much easier to motivate someone to get the work done that you need to get done to hit those results. You know, how do I deal with a low performing team member? Well, if you have that foundation of alignment and meaningful work there's so much to fall back on. To help get that back on track and, and help get that person to a place where they can succeed.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Yeah, I think one of the things that we probably should have mentioned upfront is that we continue to focus on meaningful work because it's the upstream factor that

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

the outcomes that we're looking for, both individually, you know, things like job satisfaction and engagement and wellbeing, but also at the organizational level. It, you know, meaningful work very clearly is a predictor of. High performance, innovation, creativity. There's newer research from Oxford showing that it drives stock, price, profitability, all of these things. So if we wanna succeed as business leaders, this is absolutely fundamental. It's not a nice to have, it's a must have.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. And, and you've ref, you've both referenced several times, like the changing world that we're in too. Just one last question about that, because I can see some people thinking balanced autonomy. Sounds great. I can watch that person if I have, you know, a line of sight to that person all the time. That's great. But I'm curious from your perspective, what risks or opportunities does a hybrid or remote work environment present to balanced autonomy?

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

So we, we actually started our research right before the pandemic hit and

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Hmm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

the world of work has had many rapid transformations since, and one, one of them was the, the whole transition to hybrid and remote and distributed. And so. The research we have continued to do and the practices emerged and have continued. These were things organizations were doing before, but then adjusted and continued during, during, and now post COVID. And so everything we talk about, including balanced autonomy, can happen and has been happening. And the examples we give are organizations that are doing it in hybrid environments. I think one of the organizations we, we include in the book is HubSpot. Which they have offices all over the world they, the employees have choice whether they wanna be in person fully remote or hybrid employees. And they, and they, they, I think we highlight them in the chapter of balanced autonomy actually, because those practices work. and it, it's a little bit harder of course, when you don't have visibility. And so I think what. What it means to do these things. Let's say provide balanced autonomy in a hybrid environment is a lot more intention and more communication. Right. But, but I think, I think autonomy specifically is a practice that can thrive in hybrid environments, and that's a necessity. Because we are hybrid and distributed, we need be able to provide more. Balance, autonomy, and you know, the

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

I think of the three Cs, the one that suffers the most in a hybrid environment is community. It's not impossible. A lot of

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

it, but I think autonomy is one that thrives, can, can

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

a hybrid environment.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

I would add to that also, I think going back to alignment, right? I would say that probably we're pretty agnostic as far as are you fully remote? Are you doing a certain

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

days? Are you fully in person, whatever. And every, every organization's gonna be different. can you clearly tie your decision around workplace design to your values and what you're trying to accomplish? And then are you actually doing the work of designing that time around those things that you say

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Mm-hmm.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

I think the trap that a lot of companies are falling into is saying, well, we need to be in person because people learn that way and it's really critical for our business. And so they make people come in three or four days a week, and then they're on Zoom calls and nobody's talking to

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Right. And that's, that's why people are upset and resisting the, all the RTO mandates because people aren't thinking past, just making people come into the office. And so if you want people to come in, which is great, it's really important to build relationships, to do creative work together to get inspired around, you know, the mission of the organization. Make sure you're allocating your time for those things, not just. Treating it like any other day, right? We have to be a lot more thoughtful about what we're doing with our time together and intentional and planet, rather than just say, people need to come in.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah. Yeah. I, I could not agree more. Thank you. Thank you for bringing up that additional point. I always laugh when people talk about, well, we're missing out on the water cooler conversations, and then you go witness a water cooler and everyone has their earbuds in, you know, and they're just walking right by each other.

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

are happening behind the scenes, I promise

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, excellent. Well, like I said, we could go on for much longer, but I really do appreciate both of your time and, and digging into this a little bit more. And like I said, we're just very skimming the surface of the value of that is in the book. And congrats again on since doing all the research since. And synthesize it in a way that it is so easy to implement and, and try out. And I think it's gonna have a huge impact on those who read it. So thank you for your work. Beyond getting the book, where else would you like to direct people if they wanna learn more about your work or have you come in and, and talk to their organization or anything like that?

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Well, thank you. We would love to come in and talk to their organization. The best way to find us is on our website, which is make work meaningful.com. We also have a free assessment there you can take to see where you are on your meaning driven leadership journey. And we also have a lot of resources that. That you can use for free to help you get there. And tools. And then we're both also very active on social media, LinkedIn and Instagram. You can find us there.

teri-schmidt_1_07-16-2025_110638:

Excellent. Well, thank you again for your time. I really appreciate it.

tamara-myles_1_07-16-2025_120638:

Thank

wes-adams_1_07-16-2025_120638:

you. so much. This has been great.

I hope this conversation with Tamara and Wes challenge you to think differently about what makes work meaningful and what your role as a leader truly is. Not just to set goals, not just to delegate tasks, but to intentionally create the conditions where people can belong, contribute, and grow. What stood out to me was how easily we can mistake purpose for meaning. How we assume that if the mission is inspiring enough, the rest will take care of itself. But as tomorrow and West made clear, that's not how meaning works. Meaning isn't delivered from the top. It's built through small everyday leadership practices, especially how we define alignment, offer challenge, and create room for autonomy. And this is where we as leaders really need to look inside because creating that kind of environment, one where autonomy is balanced, feedback is clear, and values are alive in action, requires more than leadership skills. It really requires a shift in how we think, a move from control to trust, from certainty to curiosity, from reacting to designing. That's the deeper work of leadership, and that's what we'll keep exploring this season. If this episode sparks something for you, I'd love to hear about it. Feel free to reach out or share it with a fellow leader who's committed to leading with depth and intention. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time on Strong Leaders Serve.