Why Productivity Does Not Define an Employee’s Worth

By Amara Osei

John R. Miles’s framework for building organizations where people matter has six principles: meaning, autonomy, trust, time, energy and reciprocity. Shawna Seldon, a founder and CEO, used Miles’s book and career to challenge the link between output and worth. She urges leaders to build organizations where people matter, not simply perform.

Seldon said she spent much of her professional life measuring success through goals, challenges, results and the next milestone. The satisfaction from checking something off vanished when the next priority appeared, she said, until productivity became a measure of her own worth. She rarely paused to appreciate how far she had come.

What does the “Great Erasure” mean?

Miles, a former Navy officer, Fortune 50 chief information officer, private equity partner and CEO of multiple companies, spent decades leading corporate transformations and improving efficiency. By conventional measures, he succeeded, but he felt increasingly disconnected from the life he had built.

While Miles played blocks with his children, his nine-year-old son asked: “Dad, why do you never laugh anymore?” The question forced Miles to confront how thoroughly achievement had overtaken meaning in his life and at work. Seldon said she could relate to his experience.

In The Mattering Effect: Creating a Life of Meaning and Worth, Miles calls the broader pattern the “Great Erasure.” Seldon said the term describes people consuming themselves in proving their value through performance until they lose their sense of significance. The contradiction extends beyond Miles: Organizations reward what people produce without always recognizing who they are.

What do performance metrics miss?

Seldon, presenting Miles’s argument, said businesses need strategies and performance measures. Revenue, profitability, efficiency and productivity help explain whether an organization is succeeding, but they cannot show what employees experience while delivering results.

Seldon set out three contrasts:

• A company can meet quarterly targets while losing talented employees.
• A manager can deliver results while discouraging anyone from challenging decisions.
• An employee can earn a promotion while privately questioning whether the work matters.

Those conditions can prompt wellness programs and encouragement to practice self-care. Seldon said those resources may help, but they do not necessarily address how organizations define success.

Miles calls the erosion of an individual’s belief that their contributions count “systemic unmattering.” His argument shifts attention from employees alone to their environment and asks leaders what makes engagement worthwhile, rather than only why people disengage.

Can efficiency coexist with meaningful work?

Seldon said artificial intelligence, automation and emerging technologies are changing company operations and employee contributions. The opportunities are substantial, but unresolved questions about the future of work remain.

She said corporate discussions quickly turn to speed, scale and efficiency. She reduced the operating priorities to three items:

• Accomplishing more with fewer resources.
• Identifying what to automate.
• Implementing new technology quickly.

Seldon called those operating questions legitimate, then asked what happens to the people inside those systems. Miles identifies standardization, measurement and relentless efficiency as forces that can make employees feel interchangeable. He does not argue that efficiency is inherently harmful.

Seldon said technology can remove repetitive tasks and create room for meaningful work, collaboration and real-life connection. Leaders must choose whether to use that time to strengthen relationships, encourage creativity and develop talent.

The alternative, she wrote, is to raise expectations until everyone runs faster without moving ahead.

What do the six principles require?

Miles’s framework rests on six principles. Seldon’s account defines each one as follows:

• Meaning: Connects work to purpose.
• Autonomy: Gives employees ownership.
• Trust: Allows employees to speak openly and challenge assumptions.
• Time and energy: Together, they recognize that sustainable performance requires more than constant availability.
• Reciprocity: Reflects mutual commitment.

Seldon said most executives would agree that the six principles matter. She then tested management practices against four recurring contradictions:

• Leaders may encourage initiative, then second-guess every decision.
• They may celebrate collaboration while rewarding only individual performance.
• They may promote work-life balance while expecting immediate responses.
• They may reward judgment and creativity or simply output.

How should leaders balance accountability and autonomy?

Under Seldon’s view, these are management questions, not invitations to lower expectations or abandon accountability. High-performing organizations still need clear goals, measurable outcomes and people committed to delivering results.

They also need meaningful control over employees’ work and professional lives. Seldon said employees trusted to make decisions, exercise judgment and influence direction contribute more ideas and stay engaged, while powerlessness breeds frustration and can drive talented people to leave.

Balancing accountability with autonomy, purpose and recognition can help organizations retain the talent they worked hard to develop. Seldon said leaders must examine whether their practices support the culture they claim to value.

Seldon applied the lesson personally, acknowledging that she often focused on the next accomplishment and neglected to appreciate what she had achieved. She said ambition and hard work were not the problem.

There will always be another client, deadline, challenge and opportunity, she wrote. Leaders must remember that performance reports cannot capture a person’s value or that of colleagues.

Seldon concluded: “We are human beings, not human doings.” She said the next phase of leadership should not extract more output from employees, but create more reasons for them to contribute.

Success, she argued, should measure both what people produce and what they can become. For employers adopting AI and automation, her practical test is whether reclaimed time supports relationships, creativity and talent. Her framework asks leaders to judge those systems by that outcome, not output alone.