The Problem: Engagement That Didn't Stick
Andrew had tried to connect with his employees. Some of those efforts worked. Others didn't. He could never quite pinpoint why — what made one conversation land and another go flat.
What he was missing was the direction. His engagement efforts were built around what the organization valued — performance, output, alignment. They weren't built around what employees already had. The hidden influence his people brought to their work every day had never been named, asked about, or made visible.
His team wasn't disengaged because they didn't care. They were disengaged because no one had asked the right question.
“What aspects of your work do you deeply enjoy?”
What He Did: One Question, at Scale
Andrew organized a 15-minute “Find Your Work Valentine” call for the entire organization. Before it started, he trained four team members on the Finding Good framework and had them ready to share their own stories first — seeding the recognition moment so others could find themselves in it.
An assistant director shared a vulnerable story about starting a new job. That opened the door. Within minutes, half the organization was responding in the chat — not with company values or performance reflections, but with the actual, specific things they found meaningful in their day-to-day work.
The list that came out of that call — 30 documented positive perspectives — became the foundation for ongoing conversations in team meetings, informal settings, and eventually the organization's mentorship program.
What Followed
Supervisors began aligning projects with employees' areas of enjoyment. The mentorship program incorporated the question as a standard engagement tool. Directors gave Andrew their support and asked him to expand the initiative.
All of it came from one question, asked to 300 people, in 15 minutes. The influence was already there. The question made it visible.
“They had never looked at their work in that way before.” — Employees after the call