If Going to Mars Is Easier Than Fixing Work, We've Lost the Plot

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Weekly Dose of Work Recovery Vol. 7.15.26

"We've reached a dangerous point when travel to mars feels more achievable than treating people with dignity at work."
- Bree Johnson

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If going to Mars is easier than fixing work, we've lost the plot…

This sentence stopped me in my tracks this week: 

Gallup CEO Jon Clifton said we're closer to colonizing Mars than we are to fixing the world's broken workplace.

I understand why he said it.

Employee engagement has fallen to 20%. Managers are burning out. AI anxiety is excruciating. Markets are hitting breaking points. The numbers are grim all over the world. 

But here's where they're wrong about the story they're sharing about the numbers. 

The workplace is not some law of nature. It's a human system.

Humans designed it 

Humans reward behaviors inside it

Humans defend those behaviors through their actions

And thankfully, humans can redesign it too

And yet, somewhere along the way, some folks accepted that it was more realistic to TRAVEL TO MARS than to build mission-oriented organizations that solve problems where employees don't spend Sunday evening with a knot in their stomach when they think of going to work.

Plus, we've normalized exhaustion as ambition, confused self abandonment with professionalism and promoted people for output while overlooking the wake they leave behind…

And we wonder why disengagement keeps climbing?!

How ‘bout nah. I don’t believe that for a second. 

Because I know without a doubt that we have every ability to build workplaces that actually work for all and work recovery is part of how we will build a better way of working.

The future of work will not be built by another productivity app or another AI agent or the next great product. It will be built by leaders willing to ask a question that's become strangely radical: What kind of human does this workplace create?

Because every workplace is shaping someone

It shapes nervous systems

It shapes relationships

It shapes identities

If we're capable of imagining real life cities on another planet, we're certainly capable of creating workplaces where people can contribute without sacrificing their mind, body, and soul at the expense of the things they love the most. 

Mars isn't the utopia that we all long for.

Remembering our human dignity is the real work utopia.

The workplace isn't broken because we lack understanding of what to do. It's broken because we've treated people as dispensable resources for so long that we've forgotten they're the reason organizations exist in the first place.

That's a systemic problem.

Systems problems can be solved by disrupting their design. And it's the movement that Executive Unschool is leading. 

We're not anti-work. We're wildly pro-human. 'Nuff said  

Sincerely,

Bree

If this resonated, I go deeper on the reset and recovery before we rise idea in my TEDxDuluth talk. Watch it here → Recovering from Work: The Leadership Revolution We've Been Missing

This week's did you know…still fired up by the empathy tax…

Last week, I wrote about the "empathy tax" working women pay: the nearly full workday researchers estimate women spend listening, holding space, managing emotions, and carrying the invisible interpersonal labor that keeps teams functioning. Despite its value, that work is rarely recognized, rewarded, or reflected in performance reviews.

And let me tell you, I heard you.

Your emails, comments, and messages made one thing abundantly clear: women are exhausted from watching some of their most meaningful contributions get dismissed simply because they don't fit traditional definitions of productivity.

The irony is hard to ignore. Orgs say they want better leaders, stronger cultures, and more engaged teams, yet the very work that creates those outcomes is still treated as invisible…not cool 😎

Source: The Empathy Tax Female Leaders Pay, MIT Sloan Management Review

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