The Organization Is Always Talking. Are You Listening?

For a while, our air conditioner was giving us clues. The basement was cold, the rest of the house was warm, and water was coming out where water had no business coming out. I changed the filter, watched the outdoor unit run, and tried to make sense of the noises. I briefly became the sort of person who says “the fan is definitely doing something” as though this would qualify me to repair it. It did not.

The thermostat offered one neat number while the house told a more complicated story. That is also how a surprising number of organizational dashboards work.

Organizations do this too. The dashboard says turnover is manageable. The engagement survey is broadly positive. The strategic plan has a handsome cover, which is reassuring if the cover is responsible for executing it. Meanwhile, decisions take longer, managers avoid difficult conversations, and people save their most honest observations for the meeting after the meeting.

The organization is talking. Are we listening to the whole house, or just the thermostat?

Health is more than a score

McKinsey describes organizational health through alignment, execution, adaptation and renewal, and reports that healthy organizations are three times more likely to outperform unhealthy ones. That is a useful reminder that health concerns sustained performance, not whether everyone appears cheerful on a Tuesday. Source: McKinsey Organizational Health Index.

A healthy organization can make unpopular decisions. It can set demanding goals. It can have difficult seasons. The test is whether people understand what is happening, can tell the truth about what is not working, and believe the rules apply when the decision is inconvenient for someone powerful.

Five vital signs I listen for

Clarity: Can people explain what matters most this month and who can make which decisions? When priorities are vague, everything sounds urgent, meetings multiply and good people spend their energy guessing.

Candour: Can someone bring bad news to a leader without first writing a mental resignation letter? Useful disagreement is a gift. If it disappears, leaders lose access to reality.

Consistency: Do the stated values survive contact with a high performer who treats colleagues badly? Culture is taught in the exceptions leaders allow. Employees are remarkably quick studies.

Capacity: Is the work achievable with the people and time available? “They’ll figure it out” may work for a week. As an operating model, it quietly converts dedication into exhaustion, then calls the exhaustion a resilience issue.

Connection: Does each person know what their work makes possible for someone else? Purpose need not be grand. Getting payroll right or answering a worried employee promptly matters deeply to the person on the receiving end.

Listen before you prescribe

Gallup reports that 20% of employees worldwide were engaged at work in 2025. That is one measure, not a diagnosis of any particular organization. Still, it is a reason to be curious about the daily experience behind the numbers. Source: Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026.

Ask people, across roles and locations: “What is something about working here that leadership may not fully understand?” Ask what gets in the way of doing good work. Then resist the familiar urge to explain the answer away before the person has finished speaking. A leader can be technically correct about a policy and still learn something important about its effect.

Look for patterns before prescribing solutions. A complaint about a manager may be a manager problem, a workload problem, an unclear decision process, or some combination. That distinction changes the response. Then tell people what you heard, what you will do, and what you cannot do. When people speak and nothing happens, even a well intended listening exercise can teach silence.

My air conditioner did not need a more inspiring thermostat reading. It needed someone to take the water on the floor seriously. In organizations, the equivalent warning sign may be quieter. That makes listening a leadership responsibility.

Start with the question people are already answering privately: "What are we learning to live with that we should be fixing?"

Original writing and illustrations for Work, Considered., the Work, Advised. blog. Research sources are linked at the relevant claims. Personal openings draw on Daniel's own background and experiences; no confidential workplace examples are used.