Meaningful Work Matters

In this episode, Andrew is joined by Dr. Rodney Schmaltz, a psychology professor at MacEwan University, to explore what the evidence actually says about productivity, meaningful work, and how we structure our days, and where the popular advice gets it wrong.

Rod's perspective is shaped by two research streams that turn out to have more in common than they first appear: studying how people thrive at work, and studying why people believe things that aren't supported by evidence. That combination gives him an unusually clear-eyed view of the productivity myths and workplace assumptions that so many of us accept without question.

Together, Andrew and Rod move from myth-busting to a set of research-backed principles called Boice's Rules, originally developed for academics struggling with procrastination and writing, that turn out to apply remarkably well to anyone trying to do meaningful work more sustainably.

• Purpose tends to be a more durable source of motivation than enjoyment, and recognizing why a task matters can carry us through the parts of work we don't love.
• The way we begin our workday sets its tone more than we realize; even a small ritual of easing in rather than diving straight into demands can shift the entire day.
• Small, consistent bursts of effort (or, what Boice called "brief daily sessions") consistently outperform the intense, last-minute pushes most of us rely on.
• Knowing good work habits and actually building them into your environment are very different things, and the gap between them is where most advice falls flat.

Many people experience frustration that they're not doing enough, working the right way, or finding enough meaning in what they do — and a steady stream of productivity content tends to make that worse rather than better.

Rod takes those claims seriously enough to test them, and found that the path to a better workday is less about discipline or passion and more about small, deliberate design choices that actually hold up under scrutiny.

Dr. Rodney Schmaltz is a psychology professor at MacEwan University in Edmonton, where he teaches and researches at the intersection of workplace productivity and the science of belief. His work focuses on evidence-based approaches to thriving at work, alongside strategies to help people become better, more critical consumers of information, including the kind that shows up in our LinkedIn feeds.

In this episode, Andrew moderates a live panel hosted by the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC), a professional association representing over 1,800 IP lawyers, patent agents, and trademark agents across Canada, now celebrating its 100th year. The conversation brings together three IP professionals to explore what thriving actually looks like inside a demanding, high-stakes profession, not in theory, but in the day-to-day realities of the work.

IP professionals face real and familiar pressures: billable hours, client expectations, collaboration across competitive environments, and the challenge of finding meaning in highly specialized, often invisible work. This episode grew out of IPIC's strategic commitment to making well-being a priority, and what emerges is a frank, grounded conversation about what it actually takes to thrive.

Together, Andrew and the panelists examine how well-being shifts across a career, what it means to struggle well rather than perform happiness, and how the profession's culture, both its demands and its community, shapes the conditions for a life of meaningful work.

• Well-being is not one-size-fits-all. Understanding what “it” means for you is the only way to be "in it to win it."
• The shift from individual contributor to leader often requires finding new sources of meaning, learning to derive satisfaction from others' success rather than your own technical output.
• Creating "brave spaces" rather than safe spaces means making room for difficult conversations, not despite a commitment to well-being, but because of it.
• Struggling well is different from being happy, and the most powerful thing a team can offer someone going through something hard is not positivity, but presence.

Professional services environments are often places where well-being initiatives can feel like add-ons or perks masking unchanged structures and cultures.

This conversation pushes back on that, not with sweeping prescriptions, but with honest reflection from professionals who are living these questions.

IPIC is Canada's professional association for intellectual property professionals, representing lawyers, patent agents, and trademark agents nationwide. The panellists, Dominique Hussey, Jaime-Lynn Kraft, and Ryan Holland, bring perspectives spanning senior leadership, mid-career practice, and earlier-stage professional development within the IP field.

This conversation reflects IPIC's broader commitment, championed during Nathaniel Lipkus' presidency, to making well-being a defining feature of a world-class IP community.

This is part two of our conversation with Dr. Joel Vos. If you haven't listened to part one yet, we recommend starting there first.

In this episode, Andrew and Joel pick up where they left off, moving from the taxonomy of meaning at work into some of the harder questions about what happens when meaning goes unrealized, and what that costs individuals and societies alike.

Joel draws on Albert Camus, his own clinical experience with radicalized individuals, and a systematic review of over 600 studies to make a case that extremism and polarization are, at their core, meaning problems, and that understanding them as such changes how we respond.

Together, Andrew and Joel examine the MOSAIC framework Joel developed to explain how people cope when meaningful lives feel out of reach, and what leaders, organizations, and institutions can actually do to address that gap, including Joel's argument that meaningful work should be recognized as a human right.

• When people cannot realize the meanings that matter most to them, and non-extreme strategies repeatedly fail, radicalization becomes a predictable response rather than an aberration.
• Joel's concept of "existential compassion" offers a different starting point for engaging with people whose views we find troubling: genuine curiosity about what they actually want from their lives, before any attempt at debate or correction.
• The MOSAIC framework reframes coping with unfulfilled meaning as something that can be understood, supported, and redirected toward more constructive forms of change.
• Joel argues that protecting people's capacity to live meaningfully, including in their work, needs to move from an abstract aspiration to a legal and institutional commitment.

The polarization, disengagement, and quiet desperation showing up in workplaces and in politics are often treated as separate problems with separate solutions.

Joel's work suggests they may share a common root, and that organizations and leaders who understand that connection are better positioned to respond to it honestly, rather than just managing its symptoms.

Dr. Joel Vos is a Senior Lecturer (Research) in the Doctorate in Counselling Psychology at the Metanoia Institute in London. His work sits at the intersection of meaning in life research, existential psychology, and socioeconomic history, and he brings both rigorous empirical grounding and decades of clinical practice to this conversation. His book The Economics of Meaning in Life draws on a systematic review of thousands of studies on meaning, economics, and wellbeing.

In this episode, Andrew is joined by Joel Vos, researcher, philosopher, and psychotherapist, to explore where our ideas about meaningful work actually come from, and how the broader economic and historical context shapes what people seek from their jobs today.

Joel approaches meaningful work from the outside in. Rather than starting with the workplace, he starts with evolutionary psychology, philosophy, and centuries of social history, and uses that vantage point to explain why the very question "what does my work mean to me?" is a uniquely modern one.

Together, Andrew and Joel examine how we moved from a world where meaning was assigned by tradition and authority to one where individuals are expected to construct it themselves, and what that shift has cost us, both personally and collectively.

• Meaning in life has seven identifiable components, including motivation, values, dignity, and a sense that your own experience matters, and all of them show up in how people relate to their work.
• Joel identifies six types of meaning people find at work, ranging from the material and hedonistic to the social, ethical, and existential, and research suggests the types we prioritize have real consequences for wellbeing.
• The expectation that work should be your primary source of meaning is relatively new. Sometimes, a job that simply funds a meaningful life outside of work is enough.
• The shift toward a meaning-oriented economy is real, but so is the risk of "meaning-washing": organizations using the language of purpose to manipulate rather than genuinely support the people who work for them.

We live in a moment when people are increasingly unwilling to spend their working lives on things that feel hollow, and increasingly uncertain about where to look instead. Joel's historical and philosophical lens offers something rare: not a framework for optimizing meaning at work, but a genuine reckoning with why we want it in the first place, and what gets in the way of actually having it.

Dr. Joel Vos is a Senior Lecturer in Counselling Psychology at the Metanoia Institute in London. His work sits at the intersection of meaning in life research, existential psychology, and socioeconomic history, and he brings both rigorous empirical grounding and decades of clinical practice to this conversation. His book The Economics of Meaning in Life draws on a systematic review of thousands of studies on meaning, economics, and wellbeing.

In this episode of Meaningful Work Matters, host Andrew Soren finds himself in the hot seat. Dr. Llewellyn E. van Zyl, positive psychology pracademic and a returning guest of the show, steps in as interviewer to explore the story behind our host and what happens to the person underneath when they keep becoming someone new.

Andrew has moved across a wide range of roles over his career: theatre producer, marketing professional, executive coach, organizational designer, and now Executive Director of the International Positive Psychology Association.

Together, they trace what each transformation cost, what it left behind, and what Andrew has learned about identity, suffering, and meaning that scholarship alone could not have taught him.

• Every major transition carries grief. The loss of self-efficacy that comes with stepping into a new role is real, worth acknowledging, and a signal worth paying attention to.
• Tension is information. Learning to distinguish between harmonious and dissonant tension across roles, values, and identities is a navigational skill that develops over time.
• Meaning and suffering are not opposites. Meaningful work often involves real cost, and the more useful question is how to stay inside that work without being consumed by it.
• Our core questions such as who am I and how do I bring more of that into what I'm doing, may change over the course of a lifetime, but often find their ways back in new forms.

Many conversations about meaningful work in this podcast have focused on how to find it, design it, or measure it. This one goes somewhere less often visited: what it actually costs to keep becoming someone new, and what remains stable underneath all the roles we play.

Dr. Llewellyn E. van Zyl is a professor of positive psychology at the Optentia Research Unit, North-West University of South Africa, and Chief Solutions Architect at Psynalytics. His work sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence, employee wellbeing, and the measurement of human flourishing. He is the Program Chair of the IPPA Virtual Summit on AI and the Future of Wellbeing, taking place March 23–27, 2026.

Andrew Soren is the Founder & CEO of Eudaimonic by Design, a global network helping organizations design environments where people thrive, act with purpose, and deliver their best. He is also the Executive Director of the International Positive Psychology Association. For over 25 years, Andrew has helped leading organizations foster values-based leadership, meaningful work, and well-being at scale.

In this episode, Andrew is joined by Kathy Miller, a former senior operations executive whose career spans large-scale manufacturing, unionized environments, and global operations leadership. Kathy brings a rare perspective shaped by decades of leading under intense performance pressure, followed by formal training in positive psychology.

Rather than approaching meaningful work as a matter of motivation or engagement tactics, Kathy focuses on how work is designed, how standards are held, and how leaders relate to people when conditions are demanding. Her experience “on the concrete,” not just in offices, grounds the conversation in the realities many leaders face daily.

Together, Andrew and Kathy explore what it means to create meaningful work in operational environments, where the consequences of leadership decisions are immediate and visible, and where dignity and performance must coexist.

• Meaningful work is shaped less by inspiration and more by how systems are designed and sustained under pressure.
• Dignity and high standards are not competing values, they depend on one another.
• Leaders communicate meaning through everyday behaviors such as feedback, presence, and accountability, not just through vision or intent.
• Operational environments reveal how leadership choices affect people when work is physical, repetitive, and time constrained.

Many conversations about meaningful work focus on autonomy, purpose, or culture at a conceptual level. This episode brings the conversation into environments where work is highly structured, performance is tightly measured, and leadership is tested daily. Kathy challenges the idea that care for people requires lowering expectations and offers a grounded view of how meaning is built through systems, relationships, and consistent leadership choices. The conversation is especially relevant for leaders navigating complexity, fatigue, and pressure while still wanting to take people seriously.

Kathy Miller is a senior manufacturing executive, author, and leadership advisor with more than 25 years of global experience across aerospace, automotive, and diversified industrial organizations. Over the course of her career, she has led multi-billion-dollar operations and worked across hundreds of plants worldwide, earning recognition for her work in operational excellence and culture change.

Kathy is the author of MORE Is Better: Leading Operations with Meaning, Optimism, and Relationships for Excellence, and co-author of Steel Toes and Stilettos. She holds a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA, and is an ICF-certified leadership coach.

In this episode, Andrew is joined by Steve Taylor, professor of leadership and creativity at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Business School, to explore how art, aesthetics, and sensory experience shape meaningful work.

Steve brings a rare perspective as both a leadership scholar and a practicing playwright. Rather than treating leadership as a set of competencies or frameworks, he invites us to see it as a craft, one that develops through judgment, reflection, and lived experience.

Together, Andrew and Steve examine how we come to know work not only through ideas and analysis, but through our bodies, our senses, and our relationships with others.

• Meaningful work is not only something we think about, but something we sense and experience through our bodies and relationships.
• Organizational aesthetics offers a way to understand power, ethics, and culture beyond formal structures and rational models.
• Art and reflective practice help leaders engage with complexity rather than prematurely simplify it.
• Discernment, the ability to notice what truly matters, including what is missing or unexpected, is a critical leadership capability.

As organizations prioritize speed, clarity, and efficiency, many people feel increasingly disconnected from the human experience of work.

This conversation challenges the assumption that meaning can be designed or optimized through logic alone. Instead, it offers a deeper view of meaningful work rooted in craft, reflection, and the courage to stay present with uncertainty.

Steve Taylor is a professor of leadership and creativity at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), where his research focuses on organizational aesthetics and reflective practice. He is the author of several books on leadership and organizations and an accomplished playwright whose work has been staged internationally. His scholarship and artistic practice shape the lens he brings to this conversation.

In this episode, Andrew is joined by Sue der Kinderen, organizational health psychologist and researcher. Rather than focusing only on how people feel at work, Sue invites us to pay closer attention to what people actually do.

Drawing on her research into eudaimonic well-being at work, Sue introduces a behavioral view of meaningful work, one rooted in personal growth, pursuit of purpose, and positive relationships. Together, Andrew and Sue explore how these behaviors show up in real organizational settings, why context and culture matter so much, and how leaders can create environments that support reflection, courage, and sustainable well-being.

• Meaningful work is not only about well-being, but about well-doing through everyday behaviors
• Eudaimonic work shows up through personal growth, pursuit of purpose, and positive relationships
• These behaviors are partly stable but strongly shaped by work climate and leadership
• Reflection and social support are essential for sustaining meaningful work, especially during change
• Eudaimonia requires courage and discomfort, not constant positivity

As work becomes faster, more complex, and increasingly shaped by technology, many people struggle to find meaning in what they do. This conversation offers a grounded alternative to abstract ideas about purpose by showing how meaningful work can be built through concrete actions and supportive contexts.

Sue der Kinderen is an organizational health psychologist, coach, and thought leader with over 20 years of experience at the intersection of work, health, and human potential. Originally trained as a counselling psychologist in South Africa, she later completed a PhD in Organizational Psychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where her research focused on eudaimonic well-being behaviors at work.

Through her platform Ncourage, Sue translates psychological science into speaking, thought leadership, and bespoke workplace interventions, with a strong emphasis on social support and peer reflection as drivers of sustainable change.

Work does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in spaces that shape how we feel, think, connect, and grow.

In this episode, Andrew sits down with Jenna Mikus to explore what it means to design for human flourishing. Jenna brings a rare interdisciplinary lens that bridges architecture, wellbeing science, organizational design, and philosophy. Together, they unpack the concept of eudaimonic design and what it looks like in practice, from homes and workplaces to educational and community environments.

• Meaningful work depends on the environments that surround us, including physical, organizational, and social conditions.
• Eudaimonic design blends external structure with personal agency, recognizing that flourishing emerges through interaction, not control.
• Inclusive design strengthens wellbeing for everyone by offering choice, flexibility, and dignity across diverse needs and life stages.
• Sensory experience, awe, and delight play an underappreciated role in motivation, creativity, and connection at work.
• Designing for flourishing requires interdisciplinary thinking and a willingness to sit with complexity and uncertainty.

As organizations rethink work, space, and culture in a post-pandemic world, this conversation offers a deeper foundation for those decisions. Rather than asking how to bring people back or drive performance, we should consider what conditions help people become their best selves.

This episode expands the meaning of meaningful work by showing how design, wellbeing, and purpose intersect in everyday environments.

Jenna Mikus is a strategic advisor and researcher who brings together architectural science and wellbeing science to shape environments that support human flourishing.

She is the Managing Partner of Eudae Group, where she guides organizations in designing spaces and experiences that elevate health, belonging, creativity, and innovation. Her work draws on more than twenty years of consulting experience, a background in engineering and design, and ongoing research across Human Buildings Interaction, salutogenic design, and inclusive environments.

Jenna also serves as the Flourishing by Design Chair and holds fellowship appointments with the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Wellbeing Science and Queensland University of Technology’s Centre for Decent Work and Industry.

• Follow Jenna on LinkedIn
• Eudae Group
• Flourishing by Design (FxD) community of practice
• University of Melbourne Centre for Wellbeing Science
• Queensland University of Technology Centre for Decent Work and Industry

In this episode, Andrew speaks with Bree Groff about why our days at work deserve protection on their own terms and how leaders can build healthier, more human team environments.

Together, they explore why burnout often signals a deeper business issue, how time becomes the most undervalued resource in the workplace, and what it looks like to create systems that support real people rather than extract from them.

Bree Groff is a workplace culture expert and author of Today Was Fun, with a career spent guiding leaders at companies like Microsoft, Google, Pfizer, and Memorial Sloan Kettering through complex change.

Human happiness is not a business case. Bree argues that engagement is simply human happiness in corporate language, and she invites leaders to value the finite days people give to work rather than justify them through productivity gains.

Burnout has structural roots. Chronic overwork often reveals a broken business model. When the math no longer works, leaders must rethink priorities, resources, and expectations instead of placing the burden on individual resilience.

Practical systems make work more human. Bree shares several tools that help teams reset and reconnect, including protected “golden time,” deep work blocks, and open narration when the workload is unusually heavy. These small practices build trust and reduce isolation.

Fun and hard work can coexist. The goal is not to avoid effort but to create an environment where people can show up fully and work hard without sacrificing well-being or dignity. Joy, collaboration, and emotional steadiness help teams move through demanding moments together.

Meaningful work requires leaders who understand that every workday is a real day in someone’s life, and that structure, pacing, and expectations shape whether people thrive or slowly burn out. Bree’s insights offer a blueprint for designing team environments that honor time, reduce unnecessary suffering, and rebuild the human connections that make work sustainable.

These ideas have clear implications for anyone responsible for people, culture, or performance.

Bree Groff is a workplace culture expert and author of Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously). She advises senior leaders on transformation, culture, and organizational change, informed by her work with Microsoft, Google, Pfizer, and Memorial Sloan Kettering. Bree’s career includes serving as CEO of NOBL Collective and working as a Senior Advisor at SYPartners. Her approach to work centers on humanity, practical design, and the belief that our days are precious and worth spending well, which sits at the heart of this conversation.

• Bree’s website: https://www.breegroff.com
• Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously)