We Could've Used You At My Last Company
“What you do is so important.” “We could have used you when I worked at—.”
These are the two most common responses I hear when I talk with people. The comments are always about the past—somewhere else. They are almost never about where they are today, right now.
Hindsight has the benefit of distance. In the moment, it’s harder to see because our attention is divided on competing priorities, our personal life, and how we fit in. But looking back, you can see all the pieces and how they fit together.
The gap is why the risk you can’t see is the one that costs you.
A great example is from a company I spoke with a few months ago. A new leader was brought in to run the day-to-day operations. They were well-educated, talented, and personable—a strong, top-talent hire.
The CEO and the new hire got along great—an easy friendship started forming. But within the organization, people were experiencing friction. Complaints started when the new leader struggled to grasp the scope of their role and grew combative when people pushed back. When things didn’t change, people left. First a direct report, then another, then another employee one layer down.
The employees could see exactly what was happening, but the CEO couldn’t. A strong cohesive organization became one marked by turnover, mistrust, and a real doubt about its ability to attract talent for open roles.
A Gallup survey indicated employees experiencing disruptive change are 67% more likely to report an issue with a leader or manager. (1) Which is an interesting paradox paired with McKinsey’s latest research shows reorgs are working better than they used to with a success rate of 63%. (2) Success in that research means the reorg met its goals of efficiency, growth, and speed. What it doesn’t measure is the human cost.
The reorg departures left strategic vacancies. SHRM’s 2026 Recruiting Executives Benchmarking Report puts the median cost-per-hire for executives at $15,000. (3)
But the real cost—the hidden cost— is with the people who didn’t leave. Once employees learn that speaking up doesn’t change what happens, they stop talking—to leadership. But the conversations don’t stop. They continue in hushed hallway conversations, at the dinner table with spouses and friends. Those conversations erode a company from the inside out.
That disengagement is happening at scale. Global employee engagement fell to 20%, its lowest level since 2020, and is costing the world economy an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity, according to Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace. (4)
Disengagement isn’t as easy to spot in reporting as the hard costs of turnover. It shows up in how someone talks about where they work and if they refer open positions. It shows up in what a spouse hears at dinner and shares with a friend that could turn into a new customer or prevent the sale. Those numbers are just as real but harder to see the connection.
Everyone agrees blind spots exist, but they don’t need to be a surprise. The friction and complaints were red flags that were waved well before the first departure. The question is whether anyone was paying attention, looking for the gap between intent and experience.
I work in those gaps. I listen for what’s hidden underneath and surface it so leadership can act before it costs them money.
This article was written by a human. The perspective is mine—based on my questions, observations, and experience.
I use AI as a thought partner to challenge my thinking, identify gaps, and surface perspectives I hadn’t considered. Anything that comes from AI goes back through me. I push back, verify, and decide what gets included. I only use data from primary sources. They are clearly identified in my writing with links for you to dig in. Before publishing, I run my final draft through AI again for spelling and grammar. Typos and grammar mistakes still happen. I'm not perfect and neither is AI.
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