.png)
At university, I studied sociology. One study I continue to return to is the Hawthorne experiments of the late 1920s. Their lesson feels unavoidable: I step into a dimly lit shop, Hawthorne. I look across the street and see an office worker, back to the window, playing Pac-Man at his desk just before 5pm, Hawthorne again.
At Western Electric’s Hawthorne plant in Chicago, researchers adjusted lighting, break times, and shift lengths to observe changes in productivity. Surprisingly, performance often improved regardless of the specific change, even when conditions reverted.
The most compelling insight wasn’t the lighting or the breaks, but the response to being studied itself: when workers felt observed and valued, their engagement shifted. That legacy endures as the “Hawthorne Effect”.
That lesson may seem obvious a century later. But what about now? Are there equally apparent remedies staring us in the face, yet overlooked?
One area I’ve been examining is how businesses are rapidly adopting artificial intelligence (AI) at an operational level. And the internal effects of that adoption.
A 2025 study of 457 employees in Turkish SMEs found that AI anxiety doesn’t directly compel people to resign, but it triggers “quiet quitting”, a form of disengagement that often precedes departure.
A longitudinal German study found no decline in workers’ mental health and even modest improvements in physical well‑being, yet signalled risks around diminished job satisfaction and cognitive overload.
At the same time, a Workday survey shows that while 75 % of employees are comfortable with AI “teammates”, fewer than a third would accept being managed by one, pointing to fears of heavier workloads and erosion of critical thinking.
Gallup estimates that disengagement siphons off US $8.8 trillion annually, nearly 9 % of global GDP (Gallup, 2023). McKinsey’s Great Attrition research shows people aren’t leaving for remuneration, they’re leaving because they feel stalled (McKinsey, 2021).
Boredom itself is evolving. Research by Madeleine Rauch, published in the Academy of Management Journal and summarised in Harvard Business Review (March 2025), distinguishes between situational boredom (tedious meetings, repetitive tasks) and existential boredom, the more corrosive state in which individuals ask: What am I even doing here?
Her multi-year study of UN peacekeepers found that those who reframed their work into smaller, achievable milestones were more than twice as likely to remain.
What does all this mean for business; What are the actionables?
- Break long‑term goals into visible wins. Microsoft’s quantum computing team made the Majorana 1 chip a milestone within a decades‑long vision, making progress tangible.
- Celebrate incremental progress. Netflix boosts morale by publicly marking short‑term subscriber gains tied to events such as live sports.
- Encourage experimentation. Google’s “20 % rule”, 3M’s Post‑it Notes, and Atlassian’s “ShipIt Days” transform boredom into innovation.
- Legitimise micro‑breaks. ASICS’s 2024 “Desk Break” study with King’s College London found that a 15‑minute movement break improved mood by 22 %, reduced stress by 15 %, and increased productivity by a third. They embedded “desk break clauses” into contracts, not merely ads.
Beyond economics, there is culture. Consultant Bree Groff, in The Guardian, argues that leaders should shift from asking about productivity to asking: “Did I have fun today?” It may sound trivial, but recent data shows it matters.
Gallup found that 81 % of engaged German employees reported having fun at work in the past week, compared with just 10 % of disengaged colleagues.
Groff suggests fun is a clarifying metric, it cannot be faked and signals whether work feels life‑enhancing or deadening routine.
Boredom isn’t benign, it’s corrosive.
The astute executive treats it not as an HR concern, but as a systems failure. That requires designing structures where momentum is visible, experimentation expected, and meaning integral.
In our interview with Diageo's CIO, Mark Sandys: by institutionalising a 90‑day “progress, pivot, or kill” cycle. With it, yes, it sped up innovation, but ultimately restored urgency and curiosity to his teams. He eliminated the inertia of “slow maybes” and established a cadence where movement replaced stagnation.
This isn’t about speed for its own sake. It is about crafting work environments that demand and reward attention.
If your senior leaders cannot demonstrate where progress is visible, where stretch is structured, and where feedback loops are accelerating, not stalling, then disengagement isn’t a risk: it is already occurring, and the cost is growing, quietly but exponentially.
Three steps to operationalise engagement as a strategic asset
1. Institutionalise Attention Metrics
Redesign reporting structures to include engagement signals at the team level—not merely pulse surveys, but measurable proxies such as project velocity, decision latency, and initiative abandonment rates. Task senior leaders with diagnosing where momentum stalls and why. Make engagement visible through data, not anecdotes.
2. Operationalise “Stretch with Safety”
Embed controlled risk‑taking cycles (like Diageo’s 90‑day pivot model) into departmental routines. Require each business unit to pilot one experiment per quarter with a clear success/failure threshold. Recognise outcomes, not just wins. Build institutional muscle for learning, not merely delivery.
3. Mandate a Quarterly “Meaning Review”
Each executive should lead a quarterly session with their direct reports focused on role alignment: does the role deliver not just output, but energy?
Are team members growing or merely executing? Are incentives reinforcing curiosity and ownership, or entrenching stasis? Link these reviews to performance, not sentiment, because when meaning leaks, performance follows.
This isn’t about HR programs. It’s about treating boredom as a strategic measure. The best leaders don’t just ask “Are we productive?”They ask, “Does this work still matter?” Then they design the system to answer yes.
.webp)
