What Happens When People Feel They Matter?

How a sense of mattering can create the conditions for greater energetic flow and abundance within organisations

What makes someone feel that they truly matter within an organisation or community? And what happens when they do?

These questions were at the heart of a recent Gaia Education conversation between Curtis Ogden, facilitator of the Energy Systems: Science and Practice for Just and Sustainable Communities course, and Amri B. Johnson, founder of Inclusion Wins and an organisational effectiveness, inclusion and behavioural change consultant.

In this free taster session, Curtis and Amri explored an intriguing connection between human relationships and energy systems: mattering can be understood as a form of energy flow.

What does energy have to do with mattering?

From an energy systems perspective, energy is not limited to fuel or electricity. Curtis describes it as the flows that are crucial to the long-term vitality of a system.

Some are visible, such as money moving through an economy or nutrients through an ecosystem. Others are less tangible but equally important: trust, attention, belonging and information flowing between people.

When these flows are healthy, they can support the vitality of the systems they move through. When they are blocked, systems can become stagnant.

This is where mattering comes in.

Why does mattering matter?

During the session, Curtis invited participants to reflect on a time when they felt they did not matter, and another when they felt they truly did.

When we feel that we matter, we may experience greater enthusiasm, significance and willingness to contribute. When we feel that we don't matter, we may withdraw or hold our energy back.

For Amri, this connects closely with his work on inclusion and organisational culture. Belonging is important, but incomplete. We also want to know that our unique contribution has value.

He describes three elements of mattering:

• Being noticed: feeling seen and heard as a person.

• Being affirmed: having your unique qualities and contributions recognised.

• Being needed: knowing that what you bring makes a meaningful difference.

Mattering is therefore reciprocal: the value we contribute to others and the value others contribute to us.

As Amri puts it, “Belonging welcomes, mattering dignifies.”

From individuals to organisations

What happens when these exchanges of recognition, trust and care flow through an entire organisation or community?

Curtis and Amri explore how they can influence inclusion, creativity, collaboration and collective intelligence, while also discussing practical ways to create stronger conditions for mattering.

These include creating meaningful opportunities for connection, intentionally weaving networks, making space for people to be seen, and having honest conversations.

One powerful example from Amri's own experience illustrates the idea. A professor once challenged him when she recognised that he was capable of more. Although uncomfortable at the time, he later understood that her challenge was an expression of mattering: she saw his potential and cared enough to hold him accountable.

Creating conditions for greater energetic flow

The conversation offers a glimpse into the broader approach explored in Gaia Education's Energy Systems: Science and Practice for Just and Sustainable Communities course.

The course explores how energy flows through different systems, from relationships and organisations to communities, ecosystems and economies, and asks:

What conditions allow systems to thrive?

What blocks the flow of energy, value and participation?

Understanding these flows can help us identify opportunities to create systems that are more resilient, regenerative and life-supporting.

Watch the full conversation above to explore these ideas, stories and questions in greater depth.

Continue exploring Energy Systems

Energy Systems: Science and Practice for Just and Sustainable Communities is an interactive online course facilitated by Curtis Ogden in partnership with Gaia Education. Through systems science, flow-network analysis, dialogue and experiential learning, the course explores how we can strengthen the conditions for vitality and regeneration across different kinds of systems.

The course starts September 28.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ENERGY SYSTEMS COURSE