Start With A Win - Moe Carrick: The Real Reason Your Best People Leave

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

What does it truly take to build a workplace where people don't just show up - they ignite? In this electrifying episode of Start With a Win, host Adam sits down with Moe Carrick, a visionary work futurist and culture architect whose unconventional path - from wilderness guide to organizational mastermind - has given her a perspective on human potential that most leaders never discover. Moe pulls back the curtain on the invisible forces shaping today's most successful (and most struggling) organizations. In a world rocked by seismic workplace shifts, a loneliness epidemic, and the relentless rise of AI, she challenges everything leaders think they know about what employees actually need - and what it costs when those needs go unmet. This is the raw, resonant truth about what separates thriving cultures from toxic ones, and the surprisingly human principles that make all the difference. If you lead people - or aspire to - this episode will change how you see your organization forever.Moe Carrick is a work futurist, culture architect, and bestselling author who helps leaders and organizations turn workplace friction into fuel for growth. With over two decades of experience working with companies big and small - from Nike to nonprofits - Moe’s research-backed methods help teams align, scale, and create cultures where connection drives performance. A TEDx and SXSW speaker recognized by Thinkers 360, Fast Company, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Moe is on a mission to fix the way we work so people thrive - and businesses win.00:00 Intro03:45 We all need this… 04:54 This is where organizational culture starts.08:55 Never heard this statement before… 12:40 Employers are being mindful and designing systems for this! 16:00 Biggest important need!20:01 Why we fixing after the fact when those things are core?24:50 Non-negotiable in setting a culture for your organization. 26:15 My fav ritual.  https://moementum.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/moecarrick/ https://www.instagram.com/moecarrick/ ===========================Subscribe and Listen to the Start With a Win Podcast HERE:📱 ===========================YT ➡︎ https://www.youtube.com/@AdamContosCEOApple ➡︎ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/start-with-a-win/id1438598347Spotify ➡︎ https://open.spotify.com/show/4w1qmb90KZOKoisbwj6cqT===========================Connect with Adam:===========================Website ➡︎ https://adamcontos.com/Facebook  ➡︎ https://facebook.com/AdamContosCEOTwitter  ➡︎ https://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOInstagram  ➡︎ https://instagram.com/adamcontosceo/#adamcontos #startwithawin #leadershipfactory

Pay becomes a really terrible motivator, which is why when employers to throw money or surface perks on employees to try to retain them or engage them, it is a miserable flop. Help employees connect the dots between their job and the success of the entity. Because if I can't do that, it starts to feel like a bullshit job. Welcome to Start With a Win, where we unpack leadership, personal growth and development, and how to build a better business. Let's go. Coming to you from Area 15 Ventures and Start with a Win,

headquarters, it's Adam Contos with Start with a Win. What if the friction in your workplace wasn't the problem, but the fuel? My guest today knows exactly how to turn those sparks into momentum. Mo Carrick is a work futurist, culture architect, and leadership advisor who's helped everyone from Nike and Reddit to small family businesses create workplaces where people actually want to show up and do their best work. I love that. She's a best-selling author. three-time TEDx speaker, and the founder of Momentum, Inc., bringing over two decades of experience, 1.5 million data points of research, and a deeply human approach to the table. Mo's here to share how we can fix the friction, fuel the future, and build teams that truly thrive.

Mo, welcome to start with a win. Thank you. So good to be here, Adam. This is a fun conversation because I love talking about the workplace. You know, that's where we go to be, seems like we go there to be productive and do positive things for our businesses, our stakeholders, maybe our investments, things of that nature. And this is what you're an expert on, is how do we create a great workplace, someplace, some place where people want to contribute and do positive things and move the ball forward and create outcomes for our stakeholders. So give us a little bit about your background. How did you get to this point? Well, it's a long convoluted road, as it often is, right? But I'm the founder of and have run momentum for 25 years. I keep track of those number of years because that's the same age as my youngest child. But I didn't start as an entrepreneur. I actually was a wilderness guide. I worked for an organization many have heard of outward bound. I also worked for Knowles, the National Auditor Leadership School. So I was a mountaineer and a wilderness expert. And in that context, I worked a lot with groups.

and got really interested in that. I later went on and worked in what we then called the adventure-based counseling space, which was treatment for substance use disorder for youth. I was an early adopter in that space back before it really exploded. And I thought it was going to be a social worker. You know, I loved working with kids. I loved working in the chemical dependency field. And then I started my master's and realized, oh, like I'm already burnout.

I'm 28. You know, what does that mean? So a friend of mine was studying organizational development, which she described as like therapy for corporations. And I thought, well, that sounds interesting, you know. So I kind of jumped ship, went to a different graduate program, when internal, working in high tech back in the 80s. I'm dating myself here. But when cellular was still analog, Adam, that's how long ago it was. And I loved being a student of systems. How do people work in systems to get great results for their organization without dying on the vine. You know, how do we do that?

So over the years, worked internally in a variety of sectors, often doing tech implementation, sometimes doing healthcare transition or transformation, and eventually went off on my own to found momentum. So that's sort of like a shortened version of what actually has been a very long journey with many, many pivots. Wow. I mean, it sounds like a pretty solid progression, you know, learning how to help people, how to take them out of their environment, create a, you know, a, you know, a.

situation where they have to make decisions in order to, you know, essentially survive out of the wilderness and, you know, learn about themselves and bringing that into the workplace, which I think we all need. I mean, it seems like, you know, we show up at work and we're like, are you tell me what to do? But we don't really want people in the workplace to sit around and go, I'm waiting for you to tell me what to do. We want them to find some sort of motivation and inspiration to go out and figure out what needs to be done and do it the best that they can. And a lot times it's better than what the workplace requires of them or requests of them for that matter. So we're all talking about culture here. I mean, that's that's about workplace culture and what the

expectations are and how you set those. What are some of the things that you're seeing as far as trends now in the workplace culture and maybe misconceptions and what can we shine the light on in this conversation? Yeah, well, I love what you said about bringing out the best in people and helping people discover their own motivation, their own inspiration, their own accountability in the workplace. And I think there's really two sides of this story, but at our very best, they're aligned. And when I say two sides, I'm really referring to the employee experience and the employer experience. They're often really, really different, but they have to connect at some point in order for the organization to win and for the human being in it to win. And the way I sometimes say it, Adam, to client.

and colleagues and when I'm speaking is, if there's no organization, there's no jobs, right? If there's no workplaces, there's no jobs. Not every single human on this planet can run their own business. And many are not hardwired to do so. So it, and in addition, you know, we can't do great things without the synergies of people coming together. So that's where organizational culture really starts. And I think there's a lot of trends happening to your questions in the post-COVID 19 era and in the really dynamic transformational space we're in right now in the meta environment. Geopolitically, climate change, a loneliness epidemic. We're in a rocking place right now for workplace dynamics. Workplace is changing. The future of work is not going to look tomorrow like

it did yesterday. And I think the jury is still out on what that exactly means when we look at hybrid work, when we look at AI and how that's influencing everything would do. But here's what I know in my bones. workplace culture drives how people show up at work and the extent to which the organization can get results in ways that are far greater than we have been willing to admit for decades. So what I think we get wrong about culture, especially business owners and founders, is that it will form in a healthy way on its own, especially for entrepreneurs who don't have time to pay attention to culture because they're too busy trying to survive. I know because I've been there and I've worked with literally thousands of companies and entrepreneurs doing just that. So in the beginning,

we just kind of hold our nose and hope that we can do something right to create a healthy culture that other people want to come work for. And that's normal. But at a certain point, it becomes critical that we start to notice and acknowledge what kind of culture are we building because usually that culture in the beginning is mirroring off the founder themselves. Right. Now, if they happen to be a really awesome culture leader and they've thought about it and they're passionate, they may get it right, but most of the time, that's not the case. Most of the time they're pretty focused on their innovation or their idea or how to raise

funds to be able to do what they want to do. So that's, I think, the mistake we make is that we think it will organically build itself to be healthy. It will organically build. It will organically build, but will it be one that people really want to work for? And it will bring out their absolute best. Well, it could be organically dysfunctional, too. Totally. And it often is. Yeah. Oh, totally. I mean, I was listening to what you were talking about, I wrote this down. And if you look at over the past, call it five years from today, if you will, we've had more than five different workplace culture types. So we've had COVID. We've, we've had work from home after COVID. So, you know, you could get out, actually, because we're kind of

forced into the first one. You've had hybrid. We've had return to work or return to office. And now we've had, we have AI. So we've got, I mean, how am I supposed to form my culture around something like that? Obviously, it's very progressive. And you have to be willing to call it out and deal with it is. But it's really interesting when we try, if we, if we went back, even three of those and try and set a workplace culture, it wouldn't work today. Yeah, that's right. So how do we convince leaders that they need to be flexible with this? And actually, and I want to mention one other thing you said, and I had not heard this before. So this is brilliant. You said employee experience, which we've always been really kind of the employee advocates and, you know, things like that.

We've never been the employer advocate and interested in the employer experience. So that's an interesting statement there is employer experience because I'm an employer. I've got like six businesses. And but I'm interested in the employee experience. But at the same time, I have expectations and accountability and things like that because I I have shareholders and investors and things like that. But this is really a fascinating thing. So tell me today, as we stand, it's 2026.

What are some of the cultural expectations you think exist for the successful organizations today? Oh, man, there's so many and they're so high. Like, I think especially for employers trying to figure out what employees need to thrive. Right. Because employees are very discerning right now, you know, especially the younger generations. When we think about Jonathan hates work in the anxious generation, you look at the advent of AI, we are seeing a really different worker come into the workplace today. They have, and I'll even use my own children as an example, they have really different expectations

of what work can do for them. My first book, which was titled How Fit Matters, How to Love Your Job, was really about looking at what it is we need from work. Those needs have stayed the same, even amidst the global pandemic, but they play out differently. And in fact, in some ways, some of those needs have been met even more successfully in the post-pandemic reality. For example, the need for flexibility that really is enhanced often by work from home policies. I think that employers are living in a paradox right now, and you kind of already named it, but I'm going to underline it, which is how do I, I design my business, my human systems in particular, to bring out the best in people, without

contorting myself in such a way that the business is not successful. Right. And successful means to grow. Yeah. Right? Because a business that doesn't grow will die. The way I think of it, Adam, is every business is a living system. And every employee who works for a business, whether they're a nonprofit, a mega company, or a family home business, manufacturing, it doesn't matter what industry. Every employee who works, there ought to be and feel some level of accountability for the health of that system. It's a living system, and we all own a part of it, especially leadership, of course, but also every employee. So one of the things that I think employers need to do and don't always do very well is to help employees connect the dots between their job

and the success of the entity. Because if I can't do that, it starts to feel like a bullshit job. And I love about you, Adam, have you ever had a bullshit job? No, you sit there and you watch the clock. And all you can think of is when you can be done working. Holy. Right? It's the worst.

Yeah. It's the worst. And, you know, for me, I've been fortunate. I love my work. I've, and I've worked since I was 13 and a half. I had to lie because I wanted to work so bad. So, you know, you could put me on. on the overworking side of the spectrum.

But at its best, work gives us so much that it ought to be joyful. It ought to fill us up. And we, the individual employee, have a huge role in that. I don't think employees are passive. We can't expect our employer to make us happy. We own our own thriving. But the good employers out there, to your point, are being mindful of human needs and are designing their system in a way that activates those human needs rather than compromises them

or literally kills them, which does also happen. Okay, I like this. And you mentioned these human needs. So your research has uncovered some core needs of employees at work. Let's get into those if you want to kind of run through those. I think there's seven of them. Is that correct? Yeah, there's seven of them.

And I was really delighted, I don't know if you're familiar with the Surgeon General's report that came out in 2020. Dr. Vivek Murty, they wrote a report called, it was a study on workplace mental health and well-being. And that study came out way after my research started and my first book came out in 2017. But they came up with five needs of work for people and it coincides 100% with our seven needs. So I don't have them in front of me right now. I should, but I'm going to go through them as best I can. And I always laugh on podcasts because I can't necessarily name off the seven.

That's fine. But I'll give you some of the gist, right? So, and they're not in any particular order. This is what's really interesting about our research and research of others is that one of our, one of our needs of course, is to be able to meet our basic needs, which is in the capitalist society, our cash and non-cash compensation. Now, that one often seems like it is in first position. And in fact, it is if two conditions aren't met.

And those conditions are, number one, that we feel paid fairly. And number two, that we can meet our basic needs, which are, I'm using. Maslow's model here, right? Food, water, shelter, safety, and security. If I can't provide those things for myself or the people who depend on me, then I'm always going to be pretty preoccupied with pay. But once those conditions are met, so once I feel like I can meet my basic human needs for survival, and I feel paid fairly compared to other people like me, pay becomes a really terrible motivator, which is why an employer to throw money or surface perks on employees to try to retain them or engage them, it is a miserable flop because it's not actually a huge

motivator for us. Now, sometimes it can be, for example, in highly paid sales functions, where you're paying people five times, let's say, what somebody else does, you know, that can be motivating to keep you going on that grind for a while, but even that gets exhausting at certain point. So that's interesting to me that that first need actually falls when those needs are met. So some of the others that come up for us. Obviously, we mentioned one already purpose. I need to understand. I need to, we all want to contribute to the world. We want to do something that matters. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that I want to work for an organization whose mission I can get behind, although that can certainly be a case, especially for entering employees these days.

But it also means, let's say my company makes widgets. And maybe I'm not, I don't really care about those widgets. Well, that's fine. But, do I understand something about my job that makes that meaningful? How does that widget help people do something or feel something or want something? So purpose is certainly one. Another need we have of work is to feel seen and valued. In fact, that's one of our biggest important needs. And it connects to a third, which is our need for connectedness.

Those two things are slightly different, feeling seen and value. and feeling connected, but they really, really matter. Alison Pugh wrote a book last year called The Last Human Job. She's a sociologist, and she was researching AI and how it's impacting work, especially work that demands high connectedness like counselors and clergy. And I actually think leadership is one of those jobs that requires high connectedness. When we don't feel connected somewhere, somehow, we suffer. and sometimes we even die.

So work, we work, if you're only working, or if you're working 40 hours a week, which is generally considered full-time, many jobs are more than that here in the U.S., you're spending more time at work than you are anywhere else. Right. So your need for connectedness at work is really quite primary, which a side conversation could be how has work from home impacted that, right? But I'll go through a couple of others. we need to feel that we can be safe in taking risks,

which I sometimes call psychological bravery. So that creates the space for innovation and creativity when we feel safe in our environment, or at least that we can be brave. In other words, safety isn't necessarily guaranteed, but we crave that desire to stretch in the workplace. Let me pause there because I'm fire-hosing you a little bit. What do you think is it?

This is great. And I can see how this progressively, I mean, you know, you said they're independent of each other, but they also progressively build upon each other. And you mentioned Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We are climbing Maslow's hierarchy right now, too, and a great deal. But yeah, this is, this is fantastic so far. And I love how you said this one is possibly overrated, you know, the compensation piece. Because I think people want to feel intrinsically good about their job as well as

see it hit their bank account. But at the same time, yeah, I mean, if you can be making a ton of money and be miserable as hell. So, you know, we, we see a lot of very successful people burn out. So it's, it's fascinating. I love the be seen and connected. I think, you know, you have to have relationships, interpersonal relationships with the people that you are fulfilling a role with. I believe that's, that's fantastic. So, yeah, keep going. I mean, What else could you come up with here? A couple more. One is to learn.

Yes. As humans, again, going back to Maso's hierarchy, we have a basic human need to be better tomorrow than we were yesterday. So when I take a job and it becomes a dead end and I'm not, and there's nothing more for me to learn, I'm going to be very likely to move on or be unsatisfied in that role. Another one that's really grown in my lifetime, even in what I would call my career time or my working years is our need to make our lives work. And this is about workplace flexibility, things like commute time, flexibility if I'm a carer, you know, if I have children or elders that I

care for, desire to pursue passion. I live in central Oregon. We were talking about that when we opened and there's a lot of endurance athletes here. And it's not uncommon that I go and work with a client and they say things to me like, gosh, you know, I've got an employee who needs to have four hours, hours off a day because they are an Olympic endurance athlete. How do I meet their needs? You know? And it's a good question. How do you do that? Can you even do that for someone who's performing at that level? So I think we covered. I think that's most of them. Awesome. Yeah. I love that. I mean, it's it's interesting when you take a look at these things because while these things are core to successful organizations, it seems like we're always fixing these things

after the fact that they're ignored or we're not clear with employees on these things. You know, you have employees come into a company a lot of times. And in two months in, you go, do you understand what you do? And they go, nobody's ever told me what I'm supposed to do. How it, talk to me about, you know, onboarding and how important that. whole piece is for an organization to create success for the employee and the employer out of the shoots. Absolutely. Onboarding is so important. And I would say onboarding really starts at the point at which you even post a position, right? Because every touch point, every, every interaction is communicating something about how you roll, which, by the way, is the simple definition that I

use when I'm thinking about organizational culture. It's really how we do things here. Right. So orientation and even the employment process itself, interviewing, et cetera, is messaging a lot about how we do things here. And that help, when you do that really well and you do it proactively, you can be much more likely to filter through the employees who are going to love it working for you. And when you do it poorly, you're at higher risk of bringing someone in who actually is misfit. Now, the other thing I would say about onboarding is that it's a mutual assessment period. I'm often saying to clients, fire fast, which sounds horrible, right? Sounds like I'm brutal. But the first 90 days of an employee's experience with a company ought to be a time for mutual

assessment. It's like dating. Oh, yeah. You know, like, how's this going? How's it feeling? Is this working for me? And what often happens is we're so relieved to have the employee on board. the employee is so happy to be at that company that we have this honeymoon phase and we don't get practical and pragmatic around the hard truths that may need to be discussed to ensure that in fact, this is the right fit for us. And then we're three years in and we're having to have performance conversations and make decisions about whether that employee can move to a different job or a different company and it's expensive and it's exhausting and it's not really fun. So the way I like to think about is that the employee and the employer have a responsibility to, yes, deliver transparency about how

we roll mutually as early as you can and then keep it up and then talk about how it's going so that adjustments can be made on both sides to ensure that after 90 days, it's feeling awesome. And both parties are like, this is great. So this idea of setting expectations. It seems to be, I mean, unfortunately, it doesn't happen enough. And go ahead. Well, I should say, it doesn't happen enough. And it's really hard, isn't it, Adam?

I'm sure you've seen this in your companies. And I was thinking of an example as you were talking of it. I'm an employee, a client of mine many years ago who was hiring. I had stepped in as a EVP of people and culture for them. It was actually, well, I won't remain, I won't name the company because that probably wouldn't be good. But it was a big brand company that most people would know. And it was a big.

search to replace me. I was an interim with another person coming in to take that role. And gosh, I was very involved in the interviewing. We did an exhaustive interviewing process. We were really careful. We did testing. We felt so good with this candidate that was hired. And I was on site at headquarters when her first day happened. And I'll never forget because at the end of that day, I went to see her boss, who was a C-suite executive. And I had this nagging feeling in my stomach. I was like, this is not going to work out after spending one day with her. But I don't want to say anything because I was like, gosh, you know, what have we done? And he looked at me and he said, this is not going to work out.

And we both had this feeling of, man, in all that interviewing, we still missed some things about how she rolls versus how we roll. And this is going to be tough going. And it was. Now, she did stay at that company three years and then left. But yes, I think it's about being direct. I think it's about being honest. And I think it's about also really knowing yourself as an organization so that you don't delude the employee that they're joining something.

They're not. Awesome. And vice versa. All right. So you're speaking to a bunch of business owners out there right now. What is the biggest tip that you can tell them that is a non-negotiable in setting a great culture and a great future for their organization? Walk your talk. I love that.

Walk your talk. Do what you say you want others to do. And as you ask that question, of course, there's 50 things that come up to my mind. Right. You know what I mean? It's a cluttered landscape there for leaders around everything they have to do

to try to run their company well. But I think when we stay true to ourselves, when we have self-awareness and self-knowledge and we can behave in the way that is consistent with our values, and what we say matters, then at least we know we have congruence. Mo, where can we find you online if we want to learn more about these principles of developing our great culture and our organizations?

Thanks, Adam, for asking that. I'd love for people to connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm also on Instagram, just my name, Mo Carrick, and also my website, Momentum.com, spelled with an E. You can buy my books there and learn more. I'd love to connect. Awesome. Mo, this has been an amazing conversation.

I love all the workplace insight. You know, like I mentioned before, I mean, we've been through a lot of craziness over the past five years in the adjustments in the workforce, probably more change than we've ever seen in history in a short period of time. You've shed a lot of great insight and light on this on how we as leaders can continue to move the ball forward in our organizations. Mo, I have a question I ask all of the great leaders on the show. How do you start your day with a win? My favorite ritual, and it's changed over the years. and it's one I struggle with because I'll tell you why I struggle in a minute.

But my favorite ritual these days is having a cup of coffee with my husband. Grounding, we're empty nesters. He's semi-retired. I've always traveled a lot for business. And I find that sitting together, having that early cup of coffee, watching the birds, dealing with the pets, connecting is really a very grounding practice for me. And the part that's hard about that is that I've always been a person who works out first thing. You know, I've been a early morning workouter for my whole life.

And over the years, that's shifted. And so now what sometimes happens is we linger on our morning coffee, then I've got to get to work. Then it's 5 o'clock and I'm still in my workout clothes. And I haven't done anything. So I'm still trying to figure out how to make that routine win all the way around. Well, it sounds like your score and some points. there. So that's great. I mean, it's relationship and health are incredible things and actually finding yourself in the morning. I love that part of it. So Mo Carrick, thank you so much for all of

this insight and wisdom on workplace culture and really how to get it done. And I love that, you know, bullshit job piece you're talking about as well. So we appreciate all that you do. And thanks for being on Start with a Win. Thanks, Adam. Thanks so much for having me. Keep up the good work.