Framework
Fulfillment Theory
When people are fulfilled, they do better work. Not because they're trying harder, but because they care more. They bring creativity, ownership, and energy that can't be demanded, only unlocked. That changes everything. The quality of work. The health of the team. The trajectory of the company. This framework shows you how.
The Challenge
Most leaders can sense when something's off. The team is doing the work, but there's no spark. People aren't bringing ideas. They're not leaning in. They complete tasks, but they're not invested in the outcome.
It's easy to misdiagnose this. To assume it's a motivation problem, or a culture problem, or that you just need to hire different people. But disengagement isn't a character flaw. It's a symptom. When people aren't invested, it's because the conditions for investment don't exist. They're not fulfilled by the work. And fulfillment isn't something you can buy. It's something you design for.
What Is Fulfillment?
Fulfillment looks different for everyone, but three questions can help you understand where someone stands:
Do I love the work I do?
→ Passion
Do I believe the work I do matters?
→ Purpose
Can I see the impact my work has?
→ Progress
When someone can genuinely say yes to all three, you've likely found someone who's fulfilled in their work. When even one is missing, something feels off, even if they can't articulate what.
Fulfillment Theory Overview
You can't manufacture passion, purpose, or progress. These emerge from within, or they don't. But as a leader, you're not powerless. You have three levers: Clarity, Collaboration, and Connection. Create the conditions, and fulfillment follows.
What leaders commit to
What emerges where commitments overlap
Everyone knows what we're doing, why, and how.
We work together. No silos, no "not my job."
People feel seen, valued, and part of something.
Energy and enthusiasm for the work itself.
Knowing your work matters and why.
Visible movement toward meaningful goals.
All three pursuits present. The goal.
The Three Commitments (The Three C's)
These are the areas leaders must commit to. Without commitment, they don't happen. You define the culture. You protect the culture. These are your levers.
Clarity
Everyone knows what we're doing, what's important, why we do it, who's accountable, and how we get things done.
What clarity looks like:
- Vision and mission are understood, not just posted
- Priorities are explicit and regularly communicated
- Roles and accountability are clear
- Processes exist and are followed
- New information is shared quickly
Why it matters:
Without clarity, people spin their wheels. They can't feel passion for work they don't understand or purpose in outcomes they can't see. Confusion breeds frustration and disengagement.
Collaboration
No "that's not my job." We work together. We're better together. No one is perfect on their own.
What collaboration looks like:
- Teams function as integrated units
- Open communication across roles
- Shared accountability for outcomes
- People help each other without being asked
- Fewer mistakes because more eyes are involved
Why it matters:
Isolation kills connection and limits growth. Collaboration creates shared ownership and collective progress. When people work together, their work connects to something larger than themselves.
Connection
Feeling valued by others. Shared experiences. Seeing coworkers as humans with their own struggles, not just units you work with.
What connection looks like:
- People know each other beyond their roles
- Vulnerability and honesty are safe
- Shared experiences create bonds
- Empathy drives interactions
- People exceed expectations because they care
Why it matters:
People need to feel like they belong. Connection is what makes work meaningful beyond the task itself. It humanizes coworkers, turning "units you work with" into people you actually care about.
The Three Pursuits (The Three P's)
These are what people and organizations pursue. You can't manufacture them directly. You commit to the three C's, and the three P's emerge where they overlap.
Passion
"I love the work that I do."
The joy derived from the work itself. When activated, time passes unnoticed, and challenges become growth opportunities rather than obstacles.
Emerges from Collaboration + Connection
Purpose
"I believe the work I do matters."
The internal meaning someone derives from their work. This isn't about external validation but personal significance found in serving others, solving problems, or creating quality.
Emerges from Connection + Clarity
Progress
"I can see the impact my work has."
The momentum achieved through measurable improvement. Not just activity, but appropriate movement.
Emerges from Clarity + Collaboration
A Note on Progress
Progress deserves special attention because it's the most misunderstood of the three outputs.
Progress is not about velocity or volume. It's not about how many tasks you complete or how busy you are. Progress is about appropriate movement.
"Progress is moving the right thing the right amount in the right amount of time."
You can spend an entire day on one thing and feel deeply fulfilled if it moved the right amount. You can also feel unfulfilled after that same day if the thing didn't move far enough despite all your effort.
Conversely, you can touch many things briefly and feel deeply fulfilled because each got the right amount of movement. Both deep work and breadth work when the movement matches the investment.
The trap is confusing activity with progress. The productivity industry sells activity (tasks completed, hours logged), but activity is a vanity metric. Progress is what actually creates fulfillment.
Case Study: Saturday Drive
I've been running this operating system for over a decade. Here's what it looks like in practice.
10+ Years of Retention
Many team members have stayed 10+ years, almost all 5+ years. This is rare in small software businesses where people typically leave every 2-3 years.
The Fulfillment Theory explains why. The culture creates Clarity (clear roles, priorities, accountability), Collaboration (no silos, cross-functional work), and Connection (people feel valued, shared experiences). The result is a team that stays.
What We Do
SDS Summit
Annual company summit — fly the entire team to one location for a week. Presentations, games, meals together, Golden Gas Cap awards where the team votes on superlatives and core value awards for each other. High-intensity connection that fuels everything else.
OnRamp Podcast
Weekly video podcast from the three owners for 8 years running. We tell jokes, share stories, answer team questions, talk about what's happening in the company. The team sees our faces, hears our tone. It's way better than posted messages.
Ciircles App
We built our own internal tool to replace Notion, Basecamp, and BambooHR. One source of truth for communications, HR, and project management. Includes features like Jukebox — listen to music together in real-time, no matter where you are in the world.
PACE Team
Cross-functional operations leadership — product, engineering, customer success, AI, CEO, and COO all represented. Biweekly meetings plus async communication. Every department has a seat. Decisions flow back to teams through their representatives.
Fitness Checkups
Regular evaluations where fulfillment is one of the metrics we actually measure. Surveys that go both ways — not just top-down assessment, but understanding how people are actually feeling about their work.
Pulse Surveys
Bottom-up clarity. The team tells leadership the real state of things. Clarity isn't just top-down communication — it's also knowing what's actually happening on the ground.
Onboarding System
New hires get the full picture from day one. Not just how to do the job, but why we do things the way we do, who everyone is, and how to actually connect with the team. Culture either transmits during onboarding or it doesn't.
What Didn't Work For Us
These might work for other teams, but they didn't fit us.
All-Hands Video Calls
Tried all-team video calls for connection. People don't engage. Large group video calls create pressure without intimacy. You can't have real conversation with 20+ people on a screen.
Connection requires either high intensity (in-person) or low friction (async). Large synchronous video calls are neither.
Key Insight: In-Person Fuels Remote
The in-person rituals (summit, Golden Gas Caps) make the remote practices more effective. Once you've sat around a table with someone, the async channels and shared tools feel different. In-person connection fuels remote connection.
When to Use This Framework
- When designing team culture from scratch
- When diagnosing why people are disengaged
- When onboarding new team members
- When evaluating management practices
- When something feels "off" on the team but you can't name it
- When retention is dropping and you don't know why
When Not to Use It
- As a checklist to fake culture. This has to be real. People can tell when connection is performative.
- As an excuse to ignore compensation. Fulfillment doesn't replace fair pay. It's an addition, not a substitute.
- As a quick fix. These inputs take time to build. There's no shortcut.
Diagnose Which Pursuit Is Weak
Start by identifying what's missing. Look for these signs in individuals and across the organization.
Lacking Progress
In individuals: High activity, low output. People are busy but can't point to results. Tasks get started but not finished. Same problems keep resurfacing.
In the organization: Projects stall. Goals slip. Metrics are flat. The team is active but not advancing.
Lacking Passion
In individuals: People aren't bringing ideas. They do what's asked but nothing more. No proactive problem-solving. They don't volunteer for new challenges.
In the organization: Low participation in discussions. Meetings are silent until someone is called on. Nobody pushes back or offers alternatives. New initiatives struggle to find owners.
Lacking Purpose
In individuals: People can't articulate why their work matters when asked. They focus on tasks, not outcomes. They don't connect their work to the bigger picture.
In the organization: Conversations are about what and how, never why. Impact isn't discussed. Wins are checked off, not celebrated. The mission statement exists but nobody references it.
Identify Which Commitment Is Weakest
Once you know which pursuit is lacking, you know which two commitments to examine. Which shows more of these signs?
Clarity
- People ask the same questions repeatedly
- Different answers about priorities
- Work gets duplicated or misordered
- Decisions feel arbitrary or get revisited
- Information travels slowly
- People don't know who owns what
Collaboration
- "That's not my job" is common
- Teams work in silos
- Problems handed off, not solved together
- Quality issues from fewer eyes
- Finger-pointing when things go wrong
- People protect their territory
Connection
- Interactions are purely transactional
- People don't know each other beyond role
- Patience is thin, no benefit of doubt
- No personal sharing or asking
- People leave for anything better
- Feels like coworkers, not a team
Strengthen the Weak Commitment
These are starting points, not a checklist. The specific actions depend on your team and culture.
Strengthen Clarity
Audit your communication channels: What happens in private that could happen in public? When decisions are made behind closed doors, how do they reach everyone else?
- Document and communicate vision, priorities, and roles
- Make expectations explicit for every project and role
- Create a single source of truth for key decisions
- When decisions are made, communicate the reasoning, not just the outcome
- Share information faster and more consistently
- Hold regular check-ins to ensure alignment
Check: Does everyone know what we're doing and why?
Strengthen Collaboration
Examine your team structure: Are people set up to work together, or just next to each other? Do projects naturally involve multiple people, or do they silo by default?
- Break down silos by creating cross-functional projects
- Establish shared ownership of outcomes, not just tasks
- Build processes that require input from multiple people before shipping
- Create forums where teams share what they're working on
- Celebrate collaborative wins, not just individual achievements
- Make "that's not my job" culturally unacceptable
Check: Are people working together or in parallel?
Strengthen Connection
Evaluate the rhythm of human interaction: Do people have regular opportunities to connect as humans, or only as functions? Is connection built into how you work, or bolted on as an afterthought?
- Create high-intensity touchpoints (in-person gatherings, retreats, shared meals)
- Build low-friction ambient connection (casual channels, shared playlists, water cooler spaces)
- Make vulnerability and honesty safe through leadership modeling
- Help people know each other beyond their roles
- Acknowledge personal milestones and struggles
- Invest in shared experiences that create stories people tell later
Check: Do people see each other as humans or just functions?
All three commitments need attention, but you don't have to solve all three at once. Diagnose the pursuit that's weakest, identify which commitment is causing it, focus there first. The others will become easier to address.
Want to apply this to your team?
I work with leaders to diagnose what's missing and design cultures where people find fulfillment. Let's talk about what that could look like for you.