Most people already aware of the meaning of their work though, it's not something you can deliver updates on.

Whereas tension is easy to manufacture

Regarding updates: at your all-hands meetings, show inside customer success stories, and the real impact it had, or how your product/service is being used for great things?

(Different than a marketing testimonial, big sales landed, or charts showing financial growth.)

I worked for awhile in flight safety, almost entirely in software that I only ever ran on my laptop, and on servers seen through my laptop. I found that even little, but relatively concrete, reminders that I fit into this larger system of aviation, where great things are done, by very dedicated people, were nice occasional refreshers of inspiration.

> Most people already aware of the meaning of their work though, it's not something you can deliver updates on.

It isn't always. I did use to write health care software. It was used by "SLPs" and dozens of other acronyms I barely understood what they meant. Their clients had "FASD" and abuse victims and all sorts of things.

I was given a spec, we need this, it needs to have these fields, and these words, and I made it happen.

I never saw our software used in the wild. I never spoke with the clients that used our software, I never saw the difference that they made in childrens lives.

The more time we could save the clinicians and therapists and others, the more time they could spend helping their clients.

It was meaningful, but I never saw any of that. Maybe once or twice a year our boss would come in and explain some of that stuff to us. It was nice to hear.