BOOK REVIEW
Book Title: Why Are We Here? Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants
Author: Jennifer Moss
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
List Price: $30.00
Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
Publication Date: January 2025
ISBN: 978-1647826130
Reviewer: Sarah Visser-Kincaid, PMP
Review Date: April 2025
Introduction
As a new supervisor of project managers and someone who wants to grow in their career while also avoiding burnout, I was drawn to this book by Jennifer Moss. I want to be a leader who provides meaning and purpose behind the work my team and I do every day. Being in the medical industry, the patient is our why, but there are also additional reasons we come to work. I opened Moss’s book, eager to learn more about how to encourage both myself and my team.
Overview of Book’s Structure
Moss’s introduction covers why we are here reading this book, including coming out of a global pandemic and burnout at work. She makes the case that to “build new cultures we are eager to be a part of” in the workplace, that we should look at applications from social and behavioral psychology research (pages 5-6). Moss focuses on one topic per chapter, starting with:
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- Hope (Chapter 1, which covers finding meaning and agency in paid work and goals);
- Purpose (Chapter 2, which covers understanding how our work benefits specific people and connects with our personal values); and
- Community (Chapter 3, which covers workplace friends, shared purpose, sacred lunches, and engaging with others).
Then she moves on to:
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- Compassion (Chapter 4, about understanding and addressing anxiety and fears around becoming obsolete);
- Freedom (Chapter 5, about flexibility, autonomy, and the return to the office, how to motivate people to be connected); and
- Openness (Chapter 6, about how to “integrate diverse viewpoints” across multiple generations in the workplace, while supporting employees at various life stages).
- She wraps up with Belonging (Chapter 7, focusing on the benefits of a diverse workforce who feel safe and are not treated with bias); and
- Recognition (Chapter 8, focusing on how women’s contributions to companies lead to profit and success if they are supported).
Each of these chapters also detail Moss’s own personal learnings from various people and corporations.
Highlights
This book is based on heavy research, with a 20-page “Notes” section with citations and a detailed index. There were some details that she set forth as known facts that I would have liked to see citations on, but some of those details might be in her earlier book, The Burnout Epidemic. In addition to research, there were also a lot of details from Moss’s coaching of various organizations to discourage burnout. Some of those examples of change and programs within corporations were very interesting.
More…
To read entire Book Review, click here
How to cite this review: Visser-Kincaid, S. (2025). Why Are We Here? Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants, book review, PM World Journal, Vol. XIX, Issue VI, June 2025. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/pmwj153-Jun2025-Visser-Kincaid-Why-Are-We-Here-book-review.pdf
About the Reviewer
Sarah Visser-Kincaid
Irving, Texas, USA
Sarah Visser-Kincaid works as a Project Manager Supervisor in the medical industry. She wants to know the why behind every activity, which makes her a good project manager and someone who connects tasks with a purpose for her team. Sarah enjoys cooking, bicycling in her local parks, and reading novels.
Editor’s note: This book review was the result of a partnership between the PM World Journal and the PMI Dallas Chapter. Authors and publishers provide books to the PM World Journal Editor; books are delivered to the PMI Dallas Chapter where they are offered free to PMI members who agree to provide a review within 45 days; book reviews are published in the PM World Journal and PM World Library. Reviewers can normally claim PDU’s for PMP recertification upon publication of their book reviews.
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