The story of Sisyphus is one of the most enduring cautionary tales from ancient Greece. It tells of a king who, due to his hubris and deceitful ways, is condemned by the gods to a life of eternal servitude.
Since Sisyphus’ offenses often included taking advantage of others with his craftiness (including his own citizens, whom he was supposed to govern with fairness and compassion), the gods devised a punishment that was designed to be especially clever and cruel. In a fate that has now become infamous, he was made to push a large boulder up a steep hill for all of eternity. However, each time he neared the top, the boulder would roll all the way back down, erasing all of his painstaking progress and forcing him to start all over again.
The inhumanity of the punishment wasn't just the physical exertion, it was the futility of the task. An endless cycle of effort without progress; labor without any sense or meaning.
While the story of Sisyphus is merely a myth, you can see some eerie parallels in many workplaces. In fact, many managers and people leaders could learn a thing or two from studying this ancient punishment, as studies from behavioral economics have shown that, if you treat your employees’ work like Sisyphus’ boulder, money won’t be enough to keep them motivated.
In 2008, a research team led by Dan Ariely, Emir Kamenica, and Drazen Prelec conducted a fascinating study on employee motivation (and, critically, de-motivation). Essentially, they wanted to measure how the perceived meaning of a task impacted the willingness of others to perform it.
The researchers randomly assigned participants to one of two groups. Both groups were asked to build small Lego models (specifically, Bionicles, for any hardcore Lego fans out there). The financial incentives for both groups were identical (and declining):
$2.00 for the first model
$1.89 for the second
$1.78 for the third
And so on, decreasing by 11 cents per model.
Participants could stop whenever they wanted (i.e., whenever they determined that the payout was no longer worth the effort to receive it). The difference between the two groups was not in the task itself, but instead lay entirely in what happened to their models after they had been completed.
Group A: Delayed Deconstruction, or The “Meaning” Condition
Members of the first group were told that, once they decided to stop, all of their models would be deconstructed so the bricks could be used for the next participant. However, as they built, their finished models were gently placed on the desk in front of them, accumulating as a visual representation of their labor.
Group B: Immediate Deconstruction, or The “Sisyphus” Condition
Members of the second group faced a different reality. As soon as they finished a model and handed it over, the researchers began taking it apart immediately, right before their eyes. Any progress they had made evaporated before their eyes. And, in fact, to build the next model, the participant was often handed the very bricks they had just used to assemble a model moments ago.
The economic incentive was exactly the same for both groups. Consequently, a rational economic model would predict that both groups should build the same number of models (since the pay-for-effort ratio was identical). But human beings are not merely cold, economic calculators - they are emotional beings whose behavior also depends on things like how they feel about the work they’re doing. Case-in-point:
Group A (The “Meaning” Condition) built, on average, eleven models.
Group B (The “Sisyphus” Condition) built, on average, only seven models.
By simply destroying the work in front of the participants - stripping the task of even the smallest sense of accomplishment or acknowledgement of effort - productivity plummeted. The incentive hadn’t changed, but any sense of meaning that the task may have had did.
Why does “watching your work get dismantled” reduce motivation so quickly? Because it impacts multiple psychological drivers at once:
Progress: If evidence of output disappears, the mind stops registering forward movement.
Competence: When results are treated as disposable, skill feels irrelevant.
Agency: If effort doesn’t change anything, choice starts to feel performative.
Identity: People want to be contributors, not temporary labor that leaves no trace.
We all want to know our work matters. The ancient Greeks intuited it, as the punishment of Sisyphus was not the pushing, per se, but the pointlessness of the pushing. Modern psychology echoes the same truth: labor that goes unacknowledged drains motivation, even when the rewards don’t change.
As a leader, you get to shape the story of the work. You can be the cruel god who quietly resets the boulder, or the guide who clears the path and cheers the team as they press further upward on the ridge. The choice shows up in small habits: whether you explain why tasks and rules exist, whether you recognize progress, whether you let people see how their work meaningfully contributes to their teammates, your clients, and - where possible - the wider world.
The Lego experiments make this incredibly clear. When people watch their creations - their effort - dismantled in front of them with no acknowledgement, their eagerness to keep building drops fast.
It isn’t about the pay: even with the same financial incentives, if your employees feel like Sisyphus, pushing endlessly with no lasting result, they won’t keep pushing for long. But if you protect meaning, make progress visible, and treat effort as something that builds rather than disappears, you’ll get a team of people who believe the climb is worth it.
Most leaders don’t intend to make work feel meaningless. But common organizational habits can recreate the same psychological experience:
Projects that are repeatedly started, stopped, and restarted without explanation
Deliverables that disappear into a void with no feedback or follow-up
Work that gets reworked endlessly because “the goalposts moved”
Recognition that focuses only on outcomes, ignoring effort and learning
“Urgent” asks that are later abandoned without closure
Over time, people learn a lesson that looks like disengagement but feels - from their perspective - more like self-protection: “There’s no point in pushing too hard; the boulder will roll back anyway.”
However, while signals of impermanence or erasure can create disengagement fast, even small signals of permanence - saving work, building on previous work, documenting wins, showing outcomes - can reinforce motivation.
Here’s the good news: you don’t need constant employee appreciation events or a grandiose purpose statement to increase engagement. As the Lego study proves, it’s heavily tied to the feeling that our work matters; that we’re producing something that "sticks" rather than evaporates into the ether once it leaves our desk. You just need to find ways to incorporate (or protect) the day-to-day signals that tell people their effort counts.
Below are a few high-level practices for how leaders can avoid inadvertently setting a “Sisyphus trap” for their people:
Make work visible and cumulative: Show how today’s output becomes tomorrow’s input. Document decisions, reference past work, and let people see how the thread of their effort runs through the entire organization.
Explain why change is happening, don’t just announce it: If a project is cancelled (which happens in business), explain the reasoning; when priorities shift, narrate why. Context can turn a "waste of time" into a "strategic pivot.”
Close the loop: If someone ships a deliverable, tell them what happened next. Even a short update (e.g., “this influenced X”) restores a sense of impact.
Recognize effort (and do it with sincerity and specificity): You don’t need to throw a parade for every completed task, but simple acknowledgment validates that the work happened. A "thank you," a review of the work, or a question about the process can be enough (e.g., “I was impressed by this part - can you walk me through how you did that?”). However, remember: generic praise fades. Specific recognition (“Your analysis clarified the decision and saved us time”) reinforces competence and meaning.
Show the impact: Connect individual tasks to the broader company goals. Let the coder see how the user interacts with the feature; let the salesperson see the customer using the product.
Reduce “undoing” where possible: If rework is necessary, frame it as iteration toward a clearer goal, not as a reset. People can tolerate hard work that changes, but they struggle with hard work that is then completely erased.