In 1930, the factory floor was a place of silence, and the worker was simply a gear in a machine. But when the "human element" became unpredictable during the Great Depression, management did something radical: they asked how employees felt. This was the birth of the employee survey, a tool originally designed to turn human resentment into a statistical average. Today, we still use these forms to calibrate the system, but true leadership requires shifting from measuring engagement to mapping safety.