Page 231 - Make Work Great

Leading Your Crystal

This is not to say that we should idly permit faulty nodes to thrive
in our networks. Both our computer networks and our crystalline
workplace structures benefi t when we raise the quality of all nodes
involved. Performance upgrades are good for the system.
But they don’t have to happen all at once. We don’t go out and
upgrade the whole Internet. At any given time, some nodes perform bet-
ter than others. Sometimes we fi x or remove the less-functional units;
other times we enhance the output of the high performers. Either strat-
egy is good for overall performance. And sometimes, when things are
working well enough, we just sit back and let the network do its thing.
When you avoid the viral roles of rescuer, persecutor, and vic-
tim, and instead focus on real information transfer (on practicing
overtness about your tasks and clarity within your relationships), you
become a high-performing node. In following the guidance of this

book, you also begin to influence many of the nodes around you—
your neighbors in both the physical and the metaphorical sense—to
be high performers too.
At the end of the day, that’s all you or anyone else can do. After
all, an organization is nothing more than the people who comprise it.
All output of the computer network comes from one or more of the
computers within it, and all output of the human organization comes
from one or more of the humans within it. You are no more or less
a part of that network than anyone else, no more or less a part of it
than you choose to be. If there’s a problem with the way your business
world works, it lies in that network. Any solution—any strategy to
make work great—lies there as well. It must, because there is noth-
ing else—nothing to complain about, nothing to infl uence, nothing
to benefi t from, and nothing to enjoy—other than yourself and the
people around you.
This book opened with a note of warning. You’re not as autono-
mous as you think you are. Be aware of the choices you make.
It closes now with a note of hope and gratitude for the benefi t we
all receive from the crystalline network. To make a real change, inter-
dependence—not autonomy—is the key. You can encourage the people

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