Page 39 - Make Work Great

It Starts with You

and religion that are beyond the scope of this book. When elements
of your workplace encourage or even hint that you should go outside
your ethical comfort zone, the decision of how to respond is always
an important, deeply personal one and should never be approached
lightly.
It is not the intent of this book to encourage any behavior that is
even remotely unethical. You’ll see as you read that quite the contrary
is true: our purpose here is to encourage honesty and transparency
even in the most diffi cult situations. Again, should you interpret any-
thing presented here as an invitation to act outside the bounds of
ethical behavior, you have misunderstood and should quickly seek a
different interpretation.

Don’t Use All Your Time
The intent of this book is to teach crystal building as a disciplined,
regular practice that requires a small amount of time each and every
workday. As a professional, you are more than capable of managing
your own time, and you may choose a fi xed or fl exible schedule to
suit you. Be advised, though, that if this activity begins to get in the
way of other tasks—either competence in your job, as mentioned
earlier, or your life’s other priorities—you may be spending too much
time at it. As with exercise or investing, the key here is a reasonable
and steady habitual regimen that you can stick with over the long
term, not a short burst of activity followed by burnout.

Don’t Get Impatient
Sprinters and marathon runners have very different jobs. In recent
years, we have come to evaluate the work of organizations as if it were
a sprint, with quarterly and annual results becoming the primary
measuring sticks for success. We’re driven by what we defi ne as mar-
ket forces, and market forces are driven by earnings reports. So we
keep our eyes focused on only a few weeks or months from today.
Culture change—and, arguably, organizational output—is a long-
term endeavor. Successful companies last years and decades; they do
so with well-established foundations of capability and capacity. These

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