Page 103 - How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

THE WHY OF WORK

or a thoughtful student examining inner motivations and
feelings. At its best, insight promotes awareness, thoughtful-
ness, creativity, and deep appreciation for what is good in this
moment. This person looks at a baby’s first smile and thinks,
“Look at that! I wonder what is going on in that little mind
of his.”
There are also low-abundance versions of insight. At
a less abundant level we might imagine a hermit who has
withdrawn into a highly personalized but redundant world,
a depressed individual ruminating over his inadequacies, or
a couch potato in front of a television set. Low-abundance
employees may drift through the halls of the workplace with
little sense of passion for their work, doing the minimum,
staying under the radar, going through motions with little
sense of self-efficacy or even desire.
The movie A Beautiful Mind portrays a range of possibili-
ties from this quadrant. In this film an extremely intelligent
and creative professor develops groundbreaking mathemati-
cal formulas and theories but also wrestles with the demon of
schizophrenia and must fight against delusions and paranoia.
At his worst, this individual becomes lost in the idiosyncratic
world of his illness. At his best he becomes a Nobel Prize
winner whose passion for his theories and formulas sparks
creativity and insight in others.
People motivated by insight might find deep meaning in
the world of ideas, in creating theories about themselves or
the world, or in being mindful, present, and aware of their
moment-by-moment experience. They know instinctively
that self-awareness is the ultimate virtue. In this category we
remember that all we really have is the present moment and
that in that precise moment even great suffering can be bear-

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