Page 41 - How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

THE WHY OF WORK

TV shows stage win-lose battles over everything from
cooking to apprenticeships, while others make us voyeurs
in domestic arguments. Political dialogue is less about
solving problems and more about staking out a position
and being louder than one’s opponent. Bipartisanship is
as outdated as rotary phones and landlines. In 1976, 26.8
percent of voters in the United States lived in a county
where one presidential candidate won by more than 20
percentage points. The number of people living in these
“landslide counties” increased to 38 percent in 1992, to
45.3 percent in 2000, and to 48.3 percent in 2004 and
2008. This partisanship indicates pockets of increasing
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homogeneity in our neighborhoods, reducing the oppor-
tunity to learn to get along with those who see the world
differently. In personal relationships, getting our way gets
in our way, as compromise and civility are replaced with
contention and hostility. In work settings, we mistakenly
see competing with each other as the pathway to com-
petitive advantage. Win-lose battles crowd out win-win
solutions. A false hope of the me-first mind-set is that
winning will bring personal satisfaction, when it more
often leads to emotional isolation. Civility and happiness
come when people find delight in their work setting.

These daunting trends suggest that many people you lead
face personal and societal demands that affect their well-
being, their families, their communities, and inevitably their
work experience. Even in the world’s wealthiest nations,
deficit thinking predominates. Workers at all levels respond
by giving up on traditional dreams, isolating themselves,
reducing their expectations, becoming dependent on gov-
ernment or others for support, or finding temporary escape

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