Page 50 - How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

THE MAKING OF ABUNDANCE

in a wide variety of even unpleasant circumstances. Not-
so-good news: we have to work at this meaning-making
process. It takes work to determine what work means, at
either a corporate or a personal level. Leaders have the pri-
mary responsibility for this meaning-making process.
At a personal level, inner dialogues shape and construct
this meaning. If I tell myself I’m not paid well because I’m
not respected for my skills, I build a different meaning than
if I tell myself how glad I am to work for an organization
that is fiscally responsible. If I tell myself my boss’s criticism
means he is trying to help me improve because he values
my contribution and wants me to succeed, I build different
meaning than if I tell myself his criticism is a forerunner
to my getting fired for incompetence. If I see my company
as a major contributor to solving the energy crisis, I have a
different feeling about the value of my labor than if I am
just crunching numbers for someone else’s selfish agenda.
As the story goes, I feel differently about the meaning of
my work if I see myself as a bricklayer than if I see myself as
building a cathedral to God.
At a corporate level, leaders can help shape and construct
the meaning employees assign to corporate realities, focusing
corporate consciousness on opportunities instead of deficits.
For example, when a corporation faces an industry downturn,
people generally get nervous. Employees scramble to protect
their budgets, make their own job perks sacrosanct, and push
someone else between them and the corporate ax (remember
Vicki’s story from Chapter 1). But when leaders in one tech-
nology company made clear to employees that every $50,000
in savings could save one job, people enthusiastically rallied
around cost cutting. As a result, employees were engaged,

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