Page 60 - How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

THE MAKING OF ABUNDANCE

to combat “organization divorce” characterized by burnout,
turnover, and lost productivity. When leaders help their
organization “families” move beyond the superficialities of
getting along to struggling through conflict so that they can
understand one another’s strengths and weaknesses, they
can approach the kind of synergy that occurs in the best
of human relationships. They gain a competitive advantage
over a less relationally sophisticated competitor. This means
that leaders need to learn and model the skills of building
good relationships at work. Lynda Gratton has captured
this sense of team cohesiveness with the term glow, which
includes a cooperative mind-set, jumping across bound-
aries, and igniting latent energy. 7

PRINCIPLE 3
Abundant organizations take work relationships beyond high-
performing teams to high-relating teams.

4. How Do I Build a Positive Work Environment?
(Effective Work Culture or Setting)

Abundance thrives on positive routines that help ground us
in what matters most. While bad habits thrive on isolation
and shame, positive routines help us connect with ourselves
and others. As McKell and his team focused on their future
identity, they wanted to establish a culture focused on build-
ing what is right, not just eliminating what is wrong. They
wanted to replace backbiting with forward thinking, poli-
tics with collaboration, and self-interest with other-directed
service.
Chapter 6 suggests ways leaders can create and sus-
tain positive routines to foster effectiveness, efficiency,

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