Page 64 - How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

THE MAKING OF ABUNDANCE

and more about moving in the right direction. Resilience
reflects a positive outlook on work and shapes learning for
the future rather than lamenting the past. 11
Research on personal resilience and learning organi-
zations offers exciting insights into what helps people and
institutions endure in the face of both suffering and setbacks.
By studying what helps POWs survive and thrive, how Navy
Seals can be trained to stay calm under attack, and what
abused children who become successful have in common,
we get hints about how leaders encourage learning under
conditions of stress and challenge.
Unlike the assumption of disposability that governs so
much of modern society, resilience and learning principles
challenge us to “repair, reuse, and recycle” people, products,
and programs rather than tossing them. In tough economic
environments organizations will necessarily reduce staff,
drop products, and cut nonessential programs; nevertheless,
hiring freezes and reduced funds for research and develop-
ment also mean we must work with whom and what we have.
Abundance means we not only learn attitudes of resilience
that help us thrive under stress; we also use these principles
to make do with what we have. As we do so we come to real-
ize that what we have is actually enough.

PRINCIPLE 6
Abundant organizations use principles of growth, learning, and
resilience to respond to change.

7. What Delights Me? (Civility and Happiness)

Abundance thrives on simple pleasures. Sources of delight
might include laughing at ourselves, appreciating excellence,

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