We suggest that whether they think of it explicitly or not, people take one of two fundamental stances: life is something that they are inventing, or life is something that happens to them, and they react to their circumstances. When people make this second choice, they are doing two things. They are absolving themselves of responsibility, which can seem like an easy course to take. But they are also cutting themselves off from the power to improve their circumstances, and to build their own identity in the world. The widespread presence of moods of cynicism, victimization and resentment demonstrate the prevalence of this attitude in many of our institutions today. These moods are a major obstacle of teamwork, as well as to building the trust across the functions of an organization that is required for crossfunctional initiatives. -Fernando Flores, Conversations For Action (and other essays)
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 17:39:39 +0000