In either good or bad markets, without bottom-line results organizations will simply fold, leaving even able workers twiddling their thumbs. Organizations in any economy must also make sense to the people who compose them. When our organizations enact our highest values and embody our best aspirations, they inspire our best efforts, and nothing short of our best efforts will keep us afloat when storms are raging and the ship has sprung a leak—or when fair winds lull us into lethargy and hubris.
In the 2009 recession, many governments bailed out companies with toxic assets. Bailing out sinking ships is a bad analogy for what makes organizations seaworthy, however. Before setting out for open seas, we must not only bail out the water but fix the leaks. Organization leaks occur not only when leaders fail to provide great products and solid returns, but also when they waver on ethical principles, isolate themselves from the consequences of their choices, abdicate responsibilities for strategy and innovation, or drop the ball of timely action. Organization leaks also occur when employees put in their time but don’t invest their hearts, when they abandon creativity or integrity, or when they lose sight of the impact of their work. Organizations that survive in recessions and thrive during recovery will have leaders who consistently offer employees both economic well-being and an abundance of meaning and purpose.
In both lean and prosperous times, an organization’s values are tested and forged, setting the stage for the future. Meaning is shaped or dissipated. Loyalties are won or lost. Talent and skill are honed or abandoned. Creativity and problem-solving skill are developed or undermined. And future sustainability is either ensured or threatened.
We need abundant organizations in deficit-dominated contexts that challenge our existing sense of meaning and growth-dominated contexts that give rise to expansion. Even when the world economy improves, the ghosts of our “psychological recession”4 haunt us. Financial challenges are embedded in larger trends that permeate society.
In downturns people feel an increasing sense of malaise, anomie, and isolation that robs them of meaning and direction. Crises in financial markets echo the crises in personal lives and social movements—crises that, almost by definition, undercut our ability to make sense of our lives and figure out what to do next. Crises sabotage the daily routines that have grown out of our values, beliefs, and past experience. Crises threaten the assumptions that we hold without even realizing it about what life means in both good times and in bad. In brief, crises increase our sense of malaise, anomie, isolation, or deficit, robbing us all of meaning and hope.
Frankl’s why and how questions about meaning apply in both bad and good markets, at work and at home, in domestic settings as well as in organizations that span the globe. Good times can temporarily distract us from such questions, but the questions always come back around. As Frankl suggests, the search for meaning is more about how we think than about the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Deficit thinking can abound even in the midst of plenty.
In the 2009 recession, many governments bailed out companies with toxic assets. Bailing out sinking ships is a bad analogy for what makes organizations seaworthy, however. Before setting out for open seas, we must not only bail out the water but fix the leaks. Organization leaks occur not only when leaders fail to provide great products and solid returns, but also when they waver on ethical principles, isolate themselves from the consequences of their choices, abdicate responsibilities for strategy and innovation, or drop the ball of timely action. Organization leaks also occur when employees put in their time but don’t invest their hearts, when they abandon creativity or integrity, or when they lose sight of the impact of their work. Organizations that survive in recessions and thrive during recovery will have leaders who consistently offer employees both economic well-being and an abundance of meaning and purpose.
In both lean and prosperous times, an organization’s values are tested and forged, setting the stage for the future. Meaning is shaped or dissipated. Loyalties are won or lost. Talent and skill are honed or abandoned. Creativity and problem-solving skill are developed or undermined. And future sustainability is either ensured or threatened.
We need abundant organizations in deficit-dominated contexts that challenge our existing sense of meaning and growth-dominated contexts that give rise to expansion. Even when the world economy improves, the ghosts of our “psychological recession”4 haunt us. Financial challenges are embedded in larger trends that permeate society.
In downturns people feel an increasing sense of malaise, anomie, and isolation that robs them of meaning and direction. Crises in financial markets echo the crises in personal lives and social movements—crises that, almost by definition, undercut our ability to make sense of our lives and figure out what to do next. Crises sabotage the daily routines that have grown out of our values, beliefs, and past experience. Crises threaten the assumptions that we hold without even realizing it about what life means in both good times and in bad. In brief, crises increase our sense of malaise, anomie, isolation, or deficit, robbing us all of meaning and hope.
Frankl’s why and how questions about meaning apply in both bad and good markets, at work and at home, in domestic settings as well as in organizations that span the globe. Good times can temporarily distract us from such questions, but the questions always come back around. As Frankl suggests, the search for meaning is more about how we think than about the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Deficit thinking can abound even in the midst of plenty.
