This Week’s Good Work Insight

I like Pat Lencioni’s books because they start with stories and end with principles–extended Aesop’s Fables for organizations.

Good principles help make our work stories, family stories, spiritual stories better-- like guiding constellations.

Good stories keep our interest. And we remember them.

The Parable of Lazarus and The Rich Man was part of my reading this week. I don’t want sores. And I surely don’t want dogs licking my sores. But most of all I do really-really-really not want to be the nameless Rich Man in the story.

I was reading Arthur Brooks again, and this line struck me: “One of the reasons failure can be so crushing is that we set goals of success, instead of improvement and learning.”

There is a relationship between happiness and the goals of learning and improving.

If you are a leader interviewing, look for the habits of learning and growth in your candidates.

If you are a candidate, be prepared to share instances of improvement and learning.

Refrain: “To live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often. . . . Growth is the only evidence of life.” (If I had a tattoo on my left forearm, I would have these words by Newman in Gaudy Old Style.)

Cordially,

CEO & Founder

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