Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Huainanzi - Entry 30

Trey Smith

What enables a nation to survive is benevolence and justice; what enables people to live is practical virtue. A nation without justice will perish even if it is large; people without goodwill will be wounded even if they are brave.
~ a passage from
The Book of Leadership and Strategy by Thomas Cleary ~
Why is it that an unjust nation cannot survive for too long? I think history has shown that injustice is the engine for unrest and unrest leads to a host of problems. Let's look at just one of these many problems.

When a citizenry believes that their society is unjust, it hurts productivity. Why put your all into your work if you truly don't believe you will be able to get ahead and/or be fairly rewarded? If you know ahead of time that your efforts will go unnoticed or someone farther up the food chain will garner all the accolades, this easily can thwart the motivation to perform at a high level.

So, you trudge off to work each day. You do what is asked of you, but little more. The bosses keep trying to wring greater productivity out of fewer workers, but the dampened morale stifles the potential for greater success.

In time, the decreased productivity begins to impact the owners. The bottom line doesn't look as pretty as it used to. So, they apply even more pressure to produce on an already demoralized workforce. At some juncture, the pressure becomes too much for the beleaguered workers and, in one way or another, they explode.

To read the introduction to this ongoing series, go here.

1 comment:

  1. Great Post Trey.

    What is interesting is that capitalism is suppose to foster and create motivated people. Most of the time the only people that are motivated are the people on the top though. I have worked for years and witnessed human potentiality being spoiled. Instead of a motivated organization of people, you end up with lethargic, who gives a shit, fakers. Unfortunately, most of the work force in the USA is in this condition. This inefficiency is destroying this country. If only the owners and leaders of business's would realize that their main goal should not about themselves, but others interest is their best interest. Just like a company's success is found by having the customer's interest first, so it is when an employer puts the employee's interest first is met with success

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