I was walking down a long hallway in a room where hundreds of people were working. The place felt lifeless- people seemed reluctant to be there, spoke in low tones, and moved slowly, as if they were dragging heavy weights behind them. My companion seemed to read my mind as she remarked, “Here we house the legions of the walking dead.”
In the words of Thoreau, they are living lives of “quiet desperation.”
Managers tend to recognize the slow death of their people and they tend to complain about it. They speak as if it were a constraint. They do not see it as an opportunity. Making deep change in such situations is what a leader does
(Quinn, The Deep Change Field Guide: pg. 29).
Reflection
When have I seen people in slow death?
How have I helped them?
How could we use this passage to create a more positive organization?
