Success as a Zero-sum Game

When (as related in my last ezine) Charles Handy attended his father's funeral, he saw a community pour out its love for a quiet and humble man. This experience changed his life. He came to see that if success means the pursuit of more, and more, and still more, it is foolish:

If you follow the god of More, you never win. That is because there will always be more.

Instead, he became converted to what he called the Doctrine of Enough:

The Doctrine of Enough says that if you can work out what Enough is, then and only then are you able to stop at Enough.

I too am a convert. "No idea," I wrote in 2003, "has had a more liberating impact on me over these last fifteen years." But I am in a minority. The prevailing view still links success with the pursuit of more money. As Harvard academics Laura Nash and Howard Stevenson say in a newly published book, Just Enough:

Jim Warner's study of 200 CEOs primarily drawn from the high-achieving Young Presidents Organization revealed that 70 percent reported feeling "driven" to achieve financial independence and 60 percent felt ready for a life change for negative reasons. They felt they were losing out on something else.

 

We call this the "success versus" view. Success is a big monument to financial achievement, which is placed in a dualistic trade-off with something else: success versus family, success versus self, success versus society. Choices around success then become a zero sum game: it's about choosing to go after financial goals versus other desires.

So what's the alternative? Can you maximise your career success, and have a great family life, and give generously to the community, and invest in yourself? Or is this an absurd pipe-dream?