Think for a moment about the people or organizations in your life that have rubbed you the wrong way. Maybe they didn’t treat you right or you were completely ripped off. Or maybe a company’s actions seemed only self-serving without giving anything back.
We’ve all been there.
Today’s post drives at one core motivation in humans and organizations: how we see our access and relationship to resources.
Scarcity Thinkers say that there is a limit to what is available
The pie will not get any bigger. If you have a piece of pie, then you must have taken it from me. If I want a bigger piece, then I must take some from you. And there are not enough resources to make another pie.
People who believe in scarcity have a pessimistic outlook on life. They are in constant competition. They believe that resources are fixed and nothing more is coming. So they will not share what they have.
Examples of scarcity thinkers:
- Microsoft offering $1 for every retweet after the tragedy in Japan
- Managers that rule by pulling rank instead of leading by empowering employees
- Every company that teaches customer service reps to say, “Sorry, that’s our policy,” instead of finding a solution (read Good customer service comes from the process not the end result)
- Pre-haunted Ebenezer Scrooge
Abundance Thinkers says that there is always more
If we run out of pie, then we’ll simply make another one. And another one. You and I can both have enough pie to fulfill our needs. I don’t need to take yours in order to have mine.
People who believe in abundance have an optimistic outlook on life. They are builders and lifters and work in cooperation. They are willing, and often anxious, to give what they have because more will be supplied.
Examples of abundance thinkers:
- Sites, such as Hubspot, that give away content and research
- Kelly Pickler shaving her head to support a friend with cancer
- Target donates 5% of its income to communities or the members of The Giving Pledge (most recently Mark Zuckerberg)
- Managers that enable and trust employees to make decisions and benefit the customer
- Post-haunted Ebenezer Scrooge (interesting side note, Eben-Ezer means stone of help in Hebrew)
Building a community around abundance thinkers
High net value communities are built by abundance thinkers. The Linux and Wikipedia projects are built by thousands of individuals around the world donating time, talent and resources. Key contributors, though, experience a compounding return effect.
For example, Craig Newmark was never paid for his contributions to Craigslist.org but many organizations will pay top dollar for his expertise as a result of what he’s built. They know that Craig has what it takes to add value.
Building teams around abundance thinkers
Competition is a natural part of life that can push individuals and teams to higher levels of success. In fact, businesses should strive, in most cases, to be #1 or #2 in their category or industry.
Abundance thinking doesn’t mean losing. Abundance thinkers want to succeed, and often do.
Consider this from a Forbes.com article:
Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. Not some of the time, but always. Which has huge implications for business leaders trying to shape attitudes and opinions in their organizations.
What could you achieve if your abundance thinkers spoke out more? What if they were placed in leadership positions?
Last thought
We’ve all been exposed to a myriad of examples of how synergy builds greater outputs than should be possible. But if you were to subscribe to scarcity thinking, then you would never share your resources/talents and the sum of the parts would never achieve synergistic levels.