What I’m saying is this:
(1) employees also take actions which are dumb and venal, also lie and cheat
(2) what is the organisation anyway? It’s not the bogeyman or a machine; it’s a group of people and if you’re an employee, it’s you too; my question to employees is: where are you when shit is going down that you don’t like?
(3) this is not about CEOs or senior management or any other official leader; I’m talking about every person who’s not the CEO. I’m asking who are you going to be: a whinger or a leader?

I’m talking about giving up pointing the finger elsewhere — at management, at the Board, at shareholders — and taking on responsibility for one’s own experience at work.

But I’m afraid that the biggest factor is that in order to succeed people think they have to give up essential humanity (e.g., be a heartless bastard who lops heads for the greater glory of the shareholders). If you buy into that, there is no place for joy or even humanity.(Plus furious jitterbugging multitasking makes it hard to take time for the niceties as well). It’s like that classic line in the movie Spartacus where Kirk Douglas tries to talk to one of his fellow gladiator slaves. The other guy says something like, “I don’t want to risk becoming your friend because someday I may have to kill you in the arena.” Maybe that sums up modern business nicely.