|9|Introduction

A cost-benefit analysis

»One day I was walking through the customer parking lot of one of our department stores when I saw a gardener raking up leaves. He was using a rake which only had about 15 teeth left – normally it would have had twice that number. I asked him: ›Why are you using this old rake? You are hardly making any progress.‹ – ›They gave me this rake‹, the gardener calmly answered. ›Why didn’t you take a better rake?‹ I insisted. ›That’s not my job,‹ he replied. I thought: ›How can anyone give an employee such a poor quality tool to do a job? I’m going to find out who his supervisor is and have a talk with him. His job is to make sure that his people have the right tools.‹«

James Belasco told this story which illustrates in part what I am writing against in this book: the Pontius Pilatus attitude expressed primarily by »I am not responsible.« as well as an excessively exaggerated concept of leadership. This leads to questions such as: What are employees responsible for? Does giving the supervisor the responsibility solve the problem? What steps can be taken fundamentally to improve this situation? Do not all employees have to stand up for how they perform their work? And if that is true, what is the role of management? And what does it mean to »delegate responsibility?«

|10|After I had published »Mythos Motivation« (The Myth of Motivation) I was asked – more frequently than I expected – whether I wanted to follow up this book with another. In particular many readers wanted to see a concrete »What is the better alternative?« This book is a follow-up to »The Myth« – but is in fact its forerunner. This volume does develop some of the ideas presented in the earlier book, specifically expanding on the outlined theses (especially those on the final pages) regarding selfmotivation. But it does so in a way that is complete in itself. The supposed demarcation line between professional and private life – which