The need for challenge, the need to burst through the constrictions of tasks and situations already seen and mastered, can affect anyone, even those enjoying the greatest gains from success.

I am impressed and distressed at how passive hierarchical organizations make people. There's often a lot of overt activity, but it's not going anywhere, it's game-playing. It's play-acting at work.

The sense of loss of control over what happens to you at work (and thus in your life is vital). This further involves a sense of fairness as in, I did my part and look where it got me! "The deal," the contract between employee and employer has eroded and been replaced with unilateral power by the organization over the employee.

Most people think of a balanced life in terms of how much time is given to the various sectors of a life. While time is one measure of involvement, I think the critical variable is passion. How energized, fascinated and absorbed are you in each sphere in which you are engaged? They are rarely, and usually only briefly, equal.

Institutions which have too much security ... tend to become bureaucratic. They add layers of people and layers of rules in order to assure the security of not making mistakes.

If the mood is overly anxious, then anxiety must be reduced by lowering uncertainty. Very simply, uncertainty is reduced when people are told what's going on and what will happen to them. In the vacuum of no news, people imagine the worst. Since disappointment is much easier to handle than anxiety, then, good news or bad, honesty is honestly the best policy.

Nothing creates more self-respect among employees than being included in the process of making decisions.