Preface

Probably what’s at the core of working with people as a manager, teacher, coach, or parent is our basic understanding of people. Do we believe that human beings are attempting above all else to avoid pain and seek pleasure? Have we concluded that everyone is trying to get ahead himself, regardless of what happens to others? Do we think that people are biocomputers that have been programmed by life circumstances and have very limited possibilities for change? Do we imagine that people are small particles in a vast, unstoppable mechanism of historical forces that leave the individual as helpless as a cork in the ocean? Or do we have the opposite view, that the individual is the captain of his fate, one who can fully determine what happens, ...

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