Danger in the Comfort Zone

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The American Dream Shattered

Generation after generation of Americans have climbed up the economic ladder, each standing higher than the one before it. The American Dream is based on a contract that says, “If you work hard, you are going to be more successful than your parents were.” Those born in the Depression years found themselves, after the war, with opportunities and resources their parents had never imagined. Their children, the baby boomers, grew up with even higher expectations of success.

The same economic trends that realized that dream for an extraordinary number of people also spawned a certain way of thinking. In American companies, an attitude of Entitlement developed in both the organizations themselves and among the people ...