Managing in the Gray
110
we can think differently but, when we leave home, we have to
watch our backs and take care of ourselves.
But notice a feature of this way of thinking. It is basically
black and white. It draws sharp lines: between personal life
and work life, between selfishness and altruism, between
what you get and what others get. This binary world is deeply
at odds with the perspective of the fourth question. A clear
implication of the African aphorism is that, by pursuing the
interests of others, we pursue our own interests, because all
these interests are so tightly meshed. And this isn’t because
we are continuously contracting with each other and making
a long series of deals that serve our interests. It is because our
human f