Top Highlights

• So far we have considered two main foundations of chasing—social comparisons and functional fixedness. The first depends on sizing up our resources relative to others, which often leaves us disappointed, spurs us to seek out more resources, and makes us overlook the value of what we have. The second leads us to take a fixed view of resources, limit...
• with what’s at hand and therefore prompting us to go get more. Let’s now examine a third foundation of chasing—mindless accumulation. When chasing, we rack up as many resources as possible, not because we have a specific goal in mind but rather just to collect more.
• The people and organizations we have met in this chapter illustrate the four elements of chasing: upward social comparisons, functional fixedness, mindless accumulation, and resource squandering.
• The Czech poet and immunologist Miroslav Holub documented a remarkable tale of a group of Hungarian soldiers on a reconnaissance mission who became lost in the Alps. As Holub tells it, the cold and snowy weather made navigating back to safety difficult. Two days passed with no word from the troops, and their lieutenant worried he had deployed the m...
• examine the map. He took a look at it and was baffled. It was a map of a different set of mountains—the Pyrenees. The management scholar Karl Weick concludes from this tale that when our bearings are lost, “any old map will do.” Even though the soldiers used a map covering a different territory, it prevented them from panicking about what they lack...