Inequality still runs rampant in most business corporations. I’m referring now to hierarchical inequality which legitimizes and institutionalizes the principle of “We” vs “They”. … The people at the top of the corporate hierarchy grant themselves privilege after privilege, flaunt those privileges before the men and women who do the real work, then wonder why employees are unmoved by management’s invocations to cut costs and boost profitability…. When I think of the millions of dollars spent by people at the top of the management hierarchy on efforts to motivate people who are continually put down by that hierarchy, I can only shake my head in wonder.
–– Plain Talk (1998) by Ken Iverson as quoted in Good to Great by Jim Collins p 136
