Power and Happiness

What's the proper role of power in our lives? How should we think of it? How is it to be used?

A few days ago, I spoke to an amazing group of people in New York City—the Chief Information and Chief Technology Officers from over twenty major companies like 3M, AOL, CITI, NBC Universal, The Bank of New York, DreamWorks, 20Th Century Fox, and Halliburton. It was quite a band of philosophers.
 
In our session, we considered Aristotle’s view that the secret of human motivation is to be found in the fact that, in everything we do, all of us seek happiness, or wellbeing. If we can understand what this means, we have a leverage in our work and in our lives that’s otherwise unavailable.

And so, with this claim in mind, we quickly examined together three basic views of happiness—as pleasure, peace, or participation in something that brings fulfillment. This last contention, I believe, can actually encompass and extend the importance of both pleasure and peace in a life of happiness. Fulfilling work brings pleasure. And it also encourages a measure of inner peace. Fundamentally happy people then tend to be more committed and more creative in their work together. So my suggestion was that it’s important to explore what makes for fulfilling work and fulfilling relationships. That may give us the foundations for a great work culture that will attract and retain top talent, and provide a safe place where that talent can flourish in innovative ways.
 
My initial claim was then that we all encounter the world each day along four dimensions of experience:
 
The Intellectual Dimension, that aims at Truth
The Aesthetic Dimension, that aims at Beauty
The Moral Dimension, that aims at Goodness
The Spiritual Dimension, that aims at Unity
 
Accordingly, we do our best work together when we respect and nurture these four dimensions and these four ideals of Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity, which then turn out to be Four Foundations of Greatness.

During our session, as we were contemplating these four concepts, one participant asked me an interesting question: “What about Power?” No one had ever asked that before.
 
We were focused on Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity. But the philosopher Machiavelli once claimed that the entire goal of human life is the acquisition, use, expansion, and maintenance of power. Regardless of the accuracy of his philosophy as a statement about life, we certainly have to be concerned, in leadership positions, about power in all those ways.
 
So what about power? Is there another dimension of human experience with the target, or ideal, of power? Should The Four Foundations instead be Five? If not, how is power to be understood?
 
Here’s what I think. Power is not to be considered as an equally fundamental and fifth foundation of greatness, largely because, so far as I can see, there is no distinctive and fundamental dimension of human experience whose target or ideal it is. But it’s extremely important in its own way. And it’s related to our framework in a different and fascinating manner.
 
Power determines how the Four Foundations of Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity are accessed and managed. Power is what allows to you get to the Truth and then give it to others. Without the requisite power, you often can’t unearth the truth you need, and you can’t make it widely understood, or make sure it's used in the best ways. But then, of course, there’s also a converse implication. Power allows you to obscure the truth and hide it. And this applies in analogous ways to Beauty, Goodness, and Unity.

In all cases, power is about accessing and managing these ideals, and thereby determining whether or how those around you experience them. It's about the possibility of getting things done, in harmony with Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity, or not.
 
For a leader, power exists along a spectrum, and at each point, has degrees. That spectrum ranges from Influence to Force. There are degrees of influence just like there are degrees of force. You can be more or less persuasive in inspiring people to do things. That’s influence. And you can be more or less effective in making people do things. That’s force. The type and degree of power you have, along with how you choose to exercise it, can affect deeply the consideration of how you’re able to access and manage, and then respect and nurture Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity in your organization, among your colleagues, and in your life.
 
We also spoke in our session about the famous Golden Rule. When we can create a culture where we all tend to treat others the way we’d want to be treated, with respect to Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity, I believe we become better at using and sharing the power we have available. And we can in that way actually expand it well.

As the philosopher Francis Bacon once told us, a bit metaphorically, knowledge (our grasp of truth) is power. It can certainly bring power. The more we expand the available knowledge in our organizations, the more we expand the power we collectively have to do great things. We can then help others to attain, exercise, and maintain their own power in all the best ways. And we then enjoy a vibrant culture where, as leaders, we’re helping others to achieve peaks of performance in our work together that would otherwise be impossible to attain. We’ll attract great people. And we will tend to retain them in a type of enterprise they won’t want to leave. Through the use of philosophical wisdom, we’ll thereby provide the greener pastures that the best people always aspire to find. And that’s a nice result of power, indeed.
 
 

Corporate Values That Work

The New York Times has recently stirred the pot on issues of corporate culture and working conditions in America. Some philosophical issues are being talked about anew that I think are crucial for any business. 

In 1997, my book If Aristotle Ran General Motors: The New Soul of Business was published. It was all about what it takes to create a great company culture - whether it's a big company like GM or a small mom and pop business or anything in between. I came to realize that the principles and values that make for great workplaces apply just as well to any friendship or marriage. We're people wherever we are. And we have certain deep needs that will govern what we're able to accomplish in any situation. What then does it take for people to feel great together and do great things in their interactions, in their relationships? Aristotle and the other practical philosophers had some amazing insight for this.

When that book of mine was first out and I was flying coast-to-coast to be on radio and television shows promoting it, the one person interviewing me who had read it the most carefully and thoughtfully was Matt Lauer, on the NBC Today Show. We had nearly nine minutes of conversation about it on the show, which is forever in morning TV time. He told me that, in his opinion, the book captured everything he believed about ethics, and he even asked if it was Ok if he quoted from the book in some talks he was going to be giving about ethics in journalism. But he also challenged me that day by asking me whether American corporations were really ready to become great places to work, focusing attention on such things as Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity - the intellectual, aesthetic, moral, and spiritual values that my book was built around. There was even a chapter on "Business and the Meaning of Life." Matt wondered whether any big company could really pay attention to such an issue. Is there time? Is it business-efficient to care about such things? Would a necessary concern on the bottom line allow it? 

My answer was simple: Yes. People can't do their best over the long run unless they feel their best about what they're doing. Aristotle understood the deep role that our unconscious quest for happiness, or wellbeing, plays in any of our lives. And he knew that this is the most deeply motivating factor for anything we do. When we aren't happy in our work, when it doesn't contribute to our sense of deep fulfillment in our lives, we can't attain and sustain the highest, most creative excellence. Ultimately, meaning and mastery go together.

In a big front page essay called "Rethinking Work" in the New York Times Sunday Review this week, psychologist Barry Schwartz argues that companies had better pay attention to such issues. And Schwartz has evidently touched a nerve, because 24 hours later, it's the most emailed article in this week's paper. I commend it to your attention. And if it resonates with you, take a look at If Aristotle Ran General Motors and tell me what you think. In light of the recent controversies surrounding Amazon and corporate culture in America these days, I think we need to return to some of these issues. I'll likely write more about them this week.

Meanwhile, may you experience Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity in what you do and where you do it. Aristotle would want it that way.

Go-Givers Beat Go-Getters

Marc Lore, an entrepreneur and co-founder, Chief Executive Officer, and chairman of Jet.com, an e-commerce startup meant to challenge Amazon, recently wrote this:

At 22, I evaluated my first job based on what I could get out of it. But I have since learned that you can achieve much greater success if you focus on what you can give. Ultimately, I have realized that success is not a measure of your salary, title, or degree, but the impact you have on others and the collective happiness of the people you touch.

I've been lucky to have that attitude throughout my whole career. When I went to graduate school in religious studies and philosophy, it never even occurred to me to ask anyone how much careers in those fields paid. And it's a good thing I didn't! When I hit the job market with a double PhD from Yale in 1980, starting salaries for professors were ridiculously small. My children wore hand-me-down clothes from other professors' kids, who had done the same thing. We were in it to give, not to get. I wanted to tackle the big questions, and come up with new insights I could benefit from myself, and then give to other people. I learned in those years the power of giving.

Now, we're all learning it, through new research, as well as in our broader cultural experiences. In the book Give and Take, Wharton professor Adam Grant does a great job of showing how givers can prosper exceptionally well in the long run and actually become the most satisfied receivers of all.

In everything we approach, we should ask what we can give, first and foremost. Then, we may be amazed at what we can get, as a result. It's not the motivation, but the wonderful side effect, that those who give most prosper most deeply.

The Four Foundations of Greatness

Years ago, I did a book called If Aristotle Ran General Motors: The New Soul of Business. It could have been called "Happiness, Fulfillment, and Greatness." It's all about the most deeply human factor in our work and lives - what brings people together, makes for superior teams, real loyalty, and great results? My claim in the book is that from the moment we wake up in the morning, to the instant we fall asleep at night, we experience the world along four dimensions and need four things to satisfy us:

1. The Intellectual Dimension, that aims at Truth

2. The Aesthetic Dimension, that aims at Beauty

3. The Moral Dimension, that aims at Goodness

4. The Spiritual Dimension, that aims at Unity.

For great relationships, great teams, unshakable associate loyalty and real customer love, we need to live and work in accordance with these four things - Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity. We need to respect everyone's need for these things, and nurture them as much as we can. Whenever we depart from one of these things, these great ideals that the Greeks knew as transcendentals (transcending and applying to everything in life), we suffer diminishment. When we cultivate them, we can experience extraordinary levels of success.

And each of them needs to be respected and lived in connection with the other three. That's where the real power is to be found.

I got to speak on this topic in Orlando this week, and it was so much fun! For more details on the ideas, go check out the book!

Half Glass Living

One night at dinnertime, years ago, when my son Matt was at the ripe old age of thirteen, he walked into the kitchen, put a plate on the table, and said, out of the blue, “Dad, I've figured out that glass question.” I drew a total blank.

“What glass question, Matt?” I asked as I quickly searched my memory for anything we might have been talking about in the preceding hours.

He said, “You know, the one about the glass being half empty or half full.” Oh, that glass question. You know the famous scenario: A water glass contains liquid up to its midpoint. The question is then asked whether the glass is half empty or half full. Everyone then tells us that a pessimist will say it’s half empty, while an optimist will say it’s half full. The situation is supposed to be a test for inner attitude. It’s assumed that there's no objectively better answer. Either can be right, and yet neither is objectively preferable. What you say will be determined by what you are as an observer, not just by what the glass is as an item apart from you in the world.   

Well, my son wasn’t about to buy that. He had heard the question somewhere, and apparently it had been bothering him. He now had his own take on it. “So, what's the answer?” I asked with real curiosity, wondering how someone his age would approach this old classic. And, in reply, he said something that proved to me again the simple truth that you can be a philosopher at almost any age.  

He thought for a second and said, “It all depends.” Well, of course, when I heard these opening words, I thought that we’d be quickly going straight into the familiar and well trod territory of attitude relativism. But his next words surprised me and took us into a totally different direction. He said, “If you were filling the glass up just before you got to that point, it’s half full. If you were drinking from it or pouring it out just before that, then it’s half empty.”    

Aha! “It all depends,” people have always said, but they’ve thought the answer depends on the attitude of the person looking at the glass. Matt couldn’t accept that as the final word. It does all depend, he was saying, but it depends on what real process had been going on previously, in order to bring the glass to its present state. What something is sometimes depends on where it came from, on how it got to be as it is, and maybe even on where it’s in the process of going. That’s a pretty profound insight.  

There’s a lesson here for us all. How’s your glass these days? How’s your life? Is it pretty good, or pretty bad? If you’re like most people, you may think of yourself as somehow representative of roughly half-glass living. There are some good things in your life. And there’s a lack, or an empty space, as well. Well, then, if this is even remotely an accurate representation, the question arises: Is your life generally half full, or basically half empty? According to young Matt, it all depends. Have you been emptying it out, dissipating your energies, squandering your deepest self, alienating those who are closest to you, and as a result losing things of real value – or have you been filling up your life in the best possible way, adding elements of true value and deep worth to your daily experience? Have you been depleting or enriching yourself? What real process has been going on up until now, and is perhaps still presently occurring in your life, right now, or in your business? Where have you been, in this regard, and where are you now going?

Our Kardashian Kulture

The news just broke. Culture phenomenon Kim Kardashian hit a new milestone on Twitter: 27 million followers. And of course she decided to commemorate this astonishing accomplishment by sharing with the world a selfie of her bottom in a thong. It was an appropriate celebration for such a fundamental (from the Latin, fundament, or bottom) achievement. I'm a philosopher, unlike Kim. And I have about 5,000 followers on Twitter, give or take. I'm convinced that if Socrates were alive and Tweeting, he'd have maybe 12.

Oh, and that first public philosopher was poisoned by public demand. He wasn't the most popular guy in his time. But, by contrast, the Kardashians just signed a new 100 million dollar, four year renewal deal with the E! Network for their television shows. What's the lesson lurking for us here?

People pay (in money and attention) for what they want and what they need - right? No. Not at all. People pay for what they want and for what they feel like they need. Everyone needs wisdom in their lives. But relatively few really feel this to the extent of devoting time and energy and even, occasionally, money to its pursuit.

In the seventeenth century, the great scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal watched a version of this going on in his time. His diagnosis was simple. He said:

Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.

Most people, he believed, don't know really who they are, why they're here, or where they're going in this world of mystery that presents us with the only sure thing as the looming abyss of death, into which all of us, sooner or later, will fall. Yeah. Ok. He wasn't always the life of the party, either. But, then, he says:

We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it.

Kim Kardashian's most fundamental asset helps to block our view of the abyss. Pascal called this diversion. We prefer diversion, or distraction, over a pursuit of truth, understanding, and real meaning. We want to be entertained. We feel a desperate need to be entertained. And we're willing to pay a lot for it. It didn't surprise me at all that a book came out about this, years ago, entitled Amusing Ourselves to Death.

Is there anything wrong with amusement or entertainment? No, of course not. A nice diversion now and then, a happy distraction, can play a healthy role in our lives. But not if it's the major portion of our lives. It can't become an obsession and be healthy at all. We need more. We need to get in touch with the deepest cosmic realities now and then. We need self knowledge, a sense of our place in the world, and values that will lead us along a path of real fulfillment and happiness, rather than taking us down the dead end road of their modern counterfeits. 

We need to engage in a little Socratic questioning of our cultural values right now, and of our personal commitments. The founding philosophers in ancient times loved fun and parties and entertainment. And so do I. But they didn't use these things to keep them from ever going deeper. And we should take a hint from them. In a balanced culture, even Socrates might have blown up Twitter, and without anything remotely like a Kardashian know-thy-selfie.

Will Smith, on Success and Love.

We've all seen him in the movies. We've heard his music. Some of us first discovered him on television. But now, as the new interview with Scott Raab in the current issue of Esquire makes clear, Will Smith has become a philosopher.

Reflecting on his career, he describes something that many of us have felt.

I always thought there was some place I was going, that there was some success or some achievement or some box-office number that was going to fill the hole. And what I realize is that life is a hole. It's a process of continually trying to find and reinvent myself. I'm the type of person who is always going to be somewhat dissatisfied with myself. I'm never going to be smart enough. I'm never going to be a good enough father. I'm never going to be a good enough husband. I'm never going to be a good enough actor for myself. I just never will be, and I have to get comfortable with waking up every day and trying to move some little increment closer to the person I have always dreamed of being.

Lesson Number One: Even being a huge star and celebrity, with great wealth and social power won't complete us. Yeah, we knew that. But we have to be reminded, now and then, to keep us from fruitlessly chasing our own versions of this, in our own efforts to "fill the hole."

Later on, he talks about a movie that failed at the box office and what he felt when he got the very bad numbers. 

And that Monday started the new phase of my life, a new concept: Only love is going to fill that hole. You can't win enough, you can't have enough money, you can't succeed enough. There is not enough. The only thing that will ever satiate that existential thirst is love. And I just remember that day I made the shift from wanting to be a winner to wanting to have the most powerful, deep, and beautiful relationships I could possibly have.

Lesson Number Two: If we define success in isolation from love and relationships, we'll never be satisfied or happy. We need to start at the core of who we are as human beings. And that core is supposed to be all about love. When we use that as our foundation, we can build a life that matters and a success that's not only real, but that feels deep and true and fulfilling.

A friend of mine named Matt Ham has just written a book all about that. It's called Redefine Rich, and is well worth a read. It offers a diagnosis and a reminder that we all need.

Love first. All else, second.

To Sit in a Small Room Well

To sit,

To sit in a small room,

To sit in a small room well,

To sit in a small room well is to be,

To sit in a small room well is to be at peace,

To sit in a small room well is to be at peace and content,

To sit in a small room well is to be at peace, content and fulfilled.

To sit in a small room well is, for a time, a luxury and a joy.

Most problems come from not being able to do this,

Pascal once said, while he managed to sit

in a small room well, being at peace

and content and fulfilled

just to sit.

The Only Real Secret

Impact. Excellence. Legendary greatness. Happiness. Contentment. Fulfillment. A wonderful life and legacy.

Whatever ideal states you seek, there are people who for a price will tell you the five or seven secrets, or, perhaps the one that will deliver all. And when you learn these secrets, or this one big thing, you quickly discover that they aren't secrets after all. Either they're true and widely known. Or they're false and better ignored.

The only real secret is this: Get out of your own way.

We all have inner blockages to the ideal states we aspire to achieve. There was a childhood wounding. There's seething anger. There's a lack of education. There's an inability to really connect with others in a loving and compassionate way. There's self imposed stress. There's anxiety that will not let go. Your self esteem isn't what it should be. You don't have the confidence you need. You have this drive to be important, or the center of attention, or loved by everyone.

Get out of your own way. Uproot the obstacle. Tame the wild animal. Then, the purpose and passion and energy and excellence can flow through you. You can't attain any ideal without being a conduit to something greater than yourself. This is the universal testimony of those recognized as greatest in pretty much every field of human endeavor.

In basketball, a bad free-throw shooter has to practice and practice and practice and practice, so that the power of habit will come to smooth out his rough edges, and set up new inner patterns to allow him to get out of his own way.

A salesperson who blows ever call has to tame the inner worry and get out of her own way so that her personality and product can shine. So does an entrepreneur. So does an author.

We think we need to develop and grow. And we do. But the secret is that done right, these things help us to get out of our own way, so that we can shine with an authenticity we could never just manufacture. Be a conduit. Be a door. Get out of your own way, and enjoy the amazing results.