Aristotle's Recipe for Greatness

Aristotle's simple recipe for human greatness:

People in Partnership for a shared Purpose.

It's never put so briefly (he's Aristotle, after all) but it's to be found in his Politics, which is about how we best live well together. Oh, how we've drifted! Here he is sans pupils. But that's ok. We can be his pupils, even today. He reminds us that greatness is never a solitary achievement. It arises out of people working together. How? In partnership. And there must be a clear, shared purpose that brings the people together and makes the partnership possible.

I just finished my second reading of The Iliad a few days ago, as I’ve mentioned here before. It’s a great story about partnerships breaking down when there is no longer first and foremost a shared purpose. I had a great talk on the plane the other day with a fellow philosopher from the real estate world about how The Iliad can help us to be better in our organizations and to avoid or heal those breakdowns. The wisdom is out there. It’s up to us to find it and use it. Good wishes in your own wisdom adventures!

A Short Dog Tale

The World as It Is. A car sped down a rural road and what looked like trash was thrown from the window. The farmer mowing nearby stopped his work and walked over to pick up whatever paper had been thrown into his field so that the mower wouldn't shred and spread it everywhere. It wasn’t paper, but a puppy just a few weeks old, covered with bruises and now with a newly broken tail. The astonished man picked him up and took him home. A friend of his sent a picture to a friend of mine named Doug who immediately adopted him and called him Miller. That was two years ago.

Recently, Doug and Miller were at Lowe's Hardware and Miller pulled hard at his leash to get to a lady standing near an end-cap. Doug pulled him back in surprise. It was odd behavior for the ordinarily well behaved dog. They found their item and got in line. Miller pulled again and this time moved around behind Doug, who then turned to see what was going on. It was the same lady. Miller was instantly sitting next to her with his head leaning on her leg. She was crying.

"I'm so sorry." Doug had no idea what was going on.

"No, no. I had to put my dog to sleep a few hours ago."

Dogs know a lot more than we think. They understand and feel in ways we sometimes can’t even imagine. Honor the animals in your life.

And maybe ask them, "How's the stock market going to do tomorrow?" And let me know.

The opening picture above is of the puppy himself on his first trip to the vet! And now two years later, the comforter: A truly good dog.

People or Principles?

What's more important, the principle or the person?

I was in a fascinating discussion the other day with some university deans. I had just introduced them to my 7 Cs of Success (for more on them, go to the web page located at my site, http://www.tomvmorris.com/the7csofsuccess/. We were talking about successful individuals and organizations and what makes for their success, consulting the wisdom of the ages.

One of the deans asked something that posed an interesting question: What's most important, people or principles? In his well known book Good to Great, Jim Collins talks about the crucial importance of, in his favorite metaphor, getting the right people on the bus, and then getting them into the right seats. In the recent political election, I found myself reminding people over and over that you can vote for principles and policies only by voting for people you have good reason to think you can trust to implement those principles and policies. So, considering Collins and politics both, it can seem like principles have to take a back seat to people. If you want a great business or great team, hire the right people. Principles like the 7 Cs may be interesting, on this line of thought, but are never the most important.

It's an interesting line of thought. But my reply is that the people we deem to be best for our teams and organizations are precisely those individuals who have, however explicitly or intuitively, lived and worked in accordance with what I call The 7 Cs of Success, which crucially include a Character condition, from which trustworthiness grows. In the end, it's so important to have great people because those are the people who act in the right ways to attain proper success in any endeavor. Then, when we show them a framework of wisdom like The 7 Cs, we give them more of a perspective on what they've been doing and will need to do to retain the trajectory of their success in new challenges. The framework itself, in its universal comprehensiveness and logical inter-relations, will help us to take whatever we do to a next level.

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.

Relationships Rule The World

There are two fundamentally different approaches to work and life - a transaction mentality, and a relationship focus. I've written about this before, but a review might be helpful. 

The transaction approach to work and life concentrates just on the sale, the deal, the event, the accomplishment. A relationship orientation focuses on people and getting to know them, helping them, and encouraging them. The great philosopher Martin Buber spoke of the "I-Thou" relationship, and the "I-It" alternative. What do we primarily relate to, people or things? Do we treat people like the amazing and valuable souls they are, or as if they were mere things to be move and manipulated?

The irony is that with a relationship mentality, you end up with far more satisfying transactions than you get with a transaction approach to life. The transaction guy loses relationships, and many valuable transactions, as a sad consequence of his focus. Transactions are immensely important. That just show how valuable the vastly more important relationships in the world are.

Be a relationship person. Then, enjoy the great transactions that result. Priorities matter. So does focus.

Harmony: Part Two

Go buy all the individual parts of a Ferrari, thousands of them, down to the nuts and bolts, and the cans of paint needed for that glossy finish (which are you, red, black, or yellow - or maybe dark blue?), and then pile all those parts in your driveway. You won't as a result have a great car that you can take for a spin around the block. You'll just have a big pile of stuff. The parts have to be connected and then have to work together well for you to have a functioning classic high end sports car. They have to perform in harmony.

I wrote about harmony already this week, but felt that another post could be beneficial. Two Part Harmony seems apt, after all. In the previous post, I pointed out that a whole of any kind (a face, team, or as here, a car) can be greater or lesser than the sum of its parts, and that the secret sauce determining whether the parts are augmented or diminished in their assemblage is harmony.

Harmony is something we hope for, in our lives, our businesses, and our families. At work, we try to gather the best people we can, and then hope that they'll act harmoniously toward shared goals. But of course harmony should be sought from the start, and not just desired in the end.

Don't just hire for individual talent, or even greatness. Hire for diverse, dynamic fit. Hire for harmony. Some companies do it already. They have job candidates interviewed by the people they'd be working with. Everyone has an eye on the issue of harmony. How will we work together? Will we mesh?

Harmony is often used as a synonym for consistency. But it may go even deeper. Imagine two guitarists playing all the same notes in perfect rhythm. They're consistently matching each other, note-for-note. Now imagine them playing in harmony. When I was in grad school at Yale, I used to go down the road to a great guitar store every afternoon for an hour or two and play with an outstanding studio guitarist named Tommy. He had taught me Chet Atkins style finger picking. I'd play a song, bass and melody, and he'd play in harmony with what I was doing. The sound that resulted was amazing. What he was doing was far more than merely playing in a way that was consistent with what I was doing. It was enhancing the sounds immensely.

Think of the spices in a great dish. You want more than consistency. You want them to work together and mutually enhance each other harmoniously. That's what we want in life and in our work. Think about what that means right now in what you're doing. How can you introduce more real harmony into it? How can you play it to make it sing?

Leaders: Cultivate Your People!

I had lunch with a younger friend today. He runs an office for a major insurance company. In his first year, out of 800 agents in the state, he went from being unranked to being 29th to 52nd to 7th and then all the way up to Number 3, at the top of the mountain. He was a hero. He was made to feel important, celebrated, and held up to others as an example. Then he felt a calling to write a book and speak to groups of people, to share the wisdom about life that he had been learning. So, while continuing to work hard at insurance, he also had to devote time to the writing and speaking. A great book resulted. And his speaking is taking off. Meanwhile, though, his statewide ranking fell to 84th.

The insurance executives over him in the corporate ranks made it clear that they were not pleased. "You're a top 20 guy, not a top 80 guy." He then continued to operate in the top ten percent, even when also busy writing and speaking. But that was now considered a failure - for him. He got chiding and angry phone calls, and unpleasant, pressure filled visits. He was pressed heavily to forget the writing and speaking, and just do his job and produce his numbers, back in the stratosphere of achievement where he was clearly able to function.

One day, an executive visited his office while he was out with a client, and sat at his desk. A coworker thought it was his manager and came into the room saying his name. The executive corrected him and said he was just visiting, but while in the room, thought he might write a book. And this was apparently said with great sarcasm.

This says a lot to me about monumentally stupid business practices. When you have a superbly talented person running an office, and he discovers a side of himself that he wants to develop, then a great leader should encourage that development, while counseling the individual on how he might integrate it into his ongoing business life. But too many corporate executives shoot for predictability rather than true greatness among their people. Great people do great business. Whole people who feel appreciated, respected, and nurtured can work with a loyalty and edge that no one else can duplicate.

My friend should have been encouraged and supported in what he was doing. He should have been applauded even if his new interest were music or sculpture, or long distance running. But it was writing and speaking on topics that can help other people to be great - including people in his own company. So it's not like this development is in any way irrelevant to his business and the corporation, nationally - in fact, quite the opposite. His bosses could have cultivated a talent that would be able to benefit them all in numerous ways, but chose to deal with him instead with harshness, pressure, criticism, and even sarcasm. Do they really think this is the best way to get him to take his work with them to the next level? I was astonished to hear about it. It was, to me, inconceivable to me that people in executive positions could be so dumb. My exceptional friend told me all this with a calm and accepting demeanor, but intimated that he couldn't see continuing on under such conditions, over the long term. Who could?

Too many leaders are really idiots about talent. They view everything with tunnel vision. They want, in my friend's words, "just racehorses who will continue to improve their times." Their vision for what they're doing is far too narrow, and their treatment of others is self defeating.

So, please let me make an appeal to those who are in leadership positions. We want whole people, flourishing people to work with us, not just one-dimensional obsessives. Granted, a few one-dimentional obsessives can be quite productive. But you should never try to fill your organization full of them. 

Whole people can chart new territory, and do new things, and bring us a sort of greatness we never could have predicted, but only if we encourage and support them. If my friend had been encouraged and supported, I have no doubt that, after this initially demanding period of launching his new activities, he could have been back to his top spot in the state, or higher, and with a belief in the company that would have been contagious. He could have told their story with gusto, far and wide. They could have become a "Most Admired Place" to work. 

The executives in question lost a rare and precious opportunity to make something spectacular happen, for their mutual good.

The Power of Perspective

Wisdom is always about attaining a proper perspective. Whatever challenge you might face, whatever situation might confront and even stymie you right now, there's a perspective available on it that will help you move forward productively and well. Once you've found that perspective, you can use it powerfully to help create the future that's best for you, or your business, or your family, or even in all ways.

Whenever I read a really good book and in it come across some amazing new perspectives on life, I ponder how many billions of people there are in the world, and how many interesting perspectives they may have on things that matter to me, and to all of us. I sometimes fantasize interviewing everyone on earth, one person at a time, and listening deeply to what they have to say. Sure, there are idiots and fools, simpletons and fanatics, and plenty of people full of hatred and delusion. But perhaps a minute or two safely spent with even their number would provide new perspectives that could be useful. And even though you'd think I was old enough to know better at age 62, I suspect that the fools and fanatics and monsters are actually a very small fraction of our fellows in this life. There are plenty of everyday sages that we could learn from, if we would just talk to them and hear what they've experienced.

Of course, none of us has the time or the means to talk to everyone alive. And we've already missed a lot by not talking to those who have come and gone before us. But we can make the most of the time and opportunities we do have by engaging the people who cross our paths, and actually listening and taking in what they say.

I learn from the people I sit next to on airplanes, from cab and limo drivers, from front desk clerks in hotels, from cooks and waiters, and from friends and neighbors, any time I can. And I'm sometimes amazed at how an offhand remark, or a story, I heard just from joining some stranger in conversation years ago, can still reverberate for me today, and enliven how I think of a new opportunity or challenge that I confront.

When we take the time to talk and really listen, we benefit. The perspectives we hear can sometimes be just what we need.