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Title: If Aristotle Ran General Motors by Thomas V. Morris, Tom Morris ISBN: 0-8050-5253-4 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: 15 November, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.27 (15 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting look at business and decision-making.
Comment: Using four virtues (truth, beauty, goodness, and unity) as guidelines for making business decisions was a great approach for the book. The section on goodness was especially interesting because it mentions how everyday situations can be seen as ethical decisions. I particularly enjoyed the quotes that Morris uses throughout the book which provide other thinkers' ideas about ethics. Morris also does a great job of combining all of the elements at the beginning and then giving his justification.
Rating: 5
Summary: If Aristotle Ran General Motors...
Comment: ....his first move would be to hire Tom Morris as a consultant! Morris, who has a PhD from Yale and taught Philosophy at Notre Dame for 15 years, is adept at demonstrating the practical incentives of applying ancient wisdom and philosophy to modern life. Specifically, Morris teaches us about business ethics, or, as his subtitle states, "The New Soul of Business." But his teachings transcend the business world (or perhaps Morris would say the business world transcends business places). Anyone who is interested in success and happiness - whether on an individual, community, corporate, or global level - will benefit from reading this insightful and interesting book!
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliant
Comment: When you ask business people what they think about ethics and morality, they usually answer that these are important things in today's business environment. When you ask them what they REALLY think about ethics and morality, most of them don't want to answer you in any detail. A few will reply that morality is "idealistic" and that one must be "pragmatic" in everyday business practice. The belief that "morality is a topic to be debated after the bills are paid" seems to be the dominant belief in business (and other) circles.
This book, brilliant in every way, attempts, and succeeds, in arguing that wisdom and its concrete manifestation in ethics, should be the cornerstone of business life. The author is a philosopher, and not a business owner, but with his insight into the dynamics of the marketplace and its optimization, his ideas are clearly thinking "out of the box". One can only hope that business leaders (and others) will discover the ideas in this book or some other like it. With today's headlines in corporate fraud and other scandals (some justified and some not), business people need to start believing in the efficacy of ethics in optimizing their business ventures.
The preface to the book concerns "reinventing corporate spirit", the author drawing on the thoughts of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to set up the foundation for his arguments in the book. He recognizes correctly that it is ideas that fundamentally move the world.
Throughout the book are many interesting insights into the psychology of business practices. When speaking of happiness for example, in relation to Aristotle's notion of eudaemonia, one of these is the recognition that money is frequently not the end goal for business people, the real goal being to achieve admiration in the eyes of others. The resulting ostentatious lifestyle is primarily done to impress, this being a transient and ultimately unsatisfying motivation in the eyes of the author.
The book is divided up into four parts: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity. Each of these stand for respectively, the intellectual, aesthetic, moral, and spirtual necessities for achieving true happiness.
In "Truth" the discussion is interesting in that it emphasizes the importance of telling the truth not just from the standpoint of what it will do in relation to others, but what it will do for the individual involved. Telling a lie damages one's self confidence. Individuals who practice the telling of falsehoods are intimidated by truth and do not have any confidence in the efficacy of their own minds. In addition, the author discusses the importance of "open-book management": that the sharing of knowledge results in greater productivity among the employees. This is to be contrasted with the nervous attitude among some managers who feel threatened by information, again lacking self-confidence and are in a perpetual state of worry that the dissemination of knowledge among employees or co-workers will result in their comptetitive demise. These views on truth are most refreshing. "Lying is the most dangerously corrosive and subtly destabilizing activities to be found in human life" he says. He's right.
Quoting the Hindu proverb "The true nobility is in being superior to your precious self", the author encourages the view of competition as being one in which individuals surpass their former abilities, instead of worrying about their status in relation to others. He's right.
Even more important is that the author addresses the influence of philosophy in the development of ethical attitudes in business. Ethical relativism and nihilism have wreaked havoc in society as a whole, not just in business, and the author emphasizes the need for coming to grips with these beliefs, and replacing them with sound philosophical systems that are both rational and meshed with common sense. "Ideas rock the world" he states. He's right.
Most refreshingly, the author does not shy away from addressing the issue of self-interest. Confronting the "What's in it for me?" question that is asked by some, he clearly believes that self-interest is not something to be swept under the rug in discussions on ethics and morality in business. "The view that ethics requires total personal disinterestedness is a dangerous distortion of the truly moral point of view", he states. He's right.
Peer pressure and "going with the flow" are always issues that everyone has to deal with in the business environment. Not being labeled as a "team player" can be detrimental to one's growth in a particular organization. The author asks the reader to count the costs of conformity and not to "associate with evil men, lest you increase their number", quoting George Herbert. He's right.
But ethics is not merely a collection of arbitrary rules to follow, the author argues. The right course of action is built into the nature of reality and meshes with human nature and human needs. Since this is the case, the practice of true ethical norms is not only productive, but pleasureful to the individual, and instead of causing boredom as some might believe, alleviates it, argues the author. He's right.
Some might label, and the author does unashamedly, the framework outlined in the book as "spiritual". Goal-oriented, truth-valuing, truth-loving conduct results in a productive, life-loving spiritual individual, in complete antithesis to that of a sterile, non-creative, cynical one who views life as a burden with crosses to bear.
Some of course might view this book, and one on ethics in general, as being "idealistic" or "naive". Such individuals may not wish to even pick it up, let alone read it. But individuals who practice these ideas, or ones very similar, haved moved the world, and will continue to do so.
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Title: True Success: A New Philosophy of Excellence by Tom Morris ISBN: 0425146154 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: April, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Art Of Achievement 7cs Of Success In Business And by Tom Morris ISBN: 0740722018 Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing Pub. Date: 01 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Plato, Not Prozac! : Applying Eternal Wisdom to Everyday Problems by Lou Marinoff ISBN: 0060931361 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Beyond Integrity by Scott B. Rae, Kenman L. Wong ISBN: 031020173X Publisher: Zondervan Pub. Date: 19 August, 1996 List Price(USD): $34.99 |
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Title: Making Sense of It All Pascal and the Meaning of Life by Thomas V. Morris ISBN: 080280652X Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Pub. Date: October, 1992 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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