If Aristotle Ran General Motors by Tom Morris

If Aristotle Ran General Motors Reviews

• 
  Jacob Aitken

  Morris, Tom. If Aristotle Ran General Motors: The New Soul of Business. New York: Holt, 1997.
  
  Greatness is rooted in simplicity. Former Notre Dame philosophy professor Thomas Morris takes the insights from philosophy and applies them to the business world.
  
  Goal of the book: catch the wave of wisdom at work and create the right environment “for ultimate motivation in the workplace” (Morris 9).
  
  Aristotle’s insight: everyone in life is chasing after happiness, however it is defined. Morris lists three basic views:
  Pleasure; this is unrealistic, since most people in the workplace don’t experience one long, uninterrupted wave of pleasure.
  Happiness as personal peace: this is a better view but it still runs short. We do not grow in a state of pure equilibrium.
  Happiness as participation in something fulfilling. It is a joy of creating and participating.
  
  The Four Dimensions of Human Experience
  
  Intellectual (Truth)
  Aesthetic (Beauty)
  Moral (Goodness)
  Spiritual (Unity)
  
  Key Point: each dimension corresponds to a foundation of human excellence ().
  
  Truth
  
  “Truth is that mapping of reality that corresponds to the way things are” (25). Knowledge, obviously, is vital to business.
  
  Truth implies, pace materialism, that men have minds. If men have minds, then we can’t organize the workplace in such a way to think they are mindless machines.
  
  Knowledge might be power, but people draw the wrong inference. It is power, but this power only expands when knowledge is shared (36). When you benefit others, you benefit the network in which you are already embedded.
  
  Beauty
  
  Beauty might not seem relevant to the bottom line, but aesthetics is usually tied with job performance and satisfaction. In any case, the reverse is true. Soul-killing environments usually affect performance. Think of the Soviet Union. Or in a slightly more humane way, think of Ron Swanson’s office in Parks and Recreation. He has visitors sit in a chair in front of a mounted shotgun.
  
  Beauty isn’t something as simplistic as “being pretty.” Rather, beauty provides the structure and soil for growth and flourishing. This leads to Aristotle’s observation that the polis (or business) is a collaboration or partnership for living well (103).
  
  Goodness
  
  Goodness and ethics are about creating strength for making proper decisions (120). If ethics were nothing but rules, we’d need infinitely more rules (145). Therefore, ethics needs virtue, or “that deep wellspring of ethical tendency that joins the wisdom to create in us….moral character” (151).
  
  Morris then provides advice on how to create a social context in which virtue flourishes:
  Moral mentors: Network with sages. You can’t just show a new employee the ropes. He might just hang himself. A good mentor cultivates good decision-makers.
  The importance of small details: Take care in little things. Whenever you make a decision, you are always becoming.
  Moral imagination: Cultivate a perceptive imagination. Great art (usually literature) sparks our “imaginative abilities to perceive the ethical implications of what we are doing” (167).
  
  Unity
  
  His final section on unity weaves the three transcendentals together.
  
  Conclusion
  
  This is one of those few books that communicate rare, spiritual power. It is the best book on applied ethics I have ever read.
  
• 
  Johnnie

  This is a clear and concise book on how smart leaders run businesses. The practical application of ethics into everyday life was my favorite part, although Morris' many analogies and stories keep the reader engaged throughout the short read. The author weaves the ancient philosophy of Aristotle, The Bible, Confucius, and many ancient writings to show us that there is "nothing new under the sun" except maybe in our lack of applying wise principles in business.
• 
  Diane Kalen-Sukra

  If every CEO had read and absorbed this book when it was published in 1997, Wall Street would not have marched us off the cliff in 2008.
• 
  David Farrell

  This is the first book that I've read by Tom Morris. I bought it at a local thrift shop that has a lot of used college course books. I read it in 2018 when I was interested in business strategy topics and wanted to see how Morris applied philosophy to modern business practices. Key points from the book:
  -There is a difference between ethics and morals. Morals is doing the right thing; ethics is to be seen by others doing the right thing to create the perception of morality. Business leaders need to decide which one is more important based on their personal/institutional values. That choice can have significant impacts to bottoms lines, brands, and customer/employee loyalty.
  -Philosophy is the "love of wisdom"...means keep learning as a lifelong passion for wisdom and truth.
  -Our purpose is change and growth...can be positive or negative. Either way, it helps move individuals, businesses, or enterprises from a current state to a future state. Organizations need to embrace both positive and negative experiences as part of the growing processes.
• 
  Nancy Schober

  This is a cute sweet little book. While I think it veers off into the abstract more than is helpful- more concrete examples would have been better illuminating, still a worth a gander to make sure one is on the right track. The material strikes a nice balance between Eastern values and Western thinking.[return][return]The external world will never move us toward nirvana. It might, on the contrary, drive us crazy. And we can't live happily with our nerves all ajangle. We need some calm. We need inner peace. We need some measure of personal tranquility or we'll never be able to deal well with all that the future may throw at us.[return][return]Unappreciated people feel little or no sense of loyalty or camaraderie toward those who are ignoring them, and very little responsibility.
• 
  Matt McCormick

  An interesting book as the author presented philosophy in a business context. As someone who tries to be aware of morality, there wasn't many new ways of thinking that I hadn't considered before.
  
  I know it would be incredibly difficult to do, but I would rather have had more stories about where a company acted in a moral way and it paid off. I think a lot of us like to think that good people and actions will be rewarded later on, but is that actually the case? It would have been more interesting if the author had tried to disprove his theory. Perhaps find people or companies that act in very dishonest or immoral ways and spend some time with them to see if they are happy.
• 
  Andy

  Although this was required reading for my MBA course in organizational behavior, I found this not only pertinent to business, but everyday life. Morris has some sage wisdom on how to find individual excellence, which will breed organizational excellence, which will in turn create societal harmony. Although it sounds new age, he uses the teachings of Aristotle and other sage philosophers to illustrate that if they were CEO's today, this is how things would get done.
• 
  JB

  Although Mr. Morris is clearly a devote of the Latinized Aristotle that emerged as a result of Aquinas's integration of the Parapetetic school with Scholastic Christianity, this is still an excellent read. (even though his reading of Aristotle borders on libel) I think the author rightly focuses on the role of ethical virtue in business.
  
• 
  Steve McCairns

  Insightful and thought provoking. Is thorough questioning of current (and past) business philosophy and indeed the approach we take to realtionships. A little like Stephen Covey and his habits the book suggests a 'win-win' versus the zero sum game. The tome is a decade old but maybe even more relevant now....
• 
  Adrienne

  I pretty much completely agree with Morris on his ideas about how business should run--by using principles of Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity. But I felt that I didn't need a whole book on his ideas since in my case, he's preaching to the choir. An essay would have sufficed. However, it's very much a discussion-worthy book.
• 
  Jordan Munn

  In spite of it having good ideas, it also used a bunch of anecdotal evidence as support, instead of, like, actual support. So it was lazy as far as argumentation goes. But some decent nuggets nonetheless.
• 
  JP

  It's interesting but not as much of a "how-to" as I had hoped. Morris explores four elements in the context of good business as itemized by Aristotle and others: Intellectual (truth), aesthetic (beauty), moral (goodness), and spiritual (unity).
• 
  Brian

  Good book on why morals and ethics are very important to creating a very successful business.
• 
  Staci

  New takes on accepted ethics. Doesn't your workplace need to be aesthetically pleasing to encourage you to best productivity?
• 
  Lori Grant

  An optional-read biograpy on leadership for knowledge workers, managers, directors, C-levels, and entrepreneurs.
• 
  Shane

  An interesting book. A slow slog to read though. Full of so much, but written in a way that makes it somewhat hard to understand on the first reading.
• 
  Richad Dzingai

  quite a beautiful piece, brings a whole new perspective of the art of business , the beauty of the workplace
• 
  Ganesh Lamichhane

  Awesome Book...All readers need to read this really useful and enlightening book.
• 
  Fan Marin

  Truth, beauty, goodness, and unity.
  wisdom + virtue
• 
  Steve

  Excellent book.
• 
  Alyssa

  Love this book. Read more than once and always find something new.
• 
  Tim Johnson

  A gift from a good friend. This is a really, really good read.