Tom Morris: The Founders wanted to create a system, a country, an environment in which we could live, be free, and practice contentment, fulfillment, and enjoyment.
That's a lot. I was in the New York City Battery Park, Ritz Carlton, once with the advisory board for one of the world's big tech companies. And these were guys from this was the advisory board for North America, Central America and South America.
I’d just spoken in London for their advisory board for the rest of the world—Asia, Africa, Middle East. And so, I was sitting with a bunch of C suite officers in this beautiful room with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Statue of Liberty, gleaming in the morning sunlight.
Soon the conversation around the breakfast table turned to politics. I’d just spoken the previous day on one of my books. This one was not written yet. And in this conversation about politics, everybody was grousing and complaining, as people often do, about politics.
And I said, well, you know, Aristotle believed that “politics is the noble endeavor about how best to live well together.”
There was this huge laugh around the table. I thought one guy was going to shoot his coffee out his nose. I thought people were going to choke on their eggs. A laugh, a giant, uproarious laugh.
And then it quieted down. And a guy looked at me from one of the biggest banks in the world, and he said, “How did we fall so far?” And that led to an amazing discussion.
Jill Konrath [09:31]: Go back and give that quote again.
Tom Morris [09:33]: “Politics is a noble endeavor.”
Jill Konrath [09:37]: Noble endeavor.
Tom Morris [09:38]: Noble. A noble endeavor. About how best to live well together. COMMUNITY.
Jill Konrath [09:45]: How best to live well together.
Tom Morris [09:48]: We’re human beings who live in a community. We're meant to live in community. Aristotle wanted to figure out how best to do that, and he has this book called The Politics. Interestingly.
And at one point during The Politics, he asks a question. He says, “What is a city?” And he reflects on what a city is.
It's not a bunch of buildings and streets. It's not just a bunch of people living in proximity. He defines a city in terms of its purpose.
And here's what he says. Jill. He says, “A city is a partnership for living well.”
I remember reading that and thinking, wow. When you read the context, you realize right away that a family is a partnership for living well.
A neighborhood is a partnership for living well. A city, a state, a nation—all should be partnerships for living well. A business should be a partnership for living well.
As soon as we forget this, as soon as we stop thinking about our enterprises as partnerships for living well, things start going badly.
In fact, in the book The Politics, he's got this formula. He never makes it exactly clear because these were Aristotle’s notes for his most advanced students and he was writing for himself. So we happen to have his lecture notes for his students rather than a smoothly polished and edited book.
So, I had to extract the ideas for the formula concerning human excellence, and it ends up being really simple, and it relates to everything we've just been saying.
The formula is three parts: People in Partnership for a Shared Purpose.
Jill Konrath [11:29]: Wow.
Tom Morris [11:29]: That's how great things happen. People in partnership for a shared purpose. So, a city is people in partnership for a shared purpose. A nation. People in partnership for a shared purpose. Now, what's our shared purpose as Americans? Life.
Jill Konrath [11:46]: There have been times of pursuit of happiness, wealth, or whatever.
Tom Morris [11:54]: Laid out in the Declaration, right? And we should be thinking about how best to live well together, right? Because that's what the founders were thinking about.
It wasn't a good set-up with the king across the ocean telling us what to do over here. We needed to be in charge of our own affairs so that we and every business has learned this lesson. If they're any good a long time ago or trying to learn it, let the people on the ground tell you what's going on.
Listen to the first-line folks, who have contact with the customers or the suppliers. Listen to them. They know what's going on. Create things to solve the customers’ problems.
Well, that's what the founders had in mind as a nation. It's like you should run a nation or a town the way you run a good business. Right? In so many ways.
It should be facilitating of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It should be about how best to live well together.
Jill Konrath [12:55]: That's a great description. How can we best live well together? And it's something that I think has been a bit forgotten in the duopoly we have in our country about fighting and winning as opposed to living well together, which is why nothing seems to get done.
Tom Morris [13:13]: I was going to say, you're right. Politics has devolved into spectator sport, or else a game like capture the flag, right? We're going to get the power. No, we're going to get the power. It's the flag is our flag. No, the flag is our flag.
Patriotism—I came to realize quickly—if you trace the word back through medieval French, through Latin, to its roots in human history, the linguistic roots.
Patriotism came from words that meant native country, the country in which you live, love for your country, love for your nation.
It had nothing to do with adversarialism, with militarism, with us, against them. It had nothing to do with fear of the foreigner. It had nothing to do with any of that. It was about, well, my best image of it is about planning and growing a beautiful garden to love your country.
Now, remember, the early Americans were mostly people living on the land. They were small farmers. And that was kind of Jefferson's ideal of a nation of small farmers growing their gardens, making their gardens beautiful and bountiful.
For what reason? For the good of others as well as themselves. There's patriotism in a nutshell, growing your garden for the good of others as well as yourself. Gardeners don't fight each other. I mean, if you like potatoes and I like tomatoes, will you grow your crop and make it beautiful and share it with me? And I'll do the same?
And so, in the book, I say, to know America's a garden. Don't be a weed, and don't even be a prized petunia.
