Becoming a better human
I remember a full body experience from the introductory lecture of a first-year university philosophy class. The professor was giving us a course overview, and after a brief description of the topics and timeline he summed it all up by saying, "Essentially, the purpose of this course is to grapple with one overarching question: How should I live?"
I recall so many details from the moment in which he spoke those words — the angle of his glasses, the tone of his voice, the expression on his face — because it seemed to me this was not just a good question. It immediately stood out as The Question. I had an intuitive sense it would command my attention for decades to come. And it has.
This question has become core to the business realm. Not so long ago we naively assumed our personal and professional lives could be compartmentalized. While it's true they are and should be separable to some degree, the logic of the modern economy advances like a juggernaut. Work, especially knowledge work, is permanently unfinished and progressively devouring what little schedule surplus remains.
For most of us, there is only one way to justify the level of absorption our work demands. We must justify it ethically. It's feels utterly insufficient to claim "I'm working this hard because I have to." If that is truly the only explanation we can think of, in a world of ever-expanding career options, the load eventually becomes unsupportable.
Modern work must create a forum in which to become not merely a better professional but a better human. Progress must be tracked not only in performance metrics but also in the feeling of ethical flourishing, or perhaps the lack thereof. This has become a fundamental test of role fit.
In his wonderful autobiography, Shoe Dog, Nike founder Phil Knight spells out the ethical dimension of business most stirringly:
The human body needs blood. It needs to manufacture red and white cells and platelets and redistribute them evenly, smoothly, to all the right places, on time, or else. But that day-to-day business of the human body isn’t our mission as human beings. It’s a basic process that enables our higher aims, and life always strives to transcend the basic processes of living. I redefined winning, expanded it beyond my original definition of not losing, of merely staying alive. That was no longer enough to sustain me, or my company. We wanted, as all great businesses do, to create, to contribute, and we dared to say so aloud. When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the lives of strangers, making them happier, or healthier, or safer, or better, and when you do it all crisply and efficiently, smartly, the way everything should be done but so seldom is—you’re participating more fully in the whole grand human drama. More than simply alive, you’re helping others to live more fully, and if that’s business, all right, call me a businessman.
There are macro and micro dimensions of this ethical responsibility. Every day in business is a chance to embody a mission or elevate a moment. It's a chance to make a big difference in the world, or a small difference in the life of another person. To be fully engaged is to be perpetually striving, and knowingly advancing, in the quest to become a better human being.