Last week’s internet surfing brought up a new-to-me meme in several of my social media feeds. Like most memes it was silly and incredibly unnuanced, but it got me thinking so I guess in that sense it was worth the 48 seconds someone took to make it. The gist of the meme was, “we (the good tribe) are systematically selfless, which is why we are better than them (the bad tribe) who are systematically selfish”. Feel free to substitute your good or bad group of choice, it matters not for this article. So, the hypothesis here is that a system designed based on selfless principles is superior to one designed around selfish principles. The myriad ways that this hypothesis is logically false are legion, but for fun I am going to explain why, and introduce you to one of my favorite approaches in particularly sensitive or contentious topics debated (usually) by organizational leadership, I call it the selfishness exercise and I’ve been using it for a long time with great success.
First, since it will be technically Monday Musings when this publishes, some Aristotle for background.
"But in every action and choice, it is the end involved, since it is for the sake of this that all people do everything else. As a result, if there is some end of all actions, this would be the good related to action; and if there are several, then it would be these. The simply complete thing, then, is that which is always chosen for itself and never on account of something else. Happiness above all seems to be of this character, for we always choose it on account of itself and never on account of something else. Yet honor, pleasure, intellect, and every virtue we choose on their own account...but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, because we suppose that, through them, we will be happy" – Aristotle [1].
Happiness in ancient Greek is translated as “eudaimonia”, which is not exactly how we might perceive happiness in modern English. Eudaimonia is loosely translated as activities in accordance with complete virtue. Academics often call this a "’higher’ form of happiness, one only attainable by living a virtuous life. To an extent, this evaluative stance persists to this day, with many scholars championing eudaimonia over more hedonistic pursuits (even if some question the merit of treating these as separate forms of well-being, since many cherished experiences are a potent compound of both)” [2].
Ok, so let’s say that this higher happiness is probably closer to Mother Teresa’s version of selfishness than mine, though I’m digging the idea that hedonics and eudaimonia are two sides to the same coin, I think I will make that rum and coke after all. You know, for virtue’s sake and whatnot. Nevertheless, it’s still a voluntary pursuit, an attempt at happiness through activities that one individually determines will make them happy. Sounds pretty selfish to me. It would be impossible (in Aristotle’s view) to be selfless, because you would literally have no idea how to make choices that would be selfless. Even a contemporary selfless act like donating to a charity… has a funny way of making us feel, well pretty damn good. I’d argue that almost every voluntary selfless act you have done has given you quite a sense of happiness, or eudaimonia.
Higher happiness might be a fairly unattractive idea to those who are puritanical in nature, some view the suffering as the point. Well, I’ve done some suffering in my life, and let me tell you – voluntary suffering makes you feel really good. If you don’t believe me, talk to a graduate of one of any of the three military Dive Schools. With an attrition rate of almost 90%, those last 10% who make it seemed pretty happy to me, and I KNOW I was happy when I got my tiny little badge placed on my uniform.
Later, as a Course Manager/Instructor of said Dive School, I was part of the chain of command that students would go through on their way to being removed from training. So I saw a lot of young Americans who washed out or quit. Guess what? Without exception, those students thanked me, their training team, the military, the taxpayer for their salary, and most were already planning to start training up to try again. Ok, that fourth one didn’t happen, but a libertarian-ish man can dream. I don’t remember anyone stating they regretted the experience outright whether they succeeded or failed it. I imagine that most view their Boot Camp/Basic Training (or their Medical/Nerd Doctorate, childbirth, teenage children, etc.) in a similar vein: “Glad it’s over, glad I did it”.
One of my favorite scenes in the 1990s movie Major Payne illustrates another point about system design and selfishness. What creates a better system? Do you assume the best or the worst about humanity when designing human systems?
Major Benson Winifred Payne: They may not like me, but they WILL respect me.
Emily: Let me be more direct: they HATE you.
Major Benson Winifred Payne: Good. It'll draw 'em close together, make 'em a team.
Emily: That's a very cynical plan!
Major Benson Winifred Payne: Yeah, well at least it won't backfire [3].
Pessimistic systems tend to backfire less, because they already account for a lot of undesirable human behavior. Power corrupts? Great, let’s spread it out among a lot of people. People tend to look out for number one (aka they are selfish)? Sweet, make three different government branches, and then make them coequal and competitive with each other. In case the analogy hasn’t broken through your morning cup of coffee, that’s the US Constitution’s system design, it’s based on pessimism a lot more than optimism. I almost think it’s the Yin to the Declaration of Independence’s Yang. Related, unrelated; but that’s also why Civil Rights Leaders from Frederick Douglass to Martin Luther King Jr. used the Declaration (and our failures to live up to it) more than the Constitution, they held up the a mirror (the Declaration) to the US and challenged them to adhere to it [4].
Selfishness (properly restrained by virtue) is pretty much how all of us work. And that’s totally okay, as a matter of fact it’s inevitable. Which brings me to my free corporate consulting advice, feel free to steal at your leisure. I told you this article would be worth the price you paid for it. When I am working with senior organizational leadership, before we start a meeting about something that is contentious and zero-sum/you win – I lose, I open with something I call the “Selfishness Exercise”. First, I cover the basic points in this article with the group, and explain that we are all selfish and that colors our perspective, so before we begin debating organizational initiatives (usually budgetary, since money is something everyone wants more of) let’s take a minute to state what our selfish desire is for the conclusion of the meeting; I’ll start. Often, my selfish desire is that they see me as an effective facilitator and therefore hire me again, or tell their friends about me. Then around the room we go.
This is way more effective, and prevents the false virtue signaling that does nothing but hide the truth. I mean, it’s pretty statistically undeniable that everyone’s proposed fixes to a problem JUST SO HAPPEN to also benefit them or their department, weird right? So just quit pretending, and state your selfish goals up front. This builds team trust, and has the added benefit of speeding up the meetings and kind of ironically, creates empathy between competing factions. I think the outcomes are also superior, but that’s a hard thing to prove, so let’s just say the outcomes weren’t any worse! And in pursuit of those outcomes no one had to act like a weasel. Win-win, unless you like being a weasel, in which case carry on I guess.
1. Crisp, R., Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics. 2014: Cambridge University Press.
2. Kashdan, T.B., R. Biswas-Diener, and L.A. King, Reconsidering happiness: The costs of distinguishing between hedonics and eudaimonia. The journal of positive psychology, 2008. 3(4): p. 219-233.
3. Major Payne. 1995: USA.
4. Douglass, F., What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” July 5, 1852. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself with Related Documents, 2d ed.(Boston, 2003), 2019: p. 146-71.
My third your articles, on the first day I've learned about the existence of your blog. I found this exercise realistic and self-enlightening, as I applied it to my own motivation for engaging in a new volunteer activity I'm doing. What do I hope for from it? Nobody else here will be interested in the specifics, but I found them useful, and might share the exercise the next time my fellow volunteers have our monthly zoom meeting.