You need the courage to resist the blandishments—book contracts, consulting work, high-paying jobs—that are routinely offered to people who preach ruthless efficiency and unstinting pursuit of profits.
A priest, pastor, imam, or rabbi who is looking for a better way to understand and explain the relationship between faith and the jobs where congregants spend much of their time.
The idea of writing about the philosophy described in Joy at Work originated in the mid-1990s. I was CEO of AES, an energy company that by 2002 had plants in 31 countries, $8.6 billion in revenue, $33.7 billion in assets, and 40,000 AES people. In a dozen years of operations, we had developed a highly unconventional workplace culture and also achieved enviable financial results.
Several family members, some close friends, a few business associates, and numerous students who persevered through my lectures suggested that I start putting what I was learning at AES in some publishable form. Joel Fleishman, distinguished professor of public policy at Duke University, was the most persistent, even offering to hire someone to follow me around to my lectures and write the book for me.
I kept putting people off. “Maybe someday,” I would say, or “I’m too busy being a CEO, husband, and father,” or “I’m not sure there is enough here for a book.”
While these excuses were at least partially true, fear of failure was probably the biggest roadblock. I knew that writing was difficult for me, especially writing something that was fresh and interesting—and perhaps even transforming, if I could put my thoughts and beliefs on paper in a clear and convincing way. Most authors writing about business topics say, in effect, “I did it, and here’s how you can, too.” This is not my purpose. I feel confident that I am on the right path, but I know I am still far from my destination. This book is an extended argument for a simple proposition: The workplace should be fun and fulfilling.
The case I make lacks the precision of science and the airtight logic of law. Instead, it is built on passion, experience, and common sense. These are the emotional and mental tools that guide us in our everyday lives.
Many people have been on this journey with me. My brilliant and loving wife, my children, other family members, AES colleagues, and friends have provided insights, wisdom, and encouragement.
Despite their support and guidance, I still make mistakes in plotting my route and staying on course. Undoubtedly, some of these errors have crept into this book.
I am not a master of philosophy, theology, psychology, or sociology, but my wanderings have taken me into the territory of each. My lack of a thorough grounding in these disciplines made it necessary to lead the AES Corporation in a way that was best described by my colleague Tom Tribone (one of our most creative developers of new business): “We try it out in practice and then see if it works in theory.” Much of what might sound like theory or philosophy in this book is the product of trial and error.
I plan to write only one book, and I’m going to lay out everything I know. This is it. As my college football coach always said before each game, “Leave everything on the field.”
My brother Ray, author of several books on the urban church, often reminds folks in his writings and sermons that “a point of view” is really “a view from a point.” I have tried to write this book from the perspective of a God-centered world rather than a human-centered world, which is the vantage point of many of our nation’s leaders in business, government, and academia. (See “Enter Into the Master’s Joy,” the postscript of this book, for a discussion of my faith journey and its effect on my views of the workplace.)
My understanding of work, business, and life is colored by my early years in the picturesque, isolated Nooksack Valley at the foot of Mount Baker in Washington state. The nearest small town was 30 miles away. All four of my grandparents had immigrated to Washington from Norway early in the 20th century. My dad never went to college. He went from job to job as a day laborer in construction or logging. He was a lifetime union member, a source of great pride to him. During most of my formative years, he was forced to leave home for six to seven months each year to find work in Alaska. Seldom was he able to take home more than a few thousand dollars a year during the 1950s and early 1960s. My mom ended her formal schooling in 10th grade after her father died. Like my parents, none of my aunts and uncles went to college.
In the spring of my senior year at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, I phoned my dad to get his blessing on my choice of graduate schools. I had gone to UPS primarily because the school gave me a bigger scholarship to play football and basketball than others did for academics. I am sure he thought that four years of college was enough—and that it was time to get to work. But he was gracious enough not to raise that issue.
“Where are you thinking about going?” he asked.
“The Harvard Business School,” I answered.
There was a pause on the phone.
“Where’s that?” he asked.
“In Boston,” I replied.
After another extended pause, he said, “I don’t recommend you do it, Denny. It’s very far away, and I have never heard of it. It can’t be a very good school.” Needless to say, this story has been well received at my lectures over the years at places like Stanford, Michigan, Georgetown, and the Kellogg School at Northwestern. It is also strong evidence of my early isolation from the centers of higher education that have had such a powerful influence on the philosophy of business, organizations, and marketplaces. In intellectual terms, I entered graduate school as a blank slate, open to new ideas and unencumbered by the intellectual complacency that afflicts many undergraduates at Ivy League schools.
There is a disturbing preoccupation with economics in our world. We often calculate our worth as individuals by the salary we receive or our net worth. “It’s the economy, stupid!” reminds us that our government and its leaders are judged more on economics than on principles. Not surprisingly, the same belief that “economics is king” also drives most business organizations. I believe that economics is important for individuals, organizations, and nations. However, it is only one element of a healthy life and far from the most important one. On my bookshelves are more than 100 volumes about businesses and organizations. Most of them attempt to make a case for a particular set of values, principles, and strategies that will help organizations achieve financial success, grow, and sustain themselves over a long period of time. They contain mountains of useful information about how to lead organizations. But most are deficient in one major respect: They don’t define the ultimate purpose of an enterprise.
The principles and purposes that I espouse are meant to be ends in and of themselves, not techniques to create value for shareholders or to reach other financial goals. Some critics may discount my views because the AES stock price has fallen precipitously from its heights of 1999 and 2000. To dismiss my views on these grounds ignores three fundamental points: First, the workplace values that I advocate took AES to a lofty share price in the first place. Second, external factors—notably the Enron scandal and the California blackouts—clobbered the stock price of most energy companies, regardless of whether they were involved in the difficulties that beset the industry (AES was not). Third, and by far most important, the principles embraced by AES stand on their own merits whatever the company’s share price.
Winning, especially winning financially, is a second-order goal at best. Working according to certain timeless, true, and transcendent values and principles should be our ambition. A major point of this book is to suggest a broader definition of organizational performance and success, one that gives high priority to a workplace that is filled with joy for ordinary working people. Such a place gives all workers an opportunity to make
