Once again we see the release of a Harry Potter book. However, this book isn’t all about Harry’s adventures at Hogwarts, but his philosophical debut into the business world.
The book If Harry Potter Ran General Electric: Leadership Wisdom from the World of the Wizard is author Tom Morris’s latest work, according to "Harry Potter's qualities cast spell in business world" by Linda M. Castellitto, Special for USA TODAY.
The Notre Dame philosophy professor, who previously wrote If Aristotle Ran General Motors and Philosophy for Dummies, digs into J.K. Rowling’s fantastical work for lessons in leadership. The book mostly discusses Harry and his world, focusing on virtues such as courage, ethics, mentoring, and being a leader without a title.
Although, simply from the title, I doubt that Morris is the next business guru, or even a reliable mentor for solving business dilemmas, it couldn’t hurt to have a read, and maybe better ourselves as a person and employee. It’s funny to think that from a popular child-like story series we can extract the means for running Corporate America. And yet, as laughable as it sounds, perhaps Morris makes some valid points. If you look at the mission statements and core values of the business world, you’ll see that companies are likely to list the values of ethics, leadership, and accountability foremost, and seek the same traits in their employees. It is these basic qualities that promote success, the qualities that we were first taught as children.
Maybe that is why the world has fallen in love with J.K. Rowling’s series. Perhaps the character of Harry Potter is whom we should all strive to be, both at work and after our 9 to 5 routine. The magic to success may very well be finding the wizard in yourself.
Hi Stacy. I'd never want to be anyone's Guru! Would you? If I can just be a pipeline for insight, that's good enough for me! I had never intended to read the Harry Potter books, but a student of my favorite PhD student at Notre Dame asked me repeatedly to read them and consider writing an essay for his book, Harry Potter and Philosophy. He was my academic grandson, so how could I refuse? I got hooked right away and got so excited about the insights of the Potter stories, and especially about ideas I wasn't seeing anyone else discuss that I had to write them up. The book is what resulted (in addition to the essay I was asked to write).
Will is worried about pseudo philosophy. Good. I'm glad someone cares about REAL philosophy, which is what this book is about. Some of the best philosophers in history have had a knack for finding insight in all sorts of strange and common places. I hope you all see the book and agree that there is an amazing amount of wisdom to be mined from Potterdom.
But you can't judge a book by its cover or title - you have to dig in a bit. And then the real thing will prove itself.
I appreciate you all noticing the book.
Good wishes! And Happy Thinking!
Tom Morris
Posted by: Tom Morris | June 16, 2006 at 11:34 PM
I think that someone has started a pseudo business-philosophy book factory. Here are some ideas for future works...
"If Dilbert ran Hewlett Packard"
"If the X-Men sat on the board of IBM"
"If Bart Simpson ran Disney"
Get the picture. My only regret is that I didn't come up with the trendy little book gig!!!
Posted by: Will Dettmering | June 13, 2006 at 09:44 PM