HOW SOCRATIC SCRIBBLING CAN MAKE YOU A BETTER BUSINESS THINKER

When we think of preparation for a life of working in business, few people put Philosophy at the top of their list. In today’s obsessive, STEM driven world, many people are calling into question the value of the liberal arts all together. The very thought of sitting around and talking about the nature of truth or justice or beauty seems at best an occupation for people with little else to do. Also, these issues invite constant disagreements which often lead nowhere except for self-righteous speeches and unfriending. And, Philosophy is not even fun. Why spend your leisure time arguing about Natural Law when you could be having cocktails or sex? And, if we dare focus on the key sources of the liberal arts, we are admonished that we are propagating the ideas of privilege developed by dead white guys. So, by this line of thinking, philosophy is definitely impractical, possibly immoral and surely uncomfortable. We tell our children today to major in logistics or robotics or digital do-dah if they want a job.

I am not here to dispute these opinions. I spent most of my life as a businessman working many years at a big advertising agency called J. Walter Thompson . I worked there from the end of the Mad Men Decade through the beginning of the Digital Divide. This is just before the Era of Fun died.

I actually was a Philosophy major at a jesuit school called Georgetown and then studied great books at the University of Chicago before venturing into the real world in the 1970s. I was lucky enough never to have a business course in my life, though I did have Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology as part of my liberal arts degree. Because I had a reputation as somewhat entertaining writer, people recommended that I go into the ad biz. In the seventies, job were scarce but I learned from Herodotus to look for back doors when you want to join the battle. Instead of sending a resume, I stalked Creatives from Leo Burnett after work to their evening watering hole. I bought a few rounds and got an opportunity to talk myself in. This first job ultimately led me to my long term home at J. Walter Thompson.

Now, ad agencies did employ people with business degrees — the suits — who had MBAs from Northwestern and Harvard — who “coordinated the business” meaning that had martini with olive lunches with the clients. I was what was called a Planner… responsible for figuring out what the hell we were going to say about our clients’ products and services. I worked closely with the Creatives, writers and art directors, who made commercials and ads based upon my Creative Brief.

It was in this activity that I recognized the true importance and practical relevance of my study of Philosophy. No, we did not sit around and talk about Truth and Goodness. But we did have to dig deep into breakfast cereal, cheese, beer, beef, shaving cream, life insurance, vacations, banking, cars…. and all the other things and activities that make the world go round.

You think there’s disagreement about the nature of justice? Well try to get agreement on the ideal qualities of beer or toothpaste. Worried about choices or war and peace in the Middle East? Nothing compared to war between chicken and burgers. The metaphysics of End-Dust would befuddle Hume; the invisible hand of Adam Smith could not compete with the shrewd scissors of Thursday coupon clippers. While Kellogg seemed to sell cereal on the basis of social-darwinism, Gerber portrayed baby food as a cute Kantian responsibility.

The business of advertising made us think hard about what people want and need and how they make their choices. We had to understand the difference between people’s perceptions of things and the realities. The ethics of Aristotle that explore Happiness and Character become transformed into the ethos or reputation of a Brand. We may not have been able to define The Good, but we sure had to define the good of a Midas Muffler. One of the first universal truths I learned from focus groups is that nobody can tell you why they do things. They are like Meno stumbling to expain the nature of virtue to Socrates. Quick, what brand of shampoo do you use and why that brand? If you actually can explain why, you are probably a weirdo. Just sayin’.

And, it was Plato’s Socrates and boring Aristotle that gave us the tools we needed to create advertising programs that actually worked…the ability to ask and answer questions from a variety of points of view: from the user of a product or service, from the purchaser (often not the user), from the corporation that provided it, to the workers who made it, to the distributors who shelved it, to the transport workers who got it going. The event of getting something to eat involves as many or more systems as does for your body to purchase, prepare, serve, and eat it. The questions are always simple but hard. The first question on our Creative Brief was always: “Who do want to do what?”

The trick is finding the right questions. That’s what Plato teaches us in those dialogues. Start your answers with examples. Look at both sides. Engage in the dialectics of opposites and exceptions. Work out definitions. (Ries and Trout created a rage with their book on Positioning, which was basically a restatement of how to write an Aristotelian definition!). In the Organanon, Aristotle tells us how we can connect ideas together. He also tells us about the power of examples, images, stories, the shorthand logic of enthymemes (Yes the original memes), fallacies, types of evidence…you name it, he covers it. And Maslow’s famous hierarchy is embarassingly similar to Aristotle’s discussion of happiness.

As you ask and answer questions, you need to do some sorting as well. Questions and answers come in types and levels. Some questions require no proof or evidence. When you ask somebody directions to the closest grocery store, you do not expect a proof — just a clear sequence of straights, lefts, and rights. Answers to questions must address people’s expectations. A scientific question invites different kind of evidence and proof than a business question. Some questions require not only explanations but also appeals to a hierarchy of goods and preferences. For many, a “healthy” chocolate bar is an oxymoron; for others, it would be ambrosia from the gods, and for old folks like me, it’s EXLAX.

How we pose and answer questions can raise or lower stakes in making decisions. Think of the surveys that asked “Is it time to leave Afghanistan?” versus, “Should we leave Afghanistan if it means the Taliban will not let girls go to school.” Surveys are only as good as their questions.

There are lots of books you can buy which claim to help you improve your thinking. You can read the “It’s all brain chemistry” neuro scientists, you have the statisticians talk about “risk management,” you can take advanced logic classes or investigate “artificial intelligence” models. You can “follow the science” of the moment, which will probably change momentarily. You can buy a life coach or guru. I’m not sure any of these methods approach, much less improve on, the ideas of Plato and Aristotle.

I do not mean to be dismissive to more quantitative approaches to thinking things through. “Let no one ignorant of mathematics enter” says the mythical sign on the Plato’s Academy. Yet, even if you aspire to investment banking, you need more than just the numbers. You need case histories, metaphors, and imagination. One of the most successful investors I know said that he never hired finance majors. “No, I hire people who studied art history. I can teach an art historian how to evaluate a company. (Not as different as evaluating a work of art as you might think. Even DaVinci had liabilities as well as assets.) What I cannot do is help people see the big picture. Maybe I’m being literal, but I like people who know how to understand the big picture. And that’s your art historian” I was sure he was kidding; he was not. And, his firm achieved stellar results.

I do not entirely blame the “business” or “tech” people for the decline in the appeal of the liberal arts and intelligent literacy. The problem is that many liberal arts schools stopped teaching “original sources”, those so called great books that actually shaped the way we think and talk about things. Who actually reads Einstein or Euclid? No, we are told to read textbooks, written by people with left or right political agendas. “We trade the “so-called hard books” for the babyfood textbooks that Gerber would be ashamed to sell. Do we read the histories of Thucydides and Herodotus and Caesar and Livi? No, we read text book histories, devoid of great questions beyond multiple choice. Why would anyone read less than the original source of a great idea. Let me read Smith and Marx, Freud and James, Jefferson and Martin Luther King, Hegel and Confucious, Keynes and Friedman. I want to know how they think. You may reply that my line of thinking is OK for the humanities, but the math and science need to be as “up to date” as Kansas City. Yes and No. Reading Hippocrates on Medicine, Faraday on electricity, Newton on motion will surprise and shock you with their clarity of thought and their ability to focus on the key issues. They teach us how to think about stuff. ..how to recognize problems and address them. The people who have improved on their theories learned how to think “on the shoulders of giants.” It’s as if schools are afraid of what would happen if we actually read the best people with the best questions and answers.

You can get a real education to help you think better for the cost of gym membership or less. All you need to do is join a Great Books discussion group, in person or online or both. Start with the Illiad and work your way up through the Greeks, the Romans, the Medievals, and the Moderns through James and Freud. Then, start over. They get more interesting every time you read them. I guess that’s why they call them Great Books. And, you do not have to limit your reading to the Western Classics. People all over the world have been thinking or writing for a long time, and you do not have to search far to find the great ones. And, if you join a discussion group, you’ll find that great books not only enlighten, but also they relight the fun lamp. Oh yeah…And, increasing your knowledge capital doesn’t hurt your personal bottom line. Next time you are trying to sell something to women, use the Austen test…Would Emma Woodhouse buy this?…If not, shelf it.