We’ve all heard the phrase: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” It was put into the mouth of Socrates twenty four hundred years ago by his student, Plato, in a dialogue called “The Apology.” In the dialogue, Plato examines the clash between unthinking orthodoxy and critical speculation. The irony in this instance is that the ones who live on are those who don’t examine their own lives, and the person who perishes is the one who does.
It’s an irony that should be familiar to us, since it hasn’t changed much over the years. In any domain of life, questioning dogma, or dogmatists, can be perilous. And we all know dogmatists who obtain power and influence one way or another and then, neither questioning their own competence nor submitting it to questioning by others, begin to exhibit it in unwarranted ways.
Last week, Joe Raasch, who authors The Happy Burro, touched directly on this in a comment here. He said that one of the dumb types we routinely encounter is the person who “had a success years ago, and leans on ‘that one time’ as evidence of their knowledge for all future events.” We are all complicit in this, inasmuch as we initially encourage, then tolerate, and finally simply fail to challenge this attitude and its consequences.
Socrates’s fatal characteristic was his refusal to succumb to this. The Apology is Plato’s recounting of his teacher’s defense against various charges made against him by the State, which charges, it was suggested in the dialogue, may really have been prompted by his supposed presumption of intellectual superiority over others.
He was sure this could be easily shown to be wrong in the face of the facts, and so he set about to identify all of the many great men of Athens he thought would be easily found who were smarter than he. Here is what he discovered:
. . . the result of my mission was just this: I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that some inferior men were really wiser and better.”
He had gone to the politicians, the poets, the artisans - seeking out those among them who were widely regarded as experts in their various fields, certain he would find men demonstrably smarter than he. But what he found in all of them was this shared trait he described about the poets:
. . . not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them.”
concluding:
. . . upon the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise.”
Or, similarly, about the artisans:
. . . because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom . . .”
Listen to that again: This defect in them - this overweening confidence - overshadowed their wisdom.
Moreover, their wisdom was, itself, often not really wisdom at all, but what we might call a Socratic genius, something that they sort of channel from the wider sea of human experience, knowledge, and insight - but with little control, and no real comprehension.
Managers must have both control and comprehension. And they approach attainment of these not by presuming their possession of them, but by questioning it.
The self-examining manager, or the Socratic genius - which do you want working for you? Which do you want to develop in your organization?
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Here is a list of all the posts in this popular series:
- Radiating Imbecility
- Rays of hope
- Pulsating inconsistency
- Radiating confidence
- Blind faith
- Mirror, mirror . . .
- Socratic genius
- Socratic ignorance
- Socratic method
- First principles
- The Socratic attitude
- Why we do what we do
- Recon by fire
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6 Comments
Jim, I don’t get over here enough to tell you how much I enjoy your writing and perspective. This article shows it fabulously. I love the link of the Classics with contemporary management.
Very, very nice work. Thanks for this.
Hi Jim,
I echo Frank Roche’s praise. It is refreshing to have today’s managerial issues illuminated through the lens of classical literature.
I appreciate the ‘mention’ in today’s article. What about a situation where a reputation precedes the manager? I worked in Six Sigma during my days at GE. Their Six Sigma program is arguably one of the best in the world, and I participated in it. When I moved on to another corporation, I was viewed as an expert. Is ‘dumb’ situational and sometimes put upon the manager v. intrinsic? e.g. is one company’s good become another company’s great? Past successes are a ticket to play, not a place to stay.
Thank you for your continued conversation on this topic - balanced, and instantly applicable to the working manager!
Hello Frank,
Thank you so much for your very generous words. Your support and encouragement are very much appreciated.
As are, of course, your visits, your work, and your own writing. Thank you for all of it.
Hi Joe,
Thank you also for your kind words and contributions to this discussion.
As for the reputation for expertise in Six Sigma you carried with you, I think the key lies in your great phrase: “Past successes are a ticket to play, not a place to stay.”
The reputation earns you a hearing - if you play the “just take it from me” card, or abuse their trust in you to set off the codependency dynamics, then you’ve got the classic problem.
But if you use your ticket to make your case, and you win them over based on your argument and practice, then you are probably continuing to earn your spurs - and you’re also setting off the dynamics that will make your career as a manager in the new outfit effective. By “earn” I mean you’re continuously establishing - not hiding behind - your credentials as a manager. It’s the difference between arguing from authority or arguing from the facts.
Thanks, again, for enriching the dialogue!
This reminds me of the celebrities who seem to believe they can wow us into political submission by sheer virtue of how cool we’re supposed to believe they are.
Hello Cam,
Today’s celebrities hardly rate being equated with the poets of classical Athens, but many of them seem to insist on suffering from the same shortcoming, nevertheless, don’t they? The gall can be pretty breathtaking.
I hadn’t actually thought of them, though - thanks for bringing the idea home so incisively!
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[...] Okay, so let’s review a moment (if you haven’t, yet, you may want to read yesterday’s post before this one): Socratic genius can be either a specific skill in a particular field (such as the artisans) or an inherent ability that one seems to express with mastery, but with little or no real control or comprehension (like the poets). Moreover, it is often accompanied by an unwarranted, but firmly held and even widely acknowledged, presumption that this reflects similar ability in all areas to which the owner deigns to direct his or her sublime attention, but in which he or she is actually ignorant. [...]
[...] Clearly, then, Socrates was not a Socratic genius - that’s how he described the sort of people who hardly know what they know, and who don’t really know at all most of what they think they know. He, on the other hand, had a very precise and intimate knowledge of what he knew - and what he didn’t know. And he developed that by assuming that he was ignorant of the truth in the first place, and that the representations of it foisted on him by others or by society were unreliable. [...]
[...] While reviewing the second corollary, we saw that Socrates adopted a peculiar attitude - the profession of ignorance - to force himself to reject glibly offered assumptions; rather, he re-subjected them to questioning in order to ensure he understood them. As it happens, he usually discovered in the process that they had fatal flaws, casting into doubt the beliefs and practices that were built upon them. [...]
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[...] Socratic genius [...]
[...] Socratic genius [...]
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[...] Socratic genius [...]
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