Managing Leadership^®

How many times have you heard someone say, “If we agree on this, then . . .” or “We all know that ‘X,’ therefore . . .” and then go on to construct a perfectly coherent argument, an unassailable structure of logical statements that lead to a lofty conclusion demanding your specified action or compliance - a thing of real beauty? You are enthralled, and readily buy into the proposition. But perhaps sometime later you realize that after the first brief mention you never heard about the premise again.

Or how about this: Have you ever opened your door only to be confronted by someone who wants to persuade you of a particular political/religious/social position, and who asks you if you agree with a statement that seems obvious on the face of it? When you agree - who couldn’t? - you are then led down a relentless chain of irresistibly logical if/then statements that draw you inexorably to a conclusion that you hadn’t expected, and that you find yourself resisting mightily.

But whenever you do, you are silenced with a reminder of your stipulation to the founding premise. Sometimes there is even an atmosphere of menace: we know, you are told, that the logic is impeccable, so if you are rejecting the conclusion, you must be rejecting the premise.

And that was presented in a way so bound up with broad cultural norms that the only possible explanation of this state of affairs points to a more ominous situation: You, it is intimated, must be of flawed, perhaps reprehensible, maybe even traitorous, character. Or, it could be, you’re just an idiot.

What’s going on, here? At bottom, it’s about the premise. In both cases, you are being denied the opportunity to examine or question it.

In the first, you are trundled along by people who themselves, in all good conscience, probably accept it without question - or who, at least, don’t want the development of their brilliant argument delayed by troublesome questions about the “obvious.”

In the second, you are being backed into a corner by people who care more about the conclusion than the premise, and simply use the latter as a cattle prod, herding you toward the former.

Whether the premise is lost to you in a brilliant theoretical shell game or used as a blunt instrument against you in a logical frontal assault, the result is the same. It’s just more obvious in the latter case: you have been victimized by your failure to appreciate and take full possession of the premise of the argument you are being asked to buy into.

Whether someone is going door-to-door in your neighborhood with brochures, or speaking to you from a book cover or a workplace conference room, inviting you to adopt a particular approach to your career - or even to your profession of management - you cannot allow yourself to be dazzled by the wonderful structures they weave before you; you must understand the fundamental issues involved in the decision you are being asked to make, the paradigms you are being pressured to adopt. You must ask questions.

Use the Socratic method. The key to that isn’t just that you ask questions, by the way: it’s that you persist in professing your ignorance, and on demanding that your protagonists, and even that the facts, make sense of themselves to you.

You don’t have to do this all in one day about every issue before you. You just have to start. On the other hand, you also have to never quit. We’ll talk more about that on Monday. See you then!

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Here is a list of all the posts in this popular series:

1. Radiating Imbecility
2. Rays of hope
3. Pulsating inconsistency
4. Radiating confidence
5. Blind faith
6. Mirror, mirror . . .
7. Socratic genius
8. Socratic ignorance
9. Socratic method
10. First principles
11. The Socratic attitude
12. Why we do what we do
13. Recon by fire

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