Managing Leadership^®

We take the practice of management seriously. Its importance operates on us at various levels from the professional (can we get the job done, or will we fall behind?) to the personal (am I good enough, or will I be exposed as a loser?). Anxieties abound.

Consequently, when someone pulls into town offering magical elixirs for management success, we crowd around the wagon and pull out our dollar bills. We so want to believe. And any residual resistance we may have is quickly banished with a double-barreled load of unimpeachable credentials and impenetrable rhetoric.

You would think we would become inured to this after a while. But our apprehensions cause hope to spring eternal, and there are plenty around to stoke those fears.

And another difficulty, then, is that our minds are so clouded by that unease we don’t quite know how to pick the real value providers from the bandwagon riders. There is a way, though. We’ve discussed it in connection with the Socratic Method.

But let’s put another twist on it, here. Let’s call it: Socratic Skepticism.

When you are presented with a new management concept or model, adopt a skeptical attitude toward it. Dismiss the academic, business, or publishing credentials of the speakers or authors, ignore the plaudits of their endorsers, and take a jaundiced view of its presentation format. Train yourself to ignore the intimidating confidence of the lecturer or the magisterial attitude of the writer, and just try to listen to what is being said.

As you do so, assume that it is riddled with gullibility, a hidden agenda, prejudice, or bias, or is just poorly grounded or thought out. Doubts should begin to arise. Develop them into questions to lob back into the argument. You will find that this sharpens your hearing, your critical attention to the discussion. You want to note what responses you receive from this pulsing.

Do you find a good defense or rejoinder as you continue to listen or read? That’s good! Maybe there’s something substantial there, after all. But maintain your skepticism until all your questions have been satisfactorily resolved.

Are your doubts met with nothing but silence? Or, perhaps, by intimidating efforts to dismiss their veracity, by retreats behind vague academic authority, or by mere assertions of superior judgment, knowledge, or experience?

That’s all pretty strong evidence that these people may actually be, for all their putative renown, Socratic ignoramuses; maybe, even, just assertive imbeciles. Stand your ground. Fire more questions in there. Open up the gap. Try to find the missing responses. If they aren’t forthcoming, pile in until you know what you’re dealing with. You will learn valuable and applicable lessons even from so rigorous an exposure of the vacuity of the ideas being pushed on you.

Force everyone who advises you - whether as a consultant, an author, a professor, or a public presenter (watch this last one; people have tasers these days) - to make their case. You don’t care who they are or what they’ve done. You only care whether what they have to say is worth listening to - or worth translating into practice.

And, by the way, do the same yourself, whether you are acting as a consultant, author, mentor, or, of course, manager. Remember, the Socratic method isn’t simply a means of instruction - it’s a means of learning. Apply it with rigor to your own thinking. Not only that, invite others to do so, as well (and by all means, consider yourselves so invited regarding the discussions on these pages!).

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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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Today’s tip: Carmine Coyote, who authors Slow Leadership, has posted a thoughtful piece on the problems with pseudo-scientific approaches to management. You may not agree with all of her argument, but wherever your position is in the issues she presents, you will do well to have your assumptions about them challenged by a reading of this excellent essay.

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