Know Thyself

One's own is well hidden for one's
own; and of all treasure troves, one's
own is the last to be excavated . . .

Friedrich Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra

The importance of self-knowledge has been acknowledged through the ages and across cultures. A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi in ancient Greece was commanded to "Know Thyself'' and Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote that "self-knowledge is enlightenment''.

Self-knowledge is different from knowledge of the objective world. It is, by definition, subjective and is thus not easily obtained, as illustrated by the epigraph. Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers, two of the most influential psychotherapists of the last century, theorised that people have a hidden personality of which they are not aware. It is this hidden, subconscious, nature of personality that creates epistemological hurdles and makes self-knowledge a difficult to obtain treasure.

Many different psychometric tests have been developed to determine a subject's personality or other aspects of the self. These tests are used in clinical settings and research, but are also widely used for recruitment and leadership development.

For my MBA studies I was asked to undertake a battery of personality and motivation tests in an attempt to improve my self knowledge. The main question to be answered is whether this myriad of numbers and classifications actually describe me as a person and whether they can provide a deeper self-knowledge to enable me to be a better manager.

Numerous studies have shown that psychometric tests can be used to make predictions about behaviour of individuals and job performance. There are, however, many situational variables, such as organisational culture, which influence behaviour and research indicates that personality plays the greatest role in situations where there are no social clues on how to behave .

Some of the often used methodologies are scientifically problematic. There is little empirical evidence to confirm the validity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Also for Theory X/Y and ERG Theory there is little or no evidence to confirm the validity of their assumptions.

Problematic aspect of self administered psychometric testing is a high level of inherent confirmation bias, also known as the `Forer Effect'. Am I really very conscientious, or do I perceive myself to be conscientious? Am I really an extroverted person, or is it my high level of energy which subjugates any innate introvertedness? Do the results of these tests provide a picture of my inner self, or are they a reflection of my perceived self?

The test results do not actually reveal any information beyond what has been entered by me, because the results are only a linguistic rearrangement of the answers. This is confirmed by recent research that showed that most people are able to guess the outcome of personality tests without actually undertaking them.

Comprehensive self-knowledge can thus not be obtained by completing surveys because they can only reveal the perceived self and are not capable of unearthing the inner (subconscious) self. Psychometric tests are suitable only as a vehicle for introspection, providing an entry point for reflecting on one's self. This introspection can, however, not occur without life experience to reflect on.

Obtaining self knowledge, considered essential for leadership development, requires something deeper and more substantial, as alluded to by Nietzsche in the epigraph to this blog entry. As our behaviour is predominately controlled by situational variables, the only way to obtain self-knowledge is life experience.

Only by being exposed to a multitude of situations and challenges can we know what our personality actually is. As we gain life experience, our inner and perceived selves slowly converge. Maturity is the situation were the inner self and the perceived self are almost identical and self-knowledge becomes apparent. Even the most carefully designed personality test can not leapfrog the knowledge obtained through life experience. Carl Gustav Jung, who inspired development of the MBTI recognised this when he wrote:

"Anyone who wants to know the human psyche ... would be better advised to abandon exact science ... and wander with human heart through the world.''

This foray into psychometric testing leaves me to conclude that no psychometric test can ever replace the fullness of life experience to obtain true self-knowledge. Experiences such as exposing oneself to a challenging situations, occasionally exploring the boundaries of morality, experiencing different cultures or going through emotional turmoil are the only meaningful ways to gain self-knowledge.

The end of magic?

I have recently purchased a facsimile copy of Reginald Scott's The Discoverie of Witchcraft (originally published in 1584).

This is an important book in the history of Western civilisation as it is the first ever book in which methods for creating magic are explained. This might seem an overstatement, as magic is nowadays a trivialised from of theatre which barely has any influence on the way we think.

Scott's book is important because it was the first time somebody openly challenged the belief in witchcraft and supernatural powers by exposing conjuring methods. The book contains some interesting magic; there are pictures of trick knives that make it seem like you are cutting your nose or finger. The picture on the left shows a contraption used to create the illusion of somebody's head being severed. There is also a description of a Magic Colouring Book, which is still used in children's magic shows and many other tricks still performed by contemporary magicians.

The book was published in the Renaissance, a period which heralded Western culture as we know it today. Although many people see the renaissance as a period where Europe emerged from the Dark Ages, some do not see this as a positive development. Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, for example, questioned whether the renaissance was a positive change and argued that it was a period of decline from the High Middle Ages, destroying much that was important.

One of the important things that was destroyed is a sense of magic and The Discoverie of Witchcraft illustrates, if not helped the cause, this development. It might seem strange for an engineer/philosopher like myself to argue that dispelling a belief in magic would not be a good thing. Magic is, however, more than a simplistic belief in supernatural forces that control our lives.

Magicians have been part of human civilisation for as long as there are records - and possibly as long as human culture exists. There are many anthropological accounts of medicine men and shamans using conjuring skills as part of their healing and rituals. Most magic history books interpret this use of sleight of hand as an attempt by the shaman to obtain power mischievously. But there is much more to magic than one person gaining power over others.

Magic is a psychological force - a means to understand our position in nature. Although some might argue that magic has been wiped from contemporary culture, it has never actually disappeared from our psyche. Simple acts, such as writing your name on a wall are in fact magical. To some this is a simple act of vandalism, but that is not the real motivation for people to do this.

Writing your name on a wall makes the wall becomes an extension of yourself and you become part of the wall. It is a way to exert our self onto the world. This is I think the deeper psychological reason for the popularity of tagging. Tagging is a way to impart part of your self onto the environment in which you live. This is in essence an act of magic because it is a way to connect the inner world (psychology) with physical reality. There is no rational reason to write your name on a wall

There are many more examples of non rational behaviour; why do we prefer one brand over another? Why we choose one political party or football team over another? When analysing motivations in every day choices we see that people often cross the horizon of reason and this is the realm of magical thinking. Magic, as a psychological force, is still alive and kicking in a hyper-modern world.

Why study an MBA?

I have asked myself several time why I should drag myself through this course as management is not the most invigorating line of study I can imagine.

Only last year, I have completed my arts degree, specialising in philosophy and sociology, with a smitten of psychology. As an elective for this degree, I studied one unit of Strategic Management and became very interested in the work of Henry Mintzberg, specially concerning his line of inquiry regarding the usefulness of formal planning systems as a sufficient or necessary means to improve company performance.

In a recent book he argues against the whole idea of an MBA as a prerequisite for senior management (Henry Mintzberg, Managers, not MBAs, Berret-Koehler, 2004).

Am I wasting my time? Is an academic education useful in managerial practice?

My philosophy studies have strongly influenced my thinking about good management and has moved me from a systems (Taylorist like) approach to a more human resource focussed perspective. Management is a social science through and through and I am treating it as such.

I have argued previously (Prevos, 2005) that: "an organisation can not rely solely on formal systems to develop corporate strategy. Although empirical research points towards a positive correlation between strategic planning and company performance, these studies suffer from some methodological problems. Because strategic management is not an exact science, strategy formulation requires a great deal of intuition and company performance relies to some extent on serendipity. This does, however, not imply that strategic planning as a formal exercise is futile. Strategic planning is vital for good management of an organisation. Not as a means to plot the course for years ahead, but as a way to be able to anticipate the unpredictability of external influences".

I think this sums op Mintberg's issue with an MBA - no education can teach intuition, creativity, insight and so on. But I hope that it will certainly help in shaping my ability to make better decisions. In the end, nothing is more practical then a good theory :)

Why I am not an Australian

Many Australians ask me why I do not want to become a citizen of this dry hot land. The past few weeks, i.e. the federal election, illustrates one of my standard answers to this question.

First of all, I do not want to be subjected to compulsory voting. Although I do believe that voting is a great good and if I could I would, compulsory voting actually reduces the quality of democracy. People have no reason to really care about politics, it is just something you do. I have read somewhere that only 75% of the votes are valid, so what is the point?

Besides compulsory voting, the quality of political debate in Australian politics is very low. Now political debate is not very enlightening in most cases, but in my experience, Australian politicians are champions at producing meaningless drivel. The rhetoric is so thick it can be cut with a knife.

I am not sure whether the political parties think Australian are actually that stupid, or whether interest in politics is so low that nobody really cares what politicians say.

The campaign is aimed at explaining people why not to vote for the other dude. Also, for a country that voted against becoming a republic this election is very presidential. The choice is between Rudd and Howard, not between liberal and socialistic ideals.

Furthermore, the Australian system prevents small parties from being able to have a say in parliament. It is very unlikely that the Greens will ever have a fair number of seats, so Australian governments will always be a ping pong between Labour and Liberals. This is not good because the two party system severely limits the richness of the political debate.

The current election circus shows that there is no clear policy from either party. Policy making s a reactive contest, trying to outsmart each other with on the run populist options.

Why should I choose to become actively involved in a system I do not support?

Now I am not saying that the Netherlands is a perfect country, but it is the place of my birth and therefore my default citizenship.

Besides my disagreement with the Australian political system there are other reasons, such as jury duty and my emotional binding with the country I grew up in, not to become an Australian. This could be a topic for the future.

The illusiveness of fairness

Fairness is a concept which is used often to justify a point of view when discussing the distribution of goods or benefits - "it should be done fairly". But what does this mean, what is fair and what is not fair? Most people seem to have a very strong sense whether something is fair or not, but what is this based on? As a philosopher, I do not take common sense for granted and decided to research this claim.

I was initially surprised to find that none of the philosophical dictionaries and encyclopaedias I have access to contain a lemma on fairness (besides references to John Rawls' concept of Justice as Fairness). Searching the scholar section of Google provided some starting points. Unfortunately academic publishers charge exorbitant amounts to read journal articles and I refuse to pay for research which is essentially funded through taxes. So I started from scratch.

The common sense point of view of fairness is a sense of equality. Our sense of fairness is cultivated at a very early age: I remember having fights with my sister over who should get the largest piece of cake and even using a measuring tape to support our point of view.

Fairness as an absolute equality, such as in the cake problem, is a strange concept. If we apply this childish view of the world to adult problems, everybody would be paid exactly the same salary; would live in the same kind of house, wear the same clothes ...

An absolutist concept of fairness can also lead to some extreme consequences. The Old Testament concept of "an eye for an eye" (Exodus 21:23-27) is a very well known example of absolute fairness. This is one of the arguments that Christian apologetics use to justify the death penalty. This bizarre ritual is, for many reasons outside the scope of this article, a very irrational punishment. The eye for an eye concept leads to situations such as we currently see in the middle east and is a slippery slope that should be avoided.

Absolute fairness is an artificial concept, which does not take the realities of life into consideration, e.g. we don't all need or deserve the same piece of cake. It is a dangerous concept which can lead to unwanted consequences.

This leads to the next concept: relative fairness. For the cake problem this means that one child should get a larger piece because he or she is more hungry than the other or has behaved better. This relative concept comes much closer to the common sense concept of fairness which is used in every day life.

We accept that doctors are paid more than taxi drivers. Doctors save our lives, while taxi divers perform a much less critical function in society. Western society is, when it comes to distribution of wealth, basically a meritocracy in which everybody is rewarded on their merit.

Although merit is not the primary driver, it is a guiding principle in determinations of fairness. But is consideration of merit by itself sufficient to have a fair determination? Who determines who has how much merit? Is merit our individual contribution to society or to a business or is merit based on our personal needs? How much merit warrants one person getting a piece of cake twice as big as the other?

Another determinant in distribution problems can be need. The most hungry people need to most or best food. Need, beyond primal necessity, is not a very practical concept to use. Need is a concept which can be used only in situations where survival or health of people is at stake. Health care is an example where need has preference over merit.

If we want to use fairness as a determinant in solving a wealth distribution problem, we effectively shift the question. The discussion shifts from fairness to merit (being good) or need (being more hungry) and possibly other considerations I have not yet explored.

It seems that fairness is an utterly useless concept when trying to determine the distribution of goods. We can not use it to determine who gets which size of cake because it either leads to a blanket absolute equality or a series of further questions. The answer of these further questions (what is merit? what is need?) depends on our philosophical (or political) orientation.

My conclusion is that fairness should not be used as a determinant in wealth distribution problems and the word should be reserved for its original meaning, e.g. "free of spots and stains".