Leadership in Business, Snake-oil Merchants

                                       Business Culture

Timon (fragment of 'Timon of Athens') 

John Opie (1761-1807)

Photo Credit: Bolton Library and Museum Services, Bolton Council
[CC BY-NC-ND]

…it turns out that The Art of Quiet Influence makes a pretty convincing argument about how shouty behaviour and top-down command-and-control leadership is dead. In today’s modern and tight labour market you cannot force employees to do things at work by pulling rank, or by highlighting the rules they should follow: you have to persuade people by quieter means. Such as? Well, according to Davis, they include everything from demonstrating care for your colleagues to letting others know you welcome questions and disagreement, maintaining a good humoured demeanour, signalling your desire to work together rather than compete and being just as willing to follow another’s plan as to advocate your own.

As it happens, I think this gradual change in business culture reflects a wider societal change. In a world where the US president is a boorish self-congratulatory buffoon; where every other Tory MP is fighting a leadership campaign instead of seeking to do the best for Britain; and where self-seeking social networking has so overtaken popular culture that people are posting videos of car crashes where their friends died, being quiet, subtle and self-effacing is the radical course of action.

Even tech, the industry that has arguably fuelled our age’s self-obsession and loudness seems to be waking up to it…The Atlantic magazine recently reported that posh resorts in desirable locations are increasingly refusing requests from self-proclaimed “influencers” offering to exchange ten days at a five-star resort in the Maldives for “two posts on Instagram to like 2,000 followers”; and The Times claimed this week: “Instagram influencers are ditching aspirational shots of tasteful décor for ‘real’ photos in chip shops and supermarkets.”

…I gave up on Linkedin years ago, struggling to see the point of connecting with strangers and noticing that the most successful people I know actually make it difficult to be contacted, rather than soliciting more contacts…When even business social networks are telling you to make fewer connections you know that the age of relentless self-promotion is over.

…For decades now we’ve been told we should network like hell, develop ourselves into brands, push ourselves upwards and forwards, when putting your head down and doing the best work you can is more important than all these things combined. Doing good work cuts down the need for networking; people will notice it and come to you. Doing good work is the key to leadership; it sets the tone and the example for people around you. Doing good work also gives you the satisfaction of doing actual good work, which is its own reward.

(Sathnam Sanghera, The Times, 2019)

                                          I couldn’t agree with you more. However, it seems as though it's taken you a long time to figure this out. 

                                                         Biohacking

A 5.30 am ice bath, a five-mile walk, high-intensity seven-minute workouts, hours of meditation, sauna, one meal a day and fasting on the weekends. All this masochism has a name – biohacking.

…but biohacking culture more broadly is a creepy potpourri of self-improvement schemes that tells us something rather terrifying about the future of humanity.

The Quack Doctor, 

Benjamin Gerritsz. Cuyp (1612-1652)

Photo Credit: Glasgow Museums [CC BY-NC-ND]

First off, it’s a honeypot for all sorts of pseudo-science peddlers and snake-oil merchants, who will merrily charge 300 quid for a bag of coffee made with beans shat out by an aardvark. Want to sleep better? Try, “earthing” techniques, walking barefoot to connect to the earth’s natural electrical charges. Be clever? Buy nootropic pills filled with bacopa monnieri. They call it the optimisation industry for a reason.

The deeper objection, though, is more a philosophical one. Sure, we all want to perform better and feel stronger, but what’s really going on here? The logical endpoint of the bio-perfectionist mindset is surely an attempt to cheat death itself.

…Speaking for myself, I’ll pass. Eighty healthy years is plenty for a good life as most truly old people will tell you.

(Josh Glancy, The Sunday Times, 2019)

                         Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.