“Become who you are by learning who you are,” wrote the Greek poet Pindar 2,600 years ago.
Is there some charmed elixir for business success? Is there a unique approach, some course, perhaps an app, some algorithm that will make an organisation thrive? Ask an AI application like ChatGPT and it will provide a checklist of requirements – and even tell you what to do, in a cut and paste way.
Can both a company and a manager achieve mastery? Or, is business essentially random, and success more a result of luck, just being in the right place at the right time?
Part of the delight and global popularity of football is its simplicity. Put the ball in the opposing team’s net. On the surface, the playing field of business should also be simple.
Create a product or service that creates value, that can be captured. In other words, make a profit. Yet, that simple aspiration turns out to be more difficult to achieve than expected. Every business unit manager has a different view on what is required, looking at the problem through the eyes of their training.
When you ask the finance, audit, marketing, supply chain, ICT and HR managers, each will propose a different route to a victorious triumph, setting out a menu of tasty, targeted results.
Yet, somehow, usually corporate mastery remains elusive, in a constant cycle of ups and downs. While the business system with the inevitable unexpected upsets difficult to master, at an individual level prowess is in reach.
Can a manager achieve mastery?
In Robert Greene’s fascinating book Mastery, he sets out a roadmap based on his analysis of contemporary and historical ‘masters’ of their field.
First comes discovering one's calling, followed by an apprenticeship, including learning skills and mentoring, then a creative - active phase, absorbing the knowledge that comes with years of experience and finally mastery, surpassing the teacher in brilliance, often rewriting the rules to one’s own advantage.
In describing the essence of mastery, Greene writes: “There exists a form of power and intelligence that represents the high point of human potential.
It is the source of the greatest achievements and discoveries in history. It is the history that is not taught in our schools nor analysed by professors, but almost all of us, at some point, have had glimpses of it in our own experience.
It often comes to us in a period of tension – facing a deadline, the urgent need to solve a problem, a crisis of sorts. Or it can come as the result of constant work on a project. In any event, pressed by circumstances, we feel unusually energised and focused.”
“Our minds become completely absorbed in the task before us. This intense concentration sparks all kinds of ideas – they come to us as we fall asleep, out of nowhere, as if springing from our unconscious. At these times other people seem less resistant to our influence; perhaps we are more attentive to them, or we appear to have a special power that inspires their respect. We might normally experience life in a passive mode, constantly reacting to this or that incident, but for these days or weeks we feel like we can determine events and make things happen.”
Does randomness rule?
An alternate view is that despite a manager’s best efforts at mastery, the business world is essentially random. Both individuals and corporates are buffeted by the almost cosmic effects that are out of their control.
This includes all the second and third order outcomes, that grow astronomically and are almost impossible to predict.
Based on the Random Walk theory, developed by economist Burton Malkiel’s and popularised by his 1973 book A Random Walk Down Wall Street, it has long been argued that asset prices – and by extension, an indicator of business performance – is essentially random and unpredictable – that past price actions had little or no influence on future changes.
Key assumption of the efficient market hypothesis - Random Walk theory– is based on the idea that stock prices reflect all available information and adjust quickly to new information, making it impossible to act on it.
Aligning with the semi-strong efficient hypothesis, the argument is that it is impossible to consistently outperform the market. Implication for investors is in suggesting that buying and holding a diversified portfolio like an index fund may be the best long-term investment strategy. Yes, there are all sorts of critiques of the Random Walk theory, and tiny number of investors, who have made profitable projections.
While magical shortcuts may be an illusion – perhaps business success is a combination of both, being battered by the unseen forces of randomness, melded with having some degree of control by virtue of being on the path to a sense of mastery. And, in the process learning who you are.
“Everyone holds his fortune in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure. But it’s the same with that type of artistic activity as with all others: We are merely born with the capability to do it. The skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated,” was Johann Von Goethe’s perspective.
