Philosophy and management: how a critical approach can transform corporate leadership
Philosophy, understood as questioning the deeper meaning of reality, can enrich the managerial vision and promote more conscious decisions
by Luca Barni*
In the past I have written that one does not have to be an intellectual to philosophise, and this is testified by entrepreneurs who practised a holistic entrepreneurial vision, from Adriano Olivetti to Brunello Cucinelli.
More precisely, I have written, using the words of Eugenie Vegleris, that we must dispel the common thinking towards philosophy: 'Being a Philosopher does not mean being a Philosopher. Plato, Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche ... they are philosophers. A philosophy does not exist so that we can adhere to it, but because we learn that there is a multiplicity of ways of facing the world and understanding it. Being a philosopher does not mean having to study philosophers. Reading philosophers is, with rare exceptions, difficult. Being a philosopher means being interested in what a philosopher is interested in: the whole of reality in its complexity'. Vegleris goes on to say that being a philosopher means getting away from the pride of ego and the fascination with power for power's sake.
In short, one does not need to be an intellectual to philosophise, one does not need to possess knowledge as much as one needs to question knowledge. It is a question of approaching reality, whereby an ordinary situation becomes an opportunity to address a fundamental question, and above all to take a position with respect to it.
Remaining on the theme of approaching reality, deepening it, philosophizing means going beyond the scientific and technical aspects, which explain to us how the world goes, to ask why things go a certain way: it is looking at the totality that answers the why and that subsequently allows us to understand the particularities that answer the how. It is the answers to the why that determine the coordinates of the journey, the compass that will tell us how to reach our destination.
The assertion that 'one does not have to be an intellectual' has generated different reactions in the world in which philosophy usually dwells, the university: some have written to me that they are happy that philosophy can be useful 'outside academic walls', especially since there are more than one university that offer masters degrees in Philosophy and Business, just as I have been written to disagree with the thought expressed because the critical spirit is built on knowledge, reading, and reflection ergo 'inside academic walls'.
