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A Business Leader’s Guide to Philosophy

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Understanding and interpreting information is a major part of the art and science of leadership. The transmission and exchange of all business information only occurs within a conduit of contextual information. Of particular interest is the hidden information that can derail the project before it gets to the customer and the non-information that helps define problems. Risk management techniques identify the former and erotetic analysis exposes the non-information that reveals the true nature of a problem. While these processes are basically process driven by teams providing context for their outcomes, this very fact draws on the art of leadership to interpret their value as useful ‘knowledge’ for business decision-making.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Self-respect as a prerequisite for respect of others is a near universal maxim of moral philosophy, moral psychology and religious ethics. For example, the Biblical maxim: Love your neighbour as you love yourself.

  2. 2.

    The first discipline is to form a problem-solving cross-functional team of people with diverse experience who can contribute to solving the problem. The second discipline is describing the problem. The other disciplines are: 3. Interim containment action. 4. Root cause analysis (partially covered in the text). 5. Corrective actions. 6. Corrective action validation. 7. Identification and implementation of corrective actions. 8. Team recognition for a job well done!

  3. 3.

    Capability data is a statistical record of measurable characteristics of a product revealing the degree to which it conforms to specification. Ideally, 99.99% of parts should conform to all specifications for the manufacturing process to be certified as capable.

  4. 4.

    Chapter 4 elaborates the issue of employee rewards potentially causing unintended consequences. Banking executives fronting the Australian Royal Commission into banking malpractice revealed some of these devastating consequences. The mis-management of information is driven by people who don’t always follow the rules put in place to avoid failure, who fail to prioritise stakeholder interests appropriately and managers who fail to lead.

  5. 5.

    Failure Mode Effects Analysis is similar to a Risks and Opportunities analysis. The latter is more appropriate for analysing mergers and business plan directions. FMEAs are more relevant to the delivery phase of a product or service to avoid downstream problems.

  6. 6.

    Some of the so-called Big Questions pondered in academic philosophy, particularly Continental philosophy, are: why does the universe exist rather than nothing; is there a God; who am I; is there a meaning to life; if so what is it; how should I behave; how should we live together? Many of the Big Questions are ‘antinomic’ meaning a compelling case can be made for the proposition and its antithesis, like the proposition: there is no God, for example.

  7. 7.

    Tarnas (1993, p. 443).

Reference

  • Tarnas, R. 1993. The Passion of the Western Mind, First Ballantine Books Edition. New York: Harmony Books.

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  1. Highton, VIC, Australia

    Lindsay Dawson

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  1. Lindsay Dawson
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Dawson, L. (2023). Contextual Information. In: A Business Leader’s Guide to Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33042-1_12

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Policies and ethics