A doctor is one of my closest friends and someone I often
visit for advice. He also has a PhD in medicine (funnily enough, four of my close
friends have PhDs, one in Economics, one in Philosophy, and the other in
English literature, and Psychology).
I always respected medical professionals, but I had never
known that much about them until I became friends with ‘Bob’ (Let’s call him
‘Bob’). I’ve learned much from Bob about being ethical, patient, rational, objective,
and compassionate. He’s helped me with many aspects of my life, from my
marriage, kids, career, and general life problems.
I’m a cynic and pessimist with a dark sense of humour. Bob
and I share those characteristics! However, the more I’ve gotten to know Bob,
the more I’ve learned to respect his outlook on life. What is his life
philosophy? Well, I’d say it’s undoubtedly stoic and comes from ancient Greece.
He once told me that he didn’t like the word ‘happiness’ and preferred the
Greek term eudaimonia.
In works of Aristotle, eudaimonia was the term for the
highest human good in the older Greek tradition. It is a central concept in Aristotelian ethics and subsequent Hellenistic
philosophy, along with the terms aretē (most often translated as ‘virtue’ or
‘excellence’) and phronesis (‘practical or ethical wisdom’).
I can’t say I share all of Bob’s values, and I don’t hero-worship
him. He has
his flaws – two that he’s very open about. But one idea central to how he works appeals to me, and I’ve tried
to incorporate it into my work. It’s also a Greek idea, from Hippocrates ὠφελέειν
ή μὴ βλάπτειν – ‘be useful and do no harm’.
I’ve worked for many startup companies in my marketing
career, spanning 15 years. My role is often like a
doctor. Of course, the stakes are much lower; money may be lost, but no one will die if I
fail. The
worst that will happen is that the company will fail and fall into Schumpeter’s
cycle of creative destruction.
Resources will be allocated more efficiently
elsewhere in the end. And yes, I’ve worked for two companies now that have folded.
It was sad. But almost everyone who worked at those companies seems happy, and has
gone on to do bigger and better things, myself included.
But
I have been lucky to have worked at companies where the patient has thrived and
become world-class athletes! – when you’ve seen that ‘patient’ almost
on its knees, that is a beautiful feeling!
Despite the best intentions and training (I got an MBA
before starting my line of work), I’ve made mistakes earlier in my career; Once,
I was deeply involved in a website rebrand that went sour.
We had yet to realise that changing the website would crash
all our search and SEO traffic. My main job had been generating business leads,
and I’d worked on a project that had done the opposite!😭
Another time, I made some errors with our database and email
campaigns that got our Marketing automation tool shut down, and where I was forced in protracted negotiations to get it back up and running.
No amount of talent and intelligence will help you to completely avoid those unpleasant situations – only experience helps. Fortunately, it’s been many years since I made any such big professional blunders.
Startups, like patients, can be rude, disrespectful, and
dismissive of your experience and training. Patients treat doctors abysmally at times too. But when this
happens to me now, I just think like a doctor.
– why are the people at this startup being so dreadfully rude and disrespectful?
Is it because they are bad people? No, of course not! It’s because they are not feeling well.
Perhaps They are suffering. Maybe they are even in pain and not thinking right. In the past, I’d get angry and indignant. And I’m not saying I’m immune to that today. But I’ve become much more empathetic and open-minded.
I’m sure one or two doctors have considered harming a
particularly obnoxious, know-it-all patient! 💀 But the doctor inevitably always applies
their oath – ‘do no harm’. And that’s what I do in my job.
I’m lucky to love my work, and one part of it I adore is
working with data. That is another area of my role that does touch upon what
Bob (also a Professor of Medicine) does. I enjoy discussing data and analytics
with ‘Bob’; our outlooks are rational, ethical, and data-driven.
And at its core, we share this value: Help and, at least, do no harm.
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