# The Socratic Method at Work By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2024-01-05 A classic technique to foster critical thinking and analysis is the Socratic Method. Named after Socrates, the method continually asks thought-provoking and probing questions to explore the hidden or unexamined. People often associate this method with education, such as when teachers ask questions to help their students think deeply about an issue. However, within business, such methods are rarely deployed. The only modern-day appropriation of this technique may be the Five Whys. Here, one asks why five times to get to the root of the problem. What is different about the Socratic Method is that there is no defined end to the questioning, and one will often find no clearly defined problem or solution. Instead, one may find a largely unsatisfactory feeling of incompleteness that comes with questioning beliefs and understandings. This is partly why the Socratic Method is not widely deployed within modern organizations. Workers are thought of as assembly line robots, and robots have no need to know why they do things, nor do they need to understand their beliefs and values. In other words, modern organizations do not exist within a paradigm where such questioning matters. Similarly, the workers within such organizations do not exist and are not encouraged to exist within such paradigms. Thus, if one attempts to deploy the Socratic Method in such organizations, one will see just how shallow and hollow the beliefs, reasoning, and values are within the organization and its workforce. If one is skeptical, try it out within one's organization. For example, ask anyone why the organization does performance reviews. Then, ask what performance is. Follow that with who decides what is good and bad. Continue by asking what is fair. One will quickly see how little thought is given to processes and ideas that have a direct and significant economic, existential, and emotional impact on the worker answering the questions. This nearly universal failure to grok our work situation speaks volumes about the state of society. #### Related Items [[Society]] [[Socrates]] [[Questions]] [[Answers]] [[Organization]] [[Business]] [[Work]]