The Socratic Method for Business in the 21st Century

Conversation with Brian McGeough, Managing Director at McGeough Training Limited exploring how the concepts of classical philosophy can find application in the rough and tumble of today’s business world to help people realise their full potential.

In this episode of Interlinks we talk to Brian McGeough, Managing Director at McGeough Training Limited.

Brian is a development specialist, an accredited mediator and programme facilitator who specialises in the Dialectic (Socratic) method with over 27 years of experience. His firm, McGeough Training Limited, is a boutique training and development consultancy based in Dublin, Ireland.

What is unique about Brian’s approach to his work is that it is founded on the conviction that human development is a philosophical enterprise and as he says “The Socratic method respects the in-built capacity of each individual to overcome their limits by means of their own intellect thus helping them to become more fearless and self-directing.”

In this conversation Brian explains how the concepts and ideas of classical philosophy can find practical and pragmatic application in the rough and tumble of today’s business world to help people and organisation realise their full potential.

Click here to read full transcript

Patrick Daly:

Hello, this is Patrick Daly and welcome to Interlinks. Interlinks is a program about connections, international business, supply chains, and globalization and the effects these developments have had on our life, our work, and our travel over recent times. Today on Interlinks, we will be talking to Brian McGeough, managing director at McGeough Training Limited. Brian is a development specialist, accredited mediator, and program facilitator who specializes in the dialectic or Socratic method with over 27 years of experience. His firm, McGeough Training Limited, is a boutique training and development consultancy based in Dublin, Ireland. And what’s unique about Brian’s approach to his work is that it is founded on the conviction that human development is a philosophical enterprise. And as he says, the Socratic method respects the inbuilt capacity of each individual to overcome their limits by means of their own intellect, thus helping them to become more fearless and self-directing. So, delighted to have you here with us today, Brian. You’re very welcome.

Brian McGeough:

Thanks very much, Patrick. Thank you. It’s good to be here.

Patrick Daly:

So to kick off, could you give us a quick overview of your career and how you came to be running a boutique training firm based on the principles of classical philosophy?

Brian McGeough:

Well, it’s been a most unorthodox pathway or passage, if you like. And I was talking to a lady the other day whose daughter was studying psychology, and she asked me would I speak to her and give her a rundown on how to end up working in industry, having studied psychology. So she was a bit at sea when I told her how I got there. But the short story is, I was managing the sales department of an insurance company about 35 years ago, and I saw a great deal of money spent on training and development work that really was very questionable, to say the least. And at the same time was working… For many years, for nearly 40 years at this stage, I’ve always had this keen interest in philosophy and it’s been a love study permanently for the last 40 years.

As far back as I can remember, I have read and studied Plato and the works of Plato, and studied Eastern philosophy for… I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t studying it. So in a way, how this company evolved was really working in industry on one hand, with a very deep love of philosophy on the other, and seeing in a very practical way how one could help the other. How philosophy and what’s in philosophy could help people in industry. That’s really where it came from.

Patrick Daly:

And that kind of leads me on to my next question, which is what is the Socratic method? And how do the teachings of a 2,400-year-old Greek philosopher have relevance in the cut and thrust of today’s corporate world?

Brian McGeough:

Okay, well firstly, you’ve got the dates right. So Socrates, you’re talking two and a half thousand years ago approximately. What’s fascinating about reading Plato is that no matter what you read in Plato… Socrates was the master, Plato was the student. And the works of Plato, the main character in the dialogues of Plato is this man Socrates. So the works of Plato, no matter what you read, it’s absolutely applicable to today. It’s extraordinary. It’s timeless and full of principle and full of really good foundational directions, if you like. But the actual method is if you take an ordinary exchange, an ordinary conversation between people, it’s often like a sort of table tennis match. It’s sort of an exchange of views. I tell you my view and you tell me your view, and I add a bit to my view, you add a bit to your view.

If we’re good friends, we might keep that going a little bit. If we’re not so good friends, we might up the ante and up the heat and maybe start competing with each other. Whereas Socrates, the Socratic view is essentially, the first part is that you really truly fully hear the other side. You don’t allow your own opinions, you don’t allow your own judgments, to impede or block what the other person’s saying. And you make every effort to really understand what the other person means, what they think, where they’re coming from, et cetera.

So the first step in being Socratic would be being able to park your own view of something, maybe put aside your own understanding of something. And instead of making statements and countering points with newer points, et cetera, it’s all based on inquiry. It’s all based on asking questions and exploring. So it sounds like a dumbed down statement to say it’s fundamentally about inquiry and about asking questions. But it’s really only when it’s put into practice and worked with that you really see the full import of this method. And it’s quite a skill because we think we can park our opinions and our views, but it’s quite a skill to be able to actually do that.

Patrick Daly:

What kind of situations does it find application in, in the corporate world? And I guess because, as you said, it is so difficult to park our own opinions, it needs some sort of facilitator or mediator at least at the beginning, I guess.

Brian McGeough:

So yeah, you’ve said it there. So I would do a considerable amount of mediation-type work. It’s not the only work I do, but I am called upon to conduct mediation, all sorts of different situations, private enterprise, government organizations, institutions like educational institutions. And it’s particularly helpful there because the facilitator or the mediator does have a natural detachment so he or she can hear both sides. But the Socratic method just gives you an extra bow, or an extra arrow in your armory, if you like. So in mediation it’s a very good tool.

But in all situations, if you think of a manager trying to develop his people in some way, members of his department or his team, the Socratic method, being inquiry-based and being question-led, is a very useful tool for discussing the development needs with an individual. Where exactly are the shortcomings in the individual’s performance? What exactly is required to improve that situation? Does he even realize he has a problem with performance or a development need in some area? So the Socratic method is a very gentle exploratory method that allows for really good full examination of an individual and what they need to develop in any company setting.

Patrick Daly:

And are there other classical philosophers that maybe we should be paying attention to in the modern world, and whose wisdom may find application for some of the challenges that we’re facing in the world today?

Brian McGeough:

There are. Well firstly, if you like, Plato’s my favorite. So Plato and Socrates are my pals and I spend most of my time with them. However, there are other greats, and out of America you’ve got someone like Ralph Waldo Emerson, who has written magnificent works. There’s a very beautiful essay on self-reliance and it is a masterpiece, not just in its content but in the English on its own. The English is extraordinary. So Emerson would be worth looking at. Let me see, other philosophers in the Western world. Plato and Socrates are certainly at the very top. Ficino is a Renaissance philosopher initially whose works have ended up as maybe 1,000 letters. So if you go back 5 or 600 years to the time of the Renaissance, there was no email. There was no internet. So all correspondence was via letter. And what you have is you got this collection of letters. Ficino wrote to the politicians, he wrote to the clergy, he wrote to everybody. And every letter is a masterpiece. I remember sitting down one time and thinking, “God, I wish I could write one letter like Ficino’s.” So I tried, and I couldn’t.

Patrick Daly:

I was wondering whether you are going to mention, given everything that’s kicking off in the world today, whether the Stoics were the guys we should be looking to. The likes of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and those fellows.

Brian McGeough:

Well, Marcus Aurelius is another great you could look at, but he was described as the only real philosopher king. And I forget how long he reigned for, maybe 20, 25 years in Rome. But that was coming towards the end of things. But he’s definitely worth reading. There’s a very small book you can buy now, it’s available in every bookshop, Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. And the opening pages are all about him expressing gratitude for what he’s learned and from whom he’s learned it. And it is just fantastic. It makes you sit up and realize what you’ve learned and from whom you’ve learned it.

Patrick Daly:

Excellent. So in your experience then, and you and I have spoken about this separately, why do you think so many people are dissatisfied with their jobs? And do you think there’s a connection between this dissatisfaction and the difficulty that lots of firms are having at the moment to find talent, to retain talent? And that seems to be becoming an issue all over the developed world. Are those two things related, in your opinion?

Brian McGeough:

Absolutely. Let me see now, the simplest way of coming at this… Fundamentally, if I see… And it’s not all bad, by the way. There are lots and lots of very good organizations where people are really very, very well managed and developed, and they retain these people. So it mightn’t be accurate just to write the whole world of industry off in a negative way. However, having said that, a fundamental thing I notice is that people can be seen as just a means of production. They’re just units of production. And if they’re performing reasonably well just with little or no supports, internal management, if they’re self-motivating and self-starting they can be largely left alone and they’re measured by results. So if they’re performing quite well and delivering all clear results, they can be left alone and all they can ever get is good morning. That’s it. And they’re doing well.

If they’re troublesome, they can be moved around the place. Especially in some sectors, they can be moved from A to B to C if they’re troublesome because no one knows what to do with them. So if they’re good, they can be ignored. If they’re troublesome, they can be moved all around the place. And there’s a whole big cohort in between that is a kind of a… What’s the word, they’re sort of managed in a way that’s not very effective. And that’s it. If your management is based on task-focused management, you will have that problem. You’ll have the good ones who you ignore, the troubled ones who you keep moving, and the cohort in between that you don’t know what to do with them half the time. If it’s all task driven.

So if it’s person driven, people-first management, it’s a different world altogether. You attend to the brilliant people, you attend the troublesome, and you attend the cohort in between. And you try and find what is it that will allow each of those types to excel in the work? And it doesn’t take a whole lot. If you actually ask yourself, “How would you love to be managed in any situation?” You would be able to say it. You’d be able to say, “I’d like to be communicated with clearly. I’d like my manager to take an interest in me. I’d like to be developed. I’d like to feel I was moving upwards on some ladder with regard to my career, etc.” You’d be able to spell it out in five minutes. So it’s not strange. It’s very simple, but for some reason, as simple as it is, it’s ignored or forgotten or misunderstood.

Speaker 3:

93.9 Dublin South FM.

Patrick Daly:

It’s funny, isn’t it, that sometimes when we’re the underling, we can voice what we need. And then when we’re promoted to being the boss, we sometimes lose that empathy with our old selves and we can’t have that with our new reports.

Brian McGeough:

Yeah, that’s a big issue, actually, that little conundrum you’ve just said there. When we’re in one position, we see things a certain way. And the moment we’re into a new position it’s as if we’ve forgotten. It’s like, I heard recently someone saying that until you buy your house, you want the prices of houses to come down, keep coming down, and you’re excited. The minute you sign the deal, you want the price of houses to shoot up.

Patrick Daly:

Yeah. How much, as well, what impedes our progress as professionals and people might be down to our own issues? Fear, our own self-limiting beliefs and fear. Because I think you said some of the things that you do is you help people to become more fearless and self-directing. How is that done? And what ways do people self-sabotage in that way?

Brian McGeough:

Well, fear is a big one, I’m afraid. Fear, like fear of speaking up is a big one. Do people speak up at meetings? Do they speak up in small situations at work? Do they speak up, depending on the company they’re in? Do they dumb down and quieten when they’re in the company of more senior management? But even the bravest and toughest suffer from that dilemma, that fear of speaking, in particular. And a big price tag, it’s very costly if people don’t speak up and speak honestly. So it has an impact, a negative impact on, say, innovation. A negative impact on sales, a negative impact on the addressing of issues with people, performance issues and troublesome issues. It addresses issues on finding and making sure people are in the right slot. I know of an organization where there’s a young lady managing a department, and she’s been there for 14 years. 14 years, and the CEO thinks she’s in the wrong job and he has done for 14 years. And so-

Patrick Daly:

It’s almost tragic, isn’t it?

Brian McGeough:

It is tragic. Well, it is, in a way, because you’re not doing anyone any favors by leaving them in the wrong slot for that length of time, or for any length of time. But fear is at the heart of why a lot of those things aren’t addressed. Fear of upsetting the cart, fear of being seen in a bad light, all that sort of thing. Fear that it’ll make some conflict or difficulty. So fear is definitely a big issue. And it’s probably… I don’t know if this is true, but I think you could link an awful lot of the limiting notions and the limiting aspects on ourselves that we place on ourselves, I think a lot of them have a connection with fear. Yeah.

Patrick Daly:

And what kind of people, what kind of companies become your clients? And how are they better off after having worked with you?

Brian McGeough:

Well, the kind, firstly, there’s no particular kind. So there’s government departments, there’s private enterprise, there’s a small amount of international work. I do a little work with the UK. I do a little work with China, and I have an associate who works with me in Australia, and we have some activity in Australia as well. So the common denominator is people, it’s not the type of company. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re making widgets or you work in a government department. Doesn’t make any difference because the fundamentals of the work are all about the people, not about processes and procedures, et cetera. So it doesn’t matter. Once you’re managing people and leading people, you can be a client and benefit greatly.

Patrick Daly:

And what kind of developmental services or consultancy interventions are you able to provide? I imagine there’s a range of different types of services and interventions.

Brian McGeough:

Yeah, there’s a range depending on what people want, and they all come under different headings. So you got mediation as a very particular specialized area, but most of the work is developmental. It’s working with management, senior management in a company, seeking to develop them individually and collectively, and then trying… In most situations you’re also working on the culture of the organization at the same time. So if you go back to the fear issue, if you’re trying to remove fear from a company, the company isn’t bricks and mortar. The company’s actually the people. So you’re trying to remove fear from each of the people. You’re trying to remove fear from the collective teams, within teams, and across teams. And then you’re trying to instill that in the culture of the place so that we have a space where we can all speak up and speak honestly.

And so you’re working at individual level, collective levels, and overall you’re trying to influence the culture. And it’s hard to measure this work. It’s very hard. It’s not measurable in the ordinary way that two and two is four. But you see, over time, fantastic changes in the company. You see it in the retention of good people. You see it in young people coming in at a modest enough level, rising quickly and dramatically through a company. You see it in good relationships, really open relationships. You see it in a level of honesty at meetings, a level of honesty with people in their one-to-ones. But it’s not tick-the-box measurable. You definitely do feel it and see it in companies. I see it anywhere, see it all around me.

Patrick Daly:

And how has COVID changed your business and the way you work, the way you interact then with your clients?

Brian McGeough:

Oh, Janey Mac! COVID’s been the best thing that ever happened. We should have regular dashes of COVID.

Patrick Daly:

And why is that? Why do you say that?

Brian McGeough:

Because it’s just made things more efficient, more effective. So if you take it, I’ll give you one example. I did a mediation case in the West of Ireland all on Zoom. I never met the people, and I still have never met them. That’s very unusual because to mediate you do have to see the whites of people’s eyes. You have to meet them in the room and see what’s actually happening, et cetera, and pick up all the nuances, et cetera. So I was able to conduct that on Zoom. It was very effective because I was able to have very short meetings, and encourage them to go in and think about things and come back to me an hour later and bring the meeting on further. You wouldn’t do that quite as fluidly in a physical setting. So it was more effective, it allowed for more creativity, it saved me about 20 trips to Galway. So you can work it all out cost wise, the costs were greatly reduced, and the client was very happy.

Patrick Daly:

And this means, I guess as well, that you can work internationally. I know you mentioned Australia and China, but there’s no real impediment to working worldwide, right?

Brian McGeough:

No. Now, it’s good if you meet people face-to-face some of the time. So where I’ve met people a lot face-to-face, the transition to online and Zoom, et cetera, has been seamless. In new company situations today, I do make a point of meeting the company, meeting people, and meeting them first before I would engage in anything, really. But Zoom has been extremely… Like us all, I think we’ve all been knocked into becoming more efficient, more creative, et cetera, with the online aspects to our work.

Patrick Daly:

That’s true. It’s true. So talking about COVID, so we’re in the wake of COVID, as we are now, we’ve a land war in Europe, we’ve climate change to deal with, we’ve aging populations, political polarization, and so on. So when you look out into the wider world, what’s your own take on where things are at? What are the key threats and opportunities for business as we look forward to 2023 and beyond?

Brian McGeough:

In my own business I feel a little bit like an accountant. You know the way the accountant seems to be needed when things are very successful, he has to produce the accounts. He needs to be there when things are failing because he has to grow up the situation and sort out the difficulties. I feel similar, in a similar position. So since the beginning of my company, I know it’s a small organization, I’ve never known a quiet period. I’ve never felt any effect of recession because people always need assistance and support and help and direction of some kind. Where there are people, there are always issues, positive and negative. So I haven’t experienced those same dips that other industries might experience. And in fact, some people go out of business because there’s changes. Well, I hope I never do that.

Patrick Daly:

That’s true. That’s interesting. So leaving work to one side for the minute, when you’re not working or thinking about work, what kind of things do you like to do in your spare time?

Brian McGeough:

The spare time? Well, there’s probably a few key areas. Well, over the history of time, all the time, I used to play a lot of tennis. When I was single I used to play a lot of tennis for some reason. I don’t know why being married changed that slightly. And I used to fly an airplane for fun. Then I got very involved in DIY. So I’ve had a few projects of one kind or another over the years in DIY. And probably the exercise these days would be on the bicycle. I bicycle probably… Yeah, I would get out maybe two or three times a week.

Patrick Daly:

Excellent. And are you reading anything at the moment or listening to anything, like audio books?

Brian McGeough:

Just recently, and I’d recommend it’s invaluable to every single person in the country, and it’s called The Road to Character.

Patrick Daly:

Road to Character. David Brooks.

Brian McGeough:

David Brooks. It is an outstanding book.

Patrick Daly:

The Road to Character.

Brian McGeough:

And it’s so beautiful because he’s set about… It’s a New York Times number one bestseller. And he set out to find, very innocently, honestly, how do you build character? How do you strengthen your character? And he didn’t know where to start. So what he did was he decided he’d look at the lives of people he felt had extraordinary character, and he used their lives to try and give him some pointers. So it’s a beautiful book.

Patrick Daly:

Excellent.

Brian McGeough:

Historically and educationally, it’s beautiful. Absolutely.

Patrick Daly:

Good recommendation. So as we come to the end, where can people find out more about you, more about your work? And how can they contact you if they wish to?

Brian McGeough:

Well, my email is a very simple one. It’s my name, so it’s brian@mcgeough.ie. And the website is mcgeough.ie. My telephone number, I’ll give you my telephone number as well.

Patrick Daly:

Go ahead. Go for it.

Brian McGeough:

I’ll give you the mobile, 087 257 5874.

Patrick Daly:

Excellent. So thank you very much, Brian, it’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you today, as always. And thank you very much.

Brian McGeough:

That’s great. Thanks. Very good. Very enjoyable. Thank you.

Patrick Daly:

You’re very welcome. Wish you the very best for the future, both professionally and personally. And thanks also to our listeners for tuning in. And until next time, keep well and stay safe.

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Patrick Daly Interlinks Podcast

Interlinks is a programme about the connections, relationships and supply chains, that underpin the globalisation of our modern world.

In each programme, we interview people from around the world including entrepreneurs, executives, academics, diplomats and politicians to get their unique perspective on globalisation as it has affected them both personally and professionally.

There is a little bit of history, a dash of economics, a sprinkling of business and an overlay of personal experience both from me and from my interviewees from around the world.

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