Some of Ancient Greek Philosophers are living and leading us every day.
A lot of successful methodologies and business tools in management, marketing, sales, leadership development, are based or have a big influence by their concepts.
ARISTOTLE (384 BC – 322 BC)
Personal Development/Eudaimonia
Personal development/ Eudaimonia.
A person should be good and do well simply for the sake of being good. He believed that one must have a purpose or an optimum activity designed specifically for a human being. A person must go through a growth process of education and experience .First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.”
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
The concept of Eudaimonia comes from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, his philosophical work on the ‘science of happiness’, is about individual happiness; according to Deci and Ryan (2006: 2), it maintains that:“…well-being is not so much an outcome or end state as it is a process of fulfilling or realizing one’s daimon or true nature—that is, of fulfilling one’s virtuous potentials and living as one was inherently intended to live.”
SOCRATES (469-399 B.C.)
Sales, the art of questioning
Socratic Method to Ask the Right Questions for the Right Proposal is still the most proven sales success story today. The fastest way for a client to say yes to your proposal is by responding to their needs. And you can’t truly know their needs or problems to solve until you ask the right questions.
Open-ended questions are the keys to Socratic approach .You ask a series of open-ended questions which reveal client needs and respond with the benefits of your service or product that provides solutions to those needs. This old plan for success argues that by asking the right questions, you will eventually compel your target to want to buy your product or service.
The Socratic dialectic method is called “maieutics” midwifing aimed at discovering people’s limits and questioning the assumptions on which they built their lives. Also Socrates did not teach, he listened. Sales is not to speak, it’s about to listened.
PLUTARCH (45–120 CE)
Be a good role model
Plutarch understood that humans are incredibly social creatures, who constantly observe the people around them and imitate them. People often grow up surrounded by bad role models. However, we can steer people, by providing them with better patterns to imitate.
In organizational terms, that means what you say to your employees is less important than what you do. They will watch how you behave, how you treat others, how you cope with pressure and whether you follow through on your promises. And they will imitate you. If you talk about ethics and then cut corners at the first opportunity, they will follow your lead. Set a good example and they will follow it.
EPICTETUS ( A.D. 55 – 135)
Build a resilient mind-set – circles of influence –
Epictetus coped with this insecurity by constantly reminding himself what he could control and what he couldn’t. We can control our thoughts, beliefs and attitudes, but everything else is to some extent out of our control – other people’s perceptions and behavior, the economy, the weather, the future and the past. If you focus on what is beyond your control, and obsess over it, you will end up feeling helpless. Focus on what you can control (circles of influence), and you will feel a measure of autonomy even in chaotic situations.
Even in adverse situations, we always have some choice how we react. We can learn this resilient thinking, and it will make our organization and employees more capable of reacting to crises. The environment may be worsening; the economy may be double-dipping. Focus on doing what you can, on the practical steps you can take to improve the situation
