Marketing and Management Learned from Confucius

(The piece below is a column I contributed to the May issue of Luxmen, the monthly business magazine of Maeil Business Newspaper.)

 

Marketing and management connect with the humanistic classics. At first glance, it may seem like a mismatch, but it is true. Both, after all, are concerned with "the human being."
 

The author grafts Confucius's doctrine of the mean and his philosophy of integration onto marketing. First, "the mean." What Confucius meant by the doctrine of the mean is not an "arithmetic middle." The author argues that inflexibly insisting on that arithmetic middle is, in fact, a clinging to "one extreme." 
 

"The doctrine of the mean holds the middle between two extremes, but this middle is not fixed. Many people understand Confucius's doctrine of the mean as something vaguely in-between, but it is not that. The middle between two extremes is not fixed; it can move to the right or to the left depending on circumstances. It can even move all the way to the right edge or the left edge. That is why the doctrine of the mean implies flexible thinking." (p. 130)
 

This Confucian "mean" applies to marketing and management as well. There is a good example. A domestic conglomerate in Korea set a rule that each of its business units must achieve a combined revenue-growth and profit-growth rate of at least 20 percent each year. And it let each unit adjust its targets for revenue and profit growth according to the business cycle. 
For instance, during a downturn, they would set revenue growth at 5 percent and target profit growth of 15 percent or more through cost reduction. Conversely, during an upturn, they would set revenue growth at 15 percent or more and lower profit-growth targets to 5 percent, adopting a strategy to expand market share. 
 

A "mean" that keeps balance among the elements of management is also needed. Pursuing short-term goals while simultaneously managing long-term ones; closing plants that lack competitiveness while making enormous investments in facilities for new products; maintaining a flexible organizational atmosphere while creating a strict, performance-oriented culture. Difficult, but this is the wisdom a manager ought to take from the doctrine of the mean.
 

Confucius's teaching of "bangu-jegi" (反求諸己), seeking the cause in oneself, is also meaningful. In the Analects, Confucius said, "The gentleman seeks the fault in himself; the small-minded man seeks it in others (君子求諸己, 小人求諸人)." Mencius also says, "If you do something and get nothing in return, blame only yourself." The author says that when sales are falling short, one should look for the cause in one's own marketing activities. If you blame dropping sales on shifts in consumer taste or changes in the environment, it is hard to find a solution. Even if that really is the case, you should attribute it to your own failure to anticipate it in advance. If you look for the cause of a problem in other people or things, you have to change them — which is not easy. Changing oneself first is the wiser path.
 

Confucius also warned against thinking without acting. "Gye Munja thought three times before acting. When Confucius heard this, he said, 'Twice is enough.'" "The gentleman wishes to be halting in speech and nimble in action." All are from the Analects. On the battlefield of management as well, the winner is not the one who thought first but the one who acted first.
 

"To delight those who are near, so that those who are far will come." Confucius said this when asked what politics is. The author interprets this as Confucius saying that only by first satisfying nearby customers can you satisfy faraway ones. Marketing ultimately is about winning the hearts of customers, and this means that to win the hearts of the final customers, you must first win the hearts of the nearby employees. It is a tale about the attitude of managers and marketers toward their primary customers — their executives and staff — their secondary customers — partner or affiliated firms — and their tertiary customers — the consumers in the market. Confucius's thinking here also connects with "word-of-mouth marketing," where praise from existing, nearby customers brings in distant potential customers. 
 

Wisdom of management and marketing learned from Confucius. Why not take Confucius as a starting point to dive into the world of humanistic classics, where the reflections of the ancient sages on "the human being" are kept.