I’m currently reading a book, “Alchemy,” by Rory Sutherland. Sutherland is Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK, one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world. When Coke and Apple choose an advertising agency, Ogilvy is probably on their short lists.
Rory Sutherland is tremendously funny, even funnier than a professional comedian. Weeks later, I rarely find myself laughing out loud at something I heard a professional comedian say.
Rory Sutherland, though? I listened to this interview with him a month ago, and I’m still laughing out loud at his comment about how after a Ryanair flight you’re relieved that at least you didn’t get pistol-whipped by Serbian mercenaries…
Anyway, back to Alchemy for a moment…
The main theme of the book is that humans aren’t as rational as they like to tell themselves they are, and that goes for our behavior at our jobs, too.
A great quote from the book: “Most people spend their time at work trying to look intelligent, and for the last fifty years or more, people have tried to look intelligent by trying to look like scientists; if you ask someone to explain why something happened, they will generally give you a plausible-sounding answer that makes them seem intelligent, rational or scientific but that may or may not be the real answer.”
Alper and I touched on that irrationality in a recent podcast episode:
(I highly recommend it. And of course, I am biased, being that it is me.)