Beyond Sight: The Philosophical Roots of VISION

This year marks VISION Consulting’s 40th year in business, a significant benchmark which warrants some reflection on both our history and evolution. Founded in 1984, VISION’s initial offering was an IT system for pharmacies. Since then, the company has gone through many evolutions, and we find ourselves now occupying a rather unique niche: providing consulting services with a grounding in philosophy as a basis for both mobilisation and transformation.

Why Philosophy?

Philosophy might seem an esoteric and theoretical pursuit for the work we do – all well and good for armchair discussions about the meaning of life, but what good could it possibly be for the construction of a flooding solution in Glasgow city centre? Or removing graffiti from the London Underground? Or mobilising the delivery of vaccines amid a worldwide pandemic? And yet, insights from philosophy have been at the centre of the success of those projects and others.

The story of VISION helps explain how this unusual marriage came about. In the midst of the 90’s tech boom, a troublesome and challenging problem emerged. Two thirds of large IT projects were failing: not delivering in time, in scope, or within budget. That challenge remains true today – indeed, a 2020 McKinsey report claimed that a whopping 17% of large IT projects go so badly they threaten the existence of the company. The struggle to address this problem led VISION to a small consulting company who offered a profound insight – the source of failure for these projects could be traced back to breakdowns in the essential conversations taking place.

Every profession has its own way of mapping reality – accountants track revenue flows, moneys in and out. Engineers design process flows. In IT, the passage of information is tracked and recorded. But all these maps miss a more fundamental understanding of what the business was – a network of conversations between people. A set of commitments you trust, or don’t trust. A social space with a shared set of understandings, moods, pressures and motivators. The challenges VISION and others faced were not IT challenges. They were breakdowns in conversations – misalignment of expectations, unspoken concerns, or missing commitments. We had a large staff of experienced and well-trained IT professionals, but we did not have the sensibilities to observe the problem they faced– in fact, the standard set of professional practices were concealing the real problem. The philosophers, it turned out, had a better explanation.

Philosophy and Science: Partners in Change

In retrospect, the source of the insight should not have been all that surprising. Historically, philosophers have always been called upon at moments of scientific upheaval – to explain reality, our place in the universe, and what it means to be a human. Copernicus and Galileo triggered a crisis in the church when they placed the sun at the centre of our solar system. Newton’s description of a “clockwork universe” governed by physical law challenged assumptions about the nature of free will. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution horrified large swathes of the population who rejected the implication that their distant ancestor could be anything but human. As science revealed more about the nature of the universe, it was often philosophers who helped societies navigate what these discoveries meant for humanity.

Today, AI technologies pose another set of meaningful questions. Deep Blue’s victory over Gary Kasparov in 1985 was an early indicator that machines could not just imitate but exceed the kind of intelligence previously assumed to be the privilege of humanity. It was a moment of curiosity and excitement for the world at large, but within the small but fanatical chess community the mood was as much disturbed as it was amazed. For them, chess held a special status as a symbol of our capacity for ingenuity, strategy, and reason. If a computer can beat the greatest human mind in chess, does that mean human intelligence is no longer special? And what role did chess have in a world where the best player was a machine? It was a moment that challenged how they thought not just about the game they loved but about their very identity.

The Meaning of Life

The chess world has had 30 years since to come to terms with their new reality. Happily, chess nerds remain as obsessed as ever. Computers have become an essential part of any top players’ toolkit, and tournaments between the best chess engines have even become a popular draw. The community developed a new set of shared practices that made the game meaningful to them in new ways, proving once again the lesson from history that disruption may reshape meaning, but need not diminish it.

At VISION, our journey has taught us that people are at their best when they go beyond problem solving and engage in the practice of making their work, their communities, and their lives meaningful. The questions that matter most will always be human ones: What do we value? What do we strive for? What kind of future do we want to create? You cannot find the meaning of life in flows of finance, process, or information. But you just might get a little bit closer with philosophy.

If you’d like to hear more about how philosophy can shape meaningful transformation in your organisation, get in touch with us!