A technology that "grabs the big picture" and its weaknesses

Is being a glutton hereditary? My 83-year-old mother, living alone, still cooks every day solely to satisfy her appetite. And my grandfather, right up until the end, was always demanding, "I want to eat this," "I want to eat that."

I, too, occupy our kitchen for the sole reason of "eating what I want, when I want." While outwardly presenting myself as "the husband who properly shares household chores," the truth is I simply refuse to relinquish control over the menu. Occasionally, someone will flatter me with, "Why don't you start a cooking class?" But my amateur cooking, driven purely by desire, is rough around the edges—and I mean really rough. Even when I think drunkenly, "I'm a genius!" the results are never repeatable. It's utterly hopeless.

Rhubarb Pie Made Too Roughly

By the way, the other day, I was having drinks with an executive from a certain company, and he said, "Advertising people are interesting because they have an exceptional ability to grasp the big picture." Hmm, "ability to grasp the big picture," huh? My drunken mind started pondering.

Due to the nature of our work, we get involved in various industries. Advertising communication is only one part of marketing activities, so we need to understand the overall business landscape reasonably well. Strictly speaking, we're "jack-of-all-trades," but kindly put, we're "semi-pros" across various industries. Through this accumulated experience, we eventually develop the ability to grasp the big picture, thinking, "Ah! I get the gist of this." This skill sometimes provides unique perspectives to specialists.

As this diagram also shows, our reality exists within an "experiential world." The importance of "concepts" – which provide a bird's-eye view and sometimes offer new perspectives that overturn common sense – is something we've repeatedly discussed in this column. This "ability to grasp the big picture" may well be a crucial skill that also applies to creating these concepts.

Thinking this far.

"By the way, are advertising agency people really that brilliant?" (laughs). That's when "confirmation bias" came to mind. The human brain tends to jump to conclusions first and then seek out information to support them. And unfortunately, at that point, it ignores or downplays unfavorable information.

For example, people who become convinced they're right and stop hearing any objective facts. Or investors who believe "the market is on the upswing" and ignore negative signals, charging ahead. Even without such extreme examples, confirmation bias is a tendency all humans fall into, and it's the arch-enemy of the ability to grasp the big picture.

Those who grasp things through "meticulous accumulation," the opposite of "rough estimation," are constantly exposed to "unpleasant information." Such people are naturally open to information that contradicts their conclusions. They may lack speed, but they are unlikely to make major mistakes.

However, when trying to move forward using the ability to grasp the big picture, if you only gather information that suits your convenience, you will seriously misjudge the direction. People in advertising agencies may be good at boldly grasping things, but precisely because of that, they must be wary of confirmation bias.

So, what should you do?

Philosopher Husserl offers a clue. He advocated "epoché"—placing each proposition in the world in "brackets" and accepting it without immediately judging it as right or wrong. Rather than seeking only "correct" information, accept all information with a mindset of "Hmm, that could be possible" (suspending judgment). This attitude is the ultimate defense against falling into confirmation bias.

(That's right. In "Circular Thinking," the suggestion to "Don't think, feel!" when considering concepts was also to avoid confirmation bias.)

...Only after thinking this far did I finally realize that what that executive said was just flattery over drinks. Maintaining an open ear (epoché) and the ability to grasp the big picture are qualities common to all excellent businesspeople, not just advertising agencies. Oh dear, watch out for drinking too much! How embarrassing!

Please, help yourself!