Alain De Botton, A Great Writer and Planner

Alain De Botton is a writer that can make us better people. Perhaps more motivating for readers of this website - he can also help us become better planners and researchers.

For those who have yet to have their lives and careers so enriched, a little background. Alain De Botton writes about philosophy in the style of the self-help book. His starting point is that philosophy has a practical purpose - it can offer consolation for the pain of everyday living.  

From a planning perspective it is his acuity of his insight into modern life that is most impressive and inspiring.   His latest subject is 'Status Anxiety' (which is also the name of the book). I think it should be required reading for planners for 3 reasons:

- Status is so important a consideration in everyday life that we cannot properly understand people without being sensitive to its role and influence.

- Planners may have specific status issues that impact our happiness and effectiveness.

- De Botton's analytical, interpretative and presentational style is planning par excellence.

The Importance of Status in People's lives  

De Botton sees the quest for status as one of the core drives in modern life, but one that is scarcely acknowledged:  

"Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories. The first - the story of our quest for sexual love - is well known and well charted and ..celebrated &.The second  - the story of our quest for love from the world - is a more secret and shameful tale".    

As planners/researchers we are only really sensitive to the role of status when it at its most intrusive and obvious; for example observing respondents jockeying for position in group discussions, or whilst studying consumers involved in the car decision process. Yet if De Botton is right, status anxiety is a constant presence. In any interaction people will seek validation or acknowledgement in a million obvious and subtle, conscious and subconscious ways - it is part of everyday experience. As planners/researchers, we need get the issue onto our perceptual radar if we are to really understand human behaviour (and our own).

Planners and their Status Issues

Although when planners talk about 'consumers' it  sometimes sounds like they are referring to a different species, we are just as susceptible to status anxiety as lesser beings. In fact I would argue that planners have specific status issues stemming from their position within the agency structure. During the working day, doesn't it sometimes feel that:

"Our ego or self-conception is a leaking balloon forever requiring helium or external love to remain inflated - and vulnerable to the smallest pinprick of neglect"?  

It is not surprising. We do not 'own' the client relationship like account men, nor are we (directly) responsible for the 'product' like the creative teams. The value of planning is constantly under discussion. It is no wonder then that planners suffer status anxiety and seek reassurance. This reassurance can come from different sources. It may be the good opinion of the creative department ('Peter really gets it') or from external validation (winning IPA awards). More problematically it can influence creative judgement. It is only human for a planner to take relief/pleasure from a visible and direct link between their insight and the resulting advertising. Awareness of this potential conflict of interest can help us guard against it.  

Planning and Research De Botton Style  

There is so much we can learn from De Botton, not just in the way he thinks and perceives the world but also in how he presents his case. He is utterly wasted as great writer/thinker - he could certainly be a great planner perhaps, even a great researcher!

He tells the 'shameful tale' of status anxiety on the human level of a story about individuals, not as if he is expounding a new utopian political doctrine. Like all great planners any universal points are first evidenced on an anecdotal human level. His personal and direct tone reaches out and includes us. We are never allowed the distance of an audience or observer.

Whilst we all have experienced the dull ache of status anxiety - De Botton is able to communicate this feeling in words:  

"Those without status remain unseen, they are treated brusquely, their complexities trampled upon and their identities ignored"  

Like all insights, the feeling it imbues is one of recognition accompanied by a sense of revelation - here is a previously unarticulated truth.

We all know that our interpretations of consumer behaviour and attitudes are, to some infinite degree, subjective. I would go further and argue that the most telling analysis occurs when we, like De Botton, are able to place our own experience and feelings within the scope of our study. Great qualitative researchers (and in every great planner there is a great researcher) are those that can simultaneously look inwards to their own selves and outward into the psyche of the respondents they are 'moderating'. The moderator can maximise insights by playing both this internal (I am feeling) and external (I am hearing) role.

De Botton's range and depth of reference is vast and intimidating. The first few pages alone include mention of: Proust, Victorian furniture, Soviet-American relations in the late 50's and the history of the can-opener. The references never feel gratuitous - the range of his study seems to be result of his voracious curiosity. De Botton understands, like great planners do, that although insights can come from anywhere, some sources are a better investment than others. The television program CSI may spawn the odd insight but the works of Proust (read in original French of course ) can guarantee many more. Being insightful may be a natural talent, but effort can help maximise the output.  

Of course De Botton does not only diagnose and explain the condition of status anxiety, much of his book is about alleviating symptoms. There is no space here to spoonfeed you happiness and relief. Suffice is it to say I found the book so helpful that I am completely free from status anxiety. So much so that I now firmly expect and believe that there must be a corresponding website to this, where writers discuss how much they can learn from the great planners (and researchers.)

Peter Totman Peter@canvasresearch.com

Peter spent 15 years prevaricating between research and planning, and between life in UK and US, before 'commiting' and helping to launch Canvas Research, a UK/US based qual agency, in 2003.