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Raindancing: Why Rational Beats Ritual
Granger, Glenn
- GenresBusiness
248 pages, Hardcover
First published December 10, 2012
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August 8, 2014
Glenn Granger, in his book Raindancing, Why Rational Beats Ritual, represents the rationalist frame of mind that is accepted as the default perspective of the business world. Granger dismisses out of hand the influence of irrational motivations in marketing. “No-one would vote for irrational marketing. The very idea is preposterous,” he writes.
The practice of rituals in marketing is particularly fruitless, in Granger’s view. He warns that, “The rituals and ceremonies, the carefully observed traditions, the training and effort, the discussion and chanting, the earnest prayers and fervent hopes – they are all in vain.”
The alternative to ritual, says Granger, is rational marketing. “It is time to stop guessing and use the data we have about past performance to make rational, fact-based predictions about the future, and better decisions now, in the present,” he says.
In the abstract, Granger’s rationalist model for marketing seems hard-nosed and disciplined, with a determined basis in reality. In fact, although Granger demands that marketers make fact-based decisions, his own analysis ignores some important facts.
To start with, Granger fails to do the research necessary to establish the facts about what ritual is and how it actually works. Rather than engaging in a detailed examination of ritual-as-fact, he sets up a fantasy version of ritual as a kind of straw man that will be easy to knock down.
Granger doesn’t make the time to acquaint himself with the remarkable variety of forms that ritual practice can take. Instead, he considers the worth of only one ritual, as if it is a prototype for all rituals.
Ritual, as far as Granger is concerned, can be reduced to nothing but a rain dance. At first glance, this seems like an appropriate choice, given the way that sales organizations have incorporated the metaphor of the rain dance into their professional culture. A successful sales representative is referred to as a “rainmaker”.
Granger describes the rain dance as a simple superstition that arose from the ignorance of primitive minds, rather than as a complex cultural phenomenon. He imagines a scene from long ago, in a country where the rains have failed, and a tribe is beginning to go hungry. The tribal leaders decide that a rain dance ritual should be performed. The rain dance, they think, will cause rain to fall.
In this story, the rain dance fails to produce its intended effect. We, as readers, are not surprised because, as members of a scientifically-informed culture, we understand that rain is the result of meteorological systems, and cannot be influenced by dancing. In Granger’s story, however, the tribal leaders just don’t know any better. Even though they have watched their rain dance fail to produce results in the past, the tribe decides to try the rain dance again, in the hope that this time, for some reason, their ritual will work its magic.
The fundamental argument of Granger’s book is that too many marketers are engaged in the same kind of activity, relying on rituals that have no connection in reality, expecting profitable results to magically emerge from their familiar practices. “This is how raindance rituals develop,” he asserts, “often originating in just one person’s prejudices or assumptions. Someone leaps to a conclusion about a causal connection between A and B, between a certain type of campaign and a sales upturn, and the basis for a raindance is established, enshrined in a myth that is passed down in the culture of the department.”
The reliance on rituals in marketing, as Granger sees it, is nothing more that the result of the mistaken confusion of correlation with causality. In response, he adopts a stance of strict rejection of the fallacies of ritual reasoning. In the place of trust in rituals, Granger proposes a new faith in the inherent rationality of the marketplace. “I don’t believe in fairies, supernatural forces, the Loch Ness monster, divine intervention, raindancing or the lottery favouring the deserving,” he writes. “I believe in the sort of miracles that come about through the miraculous messaging medium of markets, which manage to aggregate the signals and bring together the particles of human genius to create things so complex that no mind can truly take them in.”
There is, however, a basic problem with Granger’s argument: The rain dance that he argues against may never have actually existed – at least not in the sense that he thinks it did.
After a long career surveying the beliefs and practices of native North American cultures, professor of Religious Studies Johnny Flynn, himself a Native American, explained that he knew of no Native American groups that used dances in order to create rain when there was none. Instead, he wrote, “Every summer the Hopi hold late summer dances - but not to bring the rain. Like the ax in the tree, the rain is coming or not regardless of the ax or the dance. The dances are held to welcome the rain.”
Flynn’s point was that the descendants of European colonists misinterpreted rituals that were designed to celebrate the coming of rain, supposing that the ritual dances were intended as procedures designed to magically change the weather. This interpretation fit with the core ideological narrative of the Westward Expansion, and of the Enlightenment more broadly – a story about how primitive cultures, mired in irrational superstition, were giving way to the superior power of European rationality.
Glenn Granger’s arguments in favor of a purely rational system of marketing are an extension of the old Enlightenment narrative, only turned inward. Like the explorers of past generations, he believes that progress will be made through the continued expansion of rationality. Now that the tribes of irrational savages have been subdued, Granger would have us purge our own society of its remaining irrational holdouts.
Fact-based anthropological research has revealed that the Enlightenment narrative of the irrationality of non-Europeans was flawed. Rituals, it turns out, are much more than just superstitious efforts to control physical reality through magic. The competitive vulnerability of Glenn Granger and his fellow rationalists in the business world comes from their refusal to update their old narrative to deal with these new insights.
To be sure, there are people who conduct rituals with the expectation that their desires will be magically fulfilled as a result. Most rituals, however, are not conducted with any miraculous expectations. The greatest portion of human ritual activity is conducted with an eye to internal psychological benefit, not with the goal of supernatural manipulation of external reality. Rituals may not be rational in the manner of being organized according to the dictates of hard facts and logical argument, but they make sense nonetheless, as procedures that are designed in such a way as to enable people to make the changes they need to make to keep their lives in order.
The practice of rituals in marketing is particularly fruitless, in Granger’s view. He warns that, “The rituals and ceremonies, the carefully observed traditions, the training and effort, the discussion and chanting, the earnest prayers and fervent hopes – they are all in vain.”
The alternative to ritual, says Granger, is rational marketing. “It is time to stop guessing and use the data we have about past performance to make rational, fact-based predictions about the future, and better decisions now, in the present,” he says.
In the abstract, Granger’s rationalist model for marketing seems hard-nosed and disciplined, with a determined basis in reality. In fact, although Granger demands that marketers make fact-based decisions, his own analysis ignores some important facts.
To start with, Granger fails to do the research necessary to establish the facts about what ritual is and how it actually works. Rather than engaging in a detailed examination of ritual-as-fact, he sets up a fantasy version of ritual as a kind of straw man that will be easy to knock down.
Granger doesn’t make the time to acquaint himself with the remarkable variety of forms that ritual practice can take. Instead, he considers the worth of only one ritual, as if it is a prototype for all rituals.
Ritual, as far as Granger is concerned, can be reduced to nothing but a rain dance. At first glance, this seems like an appropriate choice, given the way that sales organizations have incorporated the metaphor of the rain dance into their professional culture. A successful sales representative is referred to as a “rainmaker”.
Granger describes the rain dance as a simple superstition that arose from the ignorance of primitive minds, rather than as a complex cultural phenomenon. He imagines a scene from long ago, in a country where the rains have failed, and a tribe is beginning to go hungry. The tribal leaders decide that a rain dance ritual should be performed. The rain dance, they think, will cause rain to fall.
In this story, the rain dance fails to produce its intended effect. We, as readers, are not surprised because, as members of a scientifically-informed culture, we understand that rain is the result of meteorological systems, and cannot be influenced by dancing. In Granger’s story, however, the tribal leaders just don’t know any better. Even though they have watched their rain dance fail to produce results in the past, the tribe decides to try the rain dance again, in the hope that this time, for some reason, their ritual will work its magic.
The fundamental argument of Granger’s book is that too many marketers are engaged in the same kind of activity, relying on rituals that have no connection in reality, expecting profitable results to magically emerge from their familiar practices. “This is how raindance rituals develop,” he asserts, “often originating in just one person’s prejudices or assumptions. Someone leaps to a conclusion about a causal connection between A and B, between a certain type of campaign and a sales upturn, and the basis for a raindance is established, enshrined in a myth that is passed down in the culture of the department.”
The reliance on rituals in marketing, as Granger sees it, is nothing more that the result of the mistaken confusion of correlation with causality. In response, he adopts a stance of strict rejection of the fallacies of ritual reasoning. In the place of trust in rituals, Granger proposes a new faith in the inherent rationality of the marketplace. “I don’t believe in fairies, supernatural forces, the Loch Ness monster, divine intervention, raindancing or the lottery favouring the deserving,” he writes. “I believe in the sort of miracles that come about through the miraculous messaging medium of markets, which manage to aggregate the signals and bring together the particles of human genius to create things so complex that no mind can truly take them in.”
There is, however, a basic problem with Granger’s argument: The rain dance that he argues against may never have actually existed – at least not in the sense that he thinks it did.
After a long career surveying the beliefs and practices of native North American cultures, professor of Religious Studies Johnny Flynn, himself a Native American, explained that he knew of no Native American groups that used dances in order to create rain when there was none. Instead, he wrote, “Every summer the Hopi hold late summer dances - but not to bring the rain. Like the ax in the tree, the rain is coming or not regardless of the ax or the dance. The dances are held to welcome the rain.”
Flynn’s point was that the descendants of European colonists misinterpreted rituals that were designed to celebrate the coming of rain, supposing that the ritual dances were intended as procedures designed to magically change the weather. This interpretation fit with the core ideological narrative of the Westward Expansion, and of the Enlightenment more broadly – a story about how primitive cultures, mired in irrational superstition, were giving way to the superior power of European rationality.
Glenn Granger’s arguments in favor of a purely rational system of marketing are an extension of the old Enlightenment narrative, only turned inward. Like the explorers of past generations, he believes that progress will be made through the continued expansion of rationality. Now that the tribes of irrational savages have been subdued, Granger would have us purge our own society of its remaining irrational holdouts.
Fact-based anthropological research has revealed that the Enlightenment narrative of the irrationality of non-Europeans was flawed. Rituals, it turns out, are much more than just superstitious efforts to control physical reality through magic. The competitive vulnerability of Glenn Granger and his fellow rationalists in the business world comes from their refusal to update their old narrative to deal with these new insights.
To be sure, there are people who conduct rituals with the expectation that their desires will be magically fulfilled as a result. Most rituals, however, are not conducted with any miraculous expectations. The greatest portion of human ritual activity is conducted with an eye to internal psychological benefit, not with the goal of supernatural manipulation of external reality. Rituals may not be rational in the manner of being organized according to the dictates of hard facts and logical argument, but they make sense nonetheless, as procedures that are designed in such a way as to enable people to make the changes they need to make to keep their lives in order.
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