Usefulness of Uselessness: A Case for Negative Capability in Management

Abstract

The obsessive need for speed, control, and performativity that drives the organizational discourse has disabled critical thought and crippled the imagination and the senses, calling for the much-needed but less-discussed “negative capability” (NC) in organizations. A term coined by the Romantic poet John Keats, NC is an imaginative, intuitive, and aesthetic approach to life in a state of diligent indolence and passive receptivity that invites one to be comfortable with uncertainty, mystery, and doubt. NC provides space for doubt to flourish in organizations and promotes a culture of inquiry and learning. We propose that NC is important in leadership because it helps shift the awareness of leaders from ego to eco, creating excellence with its aspects of intensity and aesthetics and bringing in a moral commitment to others, both human and nonhuman. We argue that an NC-based approach to management teaching would lead to an awakening of the senses and openness to possibilities and potentialities. Research will benefit from NC with its much-needed withness thinking, which, until now, has been largely missing from the management literature in general and management research in particular. We then present ways to develop NC and future directions for research.