Topic 14 A recent study rating 300 male and female Mentian advertising executives according to the average number of hours they sleep per night showed an association between the amount of sleep the executives need and the success of their firms. Of the ad

In this argument, the author concludes that if a firm wants to success, it should hire only people who sleep less than 6 hours per night. To justify this claim, the author points that there is a study suggests that the advertising firms whose executives sleep less than 6 hours per night had higher profit margins and faster growth. However, to evaluate the argument, we need to examine some assumptions which it based on.

Firstly, the author make the assumption that the reason why the executives sleep less because they spend their time on work at night. Surely, it is believed that the person who use more time on work, the company would earn more money. But the author provide no evidence about whether executives do their job at night. Perhaps they do something that no relevant with work in the evening, such as taking care of children, watching TV, or playing games. Even it is possible that they are suffering from insomnia under the work pressure. Thus, they sleep less than 6 hours per night, but no relationship with their work. If we verify that the reason of those executives sleeping less than 6 hours is not about work at night, it would weaken the original argument.

Secondly, the author thinks that the sleeping time per night is the most important factor for an individual in the contribution to the advertising company. That is to say, if a person sleeps less than 6 hours per night, he would contribute more to the company. Obviously, the reality is not like that. It may possible that other features are more important, such as oral expression, writing skill and cooperation. Without these essential features of a person, the advertising company may not make profit. If we evidence that other features of a person are more crucial than sleeping time less than 6 hours in the success of a company, the author's claims would be incredible.

Thirdly, the author implies that his suggestion would be applicable in other businesses. However, different companies have different situation. For example, people who work at the training agency would need keeping fresh brain in the day time. If they sleep less at night, they would be tired on the next day. Clearly, it would decline their efficiency. If different companies have various requirements to their employees, the author’s argument would not be defensible.

In sum, in order to evaluate the author’s argument, we need consider the following assumptions: the reason why executives sleep less because they do their work at night, sleeping time is the most important factor for a person, and all the companies have the same situation as advertising firms.