The Battle for Beautiful Business Starts with Anti-Reductionism

The 2019 edition of the House of Beautiful Business(HoBB) just finished last Week in Lisbon. I had the privilege of attending it. It was my third HoBB and by far the best one. I am very proud that BCG partners with HoBB. The theme this year was “The Battle for Beautiful Business”

For the first time in my life I created an Instagram story, for BCG’s main channel. I “took over” the channel for the duration of the event and reported. I am not an active user of social media and it was good to make such an experience. I learned a lot. 

First of all, that writing Instagram stories is very hard and tough work, if you want to do it properly. I completely underestimated the amount of work needed to summarize things in a way that are interesting and do not quickly become platitudes. It was an extremely difficult exercise to balance brevity and insight. Something I was not aware of. It might be just me, as not social media active user, but it made me realize how big is the risk of sliding into shallowness, even if armed with the best intentions. It is very difficult to be insightful in such a constrained environment.

The second and main learning builds on the first one. I personally find this way of reporting quite limiting. I understand that Instagram is a different medium, and hope I have done a decent job of conveying the spirit and the content of HoBB, particularly given it was an Instagram story. But I have to admit that I have a bit of a problem with it. Much of the richness and the nuances coming out of the event got lost in the story, and I think that a more thorough report, reflecting the depth and complexity of the event would have done a better job. I am aware that, ideally, I would have had both, I know. And I will write further posts and articles on some of the most inspiring themes of the event, like the new senses and aesthetic intelligence. But I am afraid of a possible future (or should I say present?), where the default report from such an event is in Instagram stories, posts or tweets. In fact, the complex and fast changing world we live in deserves and needs the nuances and a wholistic approach, not reductionism. The Battle for Beautiful Business goes through anti-reductionism!

I was delighted to see that the HoBB decided the celebrate its closing with a beautiful poem by the great photographer and House resident Beowulf Sheehan. Poetry, a powerful anti-reductionist tool.

More below on why poetry is an anti-reductionist tool and on the event in general, with the pasted write-up of my Instagram story. Decide for yourself if it is a good way to convey the richness of something like the House of Beautiful Business.

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Here to explore the intersection of humanity and machines. This year's theme: The Battle for Beautiful Business. Why such a combative theme? We are moving from what was the century of physics to what's becoming the century of biology. This has ramification on the societal level, on the company level, and on the personal level.

What questions will we try to answer at the House of Beautiful Business?

1.    How can we fix capitalism?

2.    How can companies evolve and transform their OS to compete in this new environment?

3.    How can humans thrive in an age where many aspects of their lives are determined by algorithms?

We have partnered with HoBB since 2017. Why this partnership? In order to harness the potential of the decade ahead, companies have to be technology driven and human-centric. If you bring the two together to influence and shape the other, you will have beautiful business.

"Human cooperation and creativity are the most powerful forces in history. With AI we are entering a new paradigm of collaboration and creativity… Simulating and replicating the brain through neural networks can lead to emotional interactions an be extremely powerful… Even if used to augment and not replace humans, the ethical questions cannot be neglected and need to be an integral part of the solution from the very beginning" Mark Sager, CEO Soulmachines

 Leyla Acaroglu - Disrupt Design. Spoke on the circular economy " Why is it so difficult to act on climate change? Because people are scared and when people are scared they shut down. We need to change the narrative… The current linear economy is designed to maximize waste. Recycling is also a misunderstanding. It is designed to optimize waste. The solution is to move from linear to circular. Life is designed to optimize life. Nothing in nature goes to waste"

 Moon - Cyborg Artist. She used to have sensors implanted in her ankle. On Sunday she spoke about her experience with the union of her body and technology. "I have two beats in my body. My heartbeat and the earth beat. It is different to know that the earth is moving from feeling it…. I identify as a cyborg. I don't feel closer to robots. I feel closer to the planet… What I experience is revealed reality. Not augmented or virtual reality…. We adapted the planet to suit us. It is time to do the reverse. We are the ones who need to make sure we are closer to nature… Everyone needs to have the freedom to choose what to sense"

 "Aesthetic intelligence is not about beauty, it is about the senses, stimulating them and deciding what is good through them… It is different from Design Thinking. It is not about problem solving. It is about how it makes you feel… We are investing a lot of money in features and studying them. We invest no money in how it makes people feel… There has been a lot of talking about how technology is going to impact our future. The talking is now going back to 90% of what makes us human. We are not living our humanity. The real winning brands will be the ones harnessing this while being authentic." Pauline Brown - Aesthetic Intelligence

 My top take away from Sunday

1.    In a world dominated by technology, a perspective based on senses opens a wealth of opportunities to live back our humanity

2.    Changing the narrative is a powerful tool to achieve change. Design can play an important role in this. e.g. circular economy

3.    Purpose can make businesses more human thus more beautiful. But it has to mean fundamentally re-wiring the organization, not just "purpose washing" it.

 On Sunday I hosted the session "Poetry and Business" with Dr. Clare Morgan, founder and director of the Oxford's Creative Writing Program. The goal of the session was to let people experience how poetry can be very relevant in today's current complex and uncertain business environment. Takeaways from the session:

1.    It is scientifically proven that poetry activates the part of the brain responsible for dealing with ambiguity and uncertainty

2.    Reading and discussing a poem encourages going beyond logical analysis, postponing closure, engaging with many possible meanings and attention to context

3.    "Poetry confronts cadets with new ideas that challenge their worldview… in teaching cadets poetry, we teach them not what to think, but how to think" Lieutenant General James Lennox

 Martin Reeves, Director of BCG Henderson Institute, hosted two sessions. One session on "New Senses" and the other on "Alternate Economies". Key learnings from the "New Senses" session:

1.    AI and technology in general are augmenting humans along several dimensions. The sensorial one remains (for now at least) a purely human one. What we sense and how we sense defines who we are.

2.    There is a business potential to be extracted out of addressing the senses. It ranges from surgery equipment to consumer brands and information display

3.    Businesses are not aesthetically intelligent. Business people are.

 "Over the years we have moved from purpose OR performance to purpose AND performance. Leaders need to see, believe, think, act to make work soulful" Jessica Orkin, President, SY Partners

 Mathieu Lafavre, CEO and co-founder of More in Common, spoke about the perception gap in society. "If you look in a nuanced and complex way at the worldview and core values than the perceived differences among polarized societies narrow significantly…The perception gap is driven by the fact that people long for a sense of belonging…  People are yearning for a new story, the story of a bigger "us". We all need to fall in love with our future again"

 Session of the future of capitalism. "The real problem is that capitalism has gone abstract through digital. You have successive layers of abstraction, but abstraction cannot be the goal. Capital is only part of a bigger solution" Douglas Rushkoff, media theorist and best-selling author.

 Sir Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Oxford University "Capitalism doesn't work on autopilot. If left alone it will derail like it's already done a few times in history…. We have a spacial divide, a rift between booming cities and the countryside, and a new class divide… The two divides reinforce each other. If you have to leave to be productive, it destroys a lot of human value… To link productivity to places through capabilities and jobs, we need to:

1.    Decentralize political power

2.    Decentralize finance

3.    Have a good tertiary education and a strong cultural brand

And then the business community will organize locally to build capabilities and create jobs…. The Business Roundtable statement on purpose is a dramatic shift. The acid test will be: are these purposes being measured? If yes, the purposes are properly managed. If not, it is going to remain the same"

 I hosted a session "Deep Tinker" on how data, technology and deep science can be powerful tools to create beautiful business. "After millions of years of natural symbiosis where humans and the environment jointly evolved, with engineered symbiosis, powered by deep tech, we can reverse the last centuries of over exploitation" Arnaud De La Tour, CEO & co-founder of HelloTomorrow.

 Takeaways from a discussion with Roberto Veronese, Vice President Product, Helix.

1.    The rapid decrease of the cost of sequencing will enable us to put it to use at scale. This will unleash the incredible predictive power of the technology to prevent diseases

2.    Polygenic scores may predict up to 11% of difference in intelligence and 16% of the difference in education achievement between individuals. The environment still plays an important role. We haven't yet figured out the whole nurture vs. nature equation

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