If/Then
All we need is less?
If all we needed is less.
Then why would we pursue more?
All the frenzy of movement and meetings and much more remind one of William Wordsworth …
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers
Among the best if not the single best book on wealth is Morgan Housel’s “Psychology of Wealth”. If you have not read it you are truly missing out on a combination of wealth and life wisdom written with such a fusion of intelligence, insight, illumination and inspiration that you are unlikely to look at money, finance and wealth in the same way ever again.
There are many many lessons and practical applications in the book but a key underlying message is simply one word.
Enough.
Here is one story:
“At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.” Enough. I was stunned by the simple eloquence of that word—stunned for two reasons: first, because I have been given so much in my own life and, second, because Joseph Heller couldn’t have been more accurate. For a critical element of our society, including many of the wealthiest and most powerful among us, there seems to be no limit today on what enough entails.”
― Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money
And if you need less or can make do with enough you may be able to pursue the dream rather than funding your a lifestyle or pursuing a number.
We should not allow ourselves to be priced out of our dreams.
The Importance of Speed.
If speed is indeed a competitive weapon and moving fast provides one an edge in hyper fluctuating and reacting markets.
Then why do companies not push for espresso action rather than have every decision lovingly percolated like at high tea or Japanese tea ceremony? Months pass between sending a Request for Proposal (RFP), receiving responses and an actual decision being made. Where more time and money is spent evaluating a decision than if the decision had been made and market reaction gauged, and a program adapted with real world data to determine its viability.
The Cost of Differentiated Inputs.
If there is abundant evidence that the difference in productivity and impact between an excellent talent and an average talent can be 10x in knowledge industries because AI provides amazing leverage. That many leaders understanding this justify significant multiples in compensation for their top talent versus that of the average worker.
Then why is then focus of many an organization is to zero base budget costs and find the lowest priced suppliers to whom they can pay the least in the slowest way possible way. This approach may impact who is placed on their business, the attention it gets and the quality of suppliers who might work with the firm.
Indeed , if one believes an hour of input is an hour of input one would also buy meat in volume since after all there is no difference in what part of the cow is purchased since the hoof should have the same quality as Kobe beef !
It’s the quality of the archer not the cost of the arrows that is the point of difference in an AI age.
The Importance of Time.
If one has 75 years of a physically healthy life. Someone in their mid-forties therefore has less than 10,000 days left and someone turning 60 is dwindling down to less than 5000.
Then why is time is taken for granted? By us or by others. When people ask for time for no or little compensation (earning, learning or joy of helping) they are advertising their disrespect while whispering sweet nothings!
When one delays, procrastinates, dithers, and lingers. Or accepts procrastination, dithering and lingering.
All we are losing and paying with is our life.
Walk away from those who suck the time of your life for paltry promises. Most will panic when you do!
The definition of Success.
If the definition of success is to have the freedom to spend time in the way that gives one joy? This joy is often accompanied by a sense of flow when deeply immersed in doing, a feeling of grace and serenity when feeling as one with all around and often excitement and ecstasy of pleasurable pursuits.
Then living in other people’s minds trying to ensure they think highly of us makes little sense.
As does focusing the plumbing and process of life and forgetting the poetry and passion.
Watching the scoreboard and losing track of the ball.
One Single Thing.
The power of HUMAN Story telling
The Moth is a global storytelling nonprofit. Their mission is to inspire people to listen and share openly, think and feel deeply, and expand their understanding of one another.
Founded in 1997 by novelist George Dawes Green, The Moth was inspired by sultry evenings of storytelling in Green’s native Georgia– nights when moths were drawn to the porch light as friends gathered to share true stories. What began in George Plimoton’ds NYC living room quickly grew into a phenomenon, spreading to larger venues throughout the city.
Today, The Moth has presented more than 70,000 true stories — told live and without notes — across 11 countries and 4 continents, in grand theaters, cozy community spaces, prisons, hospitals, and even a graveyard. Through workshops for students, educators, adults, advocates, and professionals, it guided thousands of new storytellers each year in finding and crafting their own stories.
Live shows are at the heart of The Moth. With over 600 shows annually, ranging from open-mic StorySLAMS to curated Mainstage touring shows, they have featured stories by Salman Rushdie, Elizabeth Gilbert, Hanif Abdurraqib, Rachel Dratch, Padma Lakshmi, Mike Birbiglia, Brittney Cooper, Tig Notaro, an astronaut, a pickpocket, a voodoo priestess, a hotdog eating champion, and thousands more.
Most people first encounter the stories through the Peabody Award-winning show, The Moth Radio Hour, which airs on over 540 public radio stations nationwide, and The Moth Podcast, which is downloaded by tens of millions of listeners annually.
The Moth is also a publishing home for stories. They published five critically acclaimed books — four best-of anthologies and the New York Times bestseller How to Tell a Story — as well as a storytelling card deck, and most recently its first guided journal, My Life in Stories (Clarkson Potter, 2026).
Check it out.
Emotional Data.
Between the data and the reality falls the shadow.
The shadow is the emotion, the stories, the messiness that humans have contained within us.
Today in the idolatry age of data and ai, those who rely on only on numbers and computation get it wrong and wrong and wrong.
People do not compute.
We choose with our hearts and then use numbers to justify what we just did.
Brands exist because humans are not computational, rational or decisive.
If it was just about data why would we buy expensive cars, luxury products and pay for experiences when we can watch the same experience for free on television?
Brands do not differentiate on the data but on provenance, design, story-telling, cultural resonance, mindset relevance and a spectrum of emotion.
Marketers who only believe in data will soon be unemployed since machines will do all the optimizing, personalizing and modelling better than any of us.
Even in an age of Agentic buying, humans will feed their desires and their dreams and a whole lot of constraints into our agents. Otherwise we would have to accept a 6 am flight on the now defunct Spirit Airlines since it was the most rational decision.
Our very existence and those of our children is a reminder of the power of emotion over data.
The ROI of children in mathematical and numerical terms makes no sense.
On a data driven basis, Russia should long time ago have overwhelmed Ukraine and Iran should have folded. The numbers were all superior on the side of Russia and the US. But the emotion, the raw need to survive and the asymmetrical thinking that a David brings against a Goliath spits in the face of data.
Data centers need gigawatts of energy while a human needs a cup of coffee and two slices of toast.
Our lack of logic will overwhelm the machines.
The love of a mother for a child and the power of desire overwhelms all rationality.
People vote not on data and facts but rather because of fear, hope, worry and vulnerability all of which machines fail to understand even though they may feign such understanding.
Taste, judgement, curation, sensitivity which people believe humans will need to differentiate are primarily emotional rather than rational.
Two different teams can interpret the same data in completely different ways so was it the the data or the people that came up with the recommendation? The most successful will not emit data but provide perspectives, provocations, points of of view and plans of action that fuse data and humanity.
The future is as much story as it is spreadsheet.
Artificial Intelligence or Cleverness will be a commodity like electricity.
Human Insight, Human Imagination, Human Inventiveness, Human Interaction and Human Inspiration will be the differentiator rather than the data.
There will be data data everywhere and so much AI that we will sink. We need insight, imagination, inventiveness and inspiration to help us think.
Like money, data is a great servant but a terrible master.
The math is already in the AI.
It is time to infuse the feeling.
Sir John Hegarty has described “Creativity is an expression of self.”
It is time for data that resonates with the human soul.
It is time for emotional data.
One Single Thing.
I have had the opportunity to learn and work with Sir John Hegarty and his team on some programs and I believe this conversation between Sir John and myself is worth a read and listen. The entire story is linked below but do read the how Sir John describes creativity at a minimum.
One day someone told Sir John Hegarty that the greatest art of all might be music.
Sir John believed it might be the second greatest art for and the greatest of all art is human life.
Human life is an act of creativity.
Sir John defines creativity as follows: Creativity is an expression of self.
Listen to the greatest creative people and you will hear them saying:
“Here is what I wanted to say”
“This is what I wanted to show”
“What I am trying to build”
There are two types of creativity one is pure and the other is applied.
Pure creativity is a spark that leads to the iPhone, creating the Simpsons or designing the Guggenheim in Bilboa. and also drives the greatest iconic works of art, product design and brand building.
Applied creativity is creating the next version of the iPhone, a new episode of The Simpsons or designing the stairs inside the Guggenheim.
Pure creativity is the greatest wealth creator and generator of growth ever.
Creativity drives innovation and the best creativity does not come from A/B testing, mathematics or focus groups.
It feeds on curiosity, instinct, exposure to differing perspectives, feelings and things that do not compute.
This AI versioning is not creativity that builds brands and growth but a smart way to get variations of a theme cost effectively get the lower funnel sale of a Brand that was which was built due to a different form of creativity.
A human creativity of self expression and not a machine variation of optimization and data co-relation.
AI will unleash human creativity but will not replace human creativity.
Read and listen to the entire piece here.
Navigating Career Bending Times.
Created by the author using Midjourney
These are career bending times.
A fusion of forces are reshaping the contours of our careers.
Whether we are early or in the middle or more senior in tenure.
Whether we work for a small, medium, or a large firm.
Whether we are self-employed, a free-lancer or a “full-time” employee.
Regardless of our industry, our country, or our expertise.
The Forces.
There are six forces each of which alone might have changed the contours of our career but now they are all occurring at the same time, are intertwined with each other, and are becoming increasingly powerful:
1. Demographic and Societal Change: Four generations at work. Major mindset differences between youngest and oldest generations. Aging and declining populations everywhere but Africa. Today the largest increases in working populations are over 60 years old. And 62% of Gen-Z have a side- gig, side-hustle or passion project while working full-time! In most countries there is a severe push back against immigration which is impacting the economics of different industries in different ways.
2. Technology: While AI is the significant driver of technology today it is not the only one. Blockchains are creating new financial instruments and trust marks.Biotech breakthroughs are coming fast and furious. Robotics manifests AI in physical ways. All of these are roiling every industry from manufacturing to services.
3. Multi-polar globalization: Globalization but with different centers of power versus a US dominated world order is underway. While the US and China are the dominant economies by far ( their combined GDP of 50 trillion accounts for 40 percent of the total GDP of the world) we are seeing the shape shifting of different alliances with Europe, Japan, and India among others combining in different ways. There is no steady state.
4. The Unbundling of Work: Work is being uncoupled from jobs and from the office. Jobs are a phase that work is going through. Companies and careers will soon be optimized around getting work done versus the filling of jobs. This will have huge societal impact but is inevitable. In addition the office will be a museum. A monument to the past, a place where the history and culture of an organization is shared and a proof of solidity and continuity projected. But real work is being done everywhere.
5. Work/Life Reset: One long term impact of the 2020 to 2022 post Covid trauma was as someone wrote: “And isn’t this the whole point, post-Covid: to actually live your life?” Many people who believed work was life now believe work is an important and key part but just one part of a well-lived life. Companies who believe Covid changed our mindsets on where we work still do not understand that what it did was make us ask why we work and who we work for?
6. The melting, decaying, and liquefying of industry shapes and boundaries: With Apple offering 3.5percent interest on a FDIC insured savings account up to 250,000 dollars that you can fund with one click and loaning you funds from their balance sheet with their Buy Now and Pay Later program ( now through Klarna) they are for all purposes a bank. The New York Times is a global multi-media life-style business with a third of their revenue coming from non news products. Volkswagen recently announced lay-offs of 50,000 workers as new technologies ( electric and self-driving) and new competition (Chinese in particular) is decimating the proud German auto industry. The categories we work in are shapes shifting.
Each of these forces are intertwined with each other. Modern technology and marketplaces allow for side-gigs and side-hustles and unbundled work. AI powers Biotech and re-configures jobs. New trade barriers move jobs and manufacturing to different countries as does the rise and fall of population.
Created by the author using Midjourney
The Career Implications.
While the future is often hard to predict one can be quite sure that in the next few years the current waves of change will grow into a tsunami, and everybody will be impacted in some way or the other.
1. We are now going to have 50-year careers: Extended life spans, limited government pensions, incentives for elder people to stay in the workforce, machine enabled work will have us working for multiple decades versus a 30-year career. Ageism will soon be seen as a prejudice against our future selfs.
2. Life-Long Training and Education: Even three decades into a career well into the 50’s one may need to go back to school, re-skill and re-tool. And the days of saying “We will be retired before all these new things happen” will not be realistic. Investing in continuous learning will be key to stay relevant. Most companies who are cutting people thinking that AI will replace them should actually invest in retraining their people since AI will be like electricity a commodity that every one has versus a competitive advantage. In fact for every dollar spent in AI companies will need to spend the same to upgrade their talent.
3. We will increasingly be working like gig workers and there will be many other changes to the design of organizations: A job will not be a title, a position and a static role but a constantly changing number of tasks, outcomes and deliverables In a globalized and connected marketplace of unbundled and distributed work we will all become gig workers even if we spend long time in a firm since all firms will become increasingly agile and connected, looking to put the best people on the most appropriate tasks very much like the way Hollywood or TV production works.
4. We will be work in tandem with machines: Almost every job will leverage AI or will be infused with some other technology. The productivity increases of modern technology will mean anyone trying to avoid it will be intriguing to talk about but unlikely to be able to compete.
5. We will work in smaller and delayered companies with many of us operating as “Companies of One”: a) AI software, b) Platforms that enable access to marketplaces and talent ( Shopify, Fiver) , c) a need for shapeshifting agility as categories re-invent themselves ( Finance, Auto, Healthcare, Education at a minimum which account for half of US GDP), d) a demand for flexible cost structures in a high velocity world, e) a work-force where free-lance workers are greater than full-time workers (2027 in the US) and f) scar-tissue of over hiring (see tech and media companies today) will significantly reduce the size of most companies, eliminate multiple layers and focus on experts and deliverables versus generalists and process. We are likely to see an eco-system of some very large companies in every industry (the whales) and millions of smaller firms ( plankton). AI has turbocharged the number of new businesses started in the US to almost 6 million!
6. Leaders and Coaches and Learners versus Bosses and Manager and Know it Alls: In this new world people will likely value, ask for and measure three things:
a) what does an individual help make, build, ship, change or impact?
b) what value do we add to the machine or how do we collaborate with other people or plug into a role on a project so that 1+ 1=3 ?
c) what creativity, vision, empathy, or imagination do we bring to inspire and grow people and business ?
The key will be how one can lead, train, and grow talent to unleash their potential.
The big corner offices, the gauntlet of handlers, receptionists, and other awe-inspiring fear mongering scaffolding of the pre-2020’s will all be seen as the crutches of the insecure and the fearful causing most talent to rapidly re-route around such blockages and blockheads.
People’s “zone of influence” and “zone of impact” will be far more important than our “zone of control” or “size of kingdom”.
Created by the author using Midjourney
Re-inventing and Staying Relevant.
A complete re-imagining and re-thinking is underway which is why all of us feel some combination of fear, challenge, excitement, and even horror!
The drumbeats of a changing reality are beating in the marrow of our blood even if we do not wish to listen to their forceful thump-thump…
We will all need to bend ourselves into new forms, skills, and shapes.
A few keys to remaining relevant will be:
a. Plan for the long term: Plot careers over phases recognizing different eras as well as our own differences as we age with a look both ahead and behind. Read Career Lessons Revisited a distillation of usable and actionable learnings on re-inventing over time.
b. Build expertise. Hone a craft. Be known.Learn and earn a niche or niches. Have a voice and learn to tell a story. Read Career Turbocharging for an exercise if you are looking for a job, thinking of switching jobs or re-inventing yourself and a job.
c. Do not outsource your career growth to anyone else:Be responsible and control the upgrading of your mental and skill operating system to keep on learning.Here is one way: Learning to learn.
And here is one page with thoughts on a dozen topics to thrive in the future you may wish to bookmark. Look at Section 1, 2 and 10 in particular.
It will be a career bending time.
Which is far better than a career ending time!
One Single Thing.
To imagine where the world of AI, surveillance and data driven marketing is taking us read this incredible story. It will blow you away and you will never think of your marketing job, your data job or AI the same.
The entire story has been made available for free by the author Suzanne Wang here:
https://suzannewang.com/mall-of-america
It is amazing.
Machine. Memory. Art. Impermanence.
Kunal Sen
Kunal Sen is an accomplished technologist and artist.
He received a PhD. in AI in the 1980’s.
Over a 20+ year career in digital technology, he designed electronic medical systems, authored technical publications, and led digital evolution and technology initiatives at Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster where he was the Chief Information Officer.
While he continued to work in technology , beginning in 2012, Kunal shifted his primary focus to visual arts and painting.
He also authored the critically acclaimed memoir Bondhu: My Father, My Friend, reflecting on his life and his relationship with his father the legendary film director and screenwriter Mrinal Sen.
Kunal joined me in a conversation filled with deep knowledge about the interaction between AI, Art and Humans that is accessible at the bottom of this post.
It is a fascinating history of digital media, the rise of AI, the importance of memory, the quirks of being a human and a homage to art. Whether one is in business or technology or the creative arts it is a conversation everyone will learn from.
Below are some key takeaways.
All the art featured in this post are by Kunal Sen.
Kunal Sen
The life changing impact of books.
Nearly five decades ago as a student in the city of Calcutta (Kolkata) India , Kunal wandered into the remainder section of a book fair containing “stray” books for sale and picked up a title called Design for a Brain (1952) which builds the case that the human mind is a machine.
The book inspired Kunal to switch from studying Physics to AI.
And while Kunal was doing his PhD in AI the same technologies that runs everything from ChatGPT and more were being developed.
Kunal today continues to be a prolific reader of books and publishes a review each quarter of all the books he has read for all of us to learn from.
And he is writing his second book, a novel following his memoir “Bondhu”.
Kunal Sen
Encyclopedia Britanica was a forerunner of challenges facing traditional media and the challenges of AI.
The Encyclopedia Brittanica was a pioneer in embracing technologies including creating the first CD-ROM products, going online, leveraging search and much more.
The big challenge was not leveraging the technology but as the format changed the economics of a highly trusted, deeply edited, print product which cost $1500 to $2000 collapsed because one could not charge the same for a CD-ROM especially when a product from Microsoft called Encarta was being given away for free.
A switch to free with a reliance on advertising was not sufficient because the market was not yet developed and the dot com bust occurred.
Eventually the free model was replaced with a hybrid model of subscription for all access and some highly ranked content available for free but monetized through search advertising.
In addition a pivot to educational organizations that needed access to trusted content and were willing to pay subscriptions combined, with the recent launch of highly intellectual free games funded by advertising helped address the financial problems.
When one thinks of all challenges magazine and print companies have faced on the Internet it is profound that if they had paid attention to Encyclopedia Brittanica’s learnings they would have saved a lot of heartache. They were early in understanding freemium models, monetizing games, the importance of recurring revenue and the importance of building different revenue streams long before others did.
Kunal Sen
Memory and Trust.
Now in the age of AI, the Encyclopedia is also grappling with how to leverage AI’s effectiveness in content production while retaining the trust and credibility of the brand which is based on human curation.
One of the tools that Encyclopedia Brittanica created was a tool for editors to write stories collaborating with AI. While there was efficiencies in the creation of the pieces the Editors found that fact checking and proof reading the AI took much more time than humans.
The editors trusted the machine output less than human output.
Humans have a much higher bar to tolerate mistakes from other humans than machines. An example is that today autonomous cars are much safer than humans but humans are far more skeptical about the abilities of the machines.
Another example of trust is the importance of a formal account of record.
Of trusted memory.
When the Encyclopedia stopped publishing a print edition the Library of Congress which had bought a new edition every 3 years for over 200 years ( not to replace the previous edition but to augment it), called Kunal with a concern.
The reason that the Library of Congress had bought each new print edition was that it allowed someone to check on the state of knowledge or culture over the decades by checking articles on the same subject across the years. A digital edition was not a static document changing in real time and even if a snapshot of all the content were taken once a year it would be difficult to capture the experience of navigating the content.
Today the past as it is digitized is disappearing and often cannot be accessed without the old hardware, browsers and plug ins. And when every single interaction is personalized and every AI conversation can provide different answers each time one asks what goes into the record?
What are the challenges when everything is impermanent and there is no shared memory?
Kunal Sen
Art and Impermanence.
Given Kunal’s AI expertise and his sensibility as an artist one of the most fascinating parts of our conversation was about whether AI can be creative and make art.
Kunal believes that AI can be highly creative in that it can make things that are novel and useful. All humans are born creative but in time due to society and education most of us end up being less creative .
AI chatbots while trained have not been schooled. In addition they have a setting called temperature that allows one to dial up their randomness and rule breaking. Therefore it preserves its creativity.
AI can make moves that no human would have conceived of such as move 37 when it played AlphaGo with the then world champion, Lee Sedol.
After the game Lee said that he could not imagine any human making such a creative move.
On AI making Art however Kunal was skeptical since he believes true art has three attributes. 1) Creativity 2) Intentionality in that somebody had a reason to do something and 3) Shared Experience.
Machines can be creative but can they be intentional or is a human causing the intention? Even if machines had intention it is in the third attribute of shared experience that suggests machine generated creativity to fall short of being art.
Because when we see a work of art we soon begin to imagine what the artist may have been feeling or seeing when he or she created it. There is no such “he” or “she” in AI art and this psychologically impacts us the viewer.
Kunal also reminds us that most literature and art is grounded in the passing of time and the impermanence of life. Machines do not have to grapple with death. As Franz Kafka stated “the meaning of life is that it ends”.
Kunal Sen with his father Mrinal Sen at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010.
The four points above are a small portion of an incredible conversation which will enlighten the listener about AI, Science, Art and the Human Experience in ways one would never expect.
More about Kunal Sen and his art here: https://www.kunalsen.com/
My conversation with Kunal is an episode called “Science, Art and AI in the Human experience” and is the latest What Next? episode on every global podcast platform.
Here it is on Spotify:
One Single Thing
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems
The greatest poetry in the world. All in one place. All free to access.
Here is one short poem:
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
Burning Lessons.
In 1995, a project manager at a San Francisco software company drove twelve miles into a Nevada dry lakebed because a man in a bed sheet holding a plastic flamingo told her to.
She never went back.
That woman was Marian Goodell. Nearly thirty years later, she is the first and only CEO of Burning Man Project.
An event that started on a beach in San Francisco with a few hundred people has evolved into the construction of a temporary city of 80,000 in the middle of the desert where nothing except ice is sold and which is then completely eradicated leaving no sign of having existed!
Marian arrived as a command-and-control project manager, learned to let it go, and built something genuinely collective.
Then her co-founder passed away. Then the pandemic came. Then the rain nearly broke the event. Then the tickets stopped selling.
Each challenge demanded something different, and each time, she had to decide whether to take the tiller herself or trust the community to sail the boat.
For a frame of reference watch this two minute video which is a trailer on the just released HBO documentary on Burning Man.
In the latest episode of Unbossing, Drew Ianni and I spoke with Marian.
She has many lessons to share from running Burning Man including how to you sometimes need to burn your former ways of working to transform into a way more relevant as the world changes.
The entire episode is a masterclass on leadership that everyone should listen to.
Here are some key takeaways for every one who wants to lead through tectonic times:
1) Leadership styles need to evolve as the situation evolves.
Great leaders adapt their style of leadership to the circumstances they face and the teams they lead. Some time one leads in a collaborative way and another in a command and control style.
In today’s tectonic times where the foundations of many businesses are shaking the one size fits all model explains the rapid turnover of many leaders.
Marian explains how collaborative decision making and collective decision making each have their uses but are very different.
2) Community and Culture are the keys to organizational health.
Every institution and organization succeeds and fails based on how well it understands and protects it’s culture while incorporating the input of its community.
It is a balancing act between “a way” and “ a people”.
The “way” of Burning man is that of decentralization, radical self-expression and participation.
The “people” of burning man come from all over the world, include starving artists and technology billionaires who look to be transformed by being challenged by the environment, who seek to connect and find themselves by fusing with art and theater.
Many reject top-down management.
To protect this culture and community Marion both decided not to hold a Burning Man in 2021 since Covid was still in the air, too many people were still suffering from trauma, not enough people had been vaccinated and there was not enough time to hold a safe and high quality event.
But Marian also attended the “Renegade Burn” where 12,000 people created their own Burning Man putting into practice the cultural DNA of decentralization, self-expression and participation.
Some things are never under one’s control and how one reacts to rebellion may determine the long term health and community of an organization.
Today many people have created their own versions of Burning Man all over the world without permission. There is no franchise model but just a way.
3) Burning Man provides lessons for the modern leader.
Zone of Influence vs Zone of Control: In a distributed world with knowledge available to everybody a management style of command and control is being replaced by one of influence. The ideas of radical self-expression, decentralization and self-reliance seems to be a pre-cursor of the future of corporate design and career management.
Importance of Generational Sensitivity: Today there is a huge rupture between the young and the old on issues from capitalism, the willingness to work in a corporation, risk taking and much more. Often people are speaking past each other. As the audience at Burning Man grew older the organization went out of its way to understand and welcome a new generation who in turn leveraged social media to promote the experience Instagram in particular). Listening has never been as critical.
The future is about combining story and spreadsheet: Successful leaders balance art, play and creativity with operational and financial discipline. One without the other leads to genetically deformed firms that cannot navigate the tides of change.
Take a listen and some of the lessons may have you burning some of your own beliefs:
One Single Thing
The agents are using AI more than humans!
