Tim Leberecht of The House of Beautiful Business | Making Business More Human

What you’ll learn

• How to foster a sense of belonging in the workplace?
• What can small businesses do to make a change?
• How to ensure connection in the era of remote work?
• How to make the world of automation more human?
• The need for ’emotional diversity’ in the post-pandemic workplace.
• What is “Beautiful Business”?

Transcript

00:00:04:03 – 00:00:19:23

Jo Meunier 

Hello and welcome to the Future podcast by all worked out space. I’m Joe Monier and today I am speaking with Tim Lebrecht. He was the co-founder and co-CEO of the House of Beautiful Business, a global think tank and community with a mission to make humans more human business more beautiful. 

00:00:19:23 – 00:00:35:01 

Jo Meunier 

And ultimately, of course, to make business more human, too. Tim has had a fascinating career. He served as the chief marketing officer for and BBJ, the global design and architecture firm, and he was also the CMO for SOC Design, a product design and innovation consultancy.  

00:00:35:17 – 00:00:45:26 

Jo Meunier 

You may have seen his TED. Three Ways to usefully lose control of your brand and most recently, four Ways to build a human company in the age of machines. As if that’s not enough. Tim is also an author. 

00:00:45:29 – 00:00:58:19 

Jo Meunier 

His book is called The Business Romantic. So I’m looking forward to digging into all of this specifically to understand how it all links with the future of work and what Tim is doing to help people and businesses overcome the challenges that are facing today’s workforce.  

00:00:59:06 – 00:01:01:21 

Jo Meunier 

So firstly, welcome, Tim, and thank you for joining us.  

00:01:02:14 – 00:01:04:04 

Tim Leberecht 

Great to be here. Thanks for having me too. 

00:01:04:29 – 00:01:09:24 

Jo Meunier 

And I’ve just learned something amazing that your surname means something quite special. Can you tell us?  

00:01:10:24 – 00:01:25:01 

Tim Leberecht 

So my surname, the labor in proper German where I grew up, means right to live or live the right life. So it’s kind of like a moral imperative. It’s an old Prussian name that I got from my from my father, who was born and raised in Berlin.  

00:01:25:14 – 00:01:34:13 

Jo Meunier 

Amazing. And that is quite beautiful. Which leads us to our opening topic. Is the house a beautiful business? Can you tell us a little bit about that and what beautiful business means? 

00:01:35:14 – 00:01:53:25 

Tim Leberecht 

Yeah, the house, a beautiful business started on the heels of the release of my first book, The Business Romantic, which came out in 2015 and explored what I felt like a new need for a new romanticism against the backdrop of the total data fixation, total quantification of everything. 

00:01:54:08 – 00:02:15:09 

Tim Leberecht 

And as I was trying to form a community around the book after its release, I, I had this intention of hosting the most romantic business conference ever. And together with my longtime colleague and friend Tille, who then became the co-founder of the House, we started in Barcelona with this most romantic business conference ever, and it really struck 

00:02:15:09 – 00:02:29:14 

Tim Leberecht 

a chord. You know, people really wanted to have a space where the conversations were not only transactional, not only focused on business, immediate business outcomes that went deeper and drew from the humanities and from the arts for a more playful, imaginative, more, more whimsical. 

00:02:29:29 – 00:02:42:26 

Tim Leberecht 

And that was the birth of the house of beautiful business. And we quickly decided to then continue with the idea of the house and turn it into a global community that’s now been existing since 2017. We have more than 20,000 subscribers. 

00:02:42:26 – 00:03:05:00 

Tim Leberecht 

We have paying members, individuals and corporations all around the world. We have more than 35 local hubs from Johannesburg to Kyoto to Melbourne to Los Angeles to London with local activities. And the idea really is to create a brave new space for different conversations about the future of work, to experience what a completely reimagined brand of business 

00:03:05:00 – 00:03:19:18 

Tim Leberecht 

might look like in a very loving and multidisciplinary way. And people always ask us, So what exactly do you mean by beautiful business? What’s the definitive, you know, list or definition? And we really have successfully shied away from that.  

00:03:20:17 – 00:03:36:00 

Tim Leberecht 

We chose the term beauty because it is so elusive. It is in the eye of the beholder. It is, as the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa said, beauty is what does not exist. So it’s basically what is in your imagination is everything worth aspiring for that does not exist yet.

00:03:36:00 – 00:03:59:25 

Tim Leberecht 

So in business it means it’s business that could be more inclusive, more sustainable, more imaginative, more humane, more interdisciplinary, more tender, softer, more ambiguous, more poetic. So all of these qualities that we have, I think, for too long removed from the way we operate business, which was very reduction, is very data driven, very outcome oriented, very process 

00:03:59:25 – 00:04:19:09 

Tim Leberecht 

oriented in the sort of industrialist post industrialist way that we have run our businesses and we want to open. Yeah, we see ourselves as a Trojan horse, as a gateway into a new way of doing business and people who join us as members where membership based organizations are invited to experiences and content and discussions and projects that  

00:04:19:09 – 00:04:28:16 

Tim Leberecht 

all share this mission to explore what what could business look like if we were imaginative and not like just beholden to the current constraints? 

00:04:29:01 – 00:04:42:28 

Jo Meunier 

That’s amazing. I’ve got so many questions buzzing through my mind right now, and I think the thing that seems to strike true is that it’s all about connections, isn’t it? It’s about people building connections, sharing experiences, sharing knowledge, and that’s helping each other to. 

00:04:42:29 – 00:04:48:00 

Jo Meunier 

To build and strengthen their businesses and and take them forward. 

00:04:49:24 – 00:05:06:23 

Tim Leberecht 

It really is. I think they’re in the pandemic, I believe, has further fueled that desire that people realize, like at the end of the day, connection and community is all there is. So, you know, there’s this famous research conducted by by nurses who spent the last remaining hours, the ultimate hours of the dying.  

00:05:06:23 – 00:05:20:12 

Tim Leberecht 

And the documents that, you know, the greatest regret that people always have when they’re on their deathbed is not more money, it’s not more success. It’s not more necessarily impact or not even romantic relationships. Interestingly enough, it’s friendship. 

00:05:20:13 – 00:05:33:12 

Tim Leberecht 

They say, I should have spent more time with those close to me family of friends. And so deep connections in whatever shade of form I think are really what makes a life worth living is what makes a life beautiful. 

00:05:33:12 – 00:05:47:15 

Tim Leberecht 

To have genuine, deep, honest connection and recognition of yourself as who you truly are in a community that you chose or that you created yourself. And I think that desire has only grown through the pandemic, and it’s one that we try to cater to. 

00:05:47:15 – 00:06:00:25 

Tim Leberecht 

People come to us at the end of the day, for whatever business reasons, they stayed. You know, of course, they say, I want to develop my business. I want to meet interesting, you know, people from a business perspective, I want to promote my business, but at the end of the day to all humans and at the end 

00:06:00:25 – 00:06:15:25 

Tim Leberecht 

of the day, we all go to conferences and networking events, not because of business reasons primarily. We want connection and community. We want to be loved and heard and seen and connect with people. And all the business reasons are give us great alibis, but they’re not the truth. 

00:06:16:17 – 00:06:32:02 

Jo Meunier 

Yeah. And it seems to me that through your work and through the programs that you want to equip business leaders with the tools they need for future entrepreneurship, perhaps to challenge the way things are done and to introduce new ways of thinking, too. 

00:06:32:03 – 00:06:39:11 

Jo Meunier 

And in your view, what are some of the key challenges that you think are facing us in the future of work? And my next question will be, how are you working to solve them? 

00:06:41:16 – 00:06:53:17 

Tim Leberecht 

Where to start. There are so many challenges. There have always been challenges when it comes to work. I mean, first of all, we spent the majority of our waking hours at work, right? I think 65 or 70% of our waking hours we spent as knowledge workers at work.  

00:06:53:17 – 00:07:08:08 

Tim Leberecht 

So work is quite important. If work is, as the poet David White said, is what breaks or makes ourselves, that’s where we get a sense of identity and meaning. And I think that sense is also through the pandemic has really grown more, more profound.  

00:07:09:02 – 00:07:24:23 

Tim Leberecht 

Hence the great resignation rates of 40 or more percent of people quitting their jobs are planning to quit their jobs. So people really realize, like what I do, what will do really matters. And I want my my every day work aligned with my greater purpose in life. 

00:07:25:05 – 00:07:42:28 

Tim Leberecht 

That would be one of the main challenges, I believe, going forward, both for workers but also for the organization. So for companies to make sure that they give people a sense of purpose and that they offer a platform on which people can fulfill themselves and pursue their own personal purpose. 

00:07:42:28 – 00:08:06:18 

Tim Leberecht 

I think especially for the younger generations, we know from various studies that is really paramount. I think another big challenge will be as we see decentralized economies, right? So decentralized autonomous organizations run on blockchain with microprocessors and increasingly independent gig workers who are almost like all entrepreneurs, you know, in their own right, contributing to two network projects 

00:08:07:15 – 00:08:24:05 

Tim Leberecht 

So super flexible ways of collaborating. On the one hand, it gives us a great sense of freedom and agency. And we also know from research that’s what people really appreciate. But at the same time, it might happen at the expense of of belonging or of the sense of belonging to a community. 

00:08:24:05 – 00:08:44:12 

Tim Leberecht 

And it can become very lonely. It can become very isolated. And and I think the workplace has, as we face this this loneliness epidemic, you know, that’s often been stated. The workplace is such a responsibility to to integrate us into society, to give us a sense of community and belonging and to provide social structures, you know, that 

00:08:44:12 – 00:09:01:12 

Tim Leberecht 

give us a sense of stability far beyond the performance or getting tasks done. It’s a it’s a big social mandate, I believe, that workplaces have. And I think as we decentralize and so much of the work has become remote or hybrid, I was moving on to blockchain and other decentralized modes of operation. 

00:09:02:10 – 00:09:19:16 

Tim Leberecht 

I believe that’s going to be very hard to maintain. So how do we create intimacy from a distance? How do we create a sense of belonging? If the structures are increasingly informal and blurry and hybrid and I had an interesting conversation with with the CEO of a big automotive company about this.  

00:09:20:05 – 00:09:37:16 

Tim Leberecht 

And I was sort of saying, I don’t know if the organization as it exists today will still exist in 20 years. Maybe it’s all, you know, Hollywood style projects of gig workers. And he said, Yeah, on the one hand, perhaps, but on the other hand, the desire to actually be in an office with other people and have 

00:09:37:23 – 00:09:55:06 

Tim Leberecht 

and represent a strong brand with a strong sense of purpose is a family. And it’s such an powerful institution socially that I’d be surprised if people completely, you know, kind of forgot about that need. So that is one challenge, I think, for leaders and for organizations of the future.  

00:09:55:06 – 00:10:13:04 

Tim Leberecht 

And I think the third big one and the last one I would state is just automation, of course. So it is this fear that we’re going to be replaced by ever smarter artificial intelligence and robots and how to coexist with machines, how to develop a fruitful, respectful relationship with machines.  

00:10:13:23 – 00:10:28:16 

Tim Leberecht 

Because, you know, automation and of course, is an out of inevitable everything that will need that that can be done efficiently and can be done more efficiently, will be done more efficiently by machines. As envy, Andrew McAfee for MIT said everything that’s dirty, dull or dangerous will be done by machines. 

00:10:28:28 – 00:10:47:28 

Tim Leberecht 

So it’s very important to think about like how can what is the work that that that only we humans can do? And it’s the work that is beautiful, the work that needs to be done with love, with care, with discretion, with fantasy, with empathy, also with sensing, instead of knowing, with and feeling and intuiting and rather than 

00:10:47:28 – 00:11:05:02 

Tim Leberecht 

calculating, which is, of course, what machines are very good at. So. So I think one of the challenges just to to wrap up my answer to your question, which sorry was very long winded, I think the challenge for organizations was to really carve out the space for humans to be human and do work that only humans can 

00:11:05:02 – 00:11:13:19 

Tim Leberecht 

And to really clearly demarcate that, but also protect it and defend it from the onslaught, of course, of of efficiency driven automation

00:11:14:00 – 00:11:27:22 

Jo Meunier 

Yes, I will dig a bit further into automation in a moment. But coming back to one of your I think it was your first point about creating a sense of belonging that’s made more difficult now with a lot of a lot of people working from home or working from remote locations. 

00:11:28:00 – 00:11:38:16 

Jo Meunier 

And on the one side, they might be happy to do that, which helps create this feeling of empowerment that you mentioned, but also for the culture side of it and that sense of belonging and the connectedness, it can make that challenging. 

00:11:38:26 – 00:11:46:08 

Jo Meunier 

So how do you think organizations in this in this new world of work, how can they help to foster that sense of belonging in their workplace? 

00:11:47:05 – 00:12:04:13 

Tim Leberecht 

It starts with a very strong mission and a clear sense of purpose. Like what is what does the organization stand for? What is it against what? Who’s the enemy? You know who is not part of a family? My my friend and mentor Priya Parker, who wrote this wonderful book, The Art of Gathering, always says if everybody is 

00:12:04:13 – 00:12:20:24 

Tim Leberecht 

family, no one is family. So I think that that’s a sense of a very distinctive identity is is key. Then secondly, I think that identity needs to become manifest in experiences. And I think it’s mostly emotive or emotional experiences that connect people and inspire people.  

00:12:21:03 – 00:12:41:27 

Tim Leberecht 

So it is the beautiful dinner, you know, formal or informal after work. It is the retreats, a gathering that’s really carefully designed to. Yeah. To to project a different version, a different persona of the organization, to have the license to play at a retreat or other pockets of imagination within an organization. 

00:12:42:08 – 00:13:01:02 

Tim Leberecht 

And I think it’s also and this is something that the pandemic has really propelled us to do. It’s to really commit to spaces that are purely social. So to to differentiate between meetings that are clearly outcome driven, that have a clear process, that are very stringent, but at the same time also to allow space for the unnecessary  

00:13:01:13 – 00:13:18:25 

Tim Leberecht 

for or for everything that is not necessarily immediately serving the bottom line for intimacy, for for symbolic value, for rituals, you know, for for dwelling on an idea and staying in a space for a little bit too long, then the regime of efficiency would allow for. 

00:13:19:12 – 00:13:38:03 

Tim Leberecht 

Because if you remove all of that, if you have a purely efficiency run organization, then basically you have no culture because culture is an excess. It’s everything that is not necessary strictly by strict management terms and protecting that and and saying as a, as a leader, you know, we’re only going to grow by 20% instead of 25 

00:13:38:04 – 00:13:56:15 

Tim Leberecht 

but we will have a healthy culture that will benefit the wellbeing and the mental and physical health of people. And their sense of purpose I think is a deliberate decision that many organizations are leaders can take. And yeah, those are some of the things I believe that that companies can do to foster that sense of purpose, even  

00:13:56:15 – 00:14:00:29 

Tim Leberecht 

if it’s, you know, work will become hybrid or it’s already becoming hybrid.  

00:14:01:12 – 00:14:17:01 

Jo Meunier 

Yes. And that sense of purpose and that need to give workers more control and more choice and more flexibility to make them happier and more productive for the for the small business owner, for example, stepping into their shoes, they walk into the office on a monday morning.  

00:14:17:01 – 00:14:25:29 

Jo Meunier 

They have all these ideas in their head. They want to make it happen. But where do they start? How do they actually put these ideas into into a step by step process? 

00:14:26:16 – 00:14:44:14 

Tim Leberecht 

Hmm. Yeah. I believe that change always happens from, if you will, from the grassroots up. But also it needs a champion, not necessarily at the very top, but it needs to have an influential voice and champion with power, with sway and influence in the organization.  

00:14:44:15 – 00:15:00:22 

Tim Leberecht 

That’s really key. And then I believe, like, let’s say people really wanted to make their work lives and their workplaces more beautiful and implement some of the ideas that we promote intimacy, doing the unnecessary more space for playfulness, for rituals. 

00:15:01:19 – 00:15:15:03 

Tim Leberecht 

I think it first starts always is always within each act with language using different language, which is why my book was called The Business Romantic. It’s a very evocative term that also polarizes. It’s slightly uncomfortable. Beauty is, I think, of the same quality. 

00:15:15:03 – 00:15:33:24 

Tim Leberecht 

So just introducing compassion. Empathy has now, of course, been established, but it was also very much an outlier years ago. So it starts with language that then slowly sinks in and drives change. And and then the second the second thing is to is to create to build muscle, to do small hacks. 

00:15:34:06 – 00:15:55:26 

Tim Leberecht 

It could be a little underground meeting, you know, a little beacon project, a group of people who secretly meet and form a tribe and promote some of these ideas and and change small things in their organization. Just seeding order the way the afternoon meetings are run, walk in meetings, silent dinner, something that we are still doing with  

00:15:55:26 – 00:16:08:13 

Tim Leberecht 

the house to create a sense of tenderness and intimacy. So it’s these small hexes, these small little distortions, small little deviations that then form something bigger. And eventually and this is this is the theory of the designer, Bruce Mao. 

00:16:08:13 – 00:16:24:07 

Tim Leberecht 

He said, if you create all these little islands of change, then you can eventually draw a big circle around it. And that’s your new lands. You know, once you have all these islands, you know that that’s basically the new continent, the new mainland, rather than tackling change on the mainland per se. 

00:16:24:27 – 00:16:40:17 

Tim Leberecht 

So I think that’s that’s what you can do. And and this might be very incremental. It’s through these little, you know, hacks of change in these little rituals. But it will eventually if a lot of people join and do it themselves as well, it will become a movement and it will have an impact.  

00:16:40:27 – 00:16:59:20 

Jo Meunier 

Mm hmm. I love I love that analogy about the small island, something that’s just brilliant. And coming onto the topic of automation, the future of work seems to be all about automation, automation, automation. One step that I saw earlier was up to 20 million manufacturing jobs around the world could be replaced by machines by 2030. 

00:17:00:10 – 00:17:11:18 

Jo Meunier 

And that was a 2019 article that I read, which was only a couple of years ago. So I have a few questions about that. Is that, well, one, in this world of automation that we’re facing, how do we make the future of work more human?  

00:17:13:28 – 00:17:29:26 

Tim Leberecht 

Well, I think the one one job for us to do is is what I said earlier is to make sure that we carve out space that allows us to be human, that we actually harness the very inherently human talents that we have and contribute them at the right place at the right time so that we are not 

00:17:29:26 – 00:17:44:25 

Tim Leberecht 

forced to compete on the grounds of efficiency with machines. But because that’s a battle we will lose, you know, we will not outperform machines in terms of efficiency, but we are very good with ambiguity. We are good with poetry, we’re good with holding multiple truths. 

00:17:45:03 – 00:18:03:19 

Tim Leberecht 

We’re also very good at losing. So we’re not programed to play, to win. We’re not necessarily programed to optimize at all costs as human beings. And, you know, I think machines are very good at detecting patterns. They’re very good at recognizing patterns and collecting huge amounts of data and analyzing them in a record amount of time. 

00:18:04:03 – 00:18:26:14 

Tim Leberecht 

And they can give us cues and information. But drawing the bigger picture and imagining a future that is not something machines can do that requires fantasy and advice. It requires intuition and the whole intelligence of our body, by the way, not just our brain and our logic, everything, the whole somatic intelligence that runs throughout our body, that 

00:18:26:14 – 00:18:48:14 

Tim Leberecht 

is what we can bring to the table. So that’s one. And I think the second the second order of business in terms of making sure that our workplaces remain human against the backdrop of automation, is to make sure that we create artificial intelligence with the right values, you know, that is aligned with our mission and our being 

00:18:48:14 – 00:19:13:21 

Tim Leberecht 

human, that respects the rights of all stakeholders, other life on earth that isn’t, you know, aggressive and is, of course, unconditionally devoted to results because that’s, you know, that would be catastrophic. So I think ultimately it will become a it will become a coexistence. 

00:19:13:21 – 00:19:29:22 

Tim Leberecht 

And I think we also need to understand as humans, that artificial intelligence is an intelligent way of being. It it may not have a soul or consciousness. I was just thinking about the recent dispute stirred up by a Google engineer who claimed Google already developed the AI that has consciousness or a soul.  

00:19:30:02 – 00:19:47:21 

Tim Leberecht 

I don’t think we’re there, but it is it is a form of life and intelligence also that we should not dismiss and that we should develop a relationship with like many other forms of life and on Earth, like, you know, plants and animals and other forms of other creation.  

00:19:47:21 – 00:20:02:19 

Tim Leberecht 

So I think it will be a human workplace if both machines respect us humans, but also if we respect machines and AI as contributors to value and as partners and the value creation of the future. 

00:20:03:12 – 00:20:15:16 

Jo Meunier 

Because we do need this automation, don’t we? The way we’re going, we need to, as you say, coexist with machines and with this process of automation. But for those of us who want to continue working, we have jobs. 

00:20:15:28 – 00:20:27:14 

Jo Meunier 

There’s going to be a big skills shortage coming up, isn’t there? So there’s going to be a need to to reskill, to upskill, to gain all these new skills, to coexist with with machines. So where do we go from here? 

00:20:27:14 – 00:20:28:07 

Jo Meunier 

What’s the answer? 

00:20:29:01 – 00:20:43:00 

Tim Leberecht 

Yeah, I mean, it is a big reskilling that’s needed. And it’s interesting, now that I’ve been traveling again, you may have had the same experience, but with so much staff shortage at airports and, you know, no flight attendants anymore, there’s no gate personnel.  

00:20:43:15 – 00:20:57:15 

Tim Leberecht 

And that’s a trend that we see across industries, especially service industries. Hospitality and other people just left their jobs. And I just don’t know where they all went, you know? I mean, if I talk to my my bubble, my assumption is they all became coaches. 

00:20:58:19 – 00:21:11:27 

Tim Leberecht 

But then which which in a way bodes well because coaching is it is obviously a job that’s very relationship based, that is very nuanced. That cannot be it as of today, cannot be done by if I necessarily even though I can help.  

00:21:12:12 – 00:21:29:12 

Tim Leberecht 

So it will require a big reskilling and I think it is already happening, of course, as I just mentioned. But it’s still also remains a privilege, of course, of those who can afford to switch careers. Right, who have the education and have the privilege and to be able to say, okay, I’m going to become a coach or  

00:21:29:12 – 00:21:48:20 

Tim Leberecht 

I’m going to become, you know, a relationship manager rather than a, you know, a baggage handler at the airport, something that can be replaced by by automation. And I think it’s the responsibility of the government, of organizations, of society as a whole to create these these opportunities.  

00:21:48:20 – 00:22:08:17 

Tim Leberecht 

And there are startups in that space is also a huge opportunity that then look at the multiverse as one right in the UK it’s a startup by Tony Blair, co-founded by Tony Pearson that is looking at especially lower income populations and trying to sort of identify which skills, which roles they would match with and then basically help 

00:22:08:17 – 00:22:24:22 

Tim Leberecht 

them and connect with organizations that would upskill them. There are similar. Startups in the US that use A.I. actually to detect or to basically filter resumes and analyze resumes from applicants and very quickly reskill them to software developers or AI engineers.  

00:22:25:03 – 00:22:40:23 

Tim Leberecht 

So we need more of these platforms. We just have to make sure that they remain inclusive and that they don’t leave those out who either emotionally or cognitively or because of their education, their upbringing, are not capable of so quickly transitioning to to a new world of work. 

00:22:40:23 – 00:22:56:27 

Tim Leberecht 

And it’s an arcane task. And the big fault line and the big danger, of course, is that the social divisions that we see in our society will further widen. And there is, as is the case in Germany, you know, according to research, one third of the population that absolutely does not feel integrated or heard anymore in the

00:22:56:27 – 00:23:17:00 

Tim Leberecht 

political or societal process. So the way we solve this, this upskilling or this reskilling and making sure people have work that aligns with their talent and purpose, that’s the to me, that’s the question for that’s the one challenge that we need to solve in order to have peaceful, prosperous societies in the future. 

00:23:17:09 – 00:23:32:12 

Jo Meunier 

Yes. And what role does does the employer play in this? Should they be the ones to say, okay, I appreciate there’s going to be a lot of automation coming into my business and I will have to lose some people in the process or retrain them to work with this this new automation. 

00:23:33:03 – 00:23:38:20 

Jo Meunier 

Do you think there is an element of responsibility with with employers and business leaders to take on that challenge?

00:23:38:29 – 00:23:59:04 

Tim Leberecht 

Oh, there certainly is. I mean, if not them, who will do it? You know, I mean, I think, of course, they’re all driven by profit motives and business and commercial business reasons. But at the same time, I think also, especially as with all the I think more distinctive political citizenship that we’re seeing over the past couple of

00:23:59:04 – 00:24:18:00 

Tim Leberecht 

years and more and more brands coming out and stating their political opinion and and and articulating a social responsibility in a more honest way, maybe, than before, because there’s more scrutiny now. I think there is an incentive. There’s also I think now after COVID, a collective obligation that’s shared by companies to. 

00:24:18:00 – 00:24:35:27 

Tim Leberecht 

Yeah. To really honor their social responsibility and help with that reskilling. And what they can do is, of course, is they can offer, like Novartis does or other companies that can offer learning programs that make sure that the leadership development or the learning programs they offer are very adept at helping people grow into different positions. 

00:24:36:18 – 00:24:54:10 

Tim Leberecht 

There are practices such as reverse mentoring where, you know, different generation, different hierarchies of of workers spend time with each other and help with each other. There are practices such as shadowing, where workers are invited to basically step into the shoes of another colleague and perform their task for a week or for a month. 

00:24:54:24 – 00:25:09:22 

Tim Leberecht 

So the fluidity basically of roles within an organization can be increased, and that will help people, I think, flex their their emotional agility and their cognitive agility and then become more comfortable with switching jobs or diving into new fields of work. 

00:25:10:12 – 00:25:26:13 

Tim Leberecht 

But I think you also have to be brutally honest that that there will be because of automation, there will be entire lines of work that will be eliminated. And of course, there will be people who will lose their profession and will be hard pressed and will struggle with redefining themselves outside of the offerings that the the companies 

00:25:27:06 – 00:25:44:25 

Tim Leberecht 

can offer. But I do see I do see a more enlightened leadership there by organizations, simply because I think the the public awareness of the consequences of automation and also the political and social responsibility of companies have grown has grown in the past couple of years. 

00:25:45:06 – 00:26:03:09 

Jo Meunier 

Yes. And when I was preparing for the episode and I watched your TEDx talk for ways to build a human company in the Age of Machines, in which you dove into this subject a lot more. And one of the things you said is that the way we feel about the workplace is largely reliant on how we feel  

00:26:03:09 – 00:26:20:27 

Jo Meunier 

about our coworkers. And of course, that’s that’s great if we enjoy each other’s company. But sometimes when there’s a disconnect, obviously that can cause quite a problem and it can be quite damaging if it’s left unchecked. So in the future of work and for now, how can business leaders help to strengthen relationships in the work in the 

00:26:20:27 – 00:26:23:01 

Jo Meunier 

workplace and create a more positive culture? 

00:26:24:01 – 00:26:41:06 

Tim Leberecht 

The other relationships among workers matter a great deal are specifically the ones to your manager. So if you have a manager you trust and who appreciates you and expresses that, I think that is usually a big proponent, a big component of feeling at home, at work, and feeling fulfilled at work. 

00:26:42:06 – 00:27:03:23 

Tim Leberecht 

What managers can do and organizations can do is this is also backed up by research that Google did a couple of years ago, examining what the continuing factors of effective teams and the number one factor they found out is psychological safety and another word, or to unpack that term, psychological safety. 

00:27:03:23 – 00:27:28:00 

Tim Leberecht 

I think it’s really based on a quality that that I appreciate as a concept and as a as a term, which is intimacy and. One of the things that relationship researchers found out, like John Gottman, arguably maybe the most influential marriage researcher in particular a relationship researcher, is that small moments of attachment are really crucial, much more 

00:27:28:00 – 00:27:47:21 

Tim Leberecht 

so than the grand purpose or the great symbolic gestures. So, in other words, rather than the one amazing retreat that people go to with their coworkers once a year, the water cooler conversation and a small token of appreciation or, you know, the fact that you maybe give 5 minutes to a meeting that runs over time just to 

00:27:47:21 – 00:28:01:07 

Tim Leberecht 

have somebody hurt who has not raised their voice yet. These small things, they matter much more. It’s small moments of attachment where people feel like, okay, I can I really recognize that I can feel safe here. I can voice my ideas. 

00:28:01:07 – 00:28:18:09 

Tim Leberecht 

I can I can have dissent and a dissenting opinion. So I believe that that’s really important. And I think also it is a workplace that allows us to bring the full range of emotions to work. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the full self.  

00:28:18:09 – 00:28:28:13 

Tim Leberecht 

I’m not so fond of that term because I think that’s really up for everybody to decide. I’m not sure I want to bring my full self to work. That needs to be also part of my self that I deliberately want to shield. 

00:28:28:13 – 00:28:43:08 

Tim Leberecht 

That’s maybe outside of work. But what I do bring a do want to bring to work is I want to be emotionally, I want to allow myself to bring the full range of emotions to work, which includes complicated emotions, sadness, grief, melancholy. 

00:28:43:24 – 00:29:00:20 

Tim Leberecht 

And I always say that the most human workplace is not the workplace, that that makes us happy all the time. It’s a workplace that allows us to be sad. And it’s that the emotional diversity that leaders can role model, that they can design for, that that we all can design for.

00:29:00:20 – 00:29:12:09 

Tim Leberecht 

And if that is warranted at work, then I believe that, yeah, we will have good relationships. We feel at home and and and human at home. 

00:29:12:21 – 00:29:25:12 

Jo Meunier 

Yes. I love that. What you said a moment ago about giving a voice to the people, perhaps at the end of the meeting who hadn’t had their voices heard. I think that’s so important. Well, for everybody, especially for those who are perhaps slightly introverted, a little bit quieter in nature. 

00:29:25:12 – 00:29:36:12 

Jo Meunier 

And like you said, it gives everybody a voice which is so empowering and so important. And I’m looking at the time and it’s amazing how often I was flown by. So we are coming to the end of our or our episode. 

00:29:37:00 – 00:29:49:17 

Jo Meunier 

So just to sum up, talking about beautiful business and beautiful people, what few things would you recommend someone to do to live a more beautiful life and or to have a better and more beautiful business?  

00:29:50:20 – 00:30:13:27 

Tim Leberecht 

First of all, start with yourself and start with having empathy with yourself. Start by feeling how you’re feeling and listen to your body. Listen to your soul. Take care of yourself. It’s not a coincidence that the Harvard Business School, the maybe the world’s leading institution in terms of leadership development and business education, has introduced a seminar for 

00:30:13:27 – 00:30:28:24 

Tim Leberecht 

new CEOs that for the for the first two days of that seminar, they do nothing but spending time on mental health and well-being and self-care. Because if you take care of yourself as a as a CEO, as a leader, as a professional, you then can also care about others. 

00:30:28:24 – 00:30:43:18 

Tim Leberecht 

And you have the strength to then develop empathy with others and seeing yourself and others and really recognizing them. So I think that’s really the beginning of of a beautiful work life is just like be very close to yourself and deep dove into who you really are.  

00:30:43:26 – 00:31:01:26 

Tim Leberecht 

And then secondly, I think it is just to open up to the possibilities of work and not allowing the processes and and mainstream conventions to reduce the playing field. The playing field is wide, business is life. It could ideally be all of life. 

00:31:02:15 – 00:31:21:01 

Tim Leberecht 

So it needs to have somatic intelligence, it needs to have dance and music and the arts and many other disciplines that we have long neglected. Different language, different practices, different rituals. So bring that to the extent that you can in your position, in your role, bring that to the table whenever you can. 

00:31:21:01 – 00:31:44:29 

Tim Leberecht 

And your organization will be not only more innovative and more imaginative, it will also be healthier. It will be a more beautiful place that you and others want to return to every day. And the third thing I would say is, is just feel encouraged to trust what makes us inherently human and hone those skills and contribute them 

00:31:44:29 – 00:32:04:09 

Tim Leberecht 

and say no to the data. Have the courage to say no to the data. If your intuition, if your gut tells you otherwise. So don’t mistake data for truth. Don’t try to objectify everything. Insist on your subjective truth and your emotions and the truth of your emotions and your spirit, and bring that to the table. 

00:32:04:09 – 00:32:25:08 

Tim Leberecht 

And then design organizations that are now that are not only a machine that are not only functional and efficient. In the in the most beautiful, broadest sense of the meaning, more beautiful, more human. So those are some of the things I think that we can all do, and I hope you will start doing them if you’re not 

00:32:25:08 – 00:32:25:28 

Tim Leberecht 

already doing that. 

00:32:26:08 – 00:32:35:22 

Jo Meunier 

That’s amazing. I love the fact that given your experience in marketing, that you’re saying say no to the data. As a marketer, I love that. 

00:32:35:22 – 00:32:36:08 

Tim Leberecht 

00:32:36:09 – 00:32:50:05 

Jo Meunier 

Yeah, that is a new way of thinking. Joshua Brilliant. Well, thank you so much, Tim. We’ve really enjoyed having you on the show today and and I’m looking forward to watching this episode back again just to try and unpack everything that’s been said. 

00:32:51:18 – 00:33:00:29 

Jo Meunier 

So go and look at Tim’s TEDTalks. You’ll find them a quick Google search. And Tim, if our listeners want to contact you directly or to find out more about your programs, how can they do that? 

00:33:01:20 – 00:33:12:26 

Tim Leberecht 

You know, just go to a house of beautiful business dot com. Our website has all the information they’ll go to Tim Labrecque dot com my website and you can also always find me online and connect with me on LinkedIn or other networks. 

00:33:12:27 – 00:33:13:25 

Tim Leberecht 

I’d love to hear from you. 

00:33:14:26 – 00:33:18:13 

Jo Meunier 

Fantastic. All right. Thank you very much for your time and we hope to speak to you soon. 

00:33:19:00 – 00:33:19:19 

Tim Leberecht 

Thank you so much. 

00:33:20:01 – 00:33:20:14 

Jo Meunier 

Thank you.