From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Rather than recruiting someone who assumes they've mastered it all, we seek those who regard their roles with awe. It's essential for us that they are moved by our journey and mission, and harbor an eagerness to learn, not just contribute.
For businesses to survive, let alone brands, you need a secure and stable base. You need secure economic and social conditions to reduce risk.
Human beings have a real tendency to overreact on the upside and the downside. We are not rational investors. I do not believe that people make rational financial decisions! If you study financial decision-making you will find that human beings are irrational in a very predictable manner.
If I see a lot of cases where models own their managers, not the opposite. If the model isn't creating value, but you continue using it, then it owns you. This is frighteningly common.
The diversity of strategies people use is truly remarkable, I saw people using completely different strategies to the degree that if I had set out to invent 15 different strategies for a fictional work…. I couldn't have made the strategies more different to the ones I saw in real life! This illustrates a point I have made in all my works insofar as there really is no 'holy grail' or single style that is most effective.
Brands create demand and, most importantly, they create secure demand. If you have a loyal customer, that gives you more security of income, earnings and employment.
My own twist on that is that the bigger they come, the exponentially harder they fall! Banks are so bent at using expanded balance sheets, using derivatives, pretending that risk is in the net when it's really in the gross, pretending that risk is a linear function of scale when it's an exponential function of scale.
I don't believe in a one-size-fits-all approach for talent, you have to approach every individual and opportunity from a bespoke perspective.
The fruit of addiction to success is redefining yourself in terms of one activity. When you take that away, there's a deep loss of identity. To the striver, that addiction is success. It activates the same neurobiology and dopamine pathways as alcohol or drugs.
The high debt ratios also masked the zombie households, zombie corporates, zombie businesses, zombie banks, zombie shadow banks, zombie governments and zombie countries. They never went bankrupt.
What is the value of asking the right question to prompt the right answer? Since it is not a narrow discipline and one with great roots in cultivating subjective experiences the integration and contribution of design is often overlooked in a silo mentality.
The only way social media can work is if you are incredibly authentic. If you try and cultivate and curate too much it can be very obvious and transparent.