T H E

G R T

E A

W A E
V
A playbook
for beautiful business
when everything is in flux
The Great Wave
To all business romantics
out there
 6

Preface

12

Grief

22

Imagination

38

Playfulness
48

Fluidity

58

Intimacy

70

Surrender

80

Symbiosis
Preface

How shall we live going forward?

How will we work?

What kind of businesses do we want?

What do our answers mean for who we

(think we) are?

Business-as-usual was broken even before the

pandemic. Many of us were unhappy and disengaged. Societies are
increasingly polarized, and economic models work for only a few.
Meanwhile, we face racism. Populism, nationalism, and other
-isms that deny the beautiful diversity of life are on the rise. Might
they be in part a response to a loss of place, meaning, and certainty
brought about by social, economic, and technological disruption?
Add to these converging -isms the myths of forever growth and
“optimization” as a way of life—all threaten to become a singular
philosophy of the “winners,” damaging both humanity and our
planet. We need more than a vaccine to treat those ills.

We’re at an inflection point. And we have a choice:

Pursue relentless growth, greater efficiency, the bottom line in a

world where these practices are running into personal, social,
and planetary limits. Or dream bigger. Build something better,
something softer, more social, more soulful, more regenerative.

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 THE GREAT WAVE PREFACE

People often ask: how do you define beautiful business? For Many co-called “good” organizations have long observed the rule of
years we’ve referred to the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa’s “doing the right thing in the right way” (effectiveness x efficiency).
line: “Beauty is what does not exist.” Beauty thrives in what the Why not embrace a new rule of “doing beautiful things in a beautiful
Romantics called “negative space.” Beautiful business is every- way” (beauty production x production beauty)?
thing we desire and are left wanting. It is what business-as-usual
is not (yet): This book is the result of a collaborative effort among members
of the House of Beautiful Business community, specifically
Soft and tender, not hard or harsh participants in The Great Wave festival, which in October 2020
Fluid and flexible, not preferring firm plans brought together more than 2,000 people from around the world
Melancholic, not forcing optimism to explore new ways of doing business in a pandemic age. Many
Poetic, not obsessed with numbers people were part of this initiative, and we decided to let the
Imaginative, not risk-averse culmination of this collaboration speak for itself without citing
Ecological, not simply economical individual attributions.
Humane, more than “human-centered”
With big thanks to everyone who contributed, we propose
There are other ways to put it. Beautiful business: seven qualities for beautiful business when everything is in flux:
Grief, Imagination, Playfulness, Fluidity, Intimacy, Surrender, and
Is in tune with nature, including our own Symbiosis.
Enlivens us
Celebrates diversity
Embraces the nonbinary
Welcomes our full selves to work, our bodies included
Values romance
Draws from the arts and humanities as much as from
science and tech
Cares deeply
Asks beautiful questions

Beautiful Business. Let’s go.

8 9
Mourn for what could
have been—and what
might never be. G

I E

F
 GRIEF

An organization that doesn’t grieve for

lost opportunities is not beautiful.

The grieving organization can use

negative emotions (which is different from
exploiting them).

Accepting that life and work are

unpredictable is endlessly liberating.

“There’s an unspoken sadness whenever we join a

video call,” philosopher Evan Selinger noted. “Every video call to
someone you wish you could see in person but can’t is a memento
mori of a world that’s been shattered and can’t be revived—a
symbol of tragic deaths and shattered hopes and dreams.” We
strive to approximate physical co-presence where there isn’t any.
Even as we try to embrace the kinds of presence still possible, we
are aware of a gulf we cannot bridge.

So here we are. Hearts broken, dreams burst, myths gone,

conventions disrupted, stories obsolete. And then there’s all the
death.

The late great scholar of our cultural attitudes toward death,

Philippe Ariès, called the last century the “age of forbidden death.”
The industrial revolution reified progress, the continual upward
trajectory on the graph, the pursuit of happiness; it shunned,
invisibilized, and denied sickness and death. Dying became a
problem for medicine to solve, and our human finitude became a

13
 THE GREAT WAVE GRIEF

taboo, something that happens to people who are less than careful. Death by sterilized predictability
And modern business became death-denier number one, for
capitalism trades on a fantasy of immortality. Third, business often slays hope, which always contains an
element of surprise. In so many workplaces, and in routine-driven
But after so many decades of “forbidden death,” avoidance is no professions, every day is supposed to resemble every other. The
longer an option. Death, the fate we strive so hard to stave off, is stuff of life—a new experience, a surprise, unexpected encounter,
all around us. random thought, fleeting moment, the birth of something—is
made impossible by current managerial design. Rampant burnout
In fact, business as we know and practice it was killing many facets is as much a product of this enforced, unnatural sameness as it is of
of us for a long time. time- and task-related pressures.

Death by lack of purpose Finally, there is the slow strangulation of ideas being discussed
and examined to death around the killing fields of the conference
First, modern business can result in a kind of existential death, table. At the House of Beautiful Business 2018 gathering in Lisbon,
a drying-out of any deeply felt meaning and purpose. Study after attendees performed a “funeral for ideas”—ideas that had been
study shows that most people in business feel they are going talked into lifelessness before they could ever bear fruit. Endless
through the motions, pretending to perform in what the late cogitation and debate is too often the end of meaningful action in
economist David Graeber called “bullshit jobs.” When a job merely the world.
provides the illusion of productivity and output, and/or fake
purpose—but its main purpose is simply to give us something to An organization that doesn’t acknowledge these four little spiritual
do—we can feel it to the bottom of our dying souls. But what can we deaths, and grieve for lost opportunities, is not beautiful.
do? The Austrian author Thomas Bernhard put it bluntly: “We go to
work or commit suicide.”

Death by disembodiment

Second, the customs of most knowledge-work businesses made us

pretend our bodies were irrelevant to its activities. The demands
of many businesses (and educational institutions) reduce us to
disembodied minds, producers of intellectual capital to fuel the
organization. We wind up feeling like Charlie Chaplin in the 1936
film Modern Times, bodily swallowed up by a factory machine and
churned through its cogs.

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 THE GREAT WAVE GRIEF

From denial to working-with-it Seeking wisdom through wholeness

A beautiful organization integrates loss rather than pushing past The beautiful organization embraces all facets of human existence,
it as though it never happened. In many cultures, this is common including suppressed “negative emotions” like grief, sorrow, and
knowledge—not only that it’s natural and healthy to grieve, but melancholy at work. Because of that, it is at ease with impermanence
that if one doesn’t, the deaths we don’t pause to acknowledge will and always ready to move on from something that isn’t working,
continue to nag us. According to Zulu custom, the deceased needs even poised to reinvent itself.
a proper burial, or the spirit of the dead wanders and returns to
haunt the living. We believe the same is true for ideas and initiatives An organization in touch with melancholy knows it may have to
in the lives of organizations. detach from a groundbreaking innovation the moment it goes live.
It explores frameworks and practices that let people express their
Awareness that struggle, failure, and death are inevitable makes us true experience—of work, and of the world at large—from a place
stronger, not weaker. of awareness and trust.

So a beautiful organization makes space for negative emotions. Alex Evans, the co-founder of the Collective Psychology project,
A human, connected, responsive workplace doesn’t require you points out that expressing grief around climate change, for
to perform happiness all of the time, but rather allows you to be instance, is entirely appropriate given “the scariness of the issue
sad, even to mourn—for what was and can no longer be. This and the scale of the anticipated loss.” These outpourings of grief
acknowledgement of loss is critical to unlearning, a valuable skill can even be ritualized, as seen in the funerals being held for glaciers
when it comes time for the necessary playfulness. in places such as Iceland and Switzerland.

Most importantly, a beautiful organization understands that grief “But while acknowledging that grief is essential,” Evans adds, “it is
is not a linear process that moves through stages until forever important to move on too, otherwise we risk giving in to fatalism,
resolved. Rather, grief comes in waves. It follows natural rhythms, depression, and apathy. We need to come through the grief and
ebbs and flows. look for the new hope, and for the seeds of the new amid the ashes
of the old.” A beautiful organization facilitates that process but
“Release the habitual aggression that characterizes our never rushes its people through it.
avoidance of trauma or any discomfort. My goal is to
befriend my pain, to relate to it intimately as a means
to end the suffering of desperately trying to avoid it.
Opening our hearts to woundedness helps us to understand
that everyone else around us carries around the same
woundedness.”
— LAMA ROD OWENS

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 THE GREAT WAVE GRIEF

From stressing order to ease in How to ride this wave

unpredictability
Hold funerals for lost personas, lost ideas
The beautiful organization is open to the messy unpredictability When failed initiatives finally crash, when jobs or gigs end, or even
of life (and of death as well, of course). Uncertainty is where when roles shift within an organization, you may feel sadness for
real opportunity lies. That said, it also acknowledges its role of the persona you foregrounded during that time. Hold a funeral for
providing guardrails and assurance to its people. Compassionate it and have a period of mourning. Bury or cremate it, and keep a
leaders set people at ease whilst they fight dragons—as modeled symbol around of its past existence.
by New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, with her firm
kindness in the midst of some of the toughest political situations Use purpose as a ballast
of modern time. An organization’s purpose—an understanding of its goals,
obligations, and hoped-for legacy—can help its people through
“A greater degree of consciousness is often preceded by difficult times, says author Kenneth Mikkelsen. Articulating clearly
a disruption where I’m jolted out of my automatic way of why your organization exists and what positive difference it seeks
going about things, my easy assumptions. Our minds like to make not only serves as a reliable moral compass, but said
to take shortcuts. They like to be efficient. But now we have purpose also lends perspective. It binds past, present, and future
disruption at scale, both in terms of breadth—affecting so together, and galvanizes all involved to stay mindful of the wider
many realms of our life—and in the depth of the disruption. ecosystem beyond a company’s walls.
And so, yes, this enforced period of removal, this period
of disruption, does seem to be lending itself to a different Respect more deeply
kind of consciousness.” Acknowledging the sacredness of each being—seeing employees
— ELAINE KASKET, IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHN VINCENT: not as resources but rather as sacred beings who have gathered to
co-create and grow together—creates a foundation for the patience
“And one more example is in the martial art Wing Chun: that periods of loss and transition often demand.
If we try to control somebody else in Wing Chun, we are
only allowing ourselves to be controlled. For example, if we Have the fluidity—and humility—to know what—and who—
try to get someone in an arm lock, we are absolutely at the is needed in the moment
mercy of all of the other attackers.” Not everyone is at the same stage of human development and that
is OK. It’s also true that the leaders in an organization may not be
One quick clarification: This messiness and embrace of the best equipped to hold space for others’ grief. Meanwhile some
unpredictability does not extend to the words we use. Beautiful people in the organization who don’t have an official title can
business respects the integrity of language. It does not mimic emerge as leaders during times of loss and struggle, because they
“alternative facts” with convenient or ambiguous meanings that have the psychological makeup to comfort and calm. A beautiful
hide ugly practices from challenge. “Kindness-washing” does not business recognizes this and gives these individuals the “talking
make business more beautiful. stick,” plus the space and time to step in where needed.

18 19
 Summon another world,
another truth.

I N I O

G A T

I M A
 IMAGINATION

All types of work require our creative

and emotional investment.

Imagination begets more imagination.

There are so many ways to be

in the world

Companies assume “brand identities” so they can

act as a coherent, consistent identity. They can stay away from the
edges, the dangers of the unknown, the cliffs of confusion.

But what effect does that have on people’s imagination?

A beautiful business helps more people access more of their

imagination, and to explore rather than shun complexities.

Imagination is both the product of imagination-nurturing habits

and a driver of them. It travels a generative loop—reflection,
creativity, and thoughtful, nonreactive decision-making make
more reflection and creativity possible.

Imagination also requires courage, especially for that first person

(in any group) who displays it. So how does a business weave
imagination into the heart of its operations, so that even the
noncourageous can feel its effects?

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 THE GREAT WAVE IMAGINATION

Imaginative structures that allows company founders to buy out the VC at a predetermined
amount if they become sufficiently profitable. Their investment
Beyond the VC model approach—looking for sustainable businesses that can survive on
revenue from their customers, not those looking for a quick exit—
Tim O’Reilly, longtime insider of the Silicon Valley community, has has led to a portfolio with more than 50 percent women founders
over time come to see the limitations of the traditional VC model and 30 percent people of color, and strong returns.
close at hand. As he sees it, the VC model encourages conformity
and nondiversity: B-Corporations

“The typical VC model is looking for this high-growth In the United States many companies, especially outdoor brands,
company with exit potential, because it’s looking for a big have evolved from C-Corporations to certified B-Corporations.
financial return from an IPO or acquisition, and that selects B-Corporations are verified by B Lab, a nonprofit organization,
for a certain type of founder. My partner Bryce decided two “based on how they create value for non-shareholding stakeholders,
funds ago [to] look for companies that are disparaged as such as their employees, the local community, and the environment,”
‘lifestyle companies’ that are trying to build sustainable according to the Harvard Business Review.
businesses with cash flow and profits. They’re the kind of
small businesses, and small business entrepreneurs, that Verification entails amending the corporate charter to embed the
have vanished from America, partly because of the VC interests of all stakeholders into the fiduciary duties of company
myth, which is really about creating financial instruments directors and officers. Overall it signals “a fundamentally different
for the wealthy.” governance philosophy than a traditional shareholder-centered
corporation.”
But isn’t the VC system the best way we know of to assess a startup’s
potential for profitability—i.e., isn’t it hard-nosed capitalism at its “Exit to Community” and steward-ownership
most pragmatic? Not so fast, O’Reilly continues:
What does “exit to community” (E2C) mean? Here’s writer Nathan
“A huge amount of the VC capital doesn’t return. Everybody Schneider’s basic explanation:
just sees the really big wins. And when they happen, it’s
really wonderful. But I think [those rare wins] have gotten “For people with any familiarity with startups, exit is a
an outsize place, and they’ve displaced other kinds of really, really big deal. It’s what startups are for; they are
investment. It’s part of the structural inequality in our temporary organizations that exist in order to figure out
society, where we’re building businesses that are optimized how they will exit, which typically means either getting
for their financial return rather than their return to absorbed by a bigger, more boring company or, occasionally,
society.” becoming a publicly traded company on the stock market.
In both cases, that means selling the thing off to the highest
As an alternative, O’Reilly’s investment firm created a SAFE note bidder. That also means selling any community the startup

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 THE GREAT WAVE IMAGINATION

has built off with it. ‘Exit to Community’ is the idea that we good at the core of a company’s existence—using business as a
need a better option — one in which communities become vehicle to achieving a larger goal—will become more acceptable,
the eventual owners of the startups that serve them.” even to serious investors.

E2C advocates believe this practice would insert accountability “We need to get back to a society where instead of being
into a tech industry where accountability is often sorely missing. addicted to more of everything, we put those pleasant and
Others posit that it’s the only real option for preserving long- necessary things—like profits—in their proper places.
term sustainability. When people are searching for belonging, And then we have purpose beyond that.”
but instead find only consumption, any company that presents a —ESTHER DYSON, AUTHOR, INVESTOR, AND PHILANTHROPIST
reformulation of the customer relationship, from transactional to
potentially transformative, can expect to inspire loyalty. One example is Re-Inc, a company founded by U.S. national
women’s football players Megan Rapinoe, Tobin Heath, Christen
Similarly, the steward-ownership movement aims to change Press, and Meghan Klingenberg. In its case, they sell clothes and
longstanding notions of what companies are fundamentally for. other goods to help foster activism around gender identity and
inclusive nonbinary mindsets.
According to the Purpose Foundation, in steward-owned
companies, profits are funneled into specific areas: reinvested
into the business, repaid to investors, shared with stakeholders, or
donated to charity. More importantly, a steward-owned business
does not dance to the tune of shareholders, far removed from the
actual operations. Instead, those who are engaged and connected
to the business control it. These stewards are the only ones with
voting shares, and because the company is owned by a trust, it
cannot be bought or sold.

An interesting example of operating in cooperation with the

community can be found in the Shanghai electric-car company NIO.
In 2019 the founder created a user trust, consisting of 50 million
shares, through which members can have their say as to how some
of the company’s profits should be used. The objective is to better
connect the company’s interests with its users’ interests.

Profit as secondary goal

The outgrowth of these trends will be that the placing of social

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 THE GREAT WAVE IMAGINATION

Imaginative spaces integral to the Kings Place planning process, notes, “the spaces
encompass multiple floors of office space, plus two concert halls,
Part of being a beautiful organization involves detecting weak rehearsal space, art galleries, restaurant, café, outdoor terraces,
signals that can be indicators of coming changes or challenges. and indoor atrium, with both the latter freely accessible for public
Finding a quiet space to think and consider is vital to giving these use without needing ‘a reason’ or paying to be there. Critically
weak signals the sustained attention they deserve. from the perspective of beautiful business, the entire project was
privately funded, with no municipal, governmental, nor foundation
Venture investor Allison Baum calls for the flipped workplace, investment.”
wherein time in the office is for meeting with others, questioning,
brainstorming, and connecting dots. The physical workplace Such imaginative spaces encourage roaming about. “Although they
becomes a place of gathering and attunement. Individual work is have fine collaboration areas in their [leased commercial space],
up to you to do where you want, how you want, and when you want. people are often seen meeting in the building atrium, amidst the
wider world.”
But the work space, whether in-person or remote, must feed and
nurture both the soul and imagination. Of course physical office Strelitz posits that the success of such building environments is a
space has long been designed to help engender chance encounters function of transcending boundaries:
(famously Steve Jobs wanted all the bathrooms in Pixar’s
headquarters to be located in one part of the building so everyone Mixing functions and uses—work, arts, dining, learning
would have to converge there). We need a similar mechanism for Mixing users—workers and others, young and old
virtual work communities. According to Ben Waber, president Mixing work modes—formal and informal
and co-founder of Humanyze, when the pandemic hit and work Mixing spaces—indoor and out
went remote, existing strong relationships with co-workers were Mixing corporate real estate and free-access “third places”
reinforced, while weak-tie relationships largely disappeared. As Opening doors and sharing worlds
the author of the study noted, the resulting bubbles reduce the Fundamental to the development vision is not insisting
chances of unexpected connections of ideas, leading to intellectual that every bit of output, or every unit of leasable space, be
and emotional brittleness. directly revenue-producing.

What would imagination-increasing spaces look like?

Design anthropologist Ziona Strelitz, founder of ZZA Responsive

User Environments, believes that mixed-use developments that
blend commercial and civic visions hold great promise. Why not
build office space connected to an acoustically perfect concert
hall, as in the Kings Place complex in London, alongside spaces
where people can gather to enjoy art and food? As Strelitz, who was

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 THE GREAT WAVE IMAGINATION

Imaginative practices Imaginative time horizons

Continuous partial attention is often a must in today’s work realms, As environmentalist Paul Hawken observed, native Hawaiians had
and we have to accept that. But we also need to create ways to 138 words for rain and the Sami people have 180 words for snow
counteract it, and to help ourselves and one another achieve flow and ice, yet business has only two words for profit: gross and
states. Fostering imagination doesn’t just happen—one has to be net. Most businesses are similarly constrained when it comes to
deliberate about it. conceiving of when they can reasonably expect to see returns on
their investments. (The VC model only exacerbates this.)
Stop the productivity shame
It’s worth asking: How soon do you expect to know whether your
“According to a team of researchers from the University business is profitable?
of Southern California, letting our minds wander is an
essential mental state that helps us develop our identity, Will it take two years?
process social interactions, and even influences our
internal moral compass. Our need for a break flies in the 10? 200?
face of our cultural narrative about hustling—in other
words, the stories that we as a society tell about what The Long-Term Stock Exchange
success looks like, and what it takes to get there.”
—RAHAF HARFOUSH, AUTHOR, HUSTLE & FLOAT Lean Startup guru Eric Ries proposed the Long-Term Stock
Exchange, an exchange that rewards long-termism based on the
Let it be acceptable, even welcome, for people to let their bodies and principles of sustainability, well-being, and social impact. It is
minds wander in natural elements. It may help them to reorganize meant to provide a persuasive alternative to the dictate of quarterly
scattered thoughts. profits at the heart of other traditional stock exchanges.

Ritualize it Be a good ancestor

Institute and formalize rituals so that people don’t forget to “ ‘Why should I care about future generations? What have they
daydream. A ritual is a practice that shifts your mind from the ever done for me?’ This clever quip attributed to Groucho Marx
everyday to the liminal. In observing a ritual, you grant yourself highlights the issue of intergenerational justice. This is not the
and others the gift of temporary liberation from the attention legacy question of how we will be remembered, but the moral
economy. question of what responsibilities we have to the ‘futureholders’—
the generations who will succeed us. Such thinking is
People need the explicit freedom to be “off-topic” from time to embodied in the idea of ‘seventh-generation decision making,’ an
time. Nothing kills imagination more than the perceived need to be ethic of ecological stewardship practiced amongst some Native
constantly on message. American peoples such as the Oglala Lakota Nation in South

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 THE GREAT WAVE IMAGINATION

Dakota: community decisions take into account the impacts Imaginative resource use
seven generations from the present. This ideal is fast becoming
a cornerstone of the growing global intergenerational justice Activist William Skeaping, co-editor of the Extinction Rebellion
movement.”—Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: How to Think handbook, spoke about having business on board in addressing
Long Term in a Short-Term World our planetary challenges. “Industries have influence and
communicational reach to help understand the climate crisis,” he
said, “so we’re asking that they stop doing the bad stuff and start
communicating the emergency.” The XR Fashion Boycott campaign
then urged people to stop buying new clothes and think about how
they can “creatively repair, reuse, alter, upcycle, recycle” or “share
through swapping or renting, or buying and selling secondhand.”

Disrupting business-as-usual is not just about having different

ideas. It entails using different materials, or the same old materials
in different ways.

Consider Houdini Sportswear, which is working toward becoming a

completely circular apparel company.

“To create a waste-free world, we need to make sure

products are both made from recycled materials and can be
recycled again. It’s about choosing technologies that work
in partnership with nature rather than at the expense of it.”
—EVA KARLSSON, CEO, HOUDINI

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 THE GREAT WAVE IMAGINATION

Radical empathy How to ride this wave

Beautiful business also requires radical empathy: an understanding Bring other life forms into your work space, and take good care
of others, being present, and active listening. Transacting of them. “We currently spend 90 percent of our time indoors,
mindfully, engaging in the marketplace in meaningful ways, and whether that’s in a home, office, or vehicle,” says Deborah Choi
solving problems requires an emotional intelligence that has its of horticure. “So we fundamentally need greenery around us, to
highest expression in empathy. reconnect us with the nature that we otherwise have very little
time for in our modern lives.” It’s been reported that dogs improve
Clare Patey is the director of the Empathy Museum, an experiential office spaces, too.
art project based in London that has exhibited worldwide since
2015. She thinks deep listening is an antidote: “Listening is Take tech sabbaths
something we don’t do very well. It’s difficult to empathize unless
you’ve really connected through listening.” “Since 2014, I have been observing a ‘tech sabbath’—
twenty-four hours of not using my laptop or phone from
The Empathy Museum’s recent exhibit A Mile in My Shoes takes Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. No email, no social
the form of a shoe shop where visitors are invited to walk a mile in media, no nothing. Taking time away from our technology
someone else’s shoes—literally. Contained in a giant shoebox, this gives us the space, time, and energy to reconnect to
interactive exhibit houses a collection of over 200 shoes and audio ourselves. We can slow down mentally and physically.”
stories. Attendees select a pair of shoes in which to walk a mile, while —CASPER TER KUILE, AUTHOR, THE POWER OF RITUAL
simultaneously listening to the owner’s story on an audio recording.

“Partly the Empathy Museum is a response to the fact that we

surround ourselves with people that are very similar to us. Both in
our work circles and online, and our social circles, our worlds are
tiny,” Patey says.

As tech, leadership, and innovation reporter Lydia Dishman writes

in Fast Company, “The presence and attention required to tell
someone else’s story—the so-called radical empathy—is a tool as
much as a source of power.”

A beautiful business never stops learning, and this, too, is tied to

empathy—for what is empathy if not rooted in curiosity about others’
experience? Empathy requires a willingness not to know, or even
harbor assumptions, but rather ask questions and seek dialogue.

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 P F U

L Y L N

A E S

Play for play’s sake.

 PLAYFULNESS

Feel (don’t merely analyze) your options.

Cultivate the skills to improvise.

Don’t get lost in fights over either-or’s.

A beautiful business actively nurtures safe spaces

for play. Play in its essence is intrinsically motivated. (We play
because we want to, not because we feel we have to.) Every beautiful
business is intrinsically motivated as well.

When play is structured and becomes more goal-oriented, we call it

a game. One game in particular that some of us feel quite strongly
about is football (aka soccer). Football is often referred to as “the
beautiful game.” Pelé, one of the most legendary players of all time,
is credited with coining this term.

Here are two quick examples from the team dynamics and
collaborative competition of the Beautiful Game that speak to
beautiful business:

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 THE GREAT WAVE PLAYFULNESS

Spatial awareness Learning to improvise

The best players in football stand out because they possess a great Improvising creates room for serendipity. The physicist Richard
spatial awareness, an intuitive understanding of what is happening Feynman often gave the following advice regarding paradoxically
in the space around them. They play with their heads up high, so freeing up one’s thinking by introducing artificial constraints:
they see more, but they can also sense the ever-evolving system
they’re moving in, sense and feel what they need to do next with “You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly
the ball, and where there’s space and opportunity on the pitch. present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant
state. Every time you hear a new trick or a new result, test it against
Think of Zinedine Zidane and Andrés Iniesta, Marta and Mia each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a
Hamm, maybe even Mesut Özil when he chooses to have a good day. while there will be a hit, and people will say, ‘How did he do it? He
When they play, their imagination runs wild; they have pictures in must be a genius!’ ”
their head that allow them to improvise and innovate constantly.
As Chris Heimann, improvisation lead at the Royal Academy of
And so should beautiful businesses. It’s not just about analyzing Dramatic Arts, describes it, improv is about developing “the muscle
your competition and options, but feeling them. It’s not just about of staying present in moments of uncertainty” and remaining
having a strategy for action, but about understanding action as a curious about what’s possible.
play in which we continuously develop new options and variants.
It’s about being aware of the moment-to-moment emergence of the Improvisation rests on trust. For example, when you offer an
next state of play. idea and it isn’t taken or responded to, you have to let it go.
Improvisation is an invitation to share, but without a desired
One of the best ways to deal with ambiguity beautifully is to train outcome. Improvising is joy, curiosity, and full of possibility when
your spatial awareness as a business and act on it in a playful way, we let go of the outcome. One takes responsibility for the fact that
with your head up high. When businesses start to reconnect to the in each moment we are capable of influencing the narrative.
broader milieu in which they operate, their sense and presence will
improve. Share imperfection through improvising

Improvising enables spontaneous, collective co-creation in front of

others, where people connect with a state of flow and instinctive
creativity. And once immersed in a state of flow, the question as to
whether you’ve left your comfort zone or not becomes moot.

“Do not fear mistakes—there are none.”

—MILES DAVIS

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 THE GREAT WAVE PLAYFULNESS

Improv through switching mediums Frenemies

Playfulness may mean stopping a meeting and dancing for a The art of making frenemies is the ability to hold two opposing
minute, or using paint to depict a challenging issue. By bringing in ideas in your head and not only believe they are both true, but act
other mediums to communicate ideas, and relieving ourselves of accordingly. You find this principle in every aspect of the beautiful
the limiting belief that we need to identify as “good” at using this game:
new medium, we can improvise more freely.
Great teams combine offense and defense in a unique and
Acknowledge all learning styles and play modalities harmonic way.

Without bias, we can give people the psychological safety to learn Great teams usually have a clearly defined and practiced
through trial and error. Consider the unbridled imagination that tactical structure and identity, but are able to instantly
children bring into storytelling and life. When we as adults watch change or even give up these structures for total fluidity
children play pirates and explorers, mermaids or fantastical beasts, and adaptability.
we are in awe of how they can step into a world that seems utterly
tangible and yet is fully invisible to our eyes. Approximating that Great teams often have players who are extremely efficient
sense of abandon as adults requires an environment where we feel in the way they play, and other players who create
neither judged nor too closely scrutinized. redundancy by literally going the extra mile on the pitch.

The best football organizations rely heavily on data for

their decision-making, but also on instinct and gut.

Every business must reconcile the need to be efficient and data-

driven for their own survival, while also recognizing how essential
it is to maintain their integrity and empathy, and to hold space for
creative tension and paradox.

A beautiful business does not get lost in a fight over the either-or’s.
It thinks in terms of win-win-win.

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 THE GREAT WAVE PLAYFULNESS

Rituals of connection How to ride this wave

Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Make it a party
Why It Matters, helps people create gatherings that are truly Seeing your colleagues in person should feel like a party. Mark
meaningful. “We don’t necessarily need to gather more,” she says. entering a shared work space with a ritual that helps you bond
“We need to gather better.” more intensely for the short amount of time you’re together.

During a virtual conversation in March 2020 that was part of the Analysis-free quarter
TED Connects series, Parker noted that greater thoughtfulness Stop doing any quantitative analysis for a full quarter. Go entirely
could make Zoom calls more fruitful. Remote teaming efforts could on people’s instincts about what’s the right thing to do. Trust your
even be approached using the precepts of ritual design. Regardless organizational gut. Even if it doesn’t work out, you haven’t risked
of venue, or whether in-person or remote, Parker suggested the much for a quarter, and chances are you’ll emerge with a fresher
following needed to be top of mind: perception of possible futures.

“The host and person with power in the situation should Create a new sense for your business
think: ‘What is the purpose of this gathering? Who needs Inventory the ways your business takes in outside signals, and then
to be there? What is the need we’re trying to fulfill? How come up with a new “sense” that provides info (that you currently
do I temporarily equalize people?’ The roles of a host: lack) about some aspect of your environment—customers,
one, connect people to the purpose of the meeting and suppliers, partners, materials, competitors, etc.
to each other. Two, protect them from each other. Three,
temporarily equalize them.” Access your higher consciousness
The deliberate use of psychedelics to access different ways of
What mindful, meaningful rituals do is grant people the freedom to thinking is becoming more common. Researchers are finding
explore the intangible dimensions of their work, where their role is that psychedelics can activate within people a deep sense of
so much more than fulfilling a job description. connection—to their true selves, to fellow humans, and to nature.

Play “So why don’t you?”

During the 25 years Diana Vreeland edited the magazine Harper’s
Bazaar she penned an advice column with “Why don’t you...?”
suggestions. “Why don’t you… Put all your dogs in bright yellow collars
and leads like all the dogs in Paris?” “Order Schiaparelli’s cellophane
belt with your name and telephone number on it?” Vreeland
published thousands more like this. The point: An environment in
which people feel free to share ideas, regardless of how immediately
applicable they are to tasks at hand, is often a joyous one.

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F I I Y

L U D T

Softly shift shape to

be someone else.
 FLUIDITY

Humility creates agility.

A beautiful business gives up the

illusion of control.

Rigidity is expensive.

When astronauts look down on Earth from space,

their feeling of awe is often described as the “overview effect.”
The experience is reportedly quite moving, and leads to bigger-
picture thinking, including a heightened sense of responsibility
for the planet’s well-being and a deeper connection to its citizens.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a similar effect. We gained a broader
perspective and fully realized something we’ve suspected all along:
everything is interdependent.

Our economies, health, nature, identities, well-being—all are

connected, and changes in one realm invariably have ripple effects
in others.

As such, fluidity both describes ultimate reality and constitutes a

state, a way of being and sensing, that businesses can and should
aspire to. The ability to shape-shift in keeping with ever-changing
circumstances is essential now and even more so going forward.

49
 THE GREAT WAVE FLUIDITY

The nonbinary option muscles a bit more, and breathe into how that feels. Like
option yoga.
Good or bad? For profit or nonprofit? Management used to rely
on simple binaries that shaved off nuance in the name of being “So much beauty can be found in those nuances and in
pragmatic, or decisive—at least that was the idea. But management these areas of life where things are not cut-and-dry. They
no longer means making things less complicated. Management force us to grapple with ourselves and our understanding
means allowing things to be complex. of the world and humanity itself. And they challenge us to
do better and be better.”
Architect Ryan Mullenix observes that in the midst of the pandemic, —ALICIA ROTH WEIGEL, INTERSEX ACTIVIST
“We see firsthand the fallacy of the binary mindset.” He writes:
“We understand that working remotely or in an office should not
be an either-or. We don’t care about an open-office or closed-
office, just about a place that caters to our current task while
offering awareness, delight, and social cohesion. And ideally, we
will no longer divide our days into either working or living.”

It is time to transcend binary thinking and accept the power of

thinking in nonbinary terms.

What do we mean by nonbinary thinking?

Acceptance that much of our experience/reality is not

either-or but both and in-between
Belief that every win contains a loss (of some kind)
Awareness that success breeds failure
Soft skills are hard skills, and vice versa

One way to start practicing nonbinary thinking is to imagine five

positions instead of just two, or an enhanced Tetralemma, as coach
Christine Locher suggests. In addition to option A (e.g., male)
versus option B (e.g., female), think about what “both” would look
like, option C, and what “neither,” option D, would be—and how
that would feel. For option E, think of something from a completely
different category entirely. That might not make sense for you,
but it might make sense for someone else. Practice flexing your

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 THE GREAT WAVE FLUIDITY

Resilience “If you try to approach things from different angles you’ll get
different results, and better results. One of the best bosses
A beautiful business designs for resilience. To ensure that this I had was CTO at News Corp. He deliberately hired a senior
doesn’t devolve into buzzword-ville, let’s be clear about what management team who were all very different in thinking
resilience means. It is not merely a matter of showing grit or to him. And he had no idea I was autistic, and he had no
stoicism in the face of setbacks. It is rather the ability to adapt idea about the backgrounds of half the people who worked
to shifting terrain, and we propose that it’s a function of the for him, but whereas most people hire somebody like them,
combined benefits of mobility, diversity, and a sense of a larger he hired people different from him to deliberately try and
collective purpose. get better results. That’s a lesson that we’ll hopefully learn,
and I hope it would really encourage people to select from a
Mobility whole range or perspectives.”

You have heard about agility in organizational contexts. Mobility But can a single person contain diversity? What does fluidity mean
can be regarded more literally—a mobile coffee cart that delivers for or within the individual? It’s a question worth pondering.
to regular clients working from home in residential areas during
the pandemic, for example. Or switching from in-person gatherings “It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple: one must
to virtual conferences without sacrificing soul. But mobility is be a woman manly, or a man womanly.”
also a spiritual condition; an “at home everywhere, and nowhere” ―VIRGINIA WOOLF
posture. A beautiful organization knows that the essentials may be
immutable but are eminently transportable. It is our privilege as humans to embody all possible aspects of
what it means to be human, to play with the archetypes. Becoming
Diversity conscious of the personas available to us and reclaiming our
sovereignty matter.
Theoretical physicist Geoffrey West argues that successful cities
are long-lived precisely because they are not monocultures of Connected to “the commons”
ideas and activities. This diversity and flexibility is why cities have
historically been more resilient and longer-lasting than companies, In Common: On Revolution in the 21st Century, authors Pierre
which have a harder time striking a balance between order and Dardot and Christian Laval argue that new, communal ways of
disorder, of mainstream and weirdos. being in the world are needed to resolve the “crises and disasters”
of the 21st century. Central to their argument is a reconception of
Calls for diversity are becoming more wide-ranging, seeking to “common,” or the irreducible principle to transcend the capitalistic
draw in a wider cross-section of humanity, and the aptitudes that structure of human life as we’ve experienced it, and resurrect a
come with them. At the 2019 House of Beautiful Business, Ian sense of reciprocal obligations. Actions are critical, they argue—it
McDonald of Microsoft, who has Asperger’s syndrome, spoke of cannot remain at the level of an idea. “Only practical activity can
the advantages of hiring with neurodiversity in mind: make the common.”

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 THE GREAT WAVE FLUIDITY

If, as the authors argue, the common is the defining principle of How to ride this wave
alternative 21st-century political movements, what are the business
implications? Fundamentally it means a need for organizations Engineer some redundancies
to support emergent forms of democratic governance. Extractive Martin Reeves, chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, drawing
practices that reduce people’s ability to act as citizens, that reduce lessons from natural ecosystems, considers redundancy one of
individual and collective resilience, shouldn’t be as tolerated or six characteristics that grow organizational resilience, along
even normalized as they are today. with heterogeneity (a diversity of perspectives and approaches).
Consider examining where you might have taken efficiency and
“Do managers really have a moral duty to exploit desperately optimization too far, and thus areas where a strategic redundancy—
sick people? Taken literally, a single-minded focus on profit overlap and excess, a multitude of identities, roles, or personas—
maximization would seem to require that firms not only could strengthen your organization.
jack up drug prices but also fish out the oceans, destabilize
the climate, fight against anything that might raise labor Embrace seasonality
costs—including public funding of education and health The Manifesto of Beautiful Business claims, “As organic creatures,
care, and—my personal favorite—attempt to rig the we need freedom to behave naturally, understanding that there
political process in their own favor. . . . In today’s world, are mysterious [and natural] processes that bring us to health and
the conditions under which Milton Friedman’s famous success which cannot be made more efficient or micromanaged.
suggestion that ‘the social responsibility of business is We should recognize that business itself follows a cycle.... We
to increase its profits’ was made no longer hold, and the weather the storms, knowing that what goes down will come
single-minded pursuit of shareholder value is not only up.” Experiment with super-flexibility regarding pace and modus
destroying our societies and the planet but also putting operandi, in rhythm with seasons both real and metaphorical.
capitalism itself at risk.”
—REBECCA HENDERSON, AUTHOR, REIMAGINING CAPITALISM Emotional agility
IN A WORLD ON FIRE Encourage what social psychologist Susan David calls “emotional
agility”: allowing a full spectrum of emotions, including negative
To state the hopefully obvious: You need a lot less resilience if you ones, at work, instead of regulating them under the dictate of
don’t break people to begin with. Start with actually caring. As a forced optimism.
person, as a leader, as an organization, as an industry, and as an
ecosystem. Then build on that. Ask: “What’s it good for?”
“Whenever you feel stuck in a crisis, ask yourself: ‘What’s it good
for?’ ” author Marc Wallert advises. “You don’t need an answer right
away. Just start searching for hidden opportunities. You don’t need
to love your situation. Just be open to the possibility that it will have
positive side effects. The sooner you accept your challenge, the
sooner you can transform it into a positive experience—in the end.”

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I N T I

Come close
enough to make
me weep.

M A C Y
 INTIMACY

The quality of a business’s internal culture

hinges entirely on intimacy.

“The idea that we’re basically self-interested

is an astounding piece of propaganda.” *

Closeness demands candor,

and vice versa.

Let’s first be clear about what intimacy is not:

A clubby, almost cult-like atmosphere in the workplace. That’s

the result of modern brands launching with heart-tugging origin
stories, sold through social media, or on signature swag given to
workers on their first day on the job. Such atmospheres are usually
a feature of a lack of diversity at the company.

It’s also not a matter of company founders taking great care to

mindfully craft the cultures of their businesses from the outset.
This is less bad than the above, and can even have good aspects, but
it’s still not ideal—and it’s not intimacy. It results in a top-down,
contrived “culture,” more fear-driven than lively.

Intimacy is when a space is held for what is unsaid but much felt.
Intimacy means daring to be in resonance with yourself, especially
* ROMAN KRZNARIC, AUTHOR, a part of yourself that awaits to be encountered. Intimacy is
THE GOOD ANCESTOR: HOW TO THINK LONG TERM becoming more attuned to synergy with others. It may carry a
IN A SHORT-TERM WORLD tingling sensation that feels like electricity.

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 THE GREAT WAVE INTIMACY

Intimacy for early-stage ventures

Intimacy entails identification with the other; when we recognize
something of ourselves, our style, or our ideal self in another Organic co-creation of culture
person, and recognize that our actions and being will resonate with
others in turn. Let your norms and rituals emerge organically and tacitly, in
response to real needs and shared values.
Above all intimacy holds a space wherein others can get in touch
with themselves, and build more tender relationships. Experiencing “Belonging is not simply joining something. Belonging is
each other as we really are, unwashed and dishevelled, radiant about co-creating the thing you’re joining. In order to co-
beyond form and concept. Are we brave enough for that? create, you need power. It’s not your house or my house.
It’s not your city or my city, it’s our city. We co-create it.
Here’s Gianpiero Petriglieri, associate professor of Organizational We make it together with all of our complexities and
Behaviour at INSEAD, on what he means by “holding” in a dreams.... Inclusion is not enough. Belonging not only
leadership context: affects how we perceive things, it affects who we are. I am
because you are.”
“In psychology, the term has a specific meaning. It —john a. powell
describes the way another person, often an authority
figure, contains and interprets what’s happening in times Experience design
of uncertainty. Containing refers to the ability to soothe
distress, and interpreting it, to the ability to help others Beautiful businesses need to think of themselves, in part, as
make sense of a confusing predicament. Think of a CEO experience designers—sensitive to the needs of their team,
who, in a severe downturn, reassures employees that modeling and orchestrating without dictating behaviors. (Clearly
the company has the resources to weather the storm and if you’re accountable to third parties, you’ll want to mandate
most jobs will be protected, helps them interpret revenue behavior like “honesty.”)
data, and gives clear directions about what must be done
to service existing clients and develop new business. That Establishing the right environment is essential for intimacy, and
executive is holding: They think clearly, offer reassurance, fostering the kinds of interactions and even emotions that buoy an
orient people, and help them stick together. That work is as organization.
important as inspiring others. In fact, it is a precondition
for doing so.” One might:

It is especially essential amidst a crisis. Petriglieri continues: Experiment with one-on-one gatherings with colleagues,
“When leaders cannot hold, and we can’t hold each other, anxiety, instead of focusing on group meetings—and make them a
anger, and fragmentation ensue.” ritual. A weekly walk or virtual lunch.

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Have personal stand-ups in which people report in on what’s Intimacy for ventures (or people) at any stage
going “outside” of the tasks, projects, and collaborations at
hand. Somatic leadership

Create collective actions in silence: In place of your standard Embodied Leadership author Pete Hamill argues for what he calls
meeting, try writing together in a room or distributed “somatic leadership,” or incorporating movement and awareness
across your respective work-from-home spaces. Pick a song of how your body supports (or doesn’t) your intellectual beliefs
to accompany you. and the related emotions. Hamill believes that the mind/body
disconnect of Western philosophical thought results in “strategic,”
Sing! “rational,” and “economic” decisions that harm the planet, even
ourselves.
“Having grown up in choirs my entire life, I’m thinking
about that feeling of the hair standing up on your neck, It’s easier to ignore the externalities of our actions if we never
or the goosebumps that you get when voices harmonize. Do internalize them.
we even know why that happens? It feels like such a God
moment.” “Beautiful business requires us to live a little less distant
—CASPER TER KUILE, AUTHOR, THE POWER OF RITUAL from our bodies.”
—PETE HAMILL
“For me, it’s the moment when I forget about my own
brain, when I’m singing with other people. It’s one of the Business-as-usual culture treats the body largely as a means to
most powerful ways for me to feel connected to something move our brains around between meetings. To ignore the body’s
bigger. In part, because the harmony is not something needs and realities, to leave the body at home, is to be maximally
you can ever create on your own. You need one another. “professional.” But to be human is to be in a body. A revitalization of
And as we think about spiritual practices in the modern business must literally be a revitalization of our bodies, a bringing
world, sometimes the focus is really just on the individual. of the full, embodied self to work.
It’s about your well-being or your retreat. It can become
very individualistic. What I love about singing with other Our bodies are central to how we perceive reality. Current scientific
people is that it naturally broadens that practice to the thinking is that rather than the familiar five senses, we may have
community. So we’re oriented toward one another rather 20 or more senses, and our bodies and brains work intensively
than just ourselves. I know I need that, for sure.” together to form a picture of external reality. For example, it takes
—LIANE AL GHUSAIN, FOUNDER, THE SCRIBES longer for sight signals to get processed by the brain than sound
signals, so if you see and hear a clap, your brain caches the sound
until the visual of hands colliding is ready, so they are perceived as
simultaneous.

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Different parts of our eyes even react to light differently. Our Diversity and compassion
central cone of vision provides lots of detail but is relatively
insensitive to motion, while our peripheral vision provides little A study by Christina Boedker of the Australian School of Business
detail but is exquisitely tuned to subtle movements. This makes that looked at 5,600 people in 77 organizations reported that a
sense from a survival standpoint—our ancestors needed to spot leader’s ability to be compassionate has the biggest impact on an
the tiger slinking toward them from the edge of the jungle. It wasn’t organization’s productivity and profitability.
important to know whether the tiger was young or old, just that
they had to move fast. Beyond diversity and inclusion, we need diversity and compassion.
This may mean deliberate efforts to build relationships among
Likewise, beautiful businesses have both central vision (lots of those that would not normally be in relationship with one another.
detail on their core business) and peripheral vision that picks Such efforts could pay off immediately in building the imaginative
up subtle trends at the edges of their domain, even if they aren’t powers of those involved, helping them see possibilities they might
well-defined yet. Conversations with customers, data on costs and not have noticed before.
sales, signals on social media, competitors’ movements—all can be
considered a sensory input for your business. “Companies say that they need certain competencies,
skills, diploma requirements, et cetera. And we say yes, but
Somatic leadership is about getting in touch with your body so you you could do things very differently. Having different social
can better see and coordinate how your business’s sensory inputs backgrounds also creates value for you, because people
need to come together. from a working-class background, from a very young age,
may have developed skills that may not be adequately
“What would happen in society if we each took better care valued on the labor market.”
of ourselves, before we even stepped out the door, before —EMILIA ROIG, FOUNDER, CENTER FOR INTERSECTIONAL JUSTICE
we spoke to another person? What would happen if we...fed
this vessel of senses that we are? What would happen, even
to our minds, if our bodies were fed more fundamentally
and given its deepest pleasures? We underestimate humans
when we assume they respond to punishment over desire.
Punishment can bring temporary behavior change. But
punishment ultimately shrinks us, whereas desire, especially
desire for those things that feed us, expands us, and we
continue to grow in it.”
—MARIANA LIN, AI WRITER

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Intimacy for late-stage ventures How to ride this wave

The fact is if you’re a late-stage venture, you’ll need to work harder Make tough conversations less threatening
at cultivating intimacy, especially if it’s not already part of your Come up with a “safe word” (or emoji): This is what the company
culture. Even if it is, or was, you’ll have to work harder at it, because Zapier did to allow people to indicate that “Hey, I really don’t like
late-stage, large-scale ventures have natural intimacy-killing the way that this thing is going, and I have a question about it,” but
properties—entrenched status quos, perhaps a climate of fear— to do so in a friendly, low-key way. Zapier uses “pomegranate.”
that must be combated.
“Unhappy hour”
One solution is to keep team size small. Ample research suggests Stage a monthly gathering to create an environment where
that better-performing virtual teams have under a dozen people. employees are welcome to share their frustrations and respectfully
On a team of five, the late Harvard psychology professor Richard vent. Follow up with facilitated conversations where people can
Hackman noted, it takes only 10 conversations for every person address issues raised during the unhappy hour and learn from
to touch base with everyone else. That number rises to 78 one another.
conversations for a team of 13. Other research surveys suggest
five to seven people is an optimal team size—again if greater Encourage voices from all levels
productivity is the goal. Throw up a quarterly “crazy idea” party, where even the newest
employees are welcome to share (either verbally or in writing)
The custom some organizations have of making certain elements their nuttiest ideas—creating an environment that would mostly
of the employee experience mandatory, like the talent agencies be comedy, but would also create space for fresh, good things to
that famously start all employees out working in the mailroom, bubble up.
for example, can also help. That shared early experience creates
a base for connection throughout an employee’s tenure at the No secrets
organization. Secrecy, more often than not, is deployed to consolidate and hoard
power. There’s little room for secrets in a beautiful organization.
If any member of a team is deemed not to be trusted with a piece
of information, that’s a signal your relationship with them needs
attention.

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 To grow,

S cede control.

U R

R E

N D

E R
 SURRENDER

Nobody’s been to the future.

Certainty is the enemy of

beautiful business.

Giving up control is beautiful.

Things tend to get ugly when there are more answers

than questions.

Life happens when we admit to our shortcomings, to the limits

of what we can understand and plan for, and when we gracefully
lose control. And if there’s one thing we want from business in
the future, it’s this: to be more alive.

How does a business become more alive? When it knows how to

surrender to forces greater than itself.

Yes, how to surrender. Plans are stories we tell ourselves to maintain

our illusion of control. In truth, there isn’t much to manage. We
can navigate, make sense, respond, and to a certain degree, help
shape events, but we are never fully in control. Far better, then, to
surrender.

Done correctly, surrendering is not a passive act. It is a choice. It is

a sign of maturity, and of being grounded in reality.

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In classical Buddhism, the concepts of suffering and impermanence A bias toward curiosity, which leads
are foundational to enlightenment. We cannot find the deep to experimentation
contentment and peace that makes room for spontaneous insight
without first coming to terms with these difficult facts. There is Prizing experimentation creates a culture geared toward many
no holding on to anything, no taking it with us. It ends only in small, more immediate actions rather than large, committed
death. And nothing will keep us from wanting things to be otherwise overtures.
but the relinquishment of wanting itself.
We need business leaders who can comfortably acknowledge they
Surrendering means no to coping mechanisms like cynicism, do not have all the answers, who can maintain a state of ambiguity
gossip, or complaint. Cynicism dehumanizes, surrender humanizes. that avoids pat answers. We need leaders who can ask beautiful
Surrender means leaving the doing and stepping into the being. questions, to use a term coined by poet John O’Donohue.

The act of surrender sets a person free. To let go of that which never Going forward, effective leaders will be prized for how much
felt right. To redirect, listen to your surroundings, and focus on uncertainty they can tolerate, and how well they can take care of
what is meaningful. others who need more help and support amid the ambiguity.

Let’s stop wasting energy. But what does that mean for our day at Why is this important? Because the forces of change will demand
work? businesses build pauses into their processes:

“If we have a difficulty bringing about change, it has a

lot to do with processes and with a system that asks you
to be competitive and does not allow for pauses, because
sometimes we do need a pause, and we need to slow down
and really think about what can be done to change the way
we’ve been doing things.”
—EMILIA ROIG, FOUNDER, CENTER FOR INTERSECTIONAL JUSTICE

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Scratch the three-year plan Hire a Chief Dissent Officer

Live week to week, day by day. Forget the theater of rationality Just as some companies hire ethical hackers to identify the weak
provided by three-year or one-year plans and “objectives” and “key spots within their software, your business will be more beautiful if
results,” and be guided by a sentiment that feels true to you. dissenting views and subversive perspectives are seen as valuable,
not threatening.
Manage what can be managed, but for all those things that cannot—
and there are many—go with the flow. It’s a matter of living the
questions over seeking the shortest answers.

“I’ve run five companies and I’ve advised many, many more.
And I can tell you, management is not, never has been,
and never will be a science. We would do much better to
start reimagining it as an art—a matter of sophisticated,
thoughtful, creative interpretation. Not a linear cause-
and-effect search for certainty and efficiency, dominance
and power, but an art form that requires more than the
acceptance of uncertainty, but the embrace of uncertainty.
The embrace of uncertainty is the quality of life which
gives us the choice to make afresh every day what hasn’t
ever been made before. That would relieve us of misleading
guarantees, and I think it would open us up a much richer
line of questioning. It would absolve us of spurious claims
to eternal greatness. And it would shift the power of
judgment onto the participants and beholders of what
we make and perhaps most of all, it would embrace the
full range of human imagination, seeing in it a source of
creativity instead, as we do now, as just a costly element to
be measured, ranked, assessed, and restrained.”
—MARGARET HEFFERNAN, AUTHOR, UNCHARTED: HOW TO MAP
THE FUTURE TOGETHER

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How to ride this wave

Create a company will and testament
What do you want to leave to the employees and surrounding
community who supported you when your company dies, as it
surely will someday? Write this out ahead of time and plan toward
it, ensuring resources are paid forward for the future after the
company departs.

Take a vow of silence

Most leaders talk too much, and don’t listen enough. Kick that
habit by taking a vow of silence. Start with a day and work your way
up to a week. Let your mind truly absorb what others are saying,
freed from the need to think ahead to your response. See whether
others jump in and become more open once you’re silent and giving
them the space.

Foster a culture of candor

One of Airbnb’s founders, Joe Gebbia, explained their “elephants,
dead fish, and vomit” approach, a simple categorization method for
airing issues: “Elephants are the big things in the room that nobody
is talking about, dead fish are the things that happened a few years
ago that people can’t get over, and vomit is that sometimes people
just need to get something off their mind and you need someone to
just sit there and listen.”

Trust but verify

It’s a more beautiful path than distrust and command.

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 Flow into the ocean,
like all rivers.

B I

Y M O

S S I

S
 SYMBIOSIS

The fate of nature and our personal

fates are entangled.

Businesses are complex,

emergent organizations. They’re not
structures.

What if instead of humanizing work,

we need to naturalize it?

“Heat. Beat. Treat.” That’s how Janine Benyus,

pioneer in the field of biomimicry, describes the industrial age’s
repertoire of methods for creating the materials out of which we
manufacture the human-made environment: High temperatures to
melt metal and plastic and to power engines, high forces to beat or
mold materials into shape, and toxic chemicals to give them other
properties desirable to humans.

The side effects have been major environmental degradation, mass

extinctions, and climate change. These are called “externalities,” as
though they can be ignored or separated out. Today’s corporations
have been called “externalizing machines,” which is a clever way of
saying that they are able to keep the real costs of their activities off
their books.

Everything business creates, it takes from the planet in one way

or another. Businesses have pretended—in part because we
collectively allowed them to do so—that they could draw from the
environment indefinitely yet still evade paying up.

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So it’s imperative of a beautiful business to ask: What are the Respecting “The Commons”
responsibilities of a business to its supporting biome? Could
partnership with nature be a better business plan? How can we The milieu that companies inhabit can be thought of as a
create a thriving ecosystem around our business? “commons”—a shared resource that all individuals and companies
draw from, and, ideally, give back to and make stronger.
The World Economic Forum projects that if countries and
businesses prioritize nature, they could generate $10.1 trillion The notion of a commons started in agriculture; it referred to a
in annual value and create 395 million jobs by the end of 2030. common field that could be used by all farmers. Taken more broadly,
McKinsey touts the “bio revolution,” and BCG views “Deep Tech,” we inhabit a commons, a shared environment and resource that is
or the combination of advanced bio-fabrication and machine used by all, and that is our planet and everything on it.
learning, as “the third wave of innovation.” The symbiosis of
nature, tech, and human appears inevitable. In recent years, the Creative Commons organization, a U.S.-
based nonprofit, has popularized the idea of encouraging more
So what if not humanizing business ought to be our goal, but rather sharing of intellectual property through giving “every person and
making business more in tune with nature, or even like nature, organization in the world a free, simple, and standardized way
because it is nature? Can business stop using metaphors drawn to grant copyright permissions for creative and academic works;
from the history of the factory and instead embody new metaphors ensure proper attribution; and allow others to copy, distribute,
drawn from ecology? and make use of those works.” In other words, to make it easier
for people to decide which usage rights they wish to retain on their
“I’m convinced that if all of us don’t do more to save our creative work, and which they gladly grant to others.
planet and disrupt the craziness taking place in our politics,
our children won’t have a country or a planet to inherit.” A beautiful organization asks: How could we benefit from a more
—MAURICE MITCHELL, NATIONAL DIRECTOR, generous-spirited conception of what’s “mine” versus what’s
WORKING FAMILIES PARTY “owned” (and shareable) by the public? What would that look like?

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Circular economy “We have both the resources and the technology to build a
just and sustainable world—and purpose-driven businesses
A growing number of businesses embrace the circular economy could be the critical catalyst that drives the kinds of global,
concept, and put the commons at the center of their business model. systemic changes we need to reimagine capitalism in a way
Warby Parker is just one example. that works for everyone.”
—REBECCA HENDERSON, AUTHOR,
In 2019, 32 companies signed Fashion Pact at the G7 summit REIMAGINING CAPITALISM IN A WORLD ON FIRE
in Biarritz, committing to switching to renewables, reducing
pollution, and implementing fairer working conditions by 2030.
Retail group H&M has been testing repair, rental, and secondhand
schemes across its brands, with a vision to become fully circular and
renewable by 2030.

Alina Bassi, founder of Kleiderly, put her experience as a chemical

engineer to work reducing the polluting impact of the fashion
industry. “Now that our clothing only lasts a couple of years, it
makes no sense that we have such a high carbon footprint for
something so short-lived,” Bassi says. Using the principles of a circular
economy, Bassi developed a low-energy process to turn clothing
fibres—that would otherwise go into a landfill or incinerator—
into a durable material that can replace oil-based plastics.

Cortney Gusick of Pāhiki Eco-Caskets created a biodegradable

casket after she struggled to bury her father in a way that aligned
with his values. In one of our Living Room Sessions, Gusick told us
that in the Old Kingdom in Hawaii, before it became part of the the
United States, several burial methods were used, but regardless of
how someone was buried, everyone abided by the core principle of
doing no harm and not detracting from our earth.

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Co-creation with the wild planet How to ride this wave

Designers like Neri Oxman have pioneered bio design as a practice Back words with action, from the top
that allows for products and architecture to be engineered with and Executives demonstrate real commitment through action. As the
for nature. Meanwhile, biotech companies like Ginkgo Bioworks pandemic eased and flights started resuming, Delta Airlines CEO
and Zymergen are replacing tech as we know it with biology. Ed Bastian gave an interview about the company’s strong stance
Ginkgo, for example, produces custom microbes for use in various (compared to other airlines) on pandemic health and safety. Later
industries, “growing” products instead of manufacturing them, that day one of their planes turned around because some passengers
and developing entirely new organisms. refused to wear masks in-flight, and they were banned from flying
Delta in the future. That showed commitment.
A beautiful business realizes we are part of nature; there is
no separation. Respecting that no business practice happens Animism over mechanism
outside of nature—and thus will always have consequences for In New Zealand, the government granted the Whanganui River, as
our biophysical environment—should factor into every strategy well as a nearby forest and a mountain, legal personhood. Likewise,
conversation. in the U.S. state of Ohio, Lake Erie was given legal standing by voters,
and attempts are underway to do the same for the Ganges in India.
Even though National Geographic wonders whether such legislative
action will have any real consequences (“Will nature be able to
sue humans for the damage they inflict?”), these initiatives have
symbolic power and signal a shift in our collective consciousness.

Adopt an SDG
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals are a set of
15 measures (each with multiple subitems) that address a range of
environmental, equality, and social factors. Have your company
select one of the individual elements and “adopt” it—champion it
internally and externally, and aim to have your organization make
measurable improvements toward that goal.

Hire a Circular Design Officer

Including a circular analysis of your organization’s behaviors, from
the consequences for nature to those for human flourishing now
and later, may likely have implications for strategy. Elevating this
role will help ensure everyone takes circular design considerations
seriously.

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Publishers: Till Grusche and Published in 2020 by
Tim Leberecht The Business Romantic Society
Managing Editor: Megan Hustad Verwaltungs GmbH
Editor: Eva Talmadge Amtsgericht Berlin Charlottenburg,
Research and writing: Monika Jiang, HRB 214167 B
Marizanne Knoesen, and c/o Thema 1
Adam Richardson Torstrasse 154
Creative Direction: Morgwn Rimel Berlin 10115
Design: Marcia Mihotich
Published under Creative Commons
Special thanks to our partners: license CC BY-NC-ND
forward31by Porsche Digital,
Grupo Ageas Portugal, BCG Henderson 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Institute, SAP, IEEE, SYPartners,
Indeed Innovation, diffferent, pur’ple, “If you expect to see the final results
and Waltz Binaire. of your work, you simply have not asked
a big enough question.”
—I. F. STONE

ISBN 978-3-948499-01-3

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