Staying Human in the Age of Data.

The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past. Edition 227.

A smart and worldly man, Tobaccowala has produced a deeply informed book about brand marketing, data science, and humanity that is a remarkably lively read. Name another book about business (or any other subject) that in one breath urges the reader to acknowledge “the turd on the table” in the boardroom and references François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and Joan Didion in the next. Marketing+Strategy Magazine Best Business Books 2020.

Next month it will be five years ( Jan 28, 2020) since my first book was published just before the March 2020 Covid shutdowns. Despite the unfortunate timing and two years of not being able to travel to events to support the book, it ended up selling many tens of thousands of copies and continues to do well notching sales of hundreds of copies every month five years later.

The reason for its continued success is that the ideas and perspectives in every chapter in the book, each of which can be read as a free standing book ( I always wonder why most business books are just one chapter or idea repeated over a dozen chapters) not only have aged well but in many cases are even more relevant today than when the book was issued.

For instance the book had a chapter on AI, Blockchain and Immersive Computing (AR/VR) though it was published five years ago ! The book had a chapter on how to manage cultures and lead when people are working in distributed places staring at screens long before the Covid lockdown. The book makes the case for continuous learning with a chapter on how to upgrade one’s operating system, a chapter on how to manage change so it sucks less and a chapter on why companies that do not have cultures that allow one to call out the turd on the table end up failing and defeating themselves.

Every prediction and perspective from five years ago have come true and people believe the book was written last month! Often I hear how the book has been a competitive edge for many leaders and companies and among the best investment they made for themselves or their teams.

Here is what the Economist Magazine when reviewing a number of business books wrote:

Perhaps the best of the books is Mr Tobaccowala’s. That is because the author, a senior adviser at Publicis Groupe, an advertising and communications firm, has a clear focus: how to ensure you can hire, then inspire, the right workers in the knowledge economy. “Employees who find work meaningful are highly productive, agile and committed,” he writes, adding that talented workers are in a more powerful bargaining position in the current economy. He also argues that companies can be too obsessed with data, and not enough with employee motivation: “The best businesses find ways to marry the math and the magic.”

The book is clearly written and full of sensible and practical suggestions. They include assessing all meetings to eliminate those that waste time and suggesting that all employees spend 20% of each month trying to enhance their skills.

Many people also buy it today because they believe the subtitle of staying human in the age of data is no different than how to stay human in the age of AI.

If the book was a bottle of Japanese or Scotch whisky it should cost more due to its wonderful aging and vintage but instead it is available for just over $8 including shipping on Amazon and Walmart this week.

Here is the Amazon Link. This is the Walmart Link.

I wrote an essay on why people should allocate some of their most valuable resource which is time (rather than a few dollars) reading my book which I have republished below.

So if you are looking for a gift for yourself or your team for this Christmas or want to see how some things never change despite all the hype and swirl of change you might want to read about the issues that were key 5 years ago which seem to be the same today.

Often to succeed in a world of change maybe we should focus on what does not.

Here is the beginning of essay from five years ago. You can read the entire essay and what dozens of leaders wrote about the book and all the places you can get it here

Why Should You Read My Book?

Time is all we have.

So why should you allocate a part of your most precious asset on engaging with this book?

Because my hope is that it will leave you seeing, thinking, and feeling differently about how to grow and remain relevant in transformative times.

How to grow yourself, grow those around you, and grow your practice, passion, or company.

How to remain relevant by understanding what it takes to make sense and thrive in a world of rapid technological, demographic, and global upheaval.

And it will do so by questioning much of what business takes for granted:

• why data is often not the way forward and we may have too much of it;

• why change sucks;

• why having more—rather than fewer—meetings is better; and

• why it is essential to have a culture and courage that calls out “the turd on the table.”

You not only will learn what makes great leaders but also how to deal with, or not become, a bad boss.

You’ll discover how to extract meaning from data and see poetry in the plumbing.

This book recognizes that while our world is increasingly filled with digital, silicon-based, computing objects, it is populated by people who remain analog, carbon-based, feeling creatures.

People like you.

And me.

Companies can choose to upgrade the skills of their people and reimagine the way they work or swap out their people and acquire new ways of working.

Often both are necessary.

This book is about upgrading the operating systems of people and companies by remembering the thinking-and-feeling component of the operating system.

A central premise is that successful individuals and firms can never forget the importance of people, their emotions, the culture of the organization, and what cannot be measured. I refer to this as the Soul of a Company.

This Soul is critical even as individuals and firms reinvent themselves for an increasingly AI-augmented, data-driven, networked and distributed, screen-based future.

As the world becomes more data driven and real-time twitchy, and as financial markets punish companies for failing to meet their goals, I worry that our short-term focus on numbers is destroying the long-term health of business, countries, and people. I worry we are losing our humanity in a world where modern, data-driven economies and cutting-edge technologies are seeping into all of life.

Yes, results, data, speed, and technology are keys for businesses to remain relevant and thrive. But while they’re necessary, they’re insufficient for long-term success.

Over the past five years, I have seen a significant tilt to the numeric, to the algorithmic, and to the measurable. This causes organizations to think short term, prize individualism, and adopt a mercenary mindset rather than think long term, prize teams, and adopt a meaningful mindset.

Increasingly there is a premium and a dominance on the quantitative, or what I call the spreadsheet, and a diminishment of the importance of the culture, humanity, emotion, and complexity of people, or what I refer to as the story.

Successful people and companies combine the story and the spreadsheet and by doing so restore the soul of business.

Here is the Amazon Link. This is the Walmart Link.

And coming on Feb 4 is my next book which is available for pre-order at all these places: https://rishadtobaccowala.com/rethinking-work

Rishad Tobaccowala has spent four decades rethinking and reinventing and now works across the globe helping leaders, teams and companies thrive in transformational times. More here: https://rishadtobaccowala.com/