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Restoring the Soul of Business

Staying Human in the Age of Data
Rishad Tobaccowala
HarperCollins Leadership,
2020
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8
Qualities
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Inspiring

Recommendation
 86
Rishad Tobaccowala, an expert on innovation and business
growth, urges leaders to “restore humanity” to workplaces by
promoting a community atmosphere that fosters empathy,
 vulnerability and trust. To attract the best talent, he says, invest in
lifelong learning, cultivate employees’ skills and make meetings
more meaningful. While some of his advice and his concerns
 about the dominance of technology aren’t totally new, the counsel
that Tobaccowala provides – that organizations should model
empathy and fairness – is indispensable. He recounts that as a
 child he told his mother and father he wanted to grow up to be a
writer. At the time, he says, “My parents steered me to
mathematics instead and said one day when you have something
useful to say you can become a writer.” Clearly, that day has come.

Take-Aways
• Facing the problem of “too much math, too little meaning,”
leaders need to balance the spreadsheet and the story.
• To be happy and productive, people need meaningful work.
 • Employees won’t support change unless they can see where
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skills fit into the bigger picture. 
• “Individual development is everyone’s job.”
• Make meetings meaningful by helping people think and act
in new ways.
• Knowing how to learn is an important skill.
• Workplaces need to foster community.
• The story and the spreadsheet must interact and nourish
each other.

Summary
Facing the problem of “too much math, too little
meaning,” leaders need to balance the spreadsheet and
the story.
With data proliferating, ignoring your company’s story in order to
focus on the numbers is tempting. But it’s a mistake. Too much
reliance on data draws attention away from the intangible factors
that make a good business great, such as agility, innovation and
inspiration. Data can tell you that your company will be more
productive if you cut 10% of your staff, but the ensuing losses

“
might not be worth the trade-off.

Data should inform and enlighten, but…shouldn’t

be the basis of every decision.
 Data can provide valuable insight into customer preferences,
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continued improvement and provide competitive 
advantages, but ask if the information generates real meaning?
Can data define a brand, define happiness, or shape a company’s
mission and values? Can data measure employee engagement?
People’s preferences and desires aren’t so quantifiable. Use the
“Six I approach” to delve for the human facet of your data:

1. “Interpret” – Let the data tell the story. Look for patterns
and outliers.
2. “Involve” – Welcome diverse people to bring fresh insights.
3. “Interconnect” – What does your information mean in
a larger context?
4. “Imagine” – Seek inspiration by asking where your
data point at possibilities instead of limits.
5. “Iterate” – Use data to create better data.
6. “Investigate” – Tap into employees’ experiences and
insight.

To be happy and productive, people need meaningful

work.
Spreadsheets create myopia, making it difficult for employees to
see the company’s bigger story. Measurement reduces meaning.
For example, consider a hospital that measures “units” of doctors’
time to optimize output. This makes patient care the least-
important priority as doctors spend far less time with each sick
person in order to amass units and make more money. When you
prioritize making people work faster, cheaper and in higher
volumes, ethics lose value. Measuring ethics, like purpose or self-
 improvement, is hard. Human resources (HR) practices
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this problem by focusing more on measuring outputs 

“
than on cultivating talent.

”
Once companies understand what constitutes
meaningful work, they can design programs and
policies to promote it.

People work better when they’re happy and proud of what they do.
An admirable boss, good colleagues, pride in the company and
opportunities to grow are the four key factors in retaining and
motivating the best talent. Numerical goals like sales targets force
people to prioritize short-term, instant gratification. Employee
dissatisfaction about running after short-term gains shows up on
websites like Glassdoor, which aggregates employees’ ratings of
employers. This hurts your company’s reputation.

Too often, companies reward employees with incentives for

meeting targets that they base on outdated or incorrect data. This
allows cheaters to game the system. The data don’t measure the
quality of the service that employees provide, because data are
intangible. Companies should drop incentives that rely on
numbers alone and focus on rewarding good service,
good stories. Leaders who value authenticity give
people incentives to self-actualize and to “live and work in their
own minds,” not simply doing what they think their bosses want.
Companies can develop their employees’ natural skills and
interests by giving them stretch assignments. Working on diverse
teams also enhances this kind of growth.
 Employees won’t support change unless they can see
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their skills fit into the bigger picture. 
Change is always difficult and emotional. Uncertainty is
unnerving, failure is embarrassing and leaving old routines
is uncomfortable. But change is necessary, and the best way to
help your people weather change is to fit it into your
organization’s story. Using data to make changes without
considering the impact on people is a mistake. The change won’t

“
be well-integrated, and it can kill your business goals.

”
Successful organizations and people ensure that
diverse points of views are heard, even if they
challenge the status quo or are disturbing in other
ways.

For a case in point, consider the newspaper industry in the

digital age. In 2005, the writing was on the wall as companies like
Google and Craigslist siphoned off ad revenues that once went to
traditional publishing. Despite warnings, many newspapers relied
on old routines. They went under because they saw the past, not
the future.

People who don’t embrace change aren’t weak or fragile. They are

human. Show employees how the change helps them grow and
how their skills will become even more relevant. Demonstrate how
getting more training will transform them and the company.
Be honest and open about the change. If you ask people to tighten
their belts, make any sacrifice company-wide. Guarantee people
that they will realize a future benefit.

“Individual development is everyone’s job.”

 For most of modern history, workers had to adapt to their
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into two categories: the rapidly expanding gig economy, with
short-term and contract positions, and the far more competitive
specialties in health care, IT and even truck driving. In the latter
category, workers have more power because they better
understand what they are worth, have specialized skills, focus on
personal development, and grasp the knowledge and service-
based economy. Security or longevity motivate them less – their
careers outlast many companies anyway – and their priorities are

“
autonomy, mastery and purpose.

”
Differentiated and superior talent is usually the
most – if not the only – important, competitive
advantage companies today have in a networked
world.

Give your employees the freedom to explore their skills and

interests; prioritize flexibility and adaptability, and help
them cultivate their personal brand where it intersects with the
organization’s brand. Aligning these brands builds in employee
loyalty and commitment.

CEOs usually leave talent seeking to HR, which historically aligns

hiring with company needs. To expand, HR leaders must
customize jobs to an employee’s unique skills, provide continuous
feedback (instead of a yearly review) and integrate employees by
putting them in the field to test, collaborate and assess their skills.
Managers can act as mentors. The best workers want meaningful
work. This will become even more important over time.
 Make meetings meaningful by helping people think and
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new ways. 
In the past, in-person meetings became chaotic, but people
engaged. With more meetings taking place via video conference,
employees feel alienated. Meetings proliferate because timelines
are shorter and more people have a stake in the outcomes, but that
doesn’t make them efficient or meaningful. Too often they are
process-oriented and less purposeful. They focus on the

“
spreadsheet, not on the story.

”
Meetings tend to be about getting work done rather
than how to get better at doing the work.

Meetings can focus on sharing and learning. They could be about

knowledge, and leaders could give guidance. They can show
appreciation and make employees feel relevant by using the
“LIFT” approach: “Listen, Interact, Feel and Transform.” The best
meetings embrace:

1. Clarity – Choose a core issue and explore it in depth. Listen

for confusion and clarify it.
2. Belief – Show that you “see” your people, and give them
stories about those who tackled similar issues and prevailed.
3. Planning – Provide clear steps to keep the momentum
going and questions to think about: What next? What now?

Knowing how to learn is an important skill.

Companies prize innovation and creativity, but their expectations
don’t reflect that appreciation. They worry more about what
management can measure, such as productivity and growth. They
 neglect to give employees the time and resources to “architect”
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Myminds:
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useful, if obliquely.

To counteract this tendency, you can promote a balance of

priorities, reduce fear of reprisal for having disruptive ideas, and
encourage a growth mind-set that praises effort, even if it leads to
failure, because trying new things means making mistakes.
Organizations don’t transform themselves – the people in them
transform. Human beings transform incrementally through

“
patience and perseverance.

”
The speed of change means that the best position
today might not be the best position tomorrow.

People don’t need training in how to learn. They need

encouragement to take on new challenges, become comfortable
with discomfort, take time to absorb new understandings and
practice what they learn. To help them out of their comfort zones,
encourage them to “think in opposites.” When you make an
argument, defend the counterargument. This reveals areas for
compromise and gives you leeway to change your mind. What you
believe today might not be what you believe tomorrow. Set up
“Red Team/Blue Team exercises” to argue both sides of an issue.

Workplaces need to foster community.

Workers fear their jobs will be taken by exterior forces, such as AI.
Heavy reliance on data instead of on people alienates the
employees companies need most. Companies that focus on profit
over people – sometimes even undermining their ethics to do so –
don’t win in the long run. Talented people won’t work for them.
 Customers won’t purchase their products or services. What is the
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between Starbucks and other coffee chains? A focus on 
people. What is the difference between Southwest and other

“
airlines? Southwest treats its people like people.

At a time when people change jobs with almost the

”
same regularity with which they change their
passwords, community keeps people loyal to their
organizations.

People come together to make communities, and community is

the forum for storytelling. People prove more loyal to
organizations that foster “belongingness,” through stories and
other means. Online forums alone aren’t sufficient. People need to
connect in person, when possible, with their leaders available to
them.

To tell the right story, leaders need emotional intelligence. Bosses

must show honesty, empathy, humility, inspiration and
vulnerability in order to connect with the next generation of
workers. Leadership requires listening, motivating people to work
hard and being willing to have difficult conversations. Narcissistic,
micromanaging, egotistical or manipulative bosses don’t inspire
trust or loyalty. Follow the advice of the sociologist William
Bruce Cameron: “Not everything that can be counted counts, and
not everything that counts can be counted.”

The story and the spreadsheet must interact and nourish

each other.
 With automation on the rise, consuming up to 800 million jobs by
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the Internet of Things taking work and play into 
unknown territory, the roles of employees and leaders will change.
Some people will accept change and cede authority to machines
without question, while others will be fearful and resistant. While
data is vital to decision-making, it can’t replace human instinct or
creativity. Technology has made the world a better place in many
respects. Among other things, you can harness its power for better

“
storytelling.

”
The best companies leverage technology and data
to be successful today, but they do more than this to
ensure their success tomorrow.

Leaders who talk about leveraging opportunities in the future, but

who organize for the present and rely on the past, do so because
they don’t want to risk their legacy structure. They need to hire
people who are not afraid of change.

Algorithms affect how people communicate, and can even drive

civil strife and influence elections. Society must invest in better
education to prepare for a future that will emerge out of massive
change.

About the Author

Rishad Tobaccowala was the chief growth officer at Publicis,
where he spent 38 years in marketing, strategy and change
management. He is a frequent keynote speaker.

 
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This document is restricted to the personal use of Sarwar Shams

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