Ever since the age of 10, when a group from my school used to head out each lunchtime for a run along the old railway line at Rothbury, I’ve been hooked. Since then I’ve run competitively in events all around the world.
I remember back in 1981 running the first ever Great North Run in 91 minutes as a 13 year old. I remember watching Steve Cram racing in and empty Gateshead stadium one night, in a last ditch effort to get an Olympic qualifying time, and then running a sub-4 pb in my own race, whilst still inspired minutes later. I remember competing in amazing races from Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to the peaks of Black Forest mountains near Freiburg, winning a fabulous race through the packed summer streets of Palma, and the lone westerner in a 10km at the Leipzig Sports Institute just after the Berlin Wall came down. I remember the incredible thrill of Super Saturday in London 2012’s Olympic stadium, as Jess and then Greg and then Mo gained gold. And I still get goosebumps when I hear the Chariots of Fire music of Vangelis.
Which brings me to movies, or running movies, to be precise. So if you want motivation, incredible stories of human success over adversity, running films have it in bundles. Here are some of the best:
The Barkley Marathons (2014)
In its first 25 years, only 10 people have ever completed this 100 km ultra marathon race, which is based on a prison escape and has a cut-off of 60 hours. The alternative is the 60km event, which is known as the “fun run.”
Run Fat Boy Run (2007)
This film starring Simon Pegg is about a non-runner who enters a marathon as a drunken bet. We follow his haphazard training through to the inevitable raceday drama. Funny and heart warming in equal measure.
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
This may not be a running film per se but contains plenty of running scenes. When Pat attacks his wife’s lover and is sent for therapy he turns to running to help sort himself out.
Unbroken (2014)
Based on the excellent book of the same name and directed by Angelina Jolie, this film tells the true life story of Louis Zamperini, a US Olympic track record holder who ends up a prisoner of war during the Second World War.
Forrest Gump (1994)
This is a true masterpiece. Who can’t be moved by Tom Hanks in this brilliant film about a simpleton who takes to running? It’s full of brilliant quotes and 25 years after its release is still one of our all time favourites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq1XD47FcKU
Chariots of Fire (1981)
Worth watching just for the opening scene and inspiration. The story of Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell in an amateur age when values and belief were everything.
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)
A coming-of-age British film based on a short story, this film tells of an boy from the slums who reviews his troubled past while training for a race. Importantly it perfectly demonstrates how the pure act of running can be used as much for mental escape and wellbeing as physical fitness.
Running for Good – The Fiona Oakes Documentary (2018)
If you only have time to watch one new film, please watch this. It follows the story of world record marathon holder, Fiona Oakes who was told (aged 14) she would never walk properly and has no kneecap, as she prepares for the Marathon des Sables. When she’s not running Fiona spends her time devoted to the 450+ animals in her sanctuary. She is a rare combination of gritty determination and compassion.
The Office (American) – Fun Run – Season 4, Episodes 1/2 (2007)
When office manager Michael Scott insists everyone enters a 5km charity race, chaos ensues. From the errors of carbo-loading to bleeding nipples, this is one of our favourite episodes from The Office.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-pd_AWsZ5Q
I spend much of my time travelling around Europe, working with the leaders of the continents most innovative companies. From my home in West London, a home to corporate giants like GSK and Unilever, I embrace the passion of Madrid where I’m a professor at the business school, with an eclectic range of entrepreneurs like EcoAlf and Wollapop, to the digitally reinvented Berlin, full of fintech pioneers like Number26 , to the cool of Copenhagen with Bjarke Ingels and Mikkel Bjorgso.
So what are these companies up to. Here is a random snapshot of their innovations in action:
AB InBev
1. AB InBev partnered with Civic, an identity app, to dispense beer from a vending machine in the US using the app to verify that the buyer is over the legal drinking age of 21.
2. AB InBev harnessed digital technologies to run a weather-dependent advertising campaign for Stella Artois Cidre. Using weather data, the ads were displayed as soon as there was a two-degree rise in temperature, targeting customers at the moment they were susceptible to buy.
3. AB InBev recently installed GAME (global asset management for enterprises) for returnable transport items with specific configurations for brewery operations. Leveraging RFID tags and a network of RFID readers and antennas throughout the brewery allowed AB InBev to capture invaluable real-time data and business intelligence to significantly improve efficiency throughout the supply chain.
Airbus
1. Skywise is an aviation open-data platform developed by Airbus that enables the digitalization transformation of the aviation value chain.
2. Airbus was involved in the Heritage Open Source project that allowed non-profit and charitable organizations to accept donations in cryptocurrency.
3. Airbus makes use of advanced inspection drones to reduce its aircraft inspection times and enhance inspection quality.
Allianz
1. Allianz Worldwide Care launched a new AI-powered symptom checker as part of its MyHealth app. The AI checker anonymously asks questions about members’ medical conditions and provides a preliminary evaluation of their symptoms to assess whether or not medical treatment is needed.
2. Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) implemented a blockchain prototype for a global ‘captive’ insurance program including cash transfer between countries.
3. Allianz & Praedicat’s software solution ChemMeta, which delivers science and regulatory risk analytics for industrial companies, uses machine learning and AI to identify emerging product risks.
Bayer
1. Bayer’s Nexavar (Sorafenib) tablets: the first approved targeted therapy for kidney and liver cancer (multi-kinase inhibitor).
2. Eylea is Bayer’s approved new option for treatment of age-related macular degeneration (eye disease leading to blindness).
3. Xarelto: approved for the prevention of venous thromboembolism and stroke in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation.
4. Bayer closed partnerships with strategically important suppliers in order to be able to market biotech medications in a safer and quicker way using innovative primary packaging solutions.
BMW
1. BMW was the first manufacturer worldwide to introduce a fully-variable valve lift system in its Valvetronic engine in the BMW 316ti. The new engine delivered a maximum output of 115 horsepower.
2. The BMW IFTTT (if this then that) app helps customers connect web services to everyday objects. One of the IFTTT functions automatically sends a text message to your children as soon as your car is near their school.
3. The BMW’s iDrive system was inspired by the video game industry. The iDrive system is a solution to operate a relatively complex navigation in a simple way, while still being able to keep your eyes on the road.
Carrefour
1. In Carrefour’s 2022 plan, it shares its transformation plan to adapt its model and organization to become the world leader in food transition.
2. In 2018, Carrefour was awarded the David with Goliath prize for the best alliance and collaboration with the startup company Phénix to tackle food wastage.
3. Aquellefrequence, is an information system developed by Carrefour to help its indecisive customers decide which food to buy.
Daimler
1. Daimler is partnering up with the Fraunhofer NeuroLab to develop emotionally sensitive brain-computer interfaces. These intuitive assistance systems can identify drivers’ emotions and anticipate.
2. Daimler is going all-in on community-based parking in Stuttgart. As vehicles drive by, they collect information about free parking spaces and forward this on to other vehicles with app-assisted parking.
3. In 2017, Daimler was the first to engage in an autonomous vehicles project in Shanghai. This trial project uses autonomous vehicles to power public transit and are being tested on the road under real-life conditions.
Dior
1. The brand launched a new experience via Facebook Messenger called Dior Insider, an AI beauty assistant platform launched to build a stronger connection to Dior’s target consumers.
2. Christian Dior brings cushion compact technology to luxury cosmetics by partnering up with AmorePacific.
3. Dior incorporated virtual reality glasses into its brand image with the aim of giving its customers an extra incentive to visit their stores. Dior also developed Dior Eyes so that viewers can explore behind the scenes at their fashion shows.
GSK
1. GSK uses digital in their product packaging, leveraging new data streams for gathering information about products after they leave the warehouse.
2. GSK was involved in the development of the Kids MD app currently used in Boston Children’s Hospital. It is part of a plan to bring routine, reliable medical guidance quickly to young consumers who cannot read, through voice instead of text-based content.
ING Bank
1. ING has developed Katana Lens, a tool that optimizes bond pricing by using AI to assist trading and investment decisions, cutting trading costs by 25%.
2. ING has opened a developer portal to accelerate innovation by working more closely with external developers, giving them access to selected, simulated ING API’s they can use to jointly create a new customer experience.
3. The UK-based Yolt app allows users to manage their money matters with different banks for different financial services in one place. They are expending to France and Italy as part of ING’s ambition to build a pan-European money platform. Yolt has grown from 100,000 to 250,000 users in 3 months.
4. The new payments platform (NPP) is a payment system that allows customers to move money between accounts in real time.
5. Payconiq is an all-in-one payment app that allows users to make direct payments online, in-store and P2P. Conceived and launched by ING, Payconiq is now supported by a handful of other banks. In Belgium, Payconiq is connected to over 45,000 merchants.
6. Payvision provides one global payment solution by combining 80 of the world’s most popular local payment methods. Payvision processes over 100 million transactions a year.
L’Oreal
1. L’Oreal scientists designed Le Teint Particulier, a process whereby custom foundation shades are created using face-scanning technology.
2. The Chimex plant won the Pierre Potier Prize – awarded to companies that have developed a clean chemical product or procedure – for its quinoa extraction process.
3. €850 million, or 3.3% of sales, are invested in research and innovation, and 3,862 employees are devoted to the task.
Nestle
1. Nestlé partnered with Amazon to make use of its virtual assistant technology Alexa. Using a combination of voice automation and visual browsing, the new platform developed will provide users with healthy recipes based on voice commands.
2. Fried noodles without frying. Nestlé’s 2-minute noodles with 25% less salt and 75% less fat are the result of innovative thinking.
3. Nestlé scientists discovered a way to restructure sugar using natural ingredients, so that with 40% less sugar, chocolate products such as Milkybar are still sweet.
Novartis
1. Novartis Summarizer, an IBM Watson technology, is the first cognitive computing platform that understands, reasons and learns.
2. Novartis was the world’s first major pharmaceutical company to announce an alliance to develop chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapies for cancer. This treatment marked the first time a gene therapy to treat cancer in children and young adults was approved by the FDA.
3. Novartis is making use of AI software to analyze cell images. The goal is to cut the time required to determine the properties and characteristics of new compounds.
Siemens
1. Shorter scanning times, improved image quality: with the new parallel imaging method CAIPIRINHA, Siemens has taken the technology of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) a huge step forward. Siemens Healthineers use the technique in many MRI scanner models.
2. Siemens developed algorithms that catapult product design and production into the future. The algorithm creates lattice structures that contain 100,000 times more geometric primitives than previously possible in design systems. Completely new shapes can be designed and produced as a result.
3. Siemens developed a new measurement system for use in high-voltage applications. Unlike previous devices, this new measurement system needs no electrical supply of its own to measure the voltage and current over transmission lines.
Unilever
1. Persil Powergems is a new kind of detergent that is neither powder nor liquid. It is a new substance with the power to clean, freshen and care in one, the three benefits consumers look for most in a laundry product.
2. Recent Unilever innovations, Knorr Natural & Hellmann’s Organic, play upon the growing demand for natural and authentic products.
3. Unilever has found a way to make ice cream healthier (less sugar and fat) using ice structuring proteins.
4. Unilever’s R&D has pioneered a process that extracts the natural ‘essence’ from pressed leaves to enhance the flavour of the tea blend.
We’re all familiar with the vision of the Hyperloop.
It started as a proposed new form of ultra-high speed passenger and/or freight train, based on the early open-sourced “vactrain” design by Elon Musk’s joint team from Tesla and SpaceX.
Drawing heavily from Robert Goddard’s original vactrain concept, they envisioned a hyperloop is a sealed tube or system of tubes through which a pod may travel free of air resistance or friction conveying people or objects at high speed while being very efficient.
Musk first mentioned that he was thinking about a concept for a “fifth mode of transport”, calling it the Hyperloop, in July 2012 at an event in Santa Monica. This hypothetical high-speed mode of transportation would have the following characteristics: immunity to weather, collision free, twice the speed of a plane, low power consumption, and energy storage for 24-hour operations. The name Hyperloop was chosen because it would go in a loop. Musk envisions the more advanced versions will be able to go at hypersonic speed. In May 2013, Musk likened the Hyperloop to a “cross between a Concorde and a railgun and an air hockey table”.
The concept of transportation of passengers in pneumatic tubes is not new. The first patent to transport goods in tubes was taken out in 1799 by the British mechanical engineer and inventor George Medhurst. In 1812, Medhurst wrote a book detailing his idea of transporting passengers and goods through air-tight tubes using air propulsion. In the early 1800s, there were other similar systems proposed or experimented with and were generally known as an atmospheric railway although this term is also used for systems where the propulsion is provided by a separate pneumatic tube to the train tunnel itself.
The Hyperloop Alpha concept was first published in August 2013, proposing and examining a route running from the Los Angeles region to the San Francisco Bay Area, roughly following the Interstate 5 corridor. The Hyperloop Genesis paper conceived of a hyperloop system that would propel passengers along the 350-mile (560 km) route at a speed of 760 mph (1,200 km/h), allowing for a travel time of 35 minutes, which is considerably faster than current rail or air travel times. Preliminary cost estimates for this LA–SF suggested route were included in the white paper—$6 billion for a passenger-only version, and US$7.5 billion for a somewhat larger-diameter version transporting passengers and vehicles—although transportation analysts had doubts that the system could be constructed on that budget; some analysts claimed that the Hyperloop would be several billion dollars overbudget, taking into consideration construction, development, and operation costs.
The Hyperloop concept has been explicitly “open-sourced” by Musk and SpaceX, and others have been encouraged to take the ideas and further develop them.
To that end, a few companies have been formed, and several interdisciplinary student-led teams are working to advance the technology. SpaceX built an approximately 1-mile-long (1.6 km) subscale track for its pod design competition at its headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
Some experts are skeptical, saying that the proposals ignore the expenses and risks of developing the technology and that the idea is “completely impractical”. Claims have also been made that the Hyperloop is too susceptible to disruption from a power outage or terror attacks to be considered safe.
Key Hyperloop Players
Virgin Hyperloop One
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT)
Transpod
Hardt Global Mobility
The Boring Company
Hyper Chariot/Zeleros
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLFQlraM5tg
Virgin Hyperloop One
Virgin Hyperloop One (formerly Hyperloop One, and before that, Hyperloop Technologies) was incorporated in 2014 and has built a team of 28o people including engineers, technicians, welders, and machinists. It has raised more than US$160 million in capital from investors including DP World, Sherpa Capital, Formation 8, 137 Ventures, Caspian Venture Capital, Fast Digital, GE Ventures, and SNCF.
Hyperloop One was founded by Shervin Pishevar and Brogan BamBrogan. BamBrogan left the company in July 2016, along with three of the other founding members of Arrivo. Hyperloop One then selected Josh Giegel, a former SpaceX engineer, to be a co-founder. Hyperloop One has a 75,000-square foot Innovation Campus in downtown LA and a 100,000-square foot machine and tooling shop in North Las Vegas. By 2017, it had completed a 500m Development Loop (DevLoop) in North Las Vegas, Nevada.
In May 2017, Hyperloop One performed its first full-scale Hyperloop test, becoming the first company in the world to test a full-scale Hyperloop. The system-wide test integrated Hyperloop components including vacuum, propulsion, levitation, sled, control systems, tube, and structures. Soon after, the company revealed images of its first generation pod prototype, which will be used at the DevLoop test site in Nevada to test aerodynamics. The company received a “significant investment” from the Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, leading to a rebrand of the name.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwm3qvFWVRU
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies
HTT was a group of more than 800 engineersand professionals located around the world. Some collaborate part-time; others are full-time employees and contributors. HTT announced in May 2015 that a deal had been finalized with landowners to build a 5-mile (8 km) test track along a stretch of road near Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and San Francisco. In December 2016, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies and the government of Abu Dhabi announced plans to conduct a feasibility study on a Hyperloop link between the UAE capital and Al Ain, reducing travel time between Abu Dhabi and Al Ain to just under 10-minutes. In September 2017, HTT announced and signed an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government to build a track from Amaravathi to Vijayawada in a public-private partnership, and suggested that the more than one hour trip could be reduced to 5 minutes through the project. For yet undisclosed reason, neither the test track that HTT announced in May 2015 nor any other test track has been built in the last 3 years.
TransPod
TransPod Inc. is a Canadian company designing and manufacturing ultra-high-speed tube transportation technology and vehicles. In November 2016 TransPod raised a $15 million USD seed round from Angelo Investments, an Italian high-tech holding group, specializing in advanced technologies for the railway, space, and aviation industries.
TransPod vehicles are being designed to travel at over 1,000 km/h between cities using fully electric propulsion and zero need for fossil fuels.The TransPod tube system is distinct from the hyperloop concept proposed by Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Alpha white paper. The TransPod system uses moving electromagnetic fields to propel the vehicles with stable levitation off the bottom surface, rather than compressed air. TransPod is stated to contain further developments beyond hyperloop. To achieve fossil-fuel-free propulsion, TransPod “pods” take advantage of electrically-driven linear induction motor technology, with active real-time control and sense-space systems. The cargo transport TransPod pods will be able to carry payloads of 10–15 tons and have compatibility with wooden pallets, as well as various unit load devices such as LD3 containers, and AAA containers.
Major Hyperloop Projects
Mumbai-Pune Hyperloop Route – Virgin Hyperloop One
Helsinki-Stockholm Hyperloop Route – Virgin Hyperloop One
The Missouri Hyperloop – Virgin Hyperloop One
Dubai- Abu Dhabi Hyperloop Route – Virgin Hyperloop One
The route suggested in the 2013 alpha-level design document was from the Greater Los Angeles Area to the San Francisco Bay Area. That conceptual system would begin around Sylmar, just south of the Tejon Pass, follow Interstate 5 to the north, and arrive near Hayward on the east side of San Francisco Bay. Several proposed branches were also shown in the design document. No work has been done on the route.
In November, 2017, Arrivo announced a plan for a maglev automobile transport system from Aurora, Colorado to Denver International Airport, the first leg of a system from downtown Denver. Its contract describes completion of the first leg in 2021. In February 2018, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies announced a similar plan for a loop connecting Chicago and Cleveland and a loop connecting Washington and New York City.
On 19 Dec 2018, Elon Musk unveiled a 3 km tunnel below Los Angeles. In the presentation, a Tesla Model X drove on the predefined track. According to Musk the costs for the system are 10 million USD.
India
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies are in process to sign a Letter of Intent with the Indian Government for a proposed route between Chennai and Bengaluru. If things go as planned, the distance of 345 km could be covered in 30 minutes. HTT also signed an agreement with Andhra Pradesh government to build India’s first Hyperloop project connecting Amaravathi to Vijayawada in a 6-minute ride.
On February 22, 2018, Hyperloop One has entered into a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Government of Maharashtra to build a hyperloop transportation system between Mumbai and Pune that would cut the travel time from the current 180 minutes to just 20 minutes.
Europe
Hyperloop One published the world’s first detailed business case for a 300-mile (500 km) route between Helsinki and Stockholm, which would tunnel under the Baltic Sea to connect the two capitals in under 30 minutes. Hyperloop One is also working on passenger routes in Moscow and a cargo Hyperloop to connect Hunchun in north-eastern China to the Port of Zarubino, near Vladivostok and the North Korean border on Russia’s Far East. Others have put forward European routes, including a Paris to Amsterdam route proposed by Delft Hyperloop. A Warsaw University of Technology team is evaluating potential routes from Kracow to Gdańsk across Poland proposed by Hyper Poland.
Middle East
Hyperloop One is also well underway on a feasibility study with DP World to move containers from its Port of Jebel Ali in Dubai. Hyperloop One on November 8, 2016, announced a new feasibility study with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority for passenger and freight routes connecting Dubai with the greater United Arab Emirates.
“Did you know that two-thirds of kids in school today will end up doing a job that hasn’t even been invented yet? That is truly mind-boggling.
And do you know what else? On average, you’ll probably have at least 17 different jobs in your lifetime (but don’t worry, you won’t have to do them all at the same time).
The world around us is changing so fast. It’s no wonder that we sometimes feel anxious about how we fit into it. We question whether we are smart enough. We get a bit scared to have a go in case we look stupid. And sometimes it’s tempting to quit before we’ve even tried having a go at something.
Lots of anxieties and worries can hold us back. So let’s take a look and see how we can overcome them. Because it’s good to be READY. PREPPED. CONFIDENT. ON FIRE! We need to find our confidence to deal with all the changes and challenges that life can bring.”
That’s an extract from the new children’s book by Matthew Syed introducing the “growth mindset” in a way that is practical, understandable and inspiring to kids. And adults too.
Having spent the last year working with the business leadership team of Microsoft, I realise what a difference the growth mindset can make to an organisation. More open, more confident, more innovative, more collaborative, more positive, more inspired.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, describes how the concept is perhaps the most important in turning around Microsoft from a struggling incumbent, surviving on its past glories, to being a forward-looking, future-shaping innovator again.
“As well as standing on podiums, and having my picture in the newspapers, the journey I went on changed me in so many ways. Here are some of the things I learned along the way:
No one is born with a table-tennis bat in their hand, a calculator in their head or Mandarin as their second language.
Getting good at something takes time, it doesn’t happen overnight. (In fact, especially not overnight – I’m usually asleep.)
Becoming awesome at something takes time; becoming a world champion takes even longer.
Everyone that learns to become good at something has made loads (and I mean LOADS) of mistakes
No one wants to admit how hard they practise, so don’t believe anyone who tells you they are effortlesslybrilliant or clever. They are very probably lying.
I don’t instantly give up when things get hard. Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean that I am rubbish and should stop trying. It often just means I haven’t found the right strategy (the equivalent of Omega and Mr Charters) quite yet.
I can’t be good at everything. I mean, there are definitely a lot of things I could be better at if I actually practised them (I tried to mend my skateboard once, I fixed the king pin but two wheels fell off. DIY skateboard mechanics are NOT recommended). But there are only 24 hours in a day.
Of course, I’m still as likely as the next person to sleepily put my pants on back to front first thing in the morning. I’m only human, after all, but I still find it amazing to think that small decisions we make about whether or not to give up on something difficult can have such a big impact on our lives. It would’ve been very easy in my case to have turned my back on table tennis because I was rubbish at it. And believe me I was bad! But I didn’t. I set my mind to it, persevered, improved my skills and set off on my journey to become the very best I could be.
So, before we look at ways to take on our new challenges, let’s look at what might be holding us back. What might make us give up when things get a bit hard? I can tell you from my experience that overcoming these obstacles can only make you stronger.”
Insurance is all about risk. Customers fear it, insurers profit from it, and it’s impossibly hard to quantify.
While not the most glamorous of industries, insurance can be a life-saving protector, pooling everyone’s premiums to safeguard against some of our greatest, most unexpected losses. It is also one of the most profitable industries in the world, with over $2 trillion in annual revenues.
But risk is becoming predictable, which challenges the very concept of insurance.
Soon, we’ll be living in a trillion-sensor economy, projected to generate bronto-bytes (1000 trillion trillion) of data. So as we enter a world where everything is measured all the time, we’ll start to transition from protecting against damages to preventing them in the first place.
But what happens to health insurance when your insurer is always watching? Do rates go up when you sneak a cigarette? Do they go down when you eat your vegetables? And what happens to auto insurance when most cars are autonomous? Or life insurance when the human lifespan doubles?
For that matter, what happens to insurance brokers when blockchain makes them irrelevant?
So what does the future look like for the insurance sector?
In October of 2016, a claim was submitted to Lemonade, the world’s first peer-to-peer insurance company. Rather than being processed by a human, every step in this claim resolution chain — from initial triage through fraud mitigation through final payment — was handled by an AI.
This transaction marks the first time an AI has processed an insurance claim. And it won’t be the last. A traditional human-processed claim takes 40 days to pay out. In Lemonade’s case, payment was transferred within three seconds.
However, Lemonade’s achievement only marks a starting point. Over the course of the next decade, nearly every facet of the insurance industry will undergo a similarly massive transformation. New business models like peer-to-peer insurance are replacing traditional brokerage relationships, while AI and blockchain pairings significantly reduce the layers of bureaucracy required (with each layer getting a cut) for traditional insurance.
Consider Juniper, a startup that scrapes social media to build your risk assessment, subsequently asking you 12 questions via an iPhone app. Geared with advanced analytics, the platform can generate a million-dollar life insurance policy, approved in less than five minutes.
AXA plans to cooperate with a centralized home hub whereby remote monitoring will collect data for future analysis and detect abnormalities. With remote monitoring and app-centralized control for users, MonAXA is aimed at customizing insurance bundles. These would reflect exact security features embedded in smart homes.
Wouldn’t you prefer not to have to rely on insurance after a burglary? With digital ecosystems, insurers may soon prevent break-ins from the start.
By gathering sensor data from third parties on neighborhood conditions, historical theft data, suspicious activity and other risk factors, an insurtech firm might automatically put your smart home on high alert, activating alarms and specialized locks in advance of an attack.
Insurance policy premiums are predicted to vastly reduce with lessened likelihood of insured losses. But insurers moving into preventive insurtech will likely turn a profit from other areas of their business. PwC predicts that the connected home market will reach $149 billion USD by 2020.
Car insurance premiums are currently calculated according to the driver and traits of the car. But as more autonomous vehicles take to the roads, not only does liability shift to manufacturers and software engineers, but the risk of collision falls dramatically.
But let’s take this a step further. In a future of autonomous cars, you will no longer own your car, instead subscribing to Transport as a Service (TaaS) and giving up the purchase of automotive insurance altogether.
This paradigm shift has already begun with Waymo, which automatically provides passengers with insurance every time they step into a Waymo vehicle. And with the rise of smart traffic systems, sensor-embedded roads, and skyrocketing autonomous vehicle technology, the risks involved in transit only continue to plummet.
Perhaps the best example of innovation in the insurance business comes from Chinese company PingAn, which has grown rapidly in recent years to become one of the world’s largest insurers, and a leader in embracing new technologies.
Key to PingAn’s future thinking is to look beyond insurance – by reframing new business opportunities around the broader needs of its customers. For example, rather than just think of health insurance, PingAn is exploring the future of healthcare, both in offering wellbeing services that reduce risks and medical services when people need help. It is doing the same is motor insurance, by developing mobility companies, and in home insurance by developing real estate companies.
Japan’s Sompo has a similar strategy, based around creating a “theme park of wellbeing” by which it means creating a wide portfolio of health, fitness, wellbeing and lifestyle services that enable people to do more, rather than waiting for things to go wrong.
PingAn and Sompo perhaps best illustrates the real future for insurance, when they look beyond insurance itself, to help people to do what they actually want to do, in more effective ways.
Steven Johnson is best-selling author of books including Wonderland, Where Good Ideas Come From, and The Ghost Map, and the host of the BBC series “How We Got To Now”. His writing delves into the intersection of science and technology within our lives, and have influenced everything from the way political campaigns use the internet, to cutting-edge ideas in urban planning, and much more. He was chosen by Prospect magazine as one of the Top Ten Brains of the Digital Future, and The Wall Street Journal called him “one of the most persuasive advocates for the role of collaboration in innovation.”
His new book Farsighted: How We Make Decisions That Matter considers if the hardest choices are also the most consequential, why do we know so little about how to get them right? In answering this, he draws lessons from cognitive science, social psychology, military strategy, environmental planning, and great works of literature to explore how we might best think about a world fraught with uncertainty.
Plenty of books offer useful advice on how to get better at making quick-thinking, intuitive choices. But what about more consequential decisions, the ones that affect our lives for years, or centuries, to come? Our most powerful stories revolve around these kinds of decisions: where to live, whom to marry, what to believe, whether to start a company, how to end a war.
Everyone thinks we are living in an age of short attention spans, but we’ve actually learned a lot about making long-term decisions over the past few decades. Johnson makes a compelling case for a smarter and more deliberative decision-making approach. He argues that we choose better when we break out of the myopia of single-scale thinking and develop methods for considering all the factors involved.
What are the habits of people who excel at long-term thinking?
Adam Grant from Wharton, reviewing the book said “One of Johnson’s thought-provoking points is that they read novels, which are ideal exercises in mental time travel and empathy. I think he’s right. That said, I’ve also found value in other evidence-based techniques for catapulting our brains into the future, like coming face-to-face with an image of ourselves digitally aged to make us look 30 years older. And I finished this book curious about whether looking farther into the past is another way to paint a richer portrait of the future.”
After reading Farsighted, am I more aware of all the difficulties of making long-term decisions? Definitely. Do I feel better equipped to make those decisions? I’m not sure. This is an idea book. You won’t find the easy formulas that dominate the self-help genre or the 2×2 matrices common to business books. Johnson left me more convinced than ever of the psychologist Ellen Langer’s advice for making tough choices: “Don’t make the right decision. Make the decision right.” Since you’ll never have enough information to make the best choice, all you can do is make the best of the choice you’ve made.
Yet maybe that’s the point. As a species, we’re wired to be nearsighted. Flipping to farsighted requires peering into a crystal ball. Your vision will always be blurry. But there’s no better corrective lens than a clear diagnosis of just how myopic you are. If you want to improve at predicting the future, start by recognizing how unpredictable it is.
To refresh the world … To inspire moments of optimism and happiness … To create value and make a difference …
Coca Cola’s purpose statement suggests that the brand seeks to do much more than sell soft drinks. But is this a meaningful statement, that drives attitudes and actions inside The Coca Cola Company that you would never find in Pepsico, or is it just a nice marketing-type of line?
Purpose statements, missions and visions, principles and values, brand slogans and advertising lines. We find them everywhere. The danger is that they can become meaningless, marketing fluff.
So when do they really have meaning? When they focus on making life better, when they inspire people to achieve more, when they are shared intent with customers, when they are loved by people inside and out, and when they are delivered at every point, on every day.
For so long, people thought Airbnb was about renting houses. But really, we’re about home. You see, a house is just a space, but a home is where you belong. And what makes this global community so special is that for the very first time, you can belong anywhere. That is the idea at the core of our company: belonging.
Amazon
The Amazon Fact sheet, “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company where people can find and discover anything they want to buy online.”
Amazon expands on this with “This goal continues today, but Amazon’s customers are worldwide now, and have grown to include millions of Consumers, Sellers, Content Creators, and Developers & Enterprises. Each of these groups has different needs, and we always work to meet those needs, innovating new solutions to make things easier, faster, better, and more cost-effective.”
Apple’s mission statement seems surprisingly dull and uninspiring:
“Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.”
Learn About Apple’s Mission Statement? suggests that this statement which Tim Cook shares with new employees does a better job capturing what the company’s mission is: “Apple has always been different. A different kind of company with a different view of the world. It’s a special place where we have the opportunity to create the best products on earth – products that change lives and help shape the future. It’s a privilege we hold dear.”
The mission of The Walt Disney Company is to be one of the world’s leading producers and providers of entertainment and information. Using our portfolio of brands to differentiate our content, services and consumer products, we seek to develop the most creative, innovative and profitable entertainment experiences and related products in the world.
Google
When this article originally published in 2014, you could immediately locate the Google mission and company philosophy on the ‘about us’ page.
“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
The company philosophy listed the following 10 values that Google holds to be true:
Focus on the user and all else will follow.
It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
Fast is better than slow.
Democracy on the web works.
You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
At IKEA our vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people. Our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.
“Warby Parker was founded with a rebellious spirit and a lofty objective: to offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price, while leading the way for socially conscious businesses.”
It then further describes
We started Warby Parker to create an alternative.
By circumventing traditional channels, designing glasses in-house, and engaging with customers directly, we’re able to provide higher-quality, better-looking prescription eyewear at a fraction of the going price.
We believe that buying glasses should be easy and fun. It should leave you happy and good-looking, with money in your pocket.
We also believe that everyone has the right to see.
The CEO Genome is a research project by two authors, Elena Botelho and Kim Powell, built on an in-depth analysis of 2,600 leaders to write a new book The CEO Next Door on what it takes to get to the top.
It reveals the common attributes and counterintuitive choices that set apart successful CEOs. They draw out lessons that we can apply to our own careers, no matter where we are and where we strive to get to.
Much of what we hear about who gets to the top and how is wrong.
Those who become chief executives set their sights on the C-suite at an early age. In fact, over 70 percent of the CEOs didn’t have designs on the corner office until later in their careers.
You must graduate from an elite college. Only 7 percent of CEOs in the data set are Ivy League graduates—and 8 percent didn’t graduate from college at all.
To become a CEO you need a flawless résumé. The reality: 45 percent of CEO candidates had at least one major career blowup.
What those who reach the top do share are four key behaviours that anyone can master:
They are decisive
They are relentlessly reliable
They adapt boldly
They engage with stakeholders without shying away from conflict
It’s rare for successful leaders to excel at all four behaviours, but most excel in more than one. Here is a short extract from an HBR article the researchers wrote to describe the behaviours in more detail:
1. Deciding with speed and conviction.
Legends about CEOs who always seem to know exactly how to steer their companies to wild success seem to abound in business. But we discovered that high-performing CEOs do not necessarily stand out for making great decisions all the time; rather, they stand out for being more decisive. They make decisions earlier, faster, and with greater conviction. They do so consistently—even amid ambiguity, with incomplete information, and in unfamiliar domains. In our data, people who were described as “decisive” were 12 times more likely to be high-performing CEOs.
Interestingly, the highest-IQ executives we coach, those who relish intellectual complexity, sometimes struggle the most with decisiveness. While the quality of their decisions is often good, because of their pursuit of the perfect answer, they can take too long to make choices or set clear priorities—and their teams pay a high price. These smart but slow decision makers become bottlenecks, and their teams either grow frustrated (which can lead to the attrition of valuable talent) or become overcautious themselves, stalling the entire enterprise. So it’s no surprise that when we looked more closely at the executives who were rated poor on decisiveness, we found that only 6% received low marks because they made decisions too quickly. The vast majority—94%—scored low because they decided too little, too late.
High-performing CEOs understand that a wrong decision is often better than no decision at all. As former Greyhound CEO Stephen Gorman, who led the bus operator through a turnaround, told us, “A bad decision was better than a lack of direction. Most decisions can be undone, but you have to learn to move with the right amount of speed.”
Decisive CEOs recognize that they can’t wait for perfect information. “Once I have 65% certainty around the answer, I have to make a call,” says Jerry Bowe, CEO of the private-label manufacturer Vi-Jon. But they do work actively to solicit multiple points of view and often poll a relatively small, carefully cultivated “kitchen cabinet” of trusted advisers who can be counted on for unvarnished opinions and sound judgment.
Bowe motivates himself to act on decisions by framing things this way: “I ask myself two questions: First, what’s the impact if I get it wrong? And second, how much will it hold other things up if I don’t move on this?” That approach, he says, also inspires his team members to trust their own judgment on operational decisions—which is critical to freeing the CEO up to home in on fewer but more important decisions.
To that end, successful CEOs also know when not to decide. Stephen Kaufman, former CEO of Arrow Electronics, suggests that it is all too easy to get caught up in a volley of decision making. He advises pausing briefly to consider whether a decision should actually be made lower down in the organization and if delaying it a week or a month would allow important information to emerge without causing irreparable harm.
But once a path is chosen, high-performing CEOs press ahead without wavering. Art Collins, former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, told us: “Employees and other key constituencies will quickly lose faith in leaders who waffle or backtrack once a decision is made.” And if decisions don’t turn out well? Our analysis suggests that while every CEO makes mistakes, most of them are not lethal. We found that among CEOs who were fired over issues related to decision making, only one-third lost their jobs because they’d made bad calls; the rest were ousted for being indecisive.
2. Engaging for impact.
Once CEOs set a clear course for the business, they must get buy-in among their employees and other stakeholders. We found that strong performers balance keen insight into their stakeholders’ priorities with an unrelenting focus on delivering business results. They start by developing an astute understanding of their stakeholders’ needs and motivations, and then get people on board by driving for performance and aligning them around the goal of value creation. In our data, CEOs who deftly engaged stakeholders with this results orientation were 75% more successful in the role.
CEOs who excel at bringing others along plan and execute disciplined communications and influencing strategies. “With any big decision, I create a stakeholder map of the key people who need to be on board,” explains Madeline Bell, CEO of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “I identify the detractors and their concerns, and then I think about how I can take the energy that they might put into resistance and channel it into something positive. I make it clear to people that they’re important to the process and they’ll be part of a win. But at the end of the day, you have to be clear that you’re making the call and you expect them on board.”
When interacting with stakeholders, CEOs like Bell are acutely aware of how their moods and body language can affect the impact of their communications. Though much has been written about “emotional contagion,” new CEOs are often surprised by the unintended damage that can be caused by a stray word or gesture. “Every comment and facial expression you make will be read and magnified 10 times by the organization,” says Kaufman. “If you grimace during someone’s presentation because of your bad back, the person making the presentation thinks they’ve been fired.” Composure is a job requirement, and more than three-quarters of the strong CEO candidates in our sample demonstrated calm under pressure.
CEOs who engage stakeholders do not invest their energy in being liked or protecting their teams from painful decisions. In fact, both those behaviors are commonly seen in lower-performing CEOs. Instead, the skilled CEOs gain the support of their colleagues by instilling confidence that they will lead the team to success, even if that means making uncomfortable or unpopular moves. These CEOs do not shy away from conflict in the pursuit of business goals; in fact, in our analysis two-thirds of the CEOs who excelled at engagement were rated as strong in conflict management. The ability to handle clashing viewpoints also seems to help candidates advance to the CEO’s office. When we analyzed leaders who’d made it there significantly faster than average, one of the qualities that stood out was their willingness to engage in conflict.
When tackling contentious issues, leaders who are good at engagement give everyone a voice but not a vote. They listen and solicit views but do not default to consensus-driven decision making. “Consensus is good, but it’s too slow, and sometimes you end up with the lowest common denominator,” says Christophe Weber, CEO of Takeda Pharmaceutical. Weber makes a habit of having unstructured meetings with 20 to 30 of the company’s high potentials before making key decisions. The goal of those meetings is to challenge him and present him with new perspectives, but he is careful not to create the illusion of democracy.
None of this means that CEOs should behave as autocrats or lone wolves. Typically we see “take no prisoners” CEOs last only as long as the company has no choice but to submit to shock therapy. These CEOs often get ousted as soon as the business emerges from crisis mode—they lose the support of their teams or of board members who’ve grown tired of the collateral damage. It’s no coincidence that the careers of turnaround CEOs are frequently a series of lucrative two- to three-year stints; they put out the fires and then move on to the next assignment.
3. Adapting proactively.
For evidence of how important it is for businesses and leaders to adjust to a rapidly changing environment, we need look no further than the aftermath of Brexit and the recent U.S. presidential election. Our analysis shows that CEOs who excel at adapting are 6.7 times more likely to succeed. CEOs themselves told us over and over that this skill was critical. When asked what differentiates effective CEOs, Dominic Barton, global managing partner of McKinsey & Company, immediately offered: “It’s dealing with situations that are not in the playbook. As a CEO you are constantly faced with situations where a playbook simply cannot exist. You’d better be ready to adapt.”
Most CEOs know they have to divide their attention among short-, medium-, and long-term perspectives, but the adaptable CEOs spent significantly more of their time—as much as 50%—thinking about the long term. Other executives, by contrast, devoted an average of 30% of their time to long-term thinking. We believe a long-term focus helps because it makes CEOs more likely to pick up on early signals. Highly adaptable CEOs regularly plug into broad information flows: They scan wide networks and diverse sources of data, finding relevance in information that may at first seem unrelated to their businesses. As a result, they sense change earlier and make strategic moves to take advantage of it.
Adaptable CEOs also recognize that setbacks are an integral part of changing course and treat their mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow. In our sample, CEOs who considered setbacks to be failures had 50% less chance of thriving. Successful CEOs, on the other hand, would offer unabashedly matter-of-fact accounts of where and why they had come up short and give specific examples of how they tweaked their approach to do better next time. Similarly, aspiring CEOs who demonstrated this kind of attitude (what Stanford’s Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset”) were more likely to make it to the top of the pyramid: Nearly 90% of the strong CEO candidates we reviewed scored high on dealing with setbacks.
4. Delivering reliably.
Mundane as it may sound, the ability to reliably produce results was possibly the most powerful of the four essential CEO behaviors. In our sample, CEO candidates who scored high on reliability were twice as likely to be picked for the role and 15 times more likely to succeed in it. Boards and investors love a steady hand, and employees trust predictable leaders.
Leaders ignore the importance of reliability at their peril. Simon—a high-potential executive we were asked to coach—was known as a miracle worker at his company. In a culture where exceeding plan by 2% was seen as a win, he had just delivered 150% of his revenue target. While he’d had some misses in the past, he was now successfully running the company’s largest business unit—its crown jewel. When Simon threw his hat into the ring for a promotion to CEO, the directors were impressed with his recent exceptional performance, but they didn’t fully understand how he’d achieved it, and as a result they doubted it was replicable. So the board opted instead for a “safer” candidate who was known for delivering steady, predictable results year after year.
5 years ago today Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft.
Since taking charge he has turned the company’s fortunes around, tripling its market value, making it the most valuable company in the world for the first time since 2002. In November 2018, Microsoft once again had the highest market capitalisation on the planet, and has tussled with Amazon for the lead ever since.
Over the last 9 months I’ve been working closely with Microsoft.
My challenge was to help them to be “Gamechangers“, using the concepts and methodologies of my recent book by the same name. In fact it isn’t really about Microsoft, it is about their business customers. Its about how Microsoft, through the power of its fabulous technologies like AI and cloud – products like Azure and Hololens, and the services that bring them to life – can enable their customers to “change the game” – to transform the world’s of aviation or automobiles, finance or fashion.
“We don’t want to be the cool company in the tech sector,” Nadella says “We want to be the company that makes other people cool.” By which he means, the mission is to build Microsoft as the enabling force behind today’s business world. Whilst his predecessors burnt their fingers trying to create branded hardware, most notably acquiring Nokia’s mobile business, Nadella is happier to create the smart insides of other people’s solutions.
To be the partner, the enabler, to empower others to be great.
An early morning 10km run around the huge Microsoft Campus in Redmond was more like a history tour, spotting Bill Gates’ old office, and many more almost-historic sites. But go inside the building and work with its people, and there is a very different vibe.
This is Satya Nadella’s tribe. Witness the number of cricket pitches around the campus, a game which he loves. And the many pop-up “hackathons” too. Since becoming CEO almost three years ago, he has certainly “Hit Refresh“, as his book is entitled.
But this is not a cult of leadership, or a hierarchy of command. Nadella is a very modern leader, recognising that his role is not to be the expert, the hero, the decision-maker – but to be the facilitator, the connector, the enabler. Behind that behaviour is a powerful use of the “Growth Mindset” concept. Nowhere will you find this approach to leadership more clear, applied and powerful as in today’s Microsoft.
“Growth mindset” is a simple but incredibly powerful concept. I use it constantly in my work with business leaders around the world. One of the biggest problems companies run into, and the successful ones even more so, is that they keep trying to perfect their existing world. Instead, it’s probably time to let go. As the world changes, ever more dramatically, maybe you should too. Look forwards not back, experiment with new ideas, rather than seek to optimise the old. Efficiency savings won’t create your future, but ideas and imagination just might. Move from diminishing returns to exponential opportunities.
“Don’t be a know-it-all, be a learn-it-all.” is a frequent Nadella quote. “In 2014, we cancelled our company meeting where our leaders would tell employees what was important, in favour of having a hackathon that lets our employees tell our leaders what’s important,” recalls Jeff Ramos, head of the Microsoft Garage, where employees with a bright idea can come and experiment, build, hack, and see if it has legs.
I took an immediate liking to Satya (people refer to him by his first name) who happens to the same age as me (ok, one month older).
When I watched him take to the stage at Microsoft Envision in Orlando last September, there was a real energy in the room. From him – a great beaming smile, an uplifting speech, an entirely positive demeanour – but also from his team too. He believes in a new business world – one where teams beat hierarchy, where collaboration beats competition, where humanity is always superior to technology, and where dreams outperform numbers.
And a few weeks later we got the validation. Microsoft became the world’s most valuable company again. Knocking Apple and Amazon off their top spots, and showing that old “dinosaurs” really can come back from the dead.
Here’s an extract from how The Telegraph reported the event moment last November when Microsoft soared above Apple and Amazon, to become the world’s #1 again:
“The 43-year-old software company, not long ago seen as a dinosaur of the tech industry, has in recent months overtaken its younger peers, Amazon and Google, in value.
This week, it went one better. On Monday, Microsoft leapfrogged its old rival Apple for the first time since 2010, making it the world’s most valuable public company for the first time in 16 years. Since then, the two have repeatedly traded the top spot. The moment caps an extraordinary comeback for a company that many were prepared to consign to history.
Not many companies have second chances, especially one that had become as monolithic as Microsoft. In early 2009, when its share price was at its lowest point this century, the company was reeling from the disastrous launch of Windows Vista, the long-awaited but bug-riddled successor to its wildly successful predecessor Windows XP.
The Zune, its supposed iPod-killer, had become a bad joke. Internet Explorer’s dominance over the web was being gradually chipped away by a not-for-profit browser called Firefox and the newly-released Google Chrome. In the first quarter of the year, Microsoft’s revenues fell, for the first time in its 23 years as a public company.
And while it had spent its time trying to fix its numerous problems, including a long-running antitrust battle with the European Commission, Apple had launched the product that would change the computing world for good. The iPhone, released in 2007, caught Microsoft flat-footed. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, famously laughed it off at the time, saying it would never seize more than 4pc of the market.
Ballmer, who had taken charge of Microsoft from Bill Gates in 2000, could not have been more wrong, a fact that was made abundantly clear when, in 2010, Apple’s value surpassed that of its old rival. Even the death of Steve Jobs, who in earlier years had enjoyed nothing more than taking a pop at Bill Gates, did not slow Apple down, and a year later it became the world’s most valuable company, surpassing the oil giant Exxon Mobil.
Meanwhile, Microsoft was horribly weighed down by internal bureaucracy and infighting. At times, the company seemed more at war with itself than with its competitors. Little wonder, then, that it missed the three great consumer waves of the 21st century: search engines, social networking and smartphones. Its lack of direction was exemplified by the €5.4bn purchase of Nokia’s mobile phone division in 2013, a move that came far too late to work, if it ever could have. At the time, it seemed more likely that Microsoft would go the way of IBM and HP: a company that, albeit still valuable, had its best days behind it.
But in 2019, Microsoft’s floundering looks like a blessing in disguise, as the markets it missed out on suddenly look less valuable.
The smartphone market remains highly profitable, but sales are falling in what analysts have termed a “recession”. The digital advertising market that powers Google is showing some signs of running out of puff. And the less said about social networks these days, the better. (Microsoft’s own foray into the space, its $26bn acquisition of LinkedIn two years ago, has largely avoided the storm that Facebook and Twitter have been battling).
One could argue that had Microsoft been in any way successful in any of these areas it would be in worse shape right now. But by the time Satya Nadella replaced Ballmer in 2014, it knew it had to try move on.
Under Nadella, Microsoft has not exactly abandoned the everyday consumer, but neither are they a priority. The company’s attention is largely focused on getting businesses to adopt its corporate offerings – its Office software such as Word, Outlook and Excel – and its computer server business.
But its most notable success has been the cloud computing division Azure, a business that few outside the tech industry have heard of. Companies using Azure gain access to Microsoft’s data centres, which allow them to run applications and host services without having to buy their own hardware. It is not as glamorous a business as smartphones, but it is growing much faster: Azure revenues increased by 76pc in Microsoft’s most-recent quarter.
Meanwhile, a series of other bets appear to be paying off. HoloLens, the company’s augmented reality headset, has hardly become the mass-market product that Microsoft might have hoped when it was first announced almost four years ago, but on Wednesday the company revealed it had won a $480m contract to supply them to the US military. Other businesses, such as its Surface tablets and Xbox gaming console, have been reinvented in recent years, leading to healthy growth.
For years, it looked as if Microsoft was losing in the areas of the tech industry that really mattered. What investors did not see at the time is that its time in the wilderness allowed it to reinvent itself. As the rest of the industry struggles with a stock market crash, fears over fake news and the threat of internet regulation, Microsoft’s past failures have paved the way for the company’s renaissance.
Hygge
A couple of years ago, the world went crazy for “hygge”… that untranslatable word that became understood and loved around the world.
The Danish concept of simplicity, coziness, and wellbeing has been translated into a design style, self-care routines and visions of covetable winter escapes complete with a roaring fire, wool blankets, and snow gently falling outside.
And then when Denmark became the world’s happiest country, people started to believe that higgle was more than a cute book of inspiration, and a way to sell infinitive Scandi lifestyle products.
And then other words started to emerge:
Lykke
Lykke is the Danish word for happiness. It’s easy to see why the Danes are happier. Not only do they have equal parental leave for men and women, free higher education and trains that run on time, but they burn more candles per household than anywhere else.
No one needs to emigrate to achieve happiness! What we can do, however, is import happiness tips and tricks from other cultures that will help us become more satisfied with our lives.
In France, for instance, they have a wonderful culture around meals. It’s not just food that they value, it is the whole eating experience and, more specifically, how it encourages people to spend time and socialise with one another, and how that impacts on happiness. The extra time invested is about togetherness, not eating more – in fact, while the French spend twice as much time eating meals as people in the UK, they have lower obesity rates and a longer life expectancy.
Another tip I’ve picked up is from Bhutan, where the school day starts with a mindfulness exercise called ‘brain brushing’ that leads to better academic performance and higher levels of wellbeing. And in Denmark, most people (50 per cent, in fact) cycle to work – so exercise is built into their daily routine.
Fika
Fika is often translated from Swedish as “a coffee and cake break”, which is kind of correct, but really it is much more than that. It is a concept, a state of mind, an attitude and an important part of Swedish culture. Many Swedes consider that it is almost essential to make time for fika every day. It means making time for friends and colleagues to share a cup of coffee (or tea) and a little something to eat.
Fika cannot be experienced at your desk by yourself. That would just be taking coffee and cake. Fika is a ritual. Even the mighty Volvo plant stops for fika. All Swedes consider it important to make time to stop and socialise: to take a pause. It refreshes the brain and strengthens relationships. And it makes good business sense: firms have better teams and are more productive where fika is institutionalised. Fika can be a verb. Swedes will say to each other, “Let’s go and fika!” or “You and I fika together so well”.
Exactly what you eat during fika is not really important. The food is incidental to the companionship, the socialising and catching up with friends and colleagues. But whatever food you choose for fika it should be fresh and well presented. Ideally it should be homemade. Many team leaders in Sweden consider it important to regularly bake something at home to take into work for fika.
Lagom
Hot off the hygge trails, the Swedish word “lagom” is all about balance and the joy of a life of moderation. In essence, lagom means just the right amount. Enoughness. A particularly hard concept for the Type-A achievers out there.
Lagom can apply to work, of course, but also smartphone use, food, social media, virtually every aspect of life. Perhaps in striving for lagom, instead of striving for the most or the best, we can find a smidge of that elusive state we know as balance.
Ataraxia
The simple translation from Greek: a state of serene calmness. More precisely, the term ataraxia comes from the Greek scientist and philosopher, Epicurus, and alludes to being free of unnecessary desires, or more literally, freedom from worry.
According to Epicurus’ philosophy, people should seek the absence of pain, not the pursuit of pleasure. The former results in peace of mind and tranquility while the latter ends up causing more dissatisfaction after a temporary lift.
In today’s world, we can seek ataraxia by spending more energy cultivating ideas, friendships with like-minded people, taking care of our health and becoming more aware of what emotions—positive or negative—cause pain and which bring happiness to our lives.
Apprivoise
Apprivoise in French literally translates to English as “to tame” but that interpretation doesn’t tell the whole story. To tame something implies a certain submissiveness or domestication. However, apprivoise actually means to make ties with someone or something who was previously unknown in a sea of others. It’s the act of forming a bond, of creating links between one another.
By making something special to us, it becomes known and therefore ours. We become known to each other, endearing to each other, and begin loving each other through the forging of small moments of connection. In this world of building walls instead of bridges, we could all use a little more apprivoise in our lives.
Ikigai
The Japanese concept of ikigai centers around a life of meaning. When you’re “finding your ikigai” you’re searching for that sweet spot where your passion, profession, skills and what you can offer the world meet. In short: your purpose, or reason for being.
While Westerners might be quick to equate ikigai with work and career, it doesn’t have to be. In fact, having ikigai in retirement is said to have a positive impact on longevity and wellbeing in old age. It could be your family, hobby, art or anything you tend to or cultivate.
Wabi Sabi
In Japan, wabi sabi loosely translates to the acceptance of imperfection and transience, both as a design aesthetic and a lifestyle philosophy. Rooted in Zen Buddhism, wabi sabi isn’t easily translated, but its essence boils down to the wisdom of nature and simplicity combined with the beauty of age, flaws, and impermanence. At its core, it’s a feeling that guides us toward a more fulfilling and meaningful way of living based in authenticity.
Isn’t it welcoming to let go of the idea of youth, newness, and perfection and instead put value on the wisdom and beauty gained from maturity, hardships, resilience and the messiness of life?
Wu Wei
The ancient Chinese, or more precisely, the ancient Taoist principle of wu wei is essentially the art of non-action. Before you double up on your Netflix marathon sessions, wu wei isn’t about being lazy or turning a blind eye. It’s about letting go of struggle and effort to embrace ease and flow.
Wu wei relies on the understanding of nature, and how everything is done in its own way and in its own timing. That way, when we take action it’s strategic, aligned and in flow with the natural order of things. The idea is that when we do less, we preserve ourselves for action when necessary, leading to more precise and effective results. In other words: Get into alignment before taking action.
Sisu
Sisu is a Finnish concept described as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness and is held by Finns themselves to express their national character.
It is said to be a grim, gritty, white-knuckle form of courage that is presented typically in situations where success is against the odds. It expresses itself in taking action against the odds and displaying courage and resoluteness in the face of adversity, in other words, deciding on a course of action and then sticking to that decision, even despite repeated failures. It is in some ways similar to equanimity, with the addition of a grim kind of stress management.
“Gutsy” is a fairly close translation that uses the same metaphor (found in more languages than Finnish and English), as the word derives from sisus, which means “interior” and “entrails, guts”. A concept closely related to sisu is grit, which shares some of its denoting elements with sisu, save for “stress management” and passion for a long-term goal.
