Love & Work
A notebook about how we work, learn, love and live.
This week, Debbie and I went into Boston to see the Van Gogh, an Immersive Experience show. It was disappointing, falling far short of the the hype. But we did still get to do a deep dive into the creative process, as our hosts played parts 1 and 2 of Get Back, the story of the writing and recording of the Beatles final albums.
One the biggest takeaways is that there is no magic in the act of creativity. These guys were worker bees. They went to the studio every day, worked all day, and checked out at the end of the day, day after day. It's fun to hear the songs we know so well emerge, and it is nothing less than astounding to be able to see where they started. If you haven't seen it yet, you have something to look forward to.
Happy Friday.
How We Live
Supporting inner well-being is not just an individual pursuit. It benefits others, workplaces and communities, too.
Illustration by Helena Pallarés
"Supporting the inner well-being of change makers can boost capacity for innovation and collaboration. Encouraging organizational well-being can enhance staff resilience and lead to more effective solutions to social and environmental challenges. Recognizing and processing intergenerational trauma can foster individual and community health. And expanding our definition of economic growth to include collective well-being and environmental sustainability can support widespread, systems-level change. Indeed, we cannot conveniently compartmentalize ourselves in an interlinked world, nor can we bifurcate our social, political, and economic systems from the larger environments in which they exist." - Randall Amster & Linda Bell Grdina
Article: Integrating Individual Well-Being With Environmental Systems
Learning
Because we have "hearing brains" sound connects us all.
"The raison d’être of professor Nina Kraus’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, at Northwestern University, is understanding how the brain makes sense of sounds. By conducting studies involving thousands of participants from ages 0 to 90, her team has found that the sonic environments we live in shape the biological infrastructure of our auditory systems, be it in favorable ways (as experienced by those who are bilingual, or who play music) or unfavorable ones (known to those who have experienced hearing loss or concussions). The 'hearing brain,' as Kraus calls it, also affects other internal functions, including emotions, movement, and thought processes. Because of the profound ways that sound impacts who we are, the lab’s findings suggest, developing an awareness of soundscapes—and learning how to create and surround ourselves with positive ones—is of utmost importance." - Meaghan McGovern
Article: How Everyday Sounds Shape Our Brains
Futures Thinking
Utopian thinking is good for business.
"The original utopian ideas came from Thomas More in his book Utopia, published in 1516. He talked about the problems of his current day, with the solutions based in a fictional society that included representative democracy, religious freedom, and no private property rights. Everyone participated in farming and had a trade, both men and women. And no one had to work more than six hours a day, which sounds pretty nice, actually.
"Utopia inspires people to change the world. It’s all about imagining a better society. Because it is fantasy, it can free us from the constraints of taken-for-granted norms and give us insights into other ways of being and doing. If we translate our utopian imaginings into principles to live by, it also helps us set goals.
"If we don't imagine the future we want, we're never going to get there. Instead, the future will be influenced by people who did imagine it but maybe whose values are different from our own." - Charlene Zietsma
Article: Why Business Should Imagine Utopia
How We Work
What got us here will not get us where we're going.
"The law of the market is always changing. Every business knows this, but the vast majority of businesses have not turned themself into organizations that can adapt to external changes. [...]
"No matter how the outside world changes, the organization must change in sync. The traditional organization is unchanged and constantly solidified until it gradually turns into an 'empire.’
"The greater the empire, the more dangerous. Just like a very sophisticated machine, in the face of constant changes from the outside world, the only thing an empire can do is not change.
"From the Internet to the Internet of Things, the outside world is changing faster and faster, and traditional large enterprises’ lives are getting shorter and shorter.
"It's like the Titanic hitting an iceberg. The Internet of Things era is scarier because more and more icebergs are floating around. If the company is still the Titanic, it could hit a floating iceberg at any time.
"That is why Haier has converted the hierarchical pyramid into countless small micro-enterprises, which together form dynamic micro-communities. Each micro-community is like a boat. Each boat is relatively small and has an adventurous spirit."
Article: Haier Germany: How To Future-Proof Your Company
Video: How Haier Works - Video Animation
Design, Workspace
First-ever peak inside Apple Park
Evans Hankey, VP of industrial design, and Alan Dye, VP of human interface design, in the Design Studio
Last week, Wallpaper Magazine published a globally exclusive peek inside Apple's stunning new headquarters. It's as amazing as you imagine.
"In the distance is a rectangular frame of foliage. In the foreground, a conference table, placed with architectural rigour so that the focal point is dead centre of the screen. The scene is a tiny cross section through Apple Park, the tech giant’s mighty circular HQ in Cupertino, by Foster + Partners. There are 12,000 employees on site here, including the Apple Design Team. This agile but hugely significant department thinks in terms of scope, not scale.
"Working side by side to guide this division are Evans Hankey, Apple’s VP of industrial design, and Alan Dye, VP of human interface design. Both close colleagues, confidants and friends of Jony Ive, they effectively took the helm of the Design Team after his departure from the chief design officer role in 2019." - Jonathan Bell
Article: Inside Apple Park: First Look at the Design Team Shaping the Future of Tech
Culture
Fundamentalist thinking is one of our gravest threats.
"At its core, fundamentalism is characterized by a 'radical simplification of complex questions and the inability to learn either from experience or from opposing views.'
(Our challenge is to) "gain a deeper awareness of where fundamentalism can hold us back, and how, by cultivating the skills of 'self-questioning, recognizing our own limitations, and attentive listening to those who differ,' we might learn to think and engage differently."
Author Interview: We Can All Be Fundamentalists, and Fundamentalism Is Everywhere
Design, Culture
“What Could the ‘American Dream’ Have Looked Like for the Black Woman in the 1950s?”
"It’s undeniable that the 1950s were a whitewashed decade, with Black women in particular barely portrayed in mass media. Films, TV shows, ads, and magazines egregiously erased the Black experience, perpetuating a vision of the American Dream that was exclusively white. “The Unamerican Dream” interrogates that past.
"From photographer Sezen Tezic in partnership with fashion and creative director Rebecca O’Rourke, the project seeks to rewrite our skewed American history, conceiving of Vogue magazine covers with a Black woman as the subject."
Article: ‘The Unamerican Dream’ Photo Series Reimagines 1950s Magazine Covers To Include Black Women
Oneliners
Article: Print Books Beat Tablets When Reading to Toddlers
Article: Why Do We Have Christmas Trees? The Surprising History Behind This Holiday Tradition.
Article: Unilever on Why Sustainability Has Acted as a "Talent Magnet".
Playlist
I am such a sucker for Christmas songs covered by jazz, rock and blues artists. Last week Norah Jones released her own Christmas album, and it is delightfully groovy. It takes confidence to cover Blue Christmas again, but she pulls it off by making it her own.
She celebrated the album's release by performing the title song on the roof of the Empire State Building via livestream.
Video: Norah Jones: ‘I Dream of Christmas’ Live At The Empire State Building
Album: Norah Jones: ‘I Dream of Christmas’
Image of the Week
The Image of the Week is, of course, National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman reciting her poem "The Hill We Climb" during the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20, 2021. It's taken from the first of three summaries of the events and images of 2021 curated by Alan Taylor for The Atlantic: 2021 in Photos: How the First Months Unfolded.
As you know, it was an amazing year, so don't miss:
2021 in Photos: A Look at the Middle Months, and
2021 in Photos: Wrapping Up the Year.
What's Love & Work?
Love & Work is the weekly newsletter by me, Mitch Anthony. I help people use their brand - their purpose, values, and stories - as a pedagogy and toolbox for transformation.
If you get value from Love & Work, please pass it on.
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