Colliding with the Unexpected with Gillian Tett

OutsideVoices with Mark Bidwell

In this episode, we are joined by author and journalist Gillian Tett, to discuss the role anthropology plays in today’s business world. Gillian is the author of the award-winning book, Fool’s Gold, which analyses the origin of the 2008 financial crisis, and most recently, The Silo Effect, and is currently a columnist and US Managing Editor of The Financial Times.

What Was Covered

• Why more and more companies today are turning to anthropologists for insight into employee and consumer culture.
• What executives can do to prevent silos from developing within their organizations.
• How anthropology and cultural awareness can help us to understand and predict the future of the digital and technology economy.

Key Takeaways and Learnings

• Social silences: why we should pay more attention to what we’re not talking about.
• Insider-outsider perspective: how empathizing and contextualizing can help executives to analyze their own company cultures and structures.
• Slack: why the freedom to collide with the unexpected can lead to innovation.

Links and Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Get in touch with Gillian via Twitter or email
• Financial Times, website
• Saving the Sun, a book by Gillian Tett
• Fool's Gold: The Inside Story of J.P. Morgan and How Wall St. Greed Corrupted Its Bold Dream and Created a Financial Catastrophe, a book by Gillian Tett
• The Silo Effect, a book by Gillian Tett
• Jamie Dimon’s ‘listening’ bus? Get on board, an article by Gillian Tett