Anthro-Vision: Gillian Tett with Thomas L. Friedman | LIVE from NYPL

 

 

Leaders today typically look to economic models, Big Data, or artificial intelligence platforms to understand the vicissitudes of digital disruption, economic upheaval, and political flux. In her new book, Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life, Gillian Tett points instead to anthropology—to the study of human culture. Anthropologists train to get inside the minds of other people, helping them not only to understand other cultures but also to appraise their own environment with fresh perspectives. They have done research into institutions and companies such as General Motors, Nestlé, Intel, and more, shedding light on practical questions such as how internet users really define themselves; why corporate projects fail; why bank traders miscalculate losses; how companies sell products like pet food and pensions; why pandemic policies succeed (or not). Anthropology makes the familiar seem unfamiliar and vice versa, giving us badly needed three-dimensional perspective in a world where many executives are plagued by tunnel vision, especially in fields like finance and technology. Tett speaks with New York Times Op-Ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman about this new way of understanding the behavior of organizations, individuals, and markets. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Gillian Tett serves as the chair of the editorial board and editor-at-large, US of the Financial Times. She writes weekly columns, covering a range of economic, financial, political and social issues. She is also the co-founder of FT Moral Money, a twice weekly newsletter that tracks the ESG revolution in business and finance which has since grown to be a staple FT product. Tett is the author of The Silo Effect, the 2009 New York Times bestseller and Financial Book of the Year at the inaugural Spear's Book Awards, Fool's Gold, and Saving the Sun. Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See Life and Business comes out in June 2021. Thomas L. Friedman, an internationally known author and journalist, has won the Pulitzer Prize three times for his work at The New York Times. His foreign affairs column in The New York Times reports on US domestic politics and foreign policy, Middle East conflicts, international economics, environment, biodiversity and energy. Friedman is the author of seven bestselling books including From Beirut to Jerusalem and The World Is Flat. His latest bestseller, Thank you For Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations, was updated and released October, 2017. LIVE from NYPL is made possible by the support of Library patrons and friends, as well as by the continuing generosity of Celeste Bartos, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam Bartos, and the Margaret and Herman Sokol Public Education Endowment Fund. The New York Public Library welcomes your comments and invites you to participate in conversations on NYPL social media platforms. To make the experience better for all of our social media followers, we ask that you keep your comments relevant to the original post. Off-topic comments may be removed to ensure that the conversation remains productive.