People react to digital disruption in two ways. Some lean back, feeling helpless and paralyzed, moaning about how awful and unfair it is that they have been victimized by uncaring forces beyond their control. Others lean forward, seeing change as an opportunity, not a problem. These people energetically innovate, constantly trying new approaches to salvage and shape their professions. Rishad Tobaccowala is in the latter group.
I got to know Rishad while working on Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else), a book that explores the many changes assaulting the advertising and marketing business. Unlike the Candides in that business, who insist this is “the best of all possible worlds” and wallow in familiar ruts, Rishad welcomes change. While conceding that “change sucks,” as the longtime futurist for the eighty thousand employees of advertising and marketing giant Publicis, he is determined to treat change as a challenge.
Despite Rishad’s background, it would be a mistake to pigeonhole his book as relevant only to those in advertising. With vivid anecdotes he weaves tales, both personal and from his vast business knowledge, of those who have confronted disruption. We see corporate cultures altered; executives who learn how to listen as well as speak; executives who hide problems and don’t chase them; qualities that make a boss bad or good; and reasons why mathematicians, with their algorithms and fervid belief that their scientific approach yields Nirvana, turn data into a false God.
This last point is central to Rishad’s worldview. He is no Luddite. He is a digital native, as comfortable with data scientists as he is with the yellowed print editions of newspapers. But he understands that while data and algorithms and artificial intelligence have great value, these tools lack the instinct, creativity, and knowledge of humans. In this book, he shows how Facebook’s algorithms failed to block fake news or malicious and viral videos, which required Facebook to belatedly hire thousands of human “curators” to mount a defense. A better solution, Rishad writes, marries “math and meaning.”
Restoring the Soul of Business is a brilliant how-to book, one that belongs on the shelf next to In Search of Excellence. But this book also reaches beyond the business world. It contains more than a few traces of Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, sharing universal wisdom. And in a book meant to highlight the virtues of humanness, Rishad writes a reader-friendly book that will keep you glued to your seat.
Ken Auletta
Bestselling author and writer, The New Yorker