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The End of Winning: Why We Must Learn to Lose (Without Becoming a Loser)
As we face climate chaos, growing social inequity, and technology conflicting with or even undermining human wellbeing, it is becoming increasingly clear that the winner-takes-all mantra that has governed the business world for so long must be replaced. Winning is yesterday’s game, welcome to the age of losing, Tim Leberecht posits in his provocative new book about The End of Winning that challenges our notions of success and wellbeing, as well as the false comfort of “failing fast.”
Leberecht argues that we will lose the allure of growth; the stability of full-time employment; the promise of linear, progressive careers; any sense of clear-cut, consistent identities and relationships; and our concept of self, as we increasingly outsource our thinking and even sensing to technology. Paradoxically, to win the future, we must become better at losing.
From resistance to restraint to surrender, Leberecht explores actions we can take on the political, organizational, and personal level to help us build a successful culture of losing. He proposes “strategies for losing” so we can nurture businesses and economies that do not just tolerate losing but celebrate it as the very essence of our humanity.
From Human-First to AI-First to Planet-First
Humanize, human-centered, human-first: the humanization of business is all the rage. But is human-first still enough? Or rather: isn’t it us humans who have caused the very problems that have driven us to the brink of the pending climate disaster as well as a fixation on convenience, extraction, and growth that is tearing our societies apart?
In this talk, Tim Leberecht argues that the Anthropocene era with its focus on human wellbeing is over and must make way for a concept of planetary wellbeing that accommodates the needs of all living things on earth, respecting in particular those aspects of life we can’t fully grasp or quantify. He considers the rise of AI, a new class of intelligence and collaborator as we shape the future of our planet, as a historic opportunity to better understand and redesign our relationship to the “other” and create a way of doing business beautifully that fosters a stronger communion between human, nature, and technology.
How to Lead Beautifully in the Age of AI
Tim Leberecht, two-time TED speaker and author of the international bestseller The Business Romantic, argues that we need a new romanticism in response to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Digital technology has allowed us to scale efficiency, but Leberecht believes that in the future companies rich with imagination, empathy, and emotion will have an unfair advantage. With big data and algorithms standardizing and optimizing our interactions, he observes a new desire for raw authenticity and fluid identities that defy the conventions of consistency. As AI takes our jobs and does them more efficiently, he argues that the most important work for us humans will be the kind of work that must be done beautifully. In his talk, he proposes three concrete principles to foster our humanity and build a beautiful business in an age of machines. Drawing from the arts, his background in the humanities, as much as his 15 years in the design and innovation industry in Silicon Valley, Leberecht provides a thought-provoking and optimistic outlook on the future of work in times of exponential change.
The New Romantic Age
Tim Leberecht believes that in a world of algorithms, big data, and “quantified selves,” we are at risk of engineering inherently human qualities out of our lives. Observing an emerging counter-movement, he argues that we are shifting from a smart age to a new romantic era in which only organizations comfortable with ambiguity and emotion will thrive. When everything is seamlessly connected, convenient, and predictable, we must find meaning through mystery, friction, and the beauty of the unexpected. When everyone maximizes and optimizes, romance becomes the ultimate differentiator. Leberecht contends that we all long for moments that are powerful precisely because they are inexplicable, such as acts of generosity, intimacy, surprises, exuberant passion, and even losing control. Illustrated through examples that include hermits and secret societies, talking to strangers, and “Thick Days,” he presents three Rules of Enchantment that will help you design purpose-driven, romantic organizations and brands that will be more imaginative, more innovative, and truly loved.
About Tim Leberecht
Tim Leberecht is a German-American author and entrepreneur, and the co-founder and co-CEO of The Business Romantic Society, a firm that helps organizations and individuals create transformative visions, stories, and experiences. He is also the co-founder and co-curator of the House of Beautiful Business, a global think tank and community with an annual gathering in Lisbon that brings together leaders and changemakers with the mission to humanize business in an age of machines, and the co-founder of the 15Toasts dinner series.
Previously, Leberecht served as the chief marketing officer of NBBJ, a global design and architecture firm. From 2006 to 2013, he was the chief marketing officer of product design and innovation consultancy Frog Design.
He has given talks at companies and organizations worldwide, and has spoken at conferences including AI Masters, DLD, Future Day, HSM Expo, LinkedIn Talent Connect, New Cities Summit, Online Marketing Rockstars, Re:publica, SXSW, The Conference, The Economist Big Rethink, The Next Web, WOBI, and the World Economic Forum. His TED Talks “3 Ways to (Usefully) Lose Control of Your Brand” and “4 Ways to Build a Human Company in the Age of Machines” have been viewed 2.5 million times to date.
Leberecht is the author of the book The Business Romantic (HarperCollins, 2015), which has been translated into nine languages to date. His writing regularly appears in publications such as Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, Inc, Psychology Today, Quartz, and Wired. He is the co-publisher of the Book of Beautiful Business (2019), an anthology of more than 40 voices exploring new visions for the future of labor, leadership, and love, and the co-host of the Masters of Business Arts podcast. His new book, The End of Winning, will be released in May.
After 15 years in California, Leberecht returned to Germany in 2017, where he currently lives in Berlin with his wife and daughter.
