Andy Polaine: Hi and welcome to Power of Ten. A podcast about
design operating at many levels zooming out from thoughtful
detail through to organisational transformation and all the
changes in society and the world. My name is Andy Polaine.
I'm a service design and innovation consultant, coach,
trainer and writer.
My guest today is Nir Hindi the founder of the Artian, a
transdisciplinary training company committed to nurturing
an artistic mindset in the business environment and host of
the art and podcast near works with a wide range of
organisations and has gained an equally large number of
accolades including being chosen as one of the 100 experts of
Kotek, an organisation for promoting innovation in Spain
chaired by no less than philippic The sixth, the Spanish
king near says yes, for years believed in the power of art to
derive originality and novelty in business. But we're searching
for the how until he discovered the way artists think, work and
create, and more importantly, why it's relevant to business.
Since then, near has been evangelising, the concept of the
art mindset in business, a mindset he believes is necessary
for the future of organisations. Nir, welcome to Power of Ten.
Nir Hindi: Thank you, Andy. That's a such a generous
introduction.
Andy Polaine: It's well deserved. So let's start with
where did this first sort of insight come from? Where did you
first start thinking Hang on, there's a... So in the
introductory episode of The Artian and your podcast, you
talk about this idea of most people consider art in terms of
objects, but you had this kind of moment of sort of inside of
note, but this is something else. And it's a way of thinking
about the world, and that this could really apply to business.
How did that start?
Nir Hindi: I think it's kind of a development it. It wasn't
overnight. Since my childhood, I had two great patients
entrepreneurship and art. But as you know, society channel has to
choose. And I chose to go to the world of business. And I studied
economics and what technology and started my own thing, but at
the same time, I got involved with art, I started to just to
get interested in art again, and I met many artists that slowly
became my friends. And back then I already had my own companies.
And when we used to meet each other, they used to ask me
questions that I said, but how can they think about it that
way? It's like, artist, they don't understand business. And
just like many, I guess, have listeners, that's kind of the
thought that I had. And but that's also what intrigued my
curiosity asked myself, but I just don't understand business.
So how come they come with those questions, and I embarked on a
journey to try to understand how it influenced business. And
that's what kind of led me into this journey of understanding
the artistic mindset. And as you mentioned, my biggest
realisation, after a few years was that art is not an object,
we tend to think about art as a painting as a song as a book as
a movie. But it is the outcome of the thinking process. And the
moment you understand that the art is a mentality, then a lot
of avenues open, and you can actually understand how it's
necessary to have it in business.
Andy Polaine: So one of the other things is that art and
being an artist is obviously often thought of in terms of the
craft, right the skill of painting, the skill of
sculpting, or whatever it is that changed in the rise of
modern and contemporary art, that it was much more around the
thinking behind things. And in some cases, there are
fabricators who who make the objects, but it's the kind of
the idea for it in the first place. You know, much too,
sometimes it's been sort of heavily criticised. But that's
not art. That's just some dots on a wall or whatever it is. So
you know, you went in, you spoke to kind of many artists, your
spectrum of people in business, what was the sort of fundamental
use of talked about they see the world in different way? In what
way? Do they see the world differently?
Nir Hindi: Listen, I think that artist leads with questions.
That's one of the things that I see they are always posing and
formulating question. It's never about accepting the status quo
as is. So that's by itself already, kind of invite kind of
reflection, that they ask you those thorough questions. And
let me give you an example. I just interviewed a few weeks
ago, an artist named Lauren McCarthy in law named McCarthy
actually is she's interested a lot in AI and surveillance and
Sound Devices like Alexa. And one of the things she asked
herself is that we bring those devices into our home without
really understanding and asking the right questions. So what did
what did she do? She actually created a project of her own,
she call it Lowen. And basically, she sent cameras to
your home with microphones and everything she installed it in
your home and she become a human Alexa, then you tell her lawyer
and I want to find a restaurant for tonight except now when you
suddenly understand that there is a human behind it. People who
are more cautious in one of the person she she actually She was
actually thinking about bringing Alexa but he wanted to try it.
So by this work, I think low end makes us think about these
devices that we think are harmless. But actually you bring
a company into your home into your living room when you have
your children your personal space. So this is kind of one
example that I think that artists are very good at and
relevant to business in inference businesses that
artists lead with question. They don't take the status quo as is,
which we often what we say we need in innovation. And we can
discuss why I think artists are the people to go to when it
comes to innovation.
Andy Polaine: So I can hear all the designers listening to this
podcast. Well, that's what we do in design, too. We explore the
problem space, we ask the why the five Why's the whys behind
the why. And, you know, arguably, there's critical
design offs and design fictions that sort of live in that space
that we're just talking about, actually. But in what way, I
don't really want or not yet want to ask the difference
between art and design, but in what way? Do they question the
world differently or question that problem space differently?
Do you think?
Nir Hindi: there is something I mean art, in many ways, it's
human, okay. And it's made by human for human but artists are
not creating artworks for you, as the individual is like, ah,
gold in I guess people familiar with his book, The planet earth,
He is the one that actually is what he was an artist, a
designer, engineer, invento. And he's the one that CO found or
founded, the artist in residence programming. Xerox PARC, Palo
Alto Research Centre in the 90s, was a legendary artist in
residence programme. And he defined it very, very nicely
said, artist will paint a painting and ask yourself, Do I
like it? Yes or No, a designer will paint the painting and ask
the user, do you like it? Yes or no. And I think it's kind of one
example that, at least for me, a communicate the differences?
It's, they're motivated by question that doesn't
necessarily have end result, in a way.
Andy Polaine: Yeah. And so this, I think, is one of the
fundamental differences. And I agree, I'm enough, also taught
and worked in art design in different contexts. And, you
know, it's most obvious in something like visual design,
where, you know, in general, a graphic designer is working to
communicate on behalf of someone else. And an artist is usually
saying, here's an interesting way of seeing the world, or I
see the world in this way, or here's the thing I've made, it's
going to help you see the world in a different way. Exactly. You
know, I think kind of designers do do it in a sense of set. But
I think they're pushed around a lot more in the sense of,
there's many more constraints quite often in what they can do.
And I often talk about this sort of balance between humility and
ego, designer, you have a certain amount of ego to kind of
manifest the same thing, then artists has to have, you know,
to manifest something in the world and say, I've made a
thing, look at the thing I've made, and yet, you know, the
humility to take critique to take direction criticism, and
and kind of iterate multiple times. Now, obviously, artists
do that, too. But they're their own critic, mostly. In that, you
know, there is the always the escape hatch of an artist. If
someone says, Well, this is rubbish you can we just don't
understand it, or I don't care. Yeah. And that's the difference.
They can say, I don't care in the way that a designer maybe
can't. You've been giving workshops and doing development
work with business people, right? Yeah, I'm really, really
interested in what you bring to those because there's obviously
like a zillion Design Thinking workshops and stuff. So you've
talked about the kind of Renaissance sort of birth of
renascence thinking or return to renascence thinking, and you've
written a book about Azure of a new paradigm in management. So
I'm really interested in what you bring to those sessions,
what you actually get those people to do and what kind of
people they are, and what the response has been?
Nir Hindi: It's a great question. And I'll tell you
something, I think that what I try to do is not what to make
people do. I want to make people think, you know, for so many
years we got used to separate those disciplines, is when you
think about entrepreneur, you don't think about out graduate.
I mean, today is much more common to to see the design, but
think about it designers that starting companies, but you
don't think about a artist as people that can start companies.
And then you have companies like Airbnb, Brian Chesky and Joe
Gebbia. They studying industrial design, but Brian Chesky used to
paint a lot and he was actually kind of a I think, if I remember
correctly, even won a competition when he was 16 or
17. In a painting around the US. When you look at Snapchat,
Steven Spiegel went to art school. When you look at the
Canva when you look at even Esquel g mackell. V the co
founder of square he study engineering, yes, but he's also
doing art since he was in, in school. So So Pinterest, I think
they found Yeah, also in YouTube, one of the co founder
of YouTube, etc. So when you think about it, you Don't think
that artists can actually create companies. But I think it goes
to one misconception that maybe it's worth touching. Often when
I say artists people image immediately imagining a painter
in the studio. Yeah. But how artists are more than painters
artist, I always say that those are very curious people that
always interested in what is available for them. And one of
them is, obviously technologies. And there is a great examples
for invention and innovations that we are using today that was
invented by artists or collaboration of artists,
engineers. To give you a one example, in the 70s, there was
the legendary programme experiments in art and
technology, they just brought it to life three, five years ago, I
had the conversation with the head of the current model of it,
but one of the things they wanted to do in Expo 9070 Is
that to cover the pavilion of Pepsi that contacted this group,
and they invited an artist, and she's a fog artist. And she
said, we need to end until the 70s fog could have been produced
only in a chemical process. And she insisted that it should be
environmental. So together with an engineer, she developed a
water based electricity, a fog producer that today is being
used in manufacturing, in agriculture, and in cooling
homes, etc. That's that's one example. I can give you many
more. So going back to your question, when I come to the
businesses, I try to make them think not necessarily
immediately do because business is so focused on execution, that
sometimes we don't stop to think and what I try to make them
think about is if the solution that we are taking or the way
that we are taking is that the right one, the people that we
are hiring are they're the right people, because if CV was the
best recipe for success, so every company that hires someone
will be a match 100 Match basically the tinder of the
world for employee employees. But but it's not that way. So it
doesn't mean that if the world becomes so complex, I mean, it's
important to have specialisation but you have to create the
bridges for the generalist and not to undermine one the value
of the generalist because that's exactly what happened in the
Renaissance you had Philippa Bona Lenski, the one that built
the dome and rediscover the linear perspective that changed
science, architecture, and obviously out but he was an
engineer, a sculptor was Goldsmith, a ship designer, so
so there's a,
Andy Polaine: I know, there's a sort of conversation or there's
a, you know, study of Renaissance people. And that was
a kind of period of time where it was possible to know not know
everything, but know a lot about a lot. And now that the world
has become so much more complex, that's just it's gonna be
impossible anymore to be there. And the you know, I come about
as far as trying to think of the date, but I'm sure someone,
something I read or something around sort of mid 18th century
was the last point where you could sort of say, I kind of
know about everything. So what's your response to this idea of
yes, it's a it's a really nice idea. But you know, now there
was too complex, and we need specialists to deal with that
complexity. That's a common response to this.
Nir Hindi: Listen, in my own opinion, Renaissance thinking is
an approach. It's not about knowing everything is about are
you saying to yourself, I want to know everything I know about
finance, in the industry of insurance. That's it. That's
that's that's how you define your life? Not, God forbid. And
I'm not saying that working in finance, insurance is not good.
It's just I'm saying it for me. And in essence thinking is an
approach is about the ability to be curious about life and ask us
questions and find inspiration in other disciplines and not
narrowing the way we think the people we interact with. And the
environment we work with to the same homogeneous way of thinking
because that's what happens. I would have loved to see more a
business programmes that actually will bring artists to
speak about leadership because for me, we had an example in
January 2021, the world and especially the US is so divided.
And then you had 22 years old poet going on stage, Amanda
Gorman and capture the heart of people of millions of people.
And she doesn't understand anything about business. And
probably she doesn't understand anything about politics, but you
understand people and I think we can learn so much from her how
she communicate. Every time in the business world, we talk
about vision and mission. But what does it mean as the people
in the the one that enter to the door or everyday? Do they really
understand your vision? Are they buying into your vision, and I
think there is much more opportunity for cross
pollination that we are missing. So for me the main message
Renaissance thinking is an approach in life. How do you
decide to educate yourself because everyone talked with me
about the education system education system is one thing
but education something much more wide? Because you can
educate yourself. You get education from your parents,
from your, from your friends, and I was lucky enough that you
know, I was surrounded by different influences that made
me ask questions and be curious to try and learn more my
obviously more generalist, then a specialist. I'm not saying
that we don't need specialisation, if I ever have a
problem, I would like to have a specialised doctor working on me
in that sense. But I think it's also one one thing that on a
personal level, I think your life will be much more
interesting when you have different areas of interest.
Andy Polaine: I mean, one of the ways of creating that cross
pollination is artists in residence programmes that
you've, you've written to, which is, and you've spoken to people
in those and you know, this place a lot, Adobe and IBM and,
and, you know, Microsoft, Google, many, many have artists
in residence programmes, you know, those can often end up
being here's a bit of sort of money, and it's a bit of a
philanthropic thing of so we can say we've got an artist in
residence, but that stuff doesn't really kind of flow into
the organisation in any meaningful way. Have you spoken
to anyone? Or have you have any examples where that has actually
kind of flowed into the organisation? They sort of host
organisation in a meaningful way?
Nir Hindi: Yeah, definitely. I mean, the example that come to
mind is, obviously for me is planet and planet today is
imaging company, they have I think, more than 250 satellites
orbiting around Earth, and now the only company in the world
taking images of Earth every day and planet. It's a great
example. Because when they were 24 people, as a startup, they
already contacted my friend, Forrest stern as the artist in
residence, and I did a podcast with him and seven more of his
colleagues, you see how it influences the culture? So one
example is that how you can actually create sense of
community. So not only that, one of the things they did, they
created out evenings with the employees and their kids, and
the kids draw a painting that later go been engraved into the
satellites, every employee, add their own quote, and that goes
on the satellite, how many employees can set I have, I have
a satellite in space with my court, it's a great conversation
start. So it's create dynamic in the environment. And what planet
I think did smartly is that forest set, basically, his desk
was in the centre of the main home. So when you go to the
kitchen, when you go to get coffee, when you see him
working, and he started to invite other artists, so there
was a sense of creation. And when you listening to the
scientists speaking about how suddenly they saw their own work
differently, because they interacted without is that show
them their own self differently. It's amazing. You see people
that are fulfilled, and I'm not saying it's easy, because to
have a successful artist in residence, you need an excellent
translator, someone that will be able to speak to the artist and
speak to the business functions, and you will need to have
management support. And then we can speak about detail arms is
an example.
Andy Polaine: gonna speak about these arounds as an example.
Nir Hindi: You know, everyone talks about Apple, and I'm a big
fan of Apple. But before Apple, there was brown, and Brown was
amazing company. Just last week, I gave a talk about the
management commitment for creativity in US Brown is the
example and Evan Brown, the son of the founder, that when he
took over the company, he built himself around him a group of
creative thinkers. The first one that he brought was art
historian and a theatre graduate, Dr. Irvin Isla, that
he led all the creative and cultural aspects in brown for
the next 2030 years. And he had a sculptural detail work was
responsible for the corporate identity. And you had the
painter that was did the logo, and you had the architects, so
everyone was very, very, you know, coming from the world of
arts and crafts. Now, when you listen to the terms that humbly,
from my own perspective is probably the most influential
design of the 20th century, when you listen to Him, He never
speaks about himself. He always speak about the founders. And he
says, I couldn't do it, because I could do it just because I had
the support of the management. And I think managers don't
understand how crucial they are, when it comes to designing and
shaping innovative and creative companies.
Andy Polaine: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I've often talked about
leadership as being an enabler, rather than kind of leader in
the classic way. I feel like leadership sometimes is quite
fetishize, and obviously, kind of everyone wants to be a
leader, but no one wants to be a follower. And so you're got a
problem, right? Because to be a leader, you have to have
followers. Whereas if you think of it in terms of being an
enabler, why, you know, I want to be enabled to do the best
things I can and all of those kinds of things. But it also
has, you know, I talked about enablement, because it also has
the, the negative side of when you think about enabling an
addict or enabling bad behaviour, so leadership, as an
enabler can go in both directions. So you know, I think
this idea of this overlooked of, hey, you know, you can enable
this, rather than has to kind of control it and hold it and one
of the, you know, you've talked about in one of the ways of
enabling people, or one of the things that people often try to
do inside organisations improve communication and improve
collaboration, all in the aid of innovation that much kind of
sought after abstract thing. Tell me about what an art
intervention is instead of sort of usual workshop?
Nir Hindi: Great question. I mean, I'll tell you what I tried
to do. One of the things that I think is crucial in innovation
is observation, we are often being taught or ask, go outside
of the client, observe how they behave, observe how they
interact with the product. But I think we do one thing on the
wrong way is that we think that observation is a passive action.
Observation is active action. And observation is something
that you need to develop in home and foster. Now the culture
doesn't allow us to develop observation because you go on
Instagram, and you see 200 images in less than a minute,
and you go on your street, and you're on your phone, and you
don't observe the environment around you. So we are not
trained to observe and observation is not encouraged by
the culture. So what I try to do is stop for a moment, and I'll
put an image on a screen, and then I'll ask, what do you see?
And it's amazing how the more you ask, suddenly, you see that
you take more layers, because it's amazing when you see you
have an image on the screen. And then one person will say, I see
a woman, and in the same time, someone will respond what No,
it's men. In this moment, it's a magic, because they don't
understand how can it be that they look at the same thing, but
they see totally different things. Now, I use our to kind
of foster and develop observation to date. Also, there
is a big research that has been done in Yale that show the, the
scientific research behind that. But I think what I try to do
always is to show example, how observation take form in the
world of business. And if you will allow me to tell a story, I
think many, many people will can connect to that I think show
observation and understanding clients. So I don't know about
you. But when I enter to the restaurant, when I leave, even
before COVID, I don't like to touch the handle, I prefer to do
it with the paper. The thing is that many restroom will put the
trash a bit fall, and the one that want to abuse you even more
will put a trash that you need to actually press with your leg.
So what do you do, you need to open with the handle, you need
to open the trash. Basically, you're like a clown trying to
juggle everything. In one day, I enter a building and the trash
was open next to the door. I didn't pay attention. But the
day after I came again, and the same trash was open and the day
after, again. And I said okay, that's not a mistake. So I went
in each flow of the building. And in each flow, the trash was
open in the same position. And then I realised that the
cleaning person actually understood how people behave
when they leave the restroom, and actually made it easier for
them. But that require actually observation to be able to do it.
So I mean,
Andy Polaine: all of which there is to observe to properly
observe. Now there's the quote from Yogi Berra, which is you
can see a lot by observing, I think that's what is, it
requires time, daily, you know, and taking time, and I think
perhaps one of the things that I was gonna say was artistic
luxury, you know, and some people talk about it in those
terms, but you know, is actually to take the time to properly
look. And I think if you've ever done a drawing class, or you
know, a lot of it is not about the motor skills of drawing,
which I think is what people have to go right back to the
beginning. It's not about those that sort of, mostly anyone who
can write or sign their name has got their kind of motor skills
to be able to draw learning to draw is about learning to see.
Exactly, yeah. So you know, you've done a shockingly large
number of podcasts with a frequency sheduled that puts me
to shame. What have you. Is there a business of any
submitter lessons? I think you spent lots and lots of different
kinds of people? Is there any sort of meta lessons that we
haven't already kind of talked about you sort of can draw from
that range of people have you spoken to
Nir Hindi: maybe I will speak from the responses that I get
not necessarily from the speakers themselves? Because one
of the things that and I think this message kind of a maybe
summarise it all for me, that someone when they wrote me,
please don't stop the podcast because it gives me hope.
Andy Polaine: So it's nice.
Nir Hindi: So that's, you know, I think I think creativity is
something natural for humans the fact that we say to someone
you're not creative, or you you're creative, you're not kind
of eliminating a basic human skill or attitude because humans
that's what they do. They're operating in in creative way and
you see it among kids and I think that when you listen to
people in this podcast that were able to connect the two and give
it manifestation in what they do you ask yourself okay, what what
can I do about it for myself? Not that everyone needs to
become a an artist, but I think we can open ourselves to much
more of a creative of possibilities in the world.
Andy Polaine: It can be those early experiences can be
incredibly stunting and damaging I think, I mean, the opposite is
true also for a lot of people in who end up in But in art and
design and creative industries, which were things like maths and
stuff, which is all, you know, you know, good at maths, and
actually, it's usually just haven't been taught it in an
interesting way. And if you see someone who can talk about
maths, or engineering or technology or any of those other
things that they sort of, or business for that matter in a
way that is engaging and interesting, where they they
truly see it, I think it's the same mindset, actually, you can
see the engagement, you can see the fascination in it. A lot of
people understand much more than they think. I don't think
there's ever bad students as bad teachers. Yeah. Yeah, hey,
listen, we're coming up to time. As you know, the podcast is
named after this round Charles Ames film called powers of 10.
About the relative size of things in the universe. The
final question is always one small thing that's possibly
overlooked or underrated, if it was rethought or reimagined
would have an outsized effect on the world.
Nir Hindi: One thing? Wow, that's, that's one small thing.
One small thing, I think we take things for granted in this
world, and I wished it people will be more grateful, just for
what we have. I know, it sounds maybe cliche, I just did. I
think that this year, kind of reinforce it for me. And I think
that if you're grateful for everything, so at least you have
less to complain and actually value more and understand that,
yeah, maybe these it's not the best place that you should have
been, but at least you're in this place. And someone has, so
for me, it's and I think they change the attitude, if you're
grateful, it doesn't mean you need to accept everything in the
world, because I want to see change, but appreciating and
starting from that point, I'm grateful. How can I make it even
better, so more people will be grateful.
Andy Polaine: That's a very good place to end. And I think it's
you know, it's one of those things that the take a moment to
feel the sun on your face and smell the flowers. It's also the
and observe the world around you is the artistic mindset to
totally. So where can people find you online?
They can go to our website, www dot the arteon.com. Or just type
if you are looking for the podcast, shaping business minds
throughout.
Excellent. And we'll put any other links, the social stuff
and everything else in the show notes. Yeah, thank you so much
for being my guest on Power of Ten. Thank you. As I'm sure
you're aware, you've been listening to Power of Ten. My
name is Andy Polaine. You can find me at @apolaine on Twitter,
or polaine.com, where you can find more episodes and sign up
for my newsletter, Doctor's Note. If you like the show,
please take a moment to give it a rating on iTunes. It really
helps others find us. And as always get in touch. If you have
any comments, feedback or suggestions for guests, all the
links are in the show notes. Thanks for listening and see you
next time.