Speaking about Beautiful Business at the Edinburgh Fringe

I have been invited to speak at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 15th August 1018.

Whitespace, Norloch House, 36 King’s Stables Road, Edinburgh, EH1 2EU

Tickets available here.

Our Future is Made and Finished in Beauty

The human spirit needs beauty and will do anything given half a chance to get more of it. As Emerson said, ‘beauty gets us out of surfaces and into the foundations of things’. We don’t think beauty we know it, because it holds a universal truth. It offers fertility, optimism, joy, generosity, community, a life that is worthwhile, one that is restorative and celebratory. It enriches us. It is integral.

This description seems far away from the world we currently inhabit and have created.

The language, the framework, the lens of beauty has been lost in most of what defines our societies, particularly in the west. Architects are not allowed to talk about beauty because it can’t be measured, there is only one piece of legislation in the UK where the use of the word beauty is used, businesses certainly don’t use the word in its proper sense, and there is a wistful look in the eye of Peter Childs the Head of the Dyson School of Design Engineering when asked if beauty should be taught in higher education and beyond.

It’s time time to turn our attention to what we have to gain by picking up the language beauty and applying it to all our human endeavours. What would a beautiful life look like? How would it shape how we live individually, how would it affect how we might run a business? What if an architect against all industry norms chose to pick up the lens of beauty and apply it to the making of buildings that we inhabit. What would agriculture look like were it to be designed to be beautiful. How does beauty enrich us spiritually, and even how does beauty frame our technological development?

We are going to rediscover beauty, and how we can reintegrate it into our lives, into the work we do, what we make and how we make it. How we grow our food and feed a growing global population. If we can be more beautiful in our thoughts and in our actions, we can learn to live and work more beautifully. We’ve all had enough of ugly.

The lens of beauty enables more thoughtful design. It inspires the crafting of more meaningful products and services. It creates a resilient business, with a more committed workforce. Beautiful leadership brings out the very best in people so they feel inspired to do their best work.

Beauty is not a soft option, it takes hard work and commitment. But as I illustrate in my CEO guide, it can produce real returns for those who are willing to invest.

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