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.