The document discusses the role of a "Business Romantic" who would help companies embrace less quantifiable aspects of business like meaning, community, and human experiences. Specific responsibilities would include finding meaning in everyday interactions, cultivating deep connections, and implementing passion projects. The ideal candidate would have experience romanticizing business through empathy and generosity, an active imagination, and an appreciation for ambiguity. They would help shift organizational cultures from purely transactional to more generous and aim to restore trust in business.

1. Tim Leberecht
THE BUSINESS ROMANTIC
Give Everything, Quantify Nothing, and Create Something Greater Than Yourself

2. “The flame must never go out”

3. The Great Disenchantment

4. The Great Disenchantment

5. 5

6. 6
The Great
Disenchantment

8. Wellbeing Happiness
PurposeMeaning
New
metrics

9. “Even if we do learn more about the fate of the airliner, it’s unlikely that all of our
questions will ever be answered. And the memory of how much we didn’t
know—and how long we didn’t know it—ought to sober us as we prepare for the
next sudden visitation of the inexplicable.”
.
Pico Iyer -“The Folly of Thinking We Know. The Painful Hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370,”
New York Times, March 20, 2014

10. 10
Market society in confusion
Quantified selves

12. Subjectivity
Suffering
Mystery
Un-reason
Transcendence
Ephemerality Serendipity/
unpredictability
Romance
Un-fulfillment/
”infinite longing”
Inconsistency

13. “To romanticize the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery,
and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary
as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred,
the finite as infinite.”
Novalis

14. Reporting to the CEO, the Business Romantic will help colleagues, customers, partners, and society at large see the
beauty of the business world with fresh eyes. Embracing hope as a strategy, the Business Romantic presents
cohesive narratives that make sense of ever more complex and fragmented workplace and market conversations.
Instead of focusing on assets and return-on-investment, the Business Romantic exposes the hidden treasures of
business and delivers return-on-community.
The Business Romantic develops, designs, and implements “acts of significance” that restore nostalgic trust in
business as the most impactful human enterprise and provide internal and external audiences with brand and
workplace experiences rich with meaning, delight, and fun. We’re looking for a self-starter with strong
entrepreneurial drive, exquisite taste, and a proven track record of managing the immeasurable.
If you match this profile or are romantic in ways we could not imagine, we look forward to hearing from you.
Seeking Business Romantic to Join Our Team

15. Specific responsibilities will include but are not limited to:
• Carving out spaces for the artful and playful at work
• Elevating day-to-day interactions and transactions to experiences “greater than ourselves”
• Finding meaning in the seemingly mundane
• Shifting organizational and brand cultures from utilitarian/transactional to generous/transcendent
• Creating zones of discomfort and “critical events” that replace convenience with friction
• Doing things for no reason and taking part in joyous, aimless activities such as mystery meetings or result-free
conversations
• Conceiving of and implementing passion projects
• Going on regular hikes with the CFO
• Providing leadership to other romantics at the workplace

16. Qualifications:
• 5–10 years of experience in romanticizing business, ideally in various industries
• Ability to instantly fall in love with ideas, memes, and projects
• Ability to balance Big Data with Big Intuition
• Comfortable with high levels of ambiguity and unpredictability
• Comfortable with giving chance a chance
• Excels at empathy and generosity
• Vivid imagination and appreciation for beauty
• Ability to enable and cultivate deep connections
• Risk taker and adventurer
• Ability to understand routine activities as acts of love
• Ability to have secrets and keep them
• Exceptional devotion to the unknown
• Favors authenticity over truth
• Appreciation for romantic comedies
• Extensive knowledge of English and German romantic literature, experience in writing poems a plus

17. Rules of Enchantment
Find the Big in the Small
Be a Stranger
Give More Than You Take
Suffer (A Little)
Fake It!
Keep the Mystique
Break Up
Sail the Ocean
Take the Long Way Home
Stand Alone, Stand By, Stand Still

18. Rules of Enchantment
Find the Big in the Small
Be a Stranger
Give More Than You Take
Suffer (A Little)
Fake It!
Keep the Mystique
Break Up
Sail the Ocean
Take the Long Way Home
Stand Alone, Stand By, Stand Still

19. Suffer (a Little)
“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger,
I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

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25. 25

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29. “A smile is a door half-open and half-closed.”
Jennifer Egan
Keep the Mystique

41. Take the Long Way Home
“It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a
spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards … it takes us to a place
where we ache to go again, a place where we know we are loved.”
Don Draper, Mad Men

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50. Traditional Smart Romantic
Planning Acting Wandering
Conversion Connection Reconnection
Process Dashboard Principles
Control Monitoring Letting go
Consistency Diversity Serendipity
Big Idea Big Data Big Intuition
Rapid response Real-time Pre-emptive
Segmenting Behavioral targeting Distributed presence
Message Conversation (Occasional) silence
Visibility Transparency Mystery
Risk Calculated risk Vulnerability
Benefit Value Values
Attraction Liking Love
Convenience User-friendliness Frustration
Efficiency Excellence Significance
Self-interest Quantified Self Un-Quantified Self

51. Traditional Smart Romantic
Planning Acting Wandering
Conversion Connection Reconnection (Nostalgia)
Process Dashboard Principles
Control Monitoring Loss of control
Consistency Diversity Serendipity
Big Idea Big Data Big Intuition
Rapid response Real-time Pre-emptive
Segmenting Behavioral targeting Distributed presence
Message Conversation (Occasional) silence
Visibility Transparency Mystery
Risk Calculated risk Vulnerability
Benefit Value Values
Attraction Liking Love
Convenience User-friendliness Suffering (a little)
Efficiency Excellence Significance
Self-interest Quantified Self Un-Quantified Self

52. 52

53. “Market systems are justified not because of efficiencies
and profits, but because humans are first and foremost social
and emotional beings, and markets provide
a sympathetic community for social exchange.”
Robert C. Solomon

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“To begin, begin.”
William Wordsworth

55. Thank you. @timleberecht