restoring the soul of business by rishad tobaccowala

It is the realism of Restoring the Soul of Business that makes it a book worth listening to. Over reliance on either the “story or the spreadsheet,” a phrase that does begin to grate after a while, is a trap to which we can all fall into and many businesses already have. That data has its place, and is not an omnipotent modern god as pointed out by Cathy O’Neil in her excellent Weapons of Math Destruction that I reviewed here, and that people with ideas and intuition, stories in other words, can balance each other in the workplace. Restoring the Soul of Business is a plea for the middle ground.

Tobaccowala however, deftly sprinkles in touches of reality which gives context, and caveats, to benefits that seem to have no place in the business world of real people. There are points in the book, like with many books that argue for seemingly “too good be to true” ideas and concepts, that the reader can become frustrated and want to yell “Yes, but.” Mr. I should make clear this is not a “touchy feely” plea for businesses to be based on being nice to people but the business case for giving equal weight to both “stories” and “spreadsheets.” That the best business decisions are often not data driven, but driven by the experiences and ideas of individuals. Restoring the Soul of Business, Staying Human in the Age of Data by Rishad Tobaccowala is one of the few business books that actually supports the downplaying of data, and by god is it refreshing to hear. While I am a great proponent of education I have my career in spite of a lack of further education – not because of it, I find the constant insistence on relying on data to be frustratingly narrow minded and lacking in imagination.

One of those things is the insistence, from people with MBAs, to only look at data when it comes to decision making.

Being, effectively, a self-taught manager, there are things you come across that drive you crazy.

Restoring the soul of business by rishad tobaccowala