By: Marissa Geist

Season 1, episode 3 summary

September 19, 2023 // 35 min, 07 sec

We live in an increasingly subjective reality, with values at the heart of all we do in the workplace. Understanding that will be essential to shaping corporate culture in 2050.

The art of corporate anthropology is one with which Michael Henderson is intimately familiar, creating more human-centered workplaces in a world dependent on technology and AI.

Michael joins us in “The talent time machine” this week as we uncover the principles that’ll prepare businesses for a more empathetic world and how the human race could be afforded an unprecedented chance to ponder the nature of life itself.

In this episode:

  • What corporate anthropology covers and how it impacts the social dynamics of business culture
  • A growing need to understand your workforce’s personal values and core principles
  • The “wild west” development of AI, with ranging, unforeseen outcomes
  • Shifting attitudes from objective to subjective reality
  • What young people should learn in order to prepare for the workplace of 2050

Episode highlights

Michael Henderson at 7:25
“Often organizations think they own the brand. Even in my own practice, I've learned that the brand actually belongs to my customers, not to me.”

Michael Henderson at 8:35
“I think there's been a bit of awakening around personal values. What are the key priorities that you, as an individual human being, organize your life around? What are the core principles or the core concepts that you hold dear, or are most important to you?”

Michael Henderson at 17:20
“Leadership has to factor in a concept called ‘develop’. Now we've got this available to us, what could we develop with that? What could we use that for? Where could that take us that we hadn't been before?”

Marissa Geist at 19:50
“We've been talking a lot with the pandemic about sending people home, people working from home. We're almost creating a two-class system because there's a whole part of the workforce that never went home.”

Michael Henderson at 22:20
“There's been a subtle shift going on beneath the surface of all the things that are impacting around the world at the moment, from what I call objective reality – all this impactful stuff that's happening out there – into the subjective, which is how you’re processing that on the inside of you.”

Michael Henderson at 25:40
“I think there's an opportunity to really unpack the subjective experience of being human. In other words, to really start to understand what does it mean to be alive?”

Marissa Geist at 29:35
“If you step back and look at your life as an equation, you put 80% of your time in a place that probably gives you 20% of your identity and robs the rest of your life. So that is not going to sustain, or it shouldn't sustain once you pick your head up.”

Cielo glow
More from this episode Article
Embracing humanity to build a corporate culture for the future
Read more

About the experts

Marissa Geist headshot
Marissa Geist

Chief Executive Officer, Cielo

Marissa is the Chief Executive Officer of Cielo, the world’s leading global talent acquisition partner. She joined Cielo in 2015 as Senior Vice President of Global Operations, where she was instrumental in scaling Cielo’s delivery model.

LinkedIn connect
Michael Henderson headshot
Michael Henderson

Corporate Anthropologist, Cultures at Work

As a Corporate Anthropologist, Michael Henderson supports professionals in the organizational culture space to curate high-performance company cultures that deliver the level of performance required to deliver your business strategy, retain your top people and delight your customers.

LinkedIn connect

About Cultures at Work

Cultures at Work logo

92% of all organisations fail to optimize their company culture and the performance levels they deliver, for one reason consistent reason: they do not understand culture deeply enough to know how to design and curate it for optimum performance. We teach organizations how to align their company culture as a strategic asset. Learn more at culturesatwork.com.