Knowledge-driven empathy. By Marco Steinberg

Von Decisions are generally driven by real or perceived needs rather than by the impact they have. But in the wake of increasingly granular and real time data about our lives it is not hard to foresee a shift from needs-based to impact-based decision-making. While this future may not make for a better world it does provide the opportunity to rethink how we might get there.

Decisions imply choices, and without choices we can’t speak of decisions. In this light we can say that the history of “decisions” is very recent. Most of time has been a history without choices for most people, as the world you were born into was given; your life predestined. It’s hard to talk about decision-making in that context, at least the way we might think of it today. But the scientific revolution made us see that there were empirical, rather than divine, principles that shaped the world. We could study and understand the principles that guided the stars, our health, or the economy. This transformed our relationship to the idea of destiny, opening up a Pandora’s box of choices.

Today we struggle to keep our heads above water in a daily sea of decisions: some of them are made consciously, but most probably tacitly or subconsciously; the majority small but some are definitely big in impact; and some are reached individually while others require the collective. We also carry a sense of clock speed on the range of questions we face. We are inundated with decisions that are rooted in the now, as in “what will I eat today?” while being preoccupied about our own future “how will I make ends meet when I retire?” and stressed by intergenerational concerns such as “how does this impact my children?”. As if that wasn’t enough this is all evolving in an increasingly fast, interconnected, and interdependent world where the things that matter are not easy or straightforward. What might be cheap is not healthy, what is healthy is not safe, and what is safe is not ethical. So how will we make informed decisions in this world?

Before peeking into this world, we must be clear that when we speak about the future of decision-making, we are speaking about a world, not the world. While we struggle with too much, others struggle with too little, a gap which will persist and add to the sense of disharmony. But what will this future landscape look like? Firstly we will have seamlessly aligned our personal decisions with our desired impact, and secondly we will have placed empathy as a key brokering principle for all decisions.

IMPACT, NOT NEED

But what does impact-based mean? Simply put it’s the ability to make more informed choices by seeing their full impact: the short and long term effects of choices on my life, the lives of others, and the shared environment we live in.

As consumers we make decisions without always understanding their real impact. Is my decision to eat that apple good for me? Is it good for my future or working against it? It’s very hard to see the interconnected implications of decisions on our current health, our neighbor’s wellbeing, or our future environment. As a consequence we spend a lot of time trying to undo the unwittingly negative effects of a good decision made somewhere else. We subsidize foods to make them affordable, while they may well be responsible for inflaming our chronic health problems, which we will try to correct by providing increased

medical support: corn-focused agricultural policy, the proliferation of corn syrup, and the rise of obesity and diabetes is a prime example of this incoherence. This amounts to no more than an enhanced robbing of Peter to pay Paul, so to speak. It’s not out of indifference that we behave this way; it’s frequently out of ignorance.

It’s not that much of a stretch to claim that there will be a day when data will give us a comprehensive picture of the potential impact of a decision. This will be the foundation for a new way of interacting. Overwhelming at first, we will find a way to help smooth this knowledge interface by naturally integrating the question of impact into our decisions. This might be in the form of digital filters that help screen your options for online product and service purchases based on impact criteria; or a wristband sensor that gently buzzes you when you are about to engage in an impact-approved transaction like picking up a cereal box at the store or getting into a certain company’s taxi. Driven by real-time unstructured data, this will be our sixth sense. And the power of data will allow us to touch more nuanced questions: is this decision likely to make me, and others, happier?

As a consequence, the concept of “brand” will have evolved beyond the traditional notion of a promise, to one of impact. Our brands will have third party real-time digital certification to help us validate their full impact. We will shop guided by the cumulative impact of a product’s supply chain: who made this yogurt, where, when, with what milk, from what cow, at what environmental cost, with what subcontractors. Today, when available, this kind of information tends to be about production, but the next leap will be to connect it with impact: does this create better working conditions for the producers and their employees? Does this create social capital and wellbeing in the communities where it’s produced? We will have the at-a-glance capability to see how various actions displaced in space have come together to produce this particular offering.

DECIDING WITH EMPATHY

So where will we channel the newfound freedom that our data driven world is twirling us towards? Well, towards that which really matters: our ability to coexist fulfilled. And as there are more of us, bounded by fewer resources, the real innovation challenge will reside in our ability to build empathic capital to help resolve difficult choices, and deeply ethical questions.

Empathy comes from the ability to live one’s life through the shoes of others, and what better way to do that than through new forms of proximity? Physical proximity has traditionally helped us understand others, to see their pain and joy. But digital proximity can allow us to connect with worlds that we did not know existed. And by making that which was out of mind visible, we can begin to build empathy for our new realities. By making complex decisions easier, more intuitive, and second nature, technology can also help free our time to be more human, spend more time with others: helping bring us back together.

But will digital proximity and impact awareness be enough to build a future of empathy driven decisions? Probably not. So what else do we need to get there?

Empathic government: Governments have a tradition of developing solutions structured to fit the logics of their organizations, rather than the logics of their citizens. In doing so they have increasingly alienated citizens, increasing a sense of distance and eroding our collective trust and ability to have empathy. But as austerity measures begin to hit, there is an increasing awareness that new economic realities will not be met by applying existing logics, but rather by creating new and more impactful ones. In doing so governments are recognizing that they need to adapt to the needs and logics of their citizens rather than their organizations. And governments are not only listening better, becoming more empathic, but also creating confidence in the power of empathy to create positive and meaningful transformations.

Empathic markets: In better aligning our daily decisions with impact, we are invariably creating a new market that values social wellbeing. A community that has empathic capacity will have less social risk (socially more stable, healthier, and more productive) and thus command a smaller insurance premium. Businesses that can help connect consumers to impact-based decisions will have long-term stability and be valued as an investment option. New services will emerge and citizens will begin to demand not just low prices and high product quality, but also impact awareness and empathic brands. And it’s possible to imagine a model where an everyday purchase connects us financially to the long-term impact of that decision: I buy a banana and that makes me a micro-fractional shareholder of the banana company. I will share in the risks and success of that company, which will in turn incentivize me to think about the longer-term viability of my choice. And as I slow down in life I can begin to cash in all of my available micro-fractional ownerships generated from a lifetime of decisions. And by aligning our daily decisions with our long-term investments, we will create a population of impact investors: looking to align behaviour towards better personal, social, and generational impact.

So where could this lead us? A more sustainable and less conflict ridden future is certainly one path. But it may also transform our social biases. As our populations age, for example, we might design better for “good dying” not just “good living”. And digital proximity might help us connect with future generations. What if the impact of our decision on future generations could be palpable at the point of choice? This would be a new era of generational connectivity.

And in this way, this data driven revolution will free us to be more human. Of course this promise cannot but be skewed by the knowledge that “The past is always tense, the future perfect.” (Zadie Smith)

MARCO STEINBERG is a strategic designer, co-founder and head of the management consulting firm Snowcone & Haystack in Helsinki, where he shares his office with former Finnish Prime Minister Esko Aho. Steinberg‘s interest lies in finding effective solutions to complex societal challenges. He likes to use visualisations that suddenly enable an entirely fresh view of the facts. He headed a project to improve nation-wide emergency medical care in the USA, for example, but is also deeply engaged in issues of climate change. From 1999-2009, Steinberg served as a professor at the Harvard Design School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and later as Strategic Design Director at the Finnish Innovation Fund (Sitra). He has also authored and co-edited a number of books, including Recipes for Systemic Change.