Chip Conley: Count what really matters?

Below are some interesting quotes from this talk:

    • And one of the simplest facts in business is something that we often neglect. And that is that we’re all human. And each of us, no matter what our role is in business, actually has some hierarchy of needs in the workplace.
    • And what we can measure is that tangible stuff at the bottom of the pyramid. They didn’t even see the intangible stuff higher up the pyramid. So I started asking myself the question: How can we get leaders to start valuing the intangible? If we’re taught as leaders to just manage what we can measure, and all we can measure is the tangible in life, we’re missing a whole lot of things at the top of the pyramid.
    • “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
    • I asked him (Bhutan Prime Minister), “How can you create and measure something which evaporates, in other words, happiness?” And he’s a very wise man, and he said, “Listen, Bhutan’s goal is not to create happiness. We create the conditions for happiness to occur. In other words, we create a habitat of happiness.”
    • GDP counts everything from air pollution to the destruction of our redwoods. But it actually doesn’t count the health of our children or the integrity of our public officials. As you look at these two columns here, doesn’t it make you feel like it’s time for us to start figuring out a new way to count, a new way to actually imagine what’s important to us in life?