A new wave of anthropological research is transforming how the world does business. This book reveals how.
To understand business, you need to think like an anthropologist.
In a career spanning three decades, Gillian Tett has established a reputation as one of Britain's most astute financial journalists. But before joining the Financial Times, Tett completed a PhD in anthropology at Cambridge - and it is her anthropological training that gives her such a razor-sharp insight into global business.
Anthropologists have a unique view of the world. Instead of building their arguments on data or written sources, they undertake ethnographies - meaning they go inside groups of people and seek to understand, from within, how they think. This once involved besuited Victorians going to live alongside Amazonian tribespeople for years on end. But these days anthropologists are just as likely to undertake ethnographies in the boardrooms of law firms, or on the trading floors of investment banks.
In her new book, Tett will reveal what anthropology can teach all of us about business. She will recount the most fascinating findings from a recent wave of 'business anthropology', telling stories from inside the likes of the London Stock Exchange, JPMorgan and Adidas. She will explore the hidden rituals that underpin how businesses work- from the invisible norm that explains why we are all so happy to sign away our data, to the unspoken laws that govern the behaviour of the world's best coders.
Above all, Tett will reveal how you too can learn to think like an anthropologist. Once you understand the power of business anthropology, it will revolutionise how you buy, work and think - starting today.
