BY CHRISTIAN MADSBJERG, OCTOBER 25, 2013

Speaking at a TEDx Lower East Side NYC event, Christian Madsbjerg from ReD Associates discusses two competing methods for understanding people that are battling it out in the business world. He argues that one method, “the ability to use our own humanity to understand others and to be in the shoes of others,“ is in danger of being wiped out. 

Today, most companies operate on the assumption that humans are rational, thinking beings capable of articulating their innermost thoughts. But drawing inspiration from the work of philosopher Martin Heidegger, Madsbjerg argues human beings are not first and foremost thinkers, but beings who are deeply engaged in their worlds. To truly understand consumers and their lives and to help companies get better results, we need to apply a different method that relies on “a cultural, contextual, social model, where we see we are beings that are geared into the world and into each other’s lives.”

Watch the full TEDx talk here