Børsen: These are the books you need to read to boost your bottom line
MARTIN BREDAHL, 15 APR. 2025
Illustration: Sari Miettinen
Many business leaders reach for novels when they want a break from numbers and PowerPoint slides. But if you ask the consultants at ReD Associates, literature shouldn't be a break – it should be a business tool for understanding customers and developing strategy
When Pandora - the company that in 2024 sold jewellery worth DKK 31.7 billion - experienced a solid tailwind for the first time, management struggled to understand what was driving the success.
Which is not ideal. If you don't understand what's driving your success, you run the risk of it being short-lived.
That's why Pandora management hired Filip Lau and the rest of the team at consultancy ReD Associates. And while the usual consultancy might already be working on surveys and Excel templates before the Pandora team had even made it down the stairs, ReD Associates started somewhere else.
The team of anthropologists, sociologists, journalists, economists and designers jumped straight into Greek philosophy.
"You're actually the first person I'm telling this to. I don't think I've even told Pandora," says Filip Lau, partner and co-founder of consultancy ReD Associates, as we sit in a small intimate meeting room on the fourth floor overlooking a budding Kongens Have in Copenhagen.
FACT BOX - THE HUMANITIES CONSULTANCY
ReD Associates was founded in 2005 by a group of humanities and social science professionals with backgrounds in Kontrapunkt, e-Types, and the Ministry of Business, among others.
Has since specialized in translating insights from humanities and social sciences into strategic advice.
Has offices in Copenhagen, Paris, New York, and San Francisco Bay Area. Owned by the partner group.
"The Stoics coined the term cosmopolitan – someone who has both roots in the local and feet in the world. It's a simple but powerful narrative that we used with Pandora to understand what types of people are attracted to certain jewelry. Many of them were perhaps more roots than feet."
"It gave us a language and, quite concretely, an idea of what pendants they should design, what types should be included in their campaigns, and what customers were actually looking for," says Filip Lau.
Missing Out on Growth
The insight that became significant for the Danish jewelry company, now one of the world's largest, emerged at the intersection of philosophy, anthropology, and analysis. According to Filip Lau, the case is an excellent example of how the humanistic toolbox can – and should – be brought into play in business.
ReD's client list seems to back up the fact that there is great value to be gained. Since its founding in 2005, beyond Pandora, they have advised Lego, Carlsberg, Novo Nordisk, Ford, Adidas, Meta, Google, Netflix, and The Gates Foundation on everything from sales strategies to existential questions.
Even though the clients are well-known, you don't offend Filip Lau by calling ReD a niche agency; that suits him fine, but he's still surprised that the humanities and social science approach still plays such a small role in business.
"It should be perfectly legitimate to make major decisions based on insights grounded in the humanities and social science. There are simply some tools that are just as valuable as the more classic, number-based approaches. Maybe even more so," he says.
"Of course, there should be financial analyses, business cases, and models. But it is at least as important to understand the culture and the world you’re part of. If you do that, it's easier to grow – whether you're a foundation or a company."
Literature for Managers
ReD partners Mads Holme, Anne Mette Worsøe Lottrup, and Martin Gronemann have selected books that provide new perspectives on leadership, strategy, and negotiation.
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"The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro
A masterful example of how rigid professional ideals and misplaced loyalty can blind leaders to opportunities for connection and meaning.
"Trust and Power" by Niklas Luhmann
A foundational text on how trust functions as a mechanism for reducing social complexity in organisations and how power structures emerge and persist.
"The Salt Path" by Raynor Winn
An inspiring memoir demonstrating how to lead when there is no clear path forward, teaching valuable lessons about resilience, adaptability, crisis, and finding direction in uncertainty.
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"Outline" by Rachel Cusk
An insightful account of human interaction that helps business leaders understand the subtle dynamics of dialogue and the fluid boundaries between the self and others in negotiations.
"The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula Le Guin
A science-fiction novel that sheds light on negotiating across differences, managing power dynamics, and being diplomatic in complex cultural contexts.
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"Buddenbrooks" by Thomas Mann
A classic study of how family businesses navigate generational change, market evolution, and the delicate balance between tradition and innovation in strategic decision-making.
"On War" by Carl von Clausewitz
A classic treatise on strategy that transcends its military origins to offer timeless principles about friction in planning, the relationship between goals and means, and strategic thinking.
"The Three Body Problem" by Cixin Liu
A sophisticated examination of strategic planning under extreme uncertainty, offering valuable lessons about adapting to chaos and managing existential risks.
"The Hare with Amber Eyes" by Edmund de Waal
An object lesson in how products and services exist within broader cultural narratives, teaching leaders to understand and leverage cultural context in strategic positioning.
Homework for Executives
Filip Lau is thoroughly fascinated by people. That's why it's dangerous to have offices where most windows offer a panoramic view over one of the capital's most visited parks.
On a sunny Wednesday morning in early April, you can look down from the meeting room at a man who's about to pull out a small black bag while his German Shepherd poops on the grass. An elderly lady on a bench stares into space with her hands on her thighs. And with his back against a tree, a young man sits reading a book.
It's scenes like these, the small, immediate moments of people just being people, that easily grab Filip Lau's attention.
It is precisely in observing and trying to understand human behavior that the seed of his professional approach lies. He believes that humanistic disciplines – especially literature and sociology – can provide a much richer and more nuanced understanding of people's behavior and needs than classic data-driven methods. Where data tells us what people do and when, humanities can show us why.
Take, for example, their work for a global spirits company. Here, employees were assigned homework in the form of the short story "Oktoberfest" by American author Thomas Wolfe.
"You can make all kinds of bar charts about how many people are drinking shots, when and with whom – but the deep description of what it does to people, you won't find that in an Excel spreadsheet," he says.
According to Lau, literature can catapult us into states of mind that numbers cannot capture – and companies can use this in their attempts to understand their customers.
In "Oktoberfest," the fleeting friendships, the sticky floors, and the community in the beer tent – the almost euphoric feeling of melting together with others – become a lever that gives substance to otherwise dry numbers.
People Are Irrational
The "big unknowns", as Filip Lau calls the more existentially grounded questions, are what the humanities disciplines are particularly well-suited to explore.
Take a sports equipment manufacturer considering venturing into yoga. They see more and more people with yoga mats on their backs, but is it really a sport? The company is used to competition and performance, but something else seems to be at play here.
"It's just as much about understanding yoga as a social practice," he says.
"A group where there are heroes and villains, some who are cooler than others. People influence each other and share an idea of what it means to be part of that world."
Therefore, it's not enough to know how to make the most effective product, the best yoga mat at the lowest production price – you also need to understand the culture, the social dynamics, and the narratives people live in.
"It's a classic idea in the philosophy of science that if you want to think in new ways, you should start openly. Quantitative methods require a hypothesis – but the question already contains a direction. Qualitative work instead starts with curiosity. You go out into the world without an agenda to understand what it even means to be a child, a parent, a human being."
When you work this way, is it also based on the idea that human behavior and patterns of action are not necessarily predictable?
"Yes, exactly. People are irrational," he says.
"People claim they never give their children screen time, and that they always make homemade food – but the statistics say something else."
That gap between ideal and reality is important for companies to understand, he believes. If a food producer makes frozen pizzas, the task might be to help stressed families with children make the meal feel homemade.
"It's not because they are deliberately lying. The narrative they put on is about who they want to be. It's often a task for us to build a bridge between the ideal and reality."
A Leader's Uncertainty
When Filip Lau studied sociology at the University of Copenhagen, there was no such thing as sociological consulting. But this year, as ReD Associates celebrates its 20th anniversary, the picture looks different. Especially in the last ten years, there has been a significant shift in the C-suite, he believes.
Today, it is both more legitimate and in demand for leaders to be doubtful, philosophical, and searching. Instead of appearing bombastic and decisive, it is acceptable to ask questions like: Why are we here? Are we doing something meaningful? Is it good for the world – and for the people we work for?
“Instead of taking a strong stand and pointing the way forward, it has become more acceptable for leaders—even those in top positions—to express doubt. I can clearly feel that it is valued by both customers and employees. It is okay to be more reflective about what the point of it all really is, and how you actually make a positive difference.”