Simplexity. The Force and Beauty of Diverse Identities | Helena Westin | TEDxMarrakesh
Oh firm I density woman 55-plus Swedish Stockholm born Christian middle-class suburban kid which one of all these layers in my onion is the most important identity according to the world's current ideology of success which single one my name is Helena and as you heard I'm a brand builder I've been building brands with identity for a very long time both successful fantastic global brands like diesel jeans - Helly Hansen - Swedish icons like Bjorn Borg through local flops like forums ballets that nobody remembers anymore it's been a upside going journey it's been fun it's paid my bills but also as a founder of pride a feminist and a word person of the equalist errs in Sweden I've come to a very very scary insight no matter how clever how insightful how amazing our brand strategies are that's not it that is not at all what makes a person an organization or a brand chime it takes so much more but you can say being mediocre not being so successful that's not so terrible they just you know most companies most organizations are making some money doing some good at best not being harmful neither to their people nor to their environment but why is this it's because the single word identity and the search for that has been fooling them and they've been missing out and they sometimes scary also because the single word identity is become such a plague in our nation and in our world for companies if I say search what are you thinking about I think that 90% would be thinking search Google but Google is so much more so much scarier than just search so actually this single one single word identities are single minded identities is really basically a cover-up and there I you know we should really go for all the warning signs in the world because my scary insight is the single-minded identities are the cover-ups and also the course of misunderstanding diversion exclusion blame and even conflict and may even lead to war this is why this fatal understanding must be erased and the paradox is that when we're trying to do good with our companies with a prison my identity brands you're actually nurturing and creating hate and that is not what we want I come from Sweden the country of dead star Hans Rosling the scientists with amazingly positive message that the world is actually getting better and he can prove it statistically I come from the country of retail legend Ingvar Kamprad the founder of IKEA who actually furnished the world I come from the musical Wonderland of ABBA you know where pop groups are well-behaved and they take no drugs I come from the country of Spotify which actually allows us to have music everywhere but here I come from a small city or I come from a country in which one small city in 2007 so d'italia actually welcomed more refugees than all of Canada and the United States in one year I come also from a country was the most gender or one of the most gender equal countries in the world our government actually calls themselves feminists Sweden is one of the world's most extreme countries believe it or not if you go to the world value study Sweden is way up at the right hand corner all alone in it even individuality and self-reliance we used to be the happiest people on earth we used to score extremely well on non corruption we used to be have great trust in each other you used to be very equal healthy and happy now the finns are surpassing us i understand but something has happened in sweden we have for me as a feminist as a founder of pride and human rights and LGBT activist is really scary because sweden we have lost the amazing ability of log on and log on is a swedish first word that means just right but we have lost that and we are instead seeing a fierce battle of identity politics between you know strong groups that are flaming and hating each other and they're actually disregarding diversity wanting to take away fair representation and the right for each person's right to be heard and seen and taken seriously we actually are living a scary backlash in sweden we see this in many other countries of course also in the world but i have come here to give you a warning because I really want you not to lose what you're trying to build up here but what does this got to do with branding you might think huh let me explain my findings most companies and peoples and organizations are as best mediocre they do some money they make some good but why is this that they do not succeed it's because they're over complicating things or not digging deep enough or making too easy too simplified answers hence simplexity they're doing it you know because it's really super simple or deeply complex but most people and organizations are not digging deep enough they're missing the nuances the shades all the layers of the onion all the beauty of the broad identities and to solve the current problems of the world that we hear so much about from climates to social to war we need to do better we need to dig deeper we need to understand identity in a much broader sense a much deeper sense a much more holistic sense people you know as humans we are the same we are much larger than just one idea in the extreme country of Sweden are open in realistic and knowledge society the one simple identity or one single identity finally got too limiting and nobody is just one we can be but Muslims Arab and even Arab Jews and we can be business people and art lovers and human rights activists at the same time people are both so don't box people in it's the same with groups I divide you guys into the red team and the blue team and immediately you start to find faults and difficulties and you point fingers and that goes on and on in films and in stories and in things we tell and when the blame game is on it's really easy to find mistakes find things that the other team is doing well the other sex is terrible or the other ethnical groups and hate starts to emerge and we all know that when hate Hurst to emerge it's really hard to reverse and go back to love understanding and peace but of course I understand I know it's so easy to belong it's so easy and nice to identify with the group to find that yes we're close and we're cool together all I'm saying is that when it risks excluding that's when we need to be on alert that's when you need to be vigilant and careful all I'm saying is to simplify the complex in smart ways not dumb ways and we have so many examples around us when the big and mighty powerful men it's usually men in this world when they start to blame a group like Trump blaming the Mexicans or Viktor Orban blaming immigrants or the British blaming the EU for all bad things in the world we need to see through that because they're trying to cover something up they're trying to divert our attention from the real issues and this this is why you guys need and all of us need to listen talk and learn from each other because it starts with you all of you have a 100 million brain cells in your brains and you can use them wisely you can instead of having conflict you can try to find the commonalities the things that bind us together nice words huh easy to speak easy to talk but in real life life isn't so easy people are complicated life is a struggle right let me tell you a story about my grandmother my mother and me I had been for more than ten years in the lesbian closet my mom but I had come out I started to embrace my identity as a gay person and my mother has sort of come out - she thought though that feminist part was worse than being a lesbian and but my grandmother very old furtive lady we thought you know I was the oldest grandchild and she loved me very dearly and I didn't want to risk that and we thought that she was too old and too conservative to be able to grasp the idea of her eldest grandchild being gay so we just didn't talked we didn't tell her and I avoided all talk there was too personal and you know how that becomes you sort of divert and glide away then I had written an article an activist article a bit but being open and I was sitting my my work and my mother all of a sudden calls me up and says Grandma and Grandpa are here out on the island and I showed my grandma the article that you wrote and I told you that heard that you wrote it I said oh no she was supposed to die without knowing what is this you know what's gonna happen and mom says grandma wants to talk to you and I hear my old grandmother's voice you know soft and I saw my dear Helena I love you so much what a lovely text you wrote you have to come to her home as fast as you can next week I have something for you I came to my grandmother's and grandfathers house and my grandmother she was a real traditional snob the born in 1910 she had this big paper bag filled with newspaper clippings articles that she had been cutting out from newspapers all of them positive about homosexuality I started to look at all the articles and I realized that my mother had been cutting out those articles from long before that I even knew myself that I was gay my granny she knew her little tomboy right from the start she she didn't die without knowing she lived on for many years after that and we became so close and so nice and I think that she taught me one of the most important lessons in my life that behind every person there is always so much more and when you internalize your own phobias that's probably the worst thing you can do so look at the person next to you really look there's so much more to the surface than what you actually see there's so many layers to each and every one of you so my lesson be careful be smart be wise be thoughtful be mindful about your identity and the identities of everyone around you and identity can be strong and fantastic low but it can also be dangerous so be careful my idea worth spreading is actually screw the idea of single-minded identities instead three things embrace and identify humanity see really see people to know that we are all connected in Swedish it's beautiful it's out angry hope and three it is actually super simple and deeply complex simplexity like the air we breathe invisible but necessary and there actually are ways to see the invisible but that's another TED walk love peace and understanding [Applause]