Complicated Lives: The Malaise of Modernity (Paperback)

Complicated Lives is about living in Britain today. They begin the argument with what may upset traditionalists (all you Telegraph readers look away now) by saying that in general, life is better today than it used to be. But their central theme is that even though we should be happier we aren't because modern life is so complicated. We want choices and we want to carve out a life that suits us; but we don't have role models to help us make these choices. Cultural capital - our expertise and knowledge of activities - is becoming more important than financial wealth, but cultural capital requires getting to grips with new learning curves. At the same time we have to get to grips with complex technology - are you good friends with your home PC? We have an explosion of choice in the supermarkets, more pressures on parenting. We generally feel more anxious about everything from the food we eat to terrorist attack. Through all these complexities, we have no organisational leaders to help us. In the old days we'd have trusted the Church, or the government. No longer. The conclusion is that business (which is responsible for an awful lot of this complexity) have a major opportunity to help us through this labyrinth.

So far so reasonable you may think, but perhaps not so different from other books that promote the 'world is changing so you need to change as a business' message. You'd be wrong however. The authors test every major claim they make with copious amounts of (believable) empirical data. One very enjoyable result of this thoroughness is that it allows them to shoot down myths and conventional 'wisdoms'. Spend more time at work than we used to? Not according to extensive studies of time diary data going back to the 1960's. Anxious about rising crime? Most of us are, but in fact crime has been dropping since 1993, in spite of greater reporting of crime. We are living longer, acid rain does not kill the forests, and poverty is being reduced. All these claims are backed up. The authors display a refreshing lack of agenda and spin in their delivery, bashing Naomi Klein's No Logo one minute, the media and big business the next.

In 220 pages Willmott and Nelson take us through their major themes of complicated Lives. The work is rooted in an extensive study The Future Foundation did for Abbey National during the mid to late 1990's. However they supplement with copious data from other sources such as The General Household Survey, plus international data from the US and EU. What I like about the authors is their commitment to plain English and explanation of jargon, too much of which ruins a lot of sociology led texts. There's also a peppering of quotes from the likes of Bourdieu and Sartre, and frankly there's not enough name dropping of this sort in everyday business. Impress your colleagues with the latest from French intellectuals. Overall, there's an academic thoroughness and genuine objectivity, but written clearly and simply in a manner that most academics are distressingly incapable of.

Complicated Lives is packed with insights about how we live now, and how we are likely to live in the future. We increasingly multi task to save time: we increasingly watch TV as a background to doing something else. On current trends, men and f/t working women will spend the same time on cooking and housework by 2015. Parents spend more time with their kids (in contrast to the media myths we are barraged by all the time) than at any time in recorded modern history. Parents are hugely anxious about their kids health, safety, and education, even though their kids are healthier (parking obesity for a moment), safer, and better educated than ever. Social communities are more prevalent than ever (another media myth), but are forming in new ways, driven in particular by mobile and computer mediated technologies. Families are becoming more, not less, important. On and on the authors go, thinking through the issues that occupy us in our everyday lives, presenting data that backs up their analyses. I found myself nodding and muttering 'spot on' to myself as I recognised things about my life that the book places in wider perspectives. In fact for me this book went well beyond business issues as it helped put all sorts of behaviours we see everyday into context.

That said, their work inexorably leads back to business. People lead complicated lives and need help in lots of areas of their lives: and they aren't getting much help at the moment. What can your business do to help people reduce the complexity in their lives? It may be more technology - we like new products - but please make the gadgets easier to use. It could be advisory services - retailers can add value by making suggestions. Again and again the importance of trust is emphasised - people want help, but will only accept it from organisations they trust. Willmott's ideas about 'Citizen Brands' get a strong airing here, and he surely has a point: too many companies do not act in ways that engender trust, or even basic respect.

I've very few quibbles. Perhaps one is that the book is irredeemably about middle class concerns. Fair enough perhaps: that's where businesses want to target themselves. The authors do state early on that the book is skewed away from the bottom 30% earners, but maybe should make this clearer throughout. Maybe there's another book waiting to be written about modern working class lives: these people lead lives arguably just as, or even more, complex than the middle classes, but in a different way. More trivially, I'd also question the use of Huggies Club as an exemplar of help to busy parents. Why should we trust these brands? I trust them to make good quality nappies, and to try and sell me more, but not to really help me.

But that's being ultra picky. This is a fantastic book. Marketers are under heavy criticism by colleagues in other functions for being insufficiently professional in their knowledge of customers. How well do you really know your customers? I also think business people are far too parochial in their intake of stimuli that could help them innovate. If you're looking for ideas to refresh your business, picking up this book and reading it right through is a good start.

There are many themes within the data to show how our lives are changing - and in different ways, perhaps, to the way we might think. For the most part, rather a compelling story I thought - yet on page 173 they quote rather extensively from Bjorn Lomborg to put the environment in rather a positive light.

The book talks about how much better the air quality is today than 50 years ago, water quality has improved etc. etc.

Personally, I think this is where judgement comes in. Most of the book deals with human affairs (how long we work, how health we are, what our living arrangements are) and in these matters it is appropriate to put humans/society at the centre of our world.

With the environment, it is different as we are just part of a web of life. Despite many advances and successes, with global challenges like global warming, mass extinctions, nuclear damage - we are now living very precariously. Never more so! Personally I believe that society does need to make some radical transformations to avoid some very big problems.