Podcast Summary: Lars Strannegård: Art in Business, Leadership, and the Skills AI Can’t Replace

Podcast: In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen
Host: Nicolai Tangen (CEO, Norges Bank Investment Management)
Guest: Lars Strannegård (President/Dean, Stockholm School of Economics)
Date: March 5, 2025

Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Nicolai Tangen sits down with Lars Strannegård, the transformative President of the Stockholm School of Economics, to discuss how integrating art and culture enriches business education, the leadership skills machines cannot replace, and the essential human qualities for future leaders. The conversation explores empathy, creativity, “bildung,” the changing landscape of business education in the digital age, and the importance of bringing arts and physical development into a holistic model for lifelong learning.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Role of Culture and Art in Business Education

• Opening Perspectives:
  • Lars has implemented cultural components—art, literature, and music—into the curriculum to help students contextualize the world, foster humility, and boost empathy.
  • “Art can actually serve as a sort of intellectual and emotional itching powder to make you understand the world in another way and also increase your humbleness.” — Lars Strannegård (01:16)
• Why Culture Leads to Humbleness and Empathy:
  • Art exposes individuals to things they may not understand, pushing them to ask questions and become more open-minded.
  • Empathy emerges from experiencing stories, enabling students to imagine lives and situations beyond their own.
  • Example: Watching “Mad Men” or reading “Romeo and Juliet” helps students perceive other realities.—(02:16-03:20)
  • “The more fiction you read, the more empathy you have.” — Nicolai Tangen (03:23)
  • “Machines don’t have [empathy]. It cannot put itself into somebody else’s clothes. It’s got no feelings. It can mimic very well…but it’s got no real, authentic empathy.” — Lars Strannegård (03:31-04:17)
• Art-Infused Environments:
  • A stimulating environment packed with art leads to increased knowledge intensity, more learning avenues, and improved creativity.
  • Art allows for spontaneous interactions and new conversations, acting as “grease in human interaction.”
  • “If you just walk on the track that you’ve always been walking on, you won’t come up with new ideas.” — Lars Strannegård (06:00)

Specific Initiatives at Stockholm School of Economics

• Physical Space as Curriculum:
  • The school environment is intentionally art-rich, with installations such as a classroom designed by artist Jacob Dahlgren—walls lined with measurement instruments as abstract art. This sparks discussion on the role of quantification and abstraction in business and education. (08:40-10:50)
  • “Everything we do at this academic institution is based on measuring the world, right?…It’s a clear comment on that.” — Lars Strannegård (09:30)
• Concept of “Bildung”:
  • “Bildung” is described as the residue or stance to the world that remains after content-based knowledge is forgotten—an approach, not just a memory. (11:43-12:21)
  • The school’s educational mission is captured by the acronym FREE:
    • Fact- and science-based
    • Reflective and self-aware
    • Empathetic and culturally literate
    • Entrepreneurial and responsible
  • “If you go into the world being fact-based, reflective, empathetic, and entrepreneurial, it’s sort of a vaccination to getting stuck in models and theories that used to be true but perhaps no longer are.” — Lars Strannegård (13:10-14:00)

Addressing Elitism and Measuring Success

• On Educating Elites:
  • Tangen challenges the risk of further disconnecting “elite” business students; Lars counters by emphasizing the aim is to create more empathetic, responsible leaders, not insular ones. (14:28-15:30)
• Measuring Impact:
  • While empathy is hard to quantify (“how many kilos of empathy did you gain from seeing the Mona Lisa?”), proxy measures (selectivity, career outcomes, partnerships) have all shown improvements since culture was integrated. Correlation is strong, though causality is difficult to prove. (15:39-17:10)

Essential Qualities for Future Leaders

• Traits Needed:
  • Fact-based thinking, reflection, empathy, self-awareness, cultural literacy, and entrepreneurship.
  • These needs have become more pressing given the accelerating rate of change, technological disruption, and complexity in society. (18:43-19:37)
  • “You have to be able to shift your mindset, not sort of get stuck in the models you used to operate by.” — Lars Strannegård (13:53)
• Scandinavian Leadership Model:
  • Flat hierarchies, informality, approachability, and arguments over seniority are characteristics associated with the Swedish (and Scandinavian) model.
  • “Seniority or titles and things like that shouldn’t matter…it’s only the argument in itself that matters.” — Lars Strannegård (26:22-27:30)

The Value of Storytelling

• Art as Storytelling:
  • Storytelling is crucial for leaders to impart meaning and motivation—art embodies this by translating concepts into resonant narratives. (27:57-29:50)
  • “I don’t think any organization can be successful if it doesn’t communicate what it does in a meaningful way.” — Lars Strannegård (29:50)

Hiring Nontraditional Talent & Liberal Arts

• Beyond Business Degrees:
  • Lars encourages hiring people from varied backgrounds—historians, theologians, etc.—because multiple educational “straws” enable broader understanding.
  • Liberal arts education is valuable, but the key is not only what you study, but how open your mind becomes. (30:06-31:04)
  • “You need to have many straws nowadays in order to understand the world.” — Lars Strannegård (31:04)

The Role of Sport

• Whole-Person Development:
  • The school hosts a Center for Sport and Business, recognizing education should develop mind, body, and soul.
  • Physical activity enhances cognitive ability and builds traits like resilience and grit essential in life and business.
  • “Machines…do not have any bodies. They’re lousy at sports. I mean, ChatGPT, you will beat it on the racetrack anytime.” — Lars Strannegård (32:23)
• Business and Sports Leaders:
  • While business goals are more ambiguous than sports, techniques from athletics—motivation, focus, perseverance—are highly transferable. (33:40-34:22)

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Learning

• AI’s Impact:

  • With generative AI outperforming humans in many cognitive tasks, universities must rethink what they teach and how they assess students. (34:29-35:47)
  • Oral exams, handwriting, and other methods are being debated, but AI is here to stay.
  • The key is developing “human intelligence”: empathy, sense-making, context—everything machines cannot truly replicate.
  • “Machines are great at being machines…but they are not human…Educational institutions should really help students to develop their human intelligence.” — Lars Strannegård (35:48-36:30)

• Nerds vs Extroverts?

  • AI won’t “eat” introverts or nerds—success will depend on understanding systems as well as operating within them; diversity of perspectives remains critical. (37:07-37:43)

• Future of PhDs:

  • Training researchers to handle large data sets, analyze and communicate insights, and think from new perspectives is more important than ever—not about specialization for its own sake. (38:03-39:10)

Personal Reflections and Advice

• Most Influential Art:
  • Lars cites a Mark Rothko painting for its profound emotional impact, illustrating art’s power to connect with viewers beyond reason. (39:11-39:56)
• Recent Reading:
  • “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad—praised for its language pulling readers into a different time and place. (40:56)
• Alternative Career:
  • Would consider running a cultural institution—still a form of education. (41:16-41:25)
• Advice for Young People:
  • “Expose yourself to things that you don’t understand, that you’re not used to…do things that you wouldn’t expect yourself to do.” — Lars Strannegård (41:34)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Human Skills vs AI:
  “If you just practice your human skills, understanding others, your sense-making capabilities…those are things that machines don’t have. So of course you should foster them and develop them.” — Lars Strannegård (04:24)
• On Art as Learning Catalyst:
  “Art can also…communicate to you not just cognitively but also emotionally…more roads open to learning and creativity.” — Lars Strannegård (05:09)
• On Scandinavian Leadership:
  “It is possible for anybody to actually call anybody…flat hierarchies, listening to people, very informal.” — Lars Strannegård (27:10)
• On Storytelling:
  “Everything that you’re exposed to, every aesthetic expression is actually a story.” — Lars Strannegård (28:55)
• On Pushing Yourself:
  “Expose yourself to things that you don’t understand…do things that you wouldn’t expect yourself to do.” — Lars Strannegård (41:34)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Importance of Culture in Business Education: 00:29–03:23
• Empathy vs AI: 03:27–04:25
• Creativity Through Art: 05:03–06:35
• Art in Physical Spaces: 08:00–11:02
• Definition of Bildung: 11:28–14:00
• Measuring Success & Empathy: 15:39–17:20
• Traits of Future Leaders: 18:43–19:37
• Scandinavian Leadership Model: 26:22–27:57
• Storytelling in Education: 28:00–30:06
• Non-Business Hires & Multidisciplinary Learning: 30:06–31:11
• Sport and Education: 31:24–34:22
• AI’s Impact on Education: 34:29–37:07
• PhDs and the Future: 38:03–39:11
• Personal Inspirations: 39:11–41:25
• Advice to Youth: 41:34

Summary

This episode is a deep dive into why the future of education—and leadership—demands a fusion of art, empathy, multidisciplinarity, and purpose. Lars Strannegård argues persuasively for the value of humanistic and cultural exposure, not as a luxury, but as a fundamental pillar of business education in an AI-driven world. The conversation is rich, lively, and studded with practical examples, candid personal insights, and vivid articulation of ideas that matter for leaders, educators, and anyone charting a course through change.