The "Voices" We Optimise For — and the Ones We Silence

Are We "Rich" Yet? (And Other Questions My Smartphone Keeps Asking Me)

I find it mildly entertaining—sometimes endearingly so, sometimes alarmingly—to watch the world chase two things with the single‑minded devotion of a puppy after a laser pointer:

Wealth and technology.

Not wealth in the sense of feeling resourced, nourished, abundant, or secure. No no. Wealth, as in money. Preferably with commas and zeros.... Lots of them.

And technology—not as an extension of human capability, craft, curiosity, or wisdom—but narrowly, reverently, almost piously defined as digital technology.

Apps. Platforms. Dashboards. #AI doing things to other AI.

The underlying assumption seems to be simple:

If we have enough of these two, everything else—meaning, joy, connection, fulfilment, wisdom, ethics, humanity—will somehow… auto‑update.

Like software. (pun totally intended!)

I imagine a pop‑up notification floating over our lives: “Congratulations! You have achieved scale. #Purpose will be installed shortly.”

The Narrow Lenses We’re Wearing

It’s not that money or technology are bad. They’re not the villains. They are tools, albeit powerful ones.

Money is a form of stored energy. Technology is an amplifier of intent.

But when money becomes the destination rather than a means—and when technology becomes the centre of gravity instead of a servant— something subtle happens. Our worldview quietly shrinks. Behavioural science keeps reminding us of this truth: When the lens narrows, so does the imagination. We begin to:

• Measure success only in market caps and monthly actives and Optimise relentlessly for what is easiest to count
• Mistake speed for direction, Scale for significance, Noise for movement

And somewhere along the way, we stop asking the inconvenient, unfashionable, deeply human questions:

• Who am I, really—beyond my LinkedIn headline?
• Where am I in the arc of my life, not just my career?
• Why am I here? (Hashtag purpose of my being, minus the brand deck.)
• How do I make meaning of success, failure, boredom, longing, belonging?
• What choices do I actually have—versus the ones I’m sleepwalking into?
• What decisions do I wish to make when no one is watching?

These questions, inconveniently, don’t fit neatly into dashboards.

Being Carried Away (Politely, at First)

Are we being carried away by money and tech? Certainly not overtly. Much more subtly.

We applaud hustle without asking: At what cost to the hustler? We celebrate disruption without asking: Who is being displaced? We chase growth without pausing to ask: Growth of what—and for whom?

And when someone dares to ask, “But does this make life better, kinder, more humane?” We smile gently and say, “That’s important, yes—but we’ll get to it after Series C.”

The Four Voices Holding the System Together

This is why I find the work of Raghu Ananthanarayanan and Gagandeep Singh so helpful —particularly their articulation of the Tensegrity Mandala / Business Aligner. They suggest that organizations (and societies) are held in dynamic balance by four voices:

• The Voice of Wealth
• The Voice of Technology
• The Voice of the Customer
• The Voice of the Employee

Not a hierarchy. Not a checklist. A tensegrity structure—where stability arises not from rigid control, but from healthy, proportionate tension.

Pull too hard on one voice, and the structure distorts. Listen only to two (wealth and technology, for instance), and the others don’t disappear. They go underground. Where they ferment, and leak in dysfunctional ways.

Progress demands balance, and attention to the health of the tensions.

The Quiet Voices We Struggle to Hear

Most organizations are fluent—sometimes eloquent—in the voice of wealth. Many are enthralled by the voice of technology.

But the voice of the customer? Often reduced to surveys, scores, and statistical shadows of real humans, real stories.

And the voice of the employee? Townhalls. Engagement metrics. Culture decks.

But are we really listening? Or are we selectively hearing what confirms the story we already want to believe? Listening without reflection is data accumulation wearing a halo.

Reframing the Voices

What if we stopped treating these voices as departments or KPIs—and started seeing them as expressions of humanity?

• What if the voice of wealth asked not just “How much?” but “Enough—for what?”
• What if the voice of technology asked not just “Can we build this?” but “Should we—and to serve which human experience?”
• What if the voice of the customer spoke not as a transaction point, but as a relationship?
• What if the voice of the employee wasn’t about retention, but about dignity, growth, and meaning?

Suddenly, balance isn’t about stability. It’s about vibrance, aliveness.

Trend or Thoughtfulness?

Here we are—with unprecedented tools and extraordinary wealth‑creating capacity—and yet a persistent sense that something essential is missing. Perhaps what we need isn’t another trend to jump onto, but a pause brave enough to feel uncomfortable.

To step back, recalibrate and ask:

• What do we really mean by wealth?
• What do we expect technology to be in service of?
• Whose voices are we amplifying—and whose are we muting?
• Are we designing systems that merely perform… or ones that help humans become?

Because these choices don’t just shape quarterly results. They shape cultures, ecosystems and the kind of ancestors we will have been.

And perhaps the most subversive act in an age of acceleration is not to move faster… but to choose more mindfully.

At Sambhaavna: Partners for Organization Development & Business Impact , this pause‑and‑recalibrate stance is not a philosophical indulgence—it is our core consulting practice. We work with organizations on organization development, thoughtful leadership, and tangible business impact—bringing together behavioural science, systems thinking, lived leadership experience, and frameworks that honour both human and business realities.

Perhaps real wealth isn’t what we accumulate, but what our systems allow us to become.

What is your definition of Wealth - and Technology?