But contrary to Dickens, Charles Darwin, a humanist and author of the theory of evolution, was of the view that ‘emotional expresion’ , and so the heart, ‘is essential for survival’.

Now, that was a long time ago so let’s see if we can figure out for ourselves where we stand today, on the heart vs head dilemma and its relevance to ‘brand’, by looking at how both impact on the approach to business across three sectors where some of the biggest shifts are taking place.

Starting with Fintech and more specifically banking, managing the heart/head equation is becoming particularly critical as digital shifts are rapidly redefining the relationship between the brand and the customer. We are witnessing a move from human connections to increased automation, putting speed of transactions ahead of emotional interactions and so eroding one half of the equation through which brands build loyalty and advocacy.

Accenture, in its Banking 2020 report, states that by 2020 full service banks, as a group, could lose about 35% of their market share to digitally oriented disruptors that are far more agile and innovative. We all know this is inevitable, as we focus on driving interactions with the customer that are faster, easier and therefore more convenient, but in so doing we should be aware of the risk of placing the functional above all else.

As a parallel, look at what’s happening in the world of Digital Integrated Mobility with entities such as Moovel delivering a very efficient and technical, but very functional offer, whilst the likes of Moovitare applying a more balanced combination between technical advancements and the human and emotive dimension. It is no coincidence that the latter is rapidly expanding its global footprint whilst the former remains a local player in its country of birth.

We know that digital innovation and with that automation are a necessity, but they primarily appeal to the functional and quantitative view of the world. I believe that’s not enough. As humans, we draw greater value from the emotional connection we forge with brands than the functional or feature lead rewards a product delivers, so I’d say you need a measure of both.

In Spotlight on Consumer Insights – Sept. 2016, the Harvard Business Review seems to agree on this point. “The right combination of heart and head will eventually pay off in stronger customer loyalty, greater consumer willingness to try your brand, and sustained revenue growth”.

Let’s now look at the world of hospitality, a sector where it’s all about the experience and with that the emotional connections you nurture with your customers.

The September 2016 HBR report on consumer insights tells us that companies scoring higher on emotional elements tend to have a higher NPS (Net promoter score), on average, than companies that spike only on functional elements (NPS is a metric used to measure customer loyalty and advocacy and the company’s recent revenue growth).

The 2016 NPS Benchmarks Annual Survey shows that Hospitality, as a category, affords a higher NPS score than the Financial sector we addressed earlier so supporting the above statement. Why is this the case? Because the world of Hospitality engages at a more personal level, beyond mere functionality. Their focus lies in creating emotional experiences that connect with consumers because customers today want meaningful experiences that they can collect and tell others about. The greater value is drawn from connection with the heart, the emotional, rather than the head, the functional, but the latter still needs to deliver on all accounts for the experience to be truly memorable. So even in this ‘emotionally’ driven category, we need the right balance between the heart and the head.

Finally, we’re going to look at a world that does not yet exist, in practical terms, but is already challenging both our emotional gauge, the heart, and our rational state, the head.

I’m talking about HYPERLOOP, Elon Musk’s fantastic new technology that is going to permanently alter the way humans move through their environments. This is a transportation system that will potentially propel people between cities at speeds of up to 1,200 Km/h. Ironically, I think that how the heart and head connect with this is almost easier than how they might connect with other more conventional products, say a faster train or a new faster airliner. What’s interesting is that I can see the romanticism in it, a very emotional attribute, drive the rational and so the head, as the latter struggles to make concrete sense of it all. Conversely, I can also see our imagination, influenced by storytelling and sci-fi movies, pushing the boundaries of our rational state and almost forcing us to review how we think in order to adapt to new experiences.

Let’s dig deeper and focus on the rational for a moment. If we think this through carefully, it’s quite likely that there is a human impulse at the heart of the Hyperloop to get to places faster, to be better connected, to make life easier, so focusing on the functional! But, is Hyperloop really only about the functional – the 10 minute journey to your desired destination that would otherwise have taken you an hour – or is it that it’s an opportunity for its audiences to collect and tell new stories of their new experience,that will ultimately make this the more powerful connect with the brand.

HTT’s (Hyperloop Transportation Technologies) CEO Dirk Ahlborn says “We are all driven by the belief that Hyperloop will change the way we live”. Bibop Gresta (COO and Chairman of HTT) adds, “We are shrinking distances but we are also expanding the human heart”. (Vision Oct-Dec 2016)

These are some pretty big statements they make and which stand to redefine how we behave, which is influenced by how we feel, the heart, and how we think, the head.

In conclusion, I believe that empowering your brand, and by extension your employees, to focus on the heart as well as the head, will have an immensely powerful effect on the experience that customers will have in interacting with you. Balanc­ing the heart and head is so critical. If you allow your brand to use both then the experience you deliver to all your customers will be greatly improved.

And to be fair to Charles Dickens, I have to mention that he did go back on his original sentiment that the head was all man needed and instead reached the same conclusion as I. To add a bit of context to his change of view, it was in fact his daughter, as she struggled to forge relationships in her adult life as a result of her fact-based upbringing, that forced Dickens to rebuke his earlier conviction that the rational and so the head, was all man required in life.

In 1854, Charles Dickens wrote in Hard times for these times:

“Some persons hold that there is a wisdom of the Head, and that there is a wisdom of the Heart. I have not supposed so; but, as I have said, I mistrust myself now. I have supposed the head to be all sufficient. It may not be all sufficient; how can I venture this morning to say it is!”