The series that uses illustration and animation to bring ideas into sharp focus
Talk To The Hand was created by We are Cognitive founder, Andrew Park, the creative force behind the RSA Animates. In this series, Andrew interviews the people behind the ideas that shape our world. He brings those ideas and concepts into sharp focus through illustration and animation.
The pilot episode is with Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation and former CEO of the RSA. They begin by looking back at the RSA Animates and how Andrew first got involved with the RSA, going on to discuss cultural theory. Matthew outlines what it is, what it could mean for society and looks at the role of fatalism.
“I have not deliberately set out to stick to this theory. It’s not like I had a religious conversion and then I spent my entire life obsessed. I put it in a box and try and forget about it a lot. I spent six months not using it, but it just keeps coming back and I keep recognising it and keep thinking, ‘Oh, there it is, happening, it’s there again.”
How it started
The Challenge
The Average Day
Question Time
Matthew: One of the problems with cultural theory is the name Cultural Theory, but we do use it in our Living Change Approach as well. So, the idea that you think about interventions in relation to hierarchical interventions, solidaristic interventions, and individualistic interventions, that you look at a system like that, and you say, "How is it authority works in this system? How are values and belonging work in this system? How is it individual incentives and aspirations work in this system?" That is one that is embedded in our work now.
It's my tragic hobby because I've been writing about it and talking about it. It's not totally tragic in the sense that, for example, every year I do a talk for - my wife is Head of Content for a really good ethical leadership startup. She's gone from 2 people to 20 people in 4 years. I do a talk every year to their cohort of next-generation leaders and even a couple of years later, people say, "I'm still using Matthew's framework." So, people have found it useful. It's entered into our Living Change Approach. What I haven't managed to do is the thing that I was trying to do with the book and that I'm now going to try and do with these blog posts, which is to popularize them.
Andrew: Well, this is an interesting part of the conversation really, Matthew, because I remember when I first came to see you. I think I'd been working at the Design Council. I know the Design Council, the work wasn't totally corporate, it had an element of design. The structure of some of their meetings was quite corporate because they were dealing with a lot of corporate entities. My bread and butter was dealing with corporates. Drawing large conversations for corporate clients. Meeting with you guys where it was more ideas, dealing with or representing ideas, I was really excited about that. I was really excited to meet with you.
I remember coming into the house and coming up to your office. I didn't know where I was going, it’s a bit of a labyrinth anyway, isn't it, in the house? Then you talked to me about cultural theory, and do you remember what you said to me about the brief for illustrating these slides? I think you were giving a presentation, so you wanted me to illustrate some stuff.
Matthew: Well, I was chewing on this thing that I'd been chewing on for 10 years, which is how can I make these ideas accessible to people? The reason I like the ideas is because I think they have a number of qualities, but I think one of the relevant qualities to what we're talking about now, Andrew, is that I think that they're relatively easy to grasp, but actually, they generate quite a lot of nuance and subtlety. I think that's unusual because I think, generally speaking, big theory, it's either very complicated and complex and difficult for ordinary people to get their head around, or it's very reductionist and simplistic, and it fails to capture nuance.
The reason I love cultural theory is because I can describe it in five minutes. Actually, because it's about conflict and because it's about understanding how things exist at all sorts of different layers, it's got a lot of subtlety and nuance, I don't think it's reductive in the way in which you apply it. It's a difficult thing for me because this is the tragedy of my intellectual life.
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Every explainer animation we create is a collaboration between us and our clients. Guided by each client’s essence, goals and message, we create scripted and visual storytelling that is informative, engaging, memorable and relatable. The result is a carefully crafted and bespoke explainer animation.