Blog
The Tales That Bind
It may be hard to find fans of the U.S. military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we have learned a few things. One is that tourniquets save lives. For a long time they were exiled from emergency medicine, in both military and civilian life, but now we know that they save lives under the right circumstances. Another surprising life-saving technique is telling stories. When people in military units share a backstory, they trust each other more and do more to keep each other safe and successful. The military tested this in its schools and training camps after learning from researchers...
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Why Every CEO Should Pursue a “Purpose Beyond Profit”
It’s textbook management practice to formalize a company’s “mission, vision, and values.” And while these are important steps in helping form a direction and way of being for a company, many CEOs are nonetheless challenged with a litany of business issues: Unengaged employees An inability to attract the new talent needed Customer defection Lack of marketplace differentiation Dissatisfied shareholders This list goes on and on, doesn’t it? Behind each of these business challenges is a big question: How can my business matter more to people? When your business...
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Why Recruits Say, “No Thanks”
I came across an interesting article on recruiter.com the other day entitled, “7 reasons I’ll turn down a job after interviewing with you”. Two caught my eye: 1. You’re too negative – If you’re bad-mouthing the company, other employees, your workload, or even yourself, then chances are slim that I’ll come on board as your newest employee. Why? Because negativity is toxic. It tells me that morale is low and that you don’t enjoy your job. I recognize it’s possible that you’re just having a bad day, but it’s just too big of a risk to take. 5. You don’t tell me...
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Five Sustainability Report Formats
The pros and cons of five sustainability report formats What format will your corporate sustainability report (CSR) take? Determining how to present the final product is one of the key decisions to make as you develop the strategy and project plan for a CSR. The format not only has budget and timeline implications, but it also impacts the way your report is organized and written. For example, writing for the web requires a very different approach than a long-form printed copy. It wasn’t too long ago that most companies simply prepared printed documents and/or a downloadable PDF of the same...
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The Power of Being Stubborn Around a Single “Beacon” Idea
George Tannenbaum is a noted advertising copywriter and prolific blogger. In his wry, and often acerbic way, George chronicles the tension of being a creative thinker in the world of business. In a post, he recounted the experience of being at a client’s annual shoot for a celebrity TV spot. Anxiety is the king of such events, and George talks about the problem of working with inexperienced and politically-driven executives who do nothing but worry and create chaos. He offers this advice to people who want to remain cool, collected, and purposeful in such an environment: “Never...
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Startups, Change the Conversation With Your Engineering Team
It’s an all too familiar startup sight. Your technical co-founder and dev team have their eyes glued to screens of scrolling code as their fingers fly across keyboards and music blasts through their earbuds. They are driving hard toward the launch date, losing themselves in their work and consuming Red Bull like there’s no tomorrow. Time for a breath of fresh air. Writing on Quora, Nikos Moraitakis, Founder & CEO of WorkableHR.com, sets the following as one of ten helpful tasks non-technical co-founders should undertake: “Nurture good spirit, keep everyone...
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Emotional is Not Necessarily Emotive
If you haven’t already heard the buzz about the new Johnson & Johnson ad campaign, you will. And after May 10, it will find its way to a page or screen near you. Thirty million bucks buys a lot of exposure. What caught our attention is the emotive premise of the campaign, which is called “For All You Love.” With a name like that, you can guess it’s going straight for your heartstrings. The teaser image on the J&J home page suggests we’ll see lots of loving parents applying Band-Aids® and baby soap. This is not just because the company wants to play off how much we love our kids. It’s...
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How Leading Companies are Winning Through Meaningful Brand Strategies: The Employee’s Perspective
According to Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace study, “in 2010, 28% of American workers were engaged.
By the end of 2012, as the U.S. inched toward a modest recovery, that number increased slightly to 30%, matching the
all-time high since Gallup began tracking the employee engagement levels of the U.S. working population in 2000.” “These latest findings indicate that 70% of American workers are ‘not engaged’ or ‘actively disengaged’ and are emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and less likely to be productive. Currently, 52% of workers are not engaged, and worse,...
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Your People Will Make Your Brand Meaningful (If They Believe in You)
There are many “tangible” brand moments that are under direct control of a brand (the lobby people enter, the ad campaign they see, the packaging on the product they open, etc.). However, there are also many “intangible” moments that play an important part in defining the success of a brand. These are moments when people of the brand interact with other employees, customers, partners, suppliers, distributor, investors, community leaders, and so on. Behind every great brand there are great people talking with important people. When a brand seeks to move toward greater...
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Social Business Driven by Meaning
Stowe Boyd is a researcher, speaker and writer working principally on social tools and their impact on media, business and society. Back in 2012 he told delegates at the Meaning 2012 Conference in the UK that we are entering the age of “Post-normal Business”. For Boyd, “Postnormal Business” results from a series of fundamental shifts for business: “’Leadership’ has changed when a decentralized group of people can take down a government. ‘The Value Chain’ has changed when the customer is no longer just the ‘buyer’ but also a...
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It’s Time to Re-Value the Value Proposition
The creation of the value proposition has a long history. Businesses are absolute wizards at coming up with new products and services, figuring out how to make and distribute them, and backing them up with service. Ironically, they often are unable to craft a value proposition for their offering that couldn’t be easily used by their competitors. They write bog-standard, uninspiring, business-speak statements, filled with jargon that go in one ear and out the other of both employees, prospects and customers. As such, they end up saying nothing significant to the people vital to their...
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The Meaningful Workplace: It Takes New Ways of Thinking, and Behaving
“How do you build an organization where people are willing to bring their gifts of initiative, creativity, and passion?” – Gary Hamel You can’t build a workplace that is meaningful to people using the old mentality and outdated tools that have rendered your current workspace meaning-neutral or, at worst, meaningless. To forge meaningful alliances with meaning-seeking employees requires new ways of thinking and acting. Familiar business constructs that have formed the foundation of employer/employee relations are being rethought and retooled to make business fit for the future. Ambition is...
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Meaningful Brand Strategies: The Consumers Perspective
Consumers are expecting a lot from businesses, according to the 2013 Cone Communications/Echo Global CSR Study. Consider these findings relative to the role of a business’s social responsibility: “As global citizens become increasingly aware of businesses’ behaviors and CSR initiatives – in part because of social
media, they are also becoming more astute about both corporate and consumer impacts. Around the world, the majority
of consumers feel both individuals and corporations are having some degree of positive influence on social and environmental issues; however, just one-quarter feels...
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How Leading Companies are Winning Through Meaningful Brand Strategies: The Research Firm’s Perspective
Millward Brown, is a market research firm with offices in 56 countries. Their Stengel Study of Business Growth reaches out to consumers and employees to assess the impact of businesses and brands. Here is a summary of their findings: “The Stengel Study of Business Growth ultimately identified 50 brands with extraordinary growth over the 2000s relative to their competition. These Top 50 brands across all categories have created more meaningful relationships with people. They have far outpaced their competition in brand value, and they have contributed to faster and greater business value...
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Every Brand Should Have A “Director Of Something Special”
Random acts of kindness and generosity are a great way to acknowledge valuable customers and employees – and to create a meaningful buzz about your brand. Why not appoint someone in your company as the “Director of Something Special” and define their role as: “To create random moments of unexpected happiness for the staff and customers of our company”? Determine an appropriate budget, keeping in mind that the real value of the exercise will be in the gesture as much as the gift itself. Then let your “Director of Something Special” find people that deserve a special “thank you” from your...
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