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Over the past few months I’ve been thinking about the question of nature vs nurture. What we’ve always yearned for The “nature” idea states that we humans think and behave in the same ways we have always done, since our hunter/gatherer days. It’s the notion that “nothing ever changes” when it comes to human behavior and that we are still driven by the same set of basic human needs. In today’s world the “nature” idea means that the internet, mobile technology, social media, etc. haven’t really lead to, or enabled, new human...

I recently came across a Smithsonian blog post that decoded the spray-painted hieroglyphics we commonly see on our roads. The color coded system was developed after a tragedy occurred when construction workers accidentally cut through a petroleum pipe line in 1976. Each color corresponds to a different underground service. Below the surface of your brand, there’s a complex business at work. Much like the various services which we trod over every day without realizing, components of the business behind your brand are often little fiefdoms that may be working at cross-purposes when it comes to...

I recently came across an article about a company so deep into democratic values that employees actually elect the CEO. The adoption of democratic principles in business is a growing phenomenon. But my question isn’t whether your business is run as a democracy. My question is, would you win re-election if it were? Have you earned the respect and admiration of your employees by not only what you say, but what you do? Have you provided them with a workplace that matters to them (and to the success of the enterprise)? Have you created a culture of respect, based on empathy, that makes people...

“People will sit up and take notice of you, if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice. “ – Harry Selfridge On our televisions, Jeremy Piven portrays the pioneering retailer Harry Selfridge. But even in Selfridge’s day, “brands” faced the fundamental challenge of simply getting people to take notice. Today, despite the proliferation of media via the Internet and mobility, any brand still has the task of getting noticed as one of the 5,000+ brand impressions people experience every day. Of course, if you have a product or service that is genuinely cutting...

Like most people, Professor Gary Hamel does not make a habit of being a shill for brands. But… When a brand reaches out in a significant way, even the most conservative of us will end up saying something about it. We’ll find the language that helps us express the distance we see between what we appreciate and what we’ve tolerated in the past. And we’ll say it out loud, often couching our comments in a “I don’t usually do this, but…” excuse. That’s the true power of an emotionally meaningful brand strategy – a strategy that creates experiences that rise above the norm, stand apart from the...

Many businesses cut across diverse industries and functions, serve a complex web of customers types, and manage a mixed bag of employees, from outgoing sales people… to heads-down scientists, engineers and production people… to sharp, results-driven executives. When all these divergent personalities are taken into consideration, it’s easy to give up on trying to define a single, meaningfully-focused ambition that can be used to drive the entire business forward. It’s not easy, but it’s important to do. Of course, it’s not an easy thing to do, but it is an increasingly important management...

Brands need to navigate their presence in the intense flow of modern information, not by creating more information as much as by being especially helpful to people overwhelmed by tons of increasingly untrustworthy information. The first US “electric newspaper” appeared in Los Angeles In 1931. The marvel of this first display was that it could present news “as it happened” – well, at least as fast as it was known to have happened via the then slow and clumsy labyrinth of pre-Internet media connections and hierarchical editorial control (which was mostly for the better, I believe; but not...

You can usually divide the world into those who think corporate sustainability programs are for real and those who say “window dressing, PR, don’t believe a word of it.” But both camps share the same view about why companies do sustainability reporting, because it shows off how well they’re doing. In other words, almost everyone thinks sustainability reporting for corporations is like wrapping paper on a gift: a thin veneer, for appearances only. Would it surprise you to learn that almost everyone is wrong? The reality is that reporting has a huge influence on what companies actually do to...