The famous 19th-century fable says a frog in boiling water will jump out. However, when put in tepid water that slowly increases in temperature, the frog will not notice the change and will die. Spoiler. It’s not true. A frog placed in boiling water will die immediately, and when cooler water...
Loyalty is in the news. Not for a fuzzy feel-good program designed to woo customers as repeat spenders. Instead, IAG is subject to a class-action lawsuit by Slater and Gordon. The suit charges that the insurer used AI to target long-standing customers to hike their premiums because they were ‘loyal’ and less...
The word steppe comes from 15th-century Russia and means ‘further origin uncertain’, which neatly captures the nature of values. While they’re often presented as fully formed imperatives. They’re not. It’s an ongoing process to find them, understand them and use them to guide choices every day. But first. Vast and often...
Values. Everyone has them, but not everyone knows what they are. The resulting gap can drive a wedge between what you say and do. Which matters. Because there are definite benefits in them becoming how you do things. One look at companies that stand alongside what they believe even when there’s...
After a door panel blew out mid-flight, an FAA audit gave Boeing until the end of May to sort out continuing problems with its planes. The deadline is fast approaching, and it’s still unclear if executive exits, reshuffles and statements about “building on the learnings” will be enough to satisfy...
This started as a different article about the elements that make up an experience. But after rumbling them and examining what organisations do and don’t control, I realised the details are less important than how they turn into value. Which led me back to promises. In the hands of organisations, experience is...
Nearly every week I see yet another story about a company embarking on a 'rebrand'. Accompanying the hype is a rush to discard what got them here in an attempt to downplay or erase the past. Which is a common symptom of how people try to change a brand. It’s a...
Wading through Barbra Streisand’s exhaustive 900-plus page biography, My Name is Barbra, I didn’t expect to stumble upon a lesson in maturity that applies to organisations and how their brands store value. In chapter seven, Streisand recounts her audition for the movie Funny Girl. She was trying to convince the director that...
Before he was convicted to serve 25 years in prison for fraud last week, Sam Bankman-Fried aligned himself with a movement known as Effective Altruism. They welcomed him with open arms, happy for the boost in awareness he generated and a corresponding increase in those taking up the cause. Then Fried’s crypto-fund...
While enjoying a coffee with a friend, she shared a story about her workplace, which got me pondering the culture-process divide and the consequences for people’s endeavours. Culture is how people choose to do things repeatedly, and processes direct people on how to do it. And when those two things are...