Sometimes the deep work and everyday actions and decisions needed to build a brand can feel like a modern day equivalent of the Gordian Knot. The origins of the term come from the time of Alexander the Great in 333 B.C. and one of the earliest uses in modern language was by...
When an entrepreneur is building a brand the focus is often on the ‘doing’ side of things. For too many that starts and stops at the veneer they want (deciding a name, getting a logo, applying it to everything that moves). But more fully it can extend across and align...
In the first of what I hope will be lots of great questions, here is one about how to handle brand when a company splits in two. Due to circumstances beyond our control our business is being split in two. How do we handle the brand which has become well known...
In 1884, Edwin Abbott Abbott wrote a book called Flatland. I’ve always loved the analogy of that book and recently was reminded of it during a RadioLab podcast. Nothing is more dangerous to a business or a brand than stagnant thinking or being mired in the same whats and hows forever. In...
I was doing some gardening the other weekend. I like to potter about and as I weeded and prepared my veggie garden for spring planting (a few weeks later than I should have but even that has a lesson) I got to think about the parallels between how a garden...
When was the last time you stopped and took a good hard no blinkers look at here? The present. The now. If you’re like a lot of the people I work with the easier question is when did you take the time to think about where you are headed. Where you...
The question for this week is one that many business leaders have faced at some point in their history – should we change our name? And the answer is usually that that is the wrong question. The better and more important question is why do you think you want or need to...
An article on Inc.com caught my eye last week. It talked about some time spent by author and teacher Jim Collins at the United States Military Academy at West Point and the things he learnt about leadership during that time. Collins made the following observations: “If you want to build a culture...
I often talk about brand as being evolution not revolution. And reading a book over the weekend about the impact of denial by leaders on everything from business to economies, I was reminded again about how easy it is to get caught in the mindless “rebrand” cycle and miss the real opportunities...
Last week at the QR National annual meeting, shareholders voted to support the change of the corporation’s name to … wait for it. Aurizon. There’s a good article about the craziness of this move at LeadingCompany, where editor Kath Walters explores what they might have been thinking – aided and abetted by yours...