Leadership

24 Mar

Stop ‘mis-placing’ your brand and put its value to work.

“And then we started the brand work“, said the CEO while I listened to her talk about the behind-the-scenes effort to reimagine their product. Then, later the same week, I received another company’s business plan. A comment hidden in the notes for one area said, “Brand doesn’t play a part in...

06:02 / Brand / Leadership / Marketing / Operations

20 Jan

A new tool for making promises you can keep

On the bottom shelf of my bookcase, I’ve got a small library of books and a stack of papers that explore promises and commitments.The authors ramble at length about the moral foundations and legal consequences of making, keeping and breaking promises. Yet, beyond the examples they use, none provide tools...

06:10 / Culture / Leadership / Operations / Promises / Unheroic Work

05 Aug

How to make the most of your values

Values are not there as a billboard for your goodness.Frankly, I don’t care what someone who doesn’t work for me, with me and buy from me thinks of them and nor should you.So, when I talk about good and bad values, it’s not with any moral judgement. Instead, it’s the...

06:36 / Culture / Leadership / Promises / Values

01 Sep

The unheralded, yet essential role leaders play in achieving the brand result

Unheroic work sustains a robust and resilient brand result. However, I have never seen one achieved if people in leadership aren’t also driving it.And when I say leadership, I include the chief executive, general manager, owner and founder, and also other people within the organisation who lead in various ways.So...

07:15 / Brand / Leadership / Unheroic Work

24 Oct

Keeping your promises can help you avoid the minefield of people’s outrage

People making demands of a company to act differently isn’t a new story. However, the nature of what they’re asking for is shifting.In a Bloomberg article sent to me by Nancy Hellmrich (@getnance), people working for furniture maker Wayfair had walked off the job because their company is doing business...

07:29 / Brand / Leadership / Org Identity / Promises

31 Jul

An org’s little things are the big things

During a podcast, author Tim Ferris and Josh Waitzkin, who was the basis for the book Searching for Bobby Fischer, were discussing the necessity of bringing discipline and alignment around the things that you believe.It’s been an emerging theme these past few articles, from last week’s entreaty to not forget...

07:58 / Leadership / Org Identity / Purpose