Taking measured action over and over is decidedly unsexy. Especially given it runs counter to the more common ‘splashy launch’ mindset.Yet, when I encountered the idea laid out a decade apart by two authors, it seemed like both an antidote and a helpful way to think about achieving a brand...
Organisations are made of unheroic work — those thousands of everyday actions and decisions that keep your particular engine turning. Hidden and often unexamined, it is the lion-share of what people do in their jobs.I call the gap between what you say is most important and how people do that...
You know the page. There might even be one in your organisation. At the top is purpose, and from there, the cascade continues…PurposeVisionMissionCore ValuesStrategic pillarsBrand promiseBrand valuesEssencePersonalityExperience principlesPositioningEtc. I frequently see organisations that have the entire shebang including some I haven’t even listed. It’s madness. No one can hold all of...
Are you a trust given or a trust earned person?In my experience, everyone is one or the other, and like oil and water, the two don’t mix. When earners run into givers, things quickly become the trust edition of a Mexican stand-off.It’s one of the things I look for when...
Anyone who has ever tried to change an organisation’s culture can attest to legacy’s sticky hold, where the pull of the past routinely stymies good intentions.How to break through the inertia is the question wrestled with by every organisation taking a deliberate approach to their culture. Culture is built one action...
Untethering a brand from day-to-day marketing activities can leave people feeling at sea about what remains. If it isn’t all the markers such as the logo, the campaign, the name, etc., what is it?Try thinking about brand as a warehouse for storing the value created by peoples and organisations day-to-day...
The term ‘unheroic work’ first landed in my language via a book by Jedediah Purdy1 about the commons of politics and community.The quote reads,“Yet a political achievement cannot be taken for granted. It is always either a continuing accomplishment or an eroding one. It requires the sustenance of unheroic work.”Despite...
After hundreds of articles and speeches and a couple of books about ‘brand as a result of the promises you keep’, I still get people retorting “oh, so you do marketing.”After I swallow my frustration, I take their assumption and use it as an opportunity to talk about what it...
The team of five peered out from their respective Zoom screens. It wasn’t the ideal way to do the work we were about to begin, but after navigating some dicey days, exploring how to work together better was too important to wait until we could meet in person.Values and culture...
Late afternoon in early April, Eric Termuende sat down across a table in a small cafe on the jostling main drag of Vancouver hip Yaletown district.We met in 2019 while I was spending a short sabbatical there, and we bonded over our shared fascination about how organisations work together. Eric is an...