Minimize or Maximize?

Seth Godin tells of an encounter with bad marketing, at the Indian Embassy when trying to get a visa. He lists many ways to improve the attractiveness and easiness of travelling to India, then notes:

"My takeaway was this: the people in that building were way too nice and way too smart to not know the many ways they could fix this process. The problem is that this bureaucracy, like most bureaucracies, has an attitude of minimizing, not maximizing. They want to minimize expense, not maximize benefit. There isn't a single person there who has as part of his job, "change systems to increase the satisfaction of people we deal with." Nobody who is charged with, "increase revenue opportunities for us and for the people we work with." Or even, "employ more people in Delhi."

"Same thing happens at my village zoning board, at most schools, at many churches and even, believe it or not, at most businesses. It's not that difficult, but it requires a very different mindset."

Is your organization focused on maximizing or minimizing?

World's Top Brands

What do the world's top brands have in common?

A lot of customers!

And one reason is that most of these companies provide good experiences - they do their jobs well and make customers happy. You know what you are going to get from Google, and they do it well! And they are providing a service that people want.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Google Inc. has knocked Microsoft Corp. from its perch as the world's top-ranked brand, according to findings released on Monday.

The rankings, compiled by market research firm Millward Brown, also put Google ahead of well-established brands like General Electric Co., No. 2; Coca-Cola Co., No. 4; Wal-Mart Stores, No. 7; and IBM, No. 9.

Some key factors seen this year in building brand recognition ranged from corporate responsibility to serving customers in emerging markets like Brazil and India, according to the study.

The top-ranked brand from a non-U.S.-based company was China Mobile, which dropped a spot but still came in at No. 5.

The rankings were based on publicly available financial data along with primary research, including interviews with a million consumers worldwide, Millward Brown said.

For Google, which ranked No. 7 a year ago, the jump to the top underscores how quickly the Web search leader has become an everyday name. The company uses relatively little advertising, instead relying on word-of-mouth promotion.

By contrast, Microsoft's slide down to third place from first comes even as the software company has been rolling out its new Windows Vista operating system with a massive global marketing blitz.

Eileen Campbell, global chief executive of Millward Brown, said the rankings showed "a blend of good business leadership, responsible financial management and powerful marketing ... can be leveraged to create and grow corporate wealth."

Some of the other big movers on the list included Apple Inc.. which rose 13 spots to No. 16 and Starbucks Corp., which rose 13 spots to No. 35. Those losing ground in the brand rankings included Intel Corp., Home Depot Inc. and Dell Inc.

The Brand Formula

GREAT advice from Seth Godin:

What's a brand?

I think it is the product of two things:

[Prediction of what to expect] times [emotional power of that expectation].

If I encounter a brand and I don't know what it means or does, it has zero power. If I have an expectation of what an organization will do for me, but I don't care about that, no power.

Fedex is a powerful brand because you always get what you expect, and the relief you get from their consistency is high.

AT&T is a weak brand because you almost never get what you expect, because they do so many different things and because the value of what they create has little emotional resonance (it sure used to though, when they did one thing, they did it perfectly and they were the only ones who could connect you).

The dangers of brand ubiquity are then obvious. When your brand is lots of things (like AOL became) then the expectations were all over the place and the emotional resonance started to fade. If the predictability of your brand starts to erode its emotional power (a restaurant that becomes boring) then you need to become predictable in your joyous unpredictability!

If you want to grow a valuable brand, my advice is to keep awareness close to zero among the people you're not ready for yet, and build the most predictable, emotional experience you can among those that care about you.

Living with lies

From World magazine, questioning Americans' acquiescence to media bias. Worth asking ourselves, what lies goes unquestioned in my everyday world? How do they affect me? How should I respond?

"why in the world do we keep listening to our nation's major media? Why do the nation's big newspapers, radio and television networks, and wire services keep getting a pass—when day after day and night after night they keep hurling king-sized lies our way? Just to remind us how gullible we all tend to be, here's a short list of where the big media regularly get it not just slightly skewed but exactly backwards. Here are seven Big Lies we all are subjected to virtually all the time:
"

Needed: Cultural Architects

Seth Godin's comments on this article remind us of the power of context. Great leaders create environments that empower people - helping them see possibilities and creating incentives to act on them.

"[World-class violinist plays for hours in a subway station, almost no one stops to listen]. The experiment just proved what we already know about context, permission and worldview. If your worldview is that music in the subway isn't worth your time, you're not going to notice when the music is better than usual (or when a famous violinist is playing). It doesn't match the story you tell yourself, so you ignore it. Without permission to get through to you, the marketer/violinist is invisible."

A Graphical Dissertation on America's Number One Song

Hilarious satire in the Village Voice, complete with Venn Diagrams and flowcharts:

"The most amazing line in 'This Is Why I'm Hot'—and, even at this early a juncture, quite possibly the most amazing line of any song to see release in 2007—is 'I'm hot 'cause I'm fly/You ain't 'cause you not.' Brutal and unassailable in its simplicity. Consider the reasoning, first, of just 'I'm hot 'cause I'm fly':

Mims is hot because he's fly. But it raises the question: Does being hot guarantee one's being fly? 'You ain't 'cause you not' would seem to clear that up:"

Redemptive Living

Through the year, magazines publish various lists of the best places to live and work. Who would ever choose to move to the worst place to live and work?

Yet isn't that what Jesus did by coming to earth?

This weekend, as Christians consider his sacrificial death and descent into Hell and subsequent victorious resurrection, perhaps some of us ought to be thinking of ways we could follow his footsteps - by descending into the most undesirable places instead of aspiring to the most desirable places, in order that we could also have some part in leading out some captives.

"According to the Apostles Creed, this day between Good Friday and Easter is when Jesus descended into hell. In December, 2001, I wrote in World about a similar survey of best places to live, and then profiled Christians who purposefully lived and worked in the lowest ranked cities. "

Triangulation

Sometimes offering a third choice makes a decision easier. It becomes a measuring stick to weigh the other two options. How do you offer choices? This from Seth Godin's blog:

"There are two wines for sale at dinner: $9 a bottle or $16 a bottle. Which one do you order?

Now, imagine that there are three, and the third is $34. Are you more likely to buy the $16 bottle now? Most people are.

Competition is almost always a good thing, and marketers can create it... or highlight it. "

Character is the Key to Leadership

According to Warren Bennis in this article:

"...research points to seven attributes essential to leadership. Taken together they provide a framework for leading knowledge workers:

• Technical competence: business literacy and grasp of one's field
• Conceptual skill: a facility for abstract or strategic thinking
• Track record: a history of achieving results
• People skills: an ability to communicate, motivate, and delegate
• Taste: an ability to identify and cultivate talent
• Judgment: making difficult decisions in a short time frame with imperfect data
• Character: the qualities that define who we are

"Senior executives seldom lack the first three attributes; rarely do they fail because of technical or conceptual incompetence, nor do they reach high levels of responsibility without having a strong track record. All these skills are important, but in tomorrow's world exemplary leaders will be distinguished by their mastery of the softer side: people skills, taste, judgment, and, above all, character.

"Character is the key to leadership, an observation confirmed by most people's personal experience, as it is in my 15 years of work with more than 150 leaders, and in other studies I've encountered. Research at Harvard University indicates that 85 percent of a leader's performance depends on personal character. Likewise, the work of Daniel Goleman makes clear that leadership success or failure is usually due to "qualities of the heart" (see "The Emotional Intelligence of Leaders," Fall 1998). Although character is less quantifiable than other aspects of leadership, there are many ways to take the measure of an individual"

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Know Thyself!

Tom Peters commenting on one of the many similarities in thinking between himself and Warren Bennis and Charles Handy:

"One area where Charles & Warren have got me dead to rights is the critical axiom that in order to lead effectively one must know oneself—not navel gazing, but the idea that your core values must not be left unexamined and that you simply must understand how you are understood by others. This is fully half of Charles's presentation. (And will become a larger part of mine.)

(I flatter myself, or resort to wishful thinking, when I say that Bennis &amp; Handy & I might be called 'three peas from the same pod.')"

One reason I think we have a shortage of respected leaders is that so few people know themselves very well.

Sheepwalking

A clever take on a common malady, by Seth Godin:

"I define 'sheepwalking' as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a braindead job and enough fear to keep them in line.

Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep?

And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. ("I might get fired!")"

Thoughts on Alignment

I really like the thought of alignment, but it is really hard to put into practice. We see it in clearly in the world of sports, where coaches are able to get their players to understand and fulfill their roles. In organizations, it is harder to identify the skills and roles and objectives, which are more intangible that physical performance on a field. The leaders who can accomplish it are extremely gifted.

"My belief is that when you are in a culture where there is alignment, you do get a sense that everyone is clear about the purpose/ambition of the organization and how their role contributes to that. When people understand how what they do connects to the organization, and if the right systems and processes are in place for the work to get done, alignment can start to happen. On the flipside, I recently visited an organization, and depending who I spoke to, I got a different sense about the company. It felt as if the company had a split personality, maybe multiple personalities. It was clear to me that people were not focusing their energies towards the same goal. The departments weren't in 'relative position,' but rather opposition to each other.

I am not so naïve as to think that every person in an organization will head in the same direction. However, I get concerned when an organization seems scattered, vs. being drawn or pulled in the same direction.

That's my view. What's yours: Is there really such as thing as organizational alignment?"

Observation on Leadership

Regarding the rumored new president of Harvard, an observation on what it takes to be successful:

"“Complex institutions need wise leaders with vision who can inspire collaboration for change,” said Dr. Gutmann, who had said repeatedly that she intended to remain at Penn. “And Drew has all that it takes to be such a leader. She has a strong backbone and sense and sensibility.”"

Quite a checklist:
-wisdom
-vision
-inspirational
-collaborative
-change
-backbone
-sensible

Being Part of Something Special part2

More Tom Peters on great management. Here he's commenting on Daniel Yankelovich and John Immerwahr's 1983 research report, "Putting the Work Ethic to Work." Yankelovich and Immerwahr discovered that there was approximately 70% discretionary effort available in most employees. The discretionary effort being the difference between what they have to do to keep their jobs and what they could do if they brought forth all their talent and effort.

"It seems to me then, that a leader or manager's first job is to pull out that discretionary effort. This starts with clearly identifying the ambition of the organization and helping each and every employee see their part in realizing that ambition. I still believe that one thing we want from our talent is the sense that they make a difference. In my years as a first-line supervisor, I was always amazed at my weakest performers on the job who did amazing volunteer work after hours. Clearly they had the work ethic; we just didn't define an ambition for them worthy of their best efforts."

New Coaches

It's inspiring to read about the new style of coaching making an impact in the NFL. I hope this catches on in other realms of leadership:

"Smith and Dungy, perhaps the two closest friends to coach from opposing sidelines in the Super Bowl, are studies in positive reinforcement. They put unblinking trust in their players. They seek their opinions. Without handing over authority, Smith and Dungy treat their players the way a good boss treats an employee, or a teacher treats a student. For whatever reason, those social rules have not always applied in coaching.
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'By and large, when you ask good people to accept responsibility, they will, and they will respond,' said the Colts president, Bill Polian. 'They respond to his character, his personality, his care for them, which they return.'
."

"Guys want to know that you believe in them," Smith said. "And then they'll do anything for you. After a while, it grows on you. That's what I see happening here. We have a positive approach to coaching football."

"You don't get tired of Lovie," Bears tight end Desmond Clark said. "He's not trying to impose his way on everybody."

It's About PASSION!!!

Great guidelines from Seth Godin's blog on the potential power of power point:

"Communication is the transfer of emotion.

Communication is about getting others to adopt your point of view, to help them understand why you’re excited (or sad, or optimistic or whatever else you are.)"

He goes on to give pointers on how to sell your emotion.

Does Success Breed Failure?

This quote from an article about the challenges facing Microsoft sounds paradoxical. How can success breed failure?

Yet it points to a fundamental insight. The ways of thinking and acting that prove effective right here and now may not work in a new time or place where conditions are different, and the very fact of present success may blind us to the need for new strategies and methods.

Are you able to adapt? It takes a basic humility to be able to say that I knew what worked before, but that may be wrong for the current situation. We need continued humility and flexibility for ongoing success - to be lifelong learners.

Can Microsoft Thrive in a New Digital Era? - New York Times:

"“The dilemma for Microsoft is that it is a prisoner of its business model, and the fact that it is a gilt-lined prison makes it brutally hard to change.”

One of the evolutionary laws of business is that success breeds failure; the tactics and habits of earlier triumphs so often leave companies — even the biggest, most profitable and most admired companies — unable to adapt."

Marketable vs. Electable

Would you rather make an impact or be well liked? From Seth Godin's Jan 2 blog:

"To be marketable, you must be remarkable. Marketing isn't about getting more than 50% market share, it's about spreading your idea to enough people to be glad you did it... 3% of a market may be more than enough, especially if you have a local business or an expensive service.

The temptation of the marketer is to try to get elected. To be beloved by everyone. As a marketer, you hear from someone who doesn't love your product and you work to change it. Eventually, that strategy leads to boredom, to sameness and to stagnation.

I know it's tempting to create electable products, but it never works. All the tried and true warhorse successes (Nike, Starbucks, Apple... the NSA of marketing examples) didn't accomplish market share until long after they accomplished becoming remarkable. If the founders had set out to get elected, they would have failed in creating much of anything.

Who have you offended today? You're not running for anything except perhaps Mayor of the Edges."

Part of something extraordinary

This is a quote from "The Secret Letter from Iraq" posted on the internet.

Some interesting observations in the letter, nothing earth-shattering, but very down-to-earth and touching.

One that caught my eye is here - the high re-enlistment rate among Marines. It just reminds me of how we all long to be part of something extraordinary. Where do you find it?

"Highest Unit Re-enlistment Rate — Any outfit that has been in Iraq recently. All the danger, all the hardship, all the time away from home, all the horror, all the frustrations with the fight here — all are outweighed by the desire for young men to be part of a band of brothers who will die for one another. They found what they were looking for when they enlisted out of high school. Man for man, they now have more combat experience than any Marines in the history of our Corps."

Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

From Tom Peters' blog on Dec 8. He argues for promoting your whole industry, including your competitors, because it will benefit your business; and then differentiate yourself from your competitors through your work, not through badmouthing them.

"At the top of my business priority list, I want my overall market to grow by leaps and bounds. My market share will go down (It was about 100% after In Search of Excellence, when I was more or less the only public 'management guru'), but my revenue will soar—the 'bigger pie' axiom.

In short, I want my competitors to thrive. And I welcome their presence at my events. I go so far (see our 'Cool Friends' interviews, for example) as to enhance their careers!"