A week ago I was having dinner with a good friend Thera at a restaurant in Place Plumerau, a beautiful square in the centre of Tours. It was a warm evening, we were surrounded by stunning buildings, a jazz band was playing, and a couple of waiters were entertaining the crowds by seeing who could run the fastest around the square with two beers on a tray. Basically all good!
Apparently not for everyone. Our neighbours were a Belgian couple – and for the entire dinner they did not utter a word to each other. She was too busy staring at her split ends (45 minutes) followed by staring at her cuticles (remaining 45 minutes). He was showing such interest in his mobile phone, we were quite sure he would end up kissing it before the end of the dinner.
What does this have to do with businesses and passion? Well, as I was looking at them I started to think about all the people I know, or have met, who are with someone they don’t want to be with, or are somewhere they don’t want to be, or doing something they don’t want to do.
Think about it. How many people do you know involved in business who love what they do (note I said love, not like, not think it’s OKish, but love!)? A few days later, sitting by the lake at Château la Vallière, I asked Thera that precise question. Her answer was “Two, actually no, now that you’re doing this fluid world, three”.
It’s an incredibly low figure, and although many of you will state a higher one, I wonder if it will be significantly higher.
This is a massive problem for the business world because I don’t believe you can be passionate if you don’t do something you love. I don’t believe you can be passionate if you’re somewhere you don’t want to be? And finally, I don’t believe you, and therefore organisations, can excel without passion and therefore I don’t believe companies can thrive without passion (thrive that is, not just get by)! Hence the problem!
Passion does much more than allow people to excel, passion breaks down barriers.
It breaks down the ‘we have no money for this’ barrier. Look at the Wright Brothers. They invented the airplane not because of the support of a large team, or because of unlimited resources (they had none of these). No, they succeeded in designing a plane that could fly because they were passionate about the idea of flying! Passionate enough to work night and day, passionate enough to remortgage their house, passionate enough to finally succeed to fly for 12 seconds, this without caring that no-one was there to see it happen!
It breaks down the ‘lets not collaborate’ barrier. We may be closer to a cure for AIDS today if research in this filed was driven by the passion for saving lives, rather than the quest for being the first team to find a cure, and hence reaping the large economic benefits that come with it (this leading to competition rather than collaboration).
It breaks down the ‘mediocre’ barrier. Let’s face it you can go from OK to good, and from good to excellent… but you can never go from OK to excellent. And it’s unlikely that you will ever be good, or excellent, at something you’re not passionate about. Just ask top athletes (well, excluding certain European football teams), just ask 1st class musicians, just ask extraordinary business people if they have passion for, if they love what they do? And I can guarantee you the answer will be yes, with capital letters!
I challenge you to find any corporate problem that can’t be solved, in one way or another, directly or indirectly through passionate people!
One of the greatest compliments I ever received was given to myself and Jonathan (my business partner in this fluid world) after delivering one of our learning & development programmes. It came from one of the older participants “You have reminded me of why I work in advertising, once upon a time I loved it, and I’m finding that again”.
This should be the role of organisations, to find, encourage, harness and reward passion!
I don’t think there’s an excuse for not being somewhere you love, or not doing something you love (at least for a big chunk of the week). I don’t think there’s an excuse for an organisation not to do everything in their power to create an environment where people want to be, and where they, for at least a significant part of the day, do something they want to do, something they love, something they are passionate about.
So if you rather stare at your phone, your split ends, or your cuticles, I think it’s time for you to seriously question what you do, and where you do it…and well…just stop doing it!
What can I say; I’m with Blackberry on this one ‘Do What You Love, Love What You Do’. I would only add one thing to that, and that is do it TODAY! I know it’s not easy to find IT, or to transition, but I can promise you that at the end of that journey awaits Excellence (spelt with a large E, like Tom Peters likes it)! And if you manage an organisation, or a team make sure you are your people’s IT, as that is the only way you will ever benefit from some of their Excellence!
If you work in an agency, or for a brand, chances are that you are trying to get your head around digital. Be it how to use it, integrate it, build brands with it, avoid the threats caused by it… or how to make money from it.
To many digital is the hope of a threatened industry.
To us in this fluid world there’s something wrong with this. To us in this fluid world it seems like the industry is missing a vital point.
Let me explain.
The reason we have major media and creative agencies like Ogilvy, Saatchi, MindShare and OMD is because when commercial TV launched, these agencies figured out how to make money from TV advertising.
The key word is FIGURED OUT not TV advertising. Trust me when I say monetizing TV through advertising was far from an easy task.
These agencies realised that they lived in a time where building name recognition and capturing audience attention was essential to the bottom line. To do this well they invented the focus group, the consumer survey, the direct-mail campaign, I could go on. Why? Because they understood that marketing decisions should be based on research and a solid understanding of the target audience.
Their focus was not on TV as a channel…but on the type of people in front of the TV, the context in which they sat there, the kind of lives they lived, and what made them tick.
By understanding people in this environment, and developing TV advertising, these agencies took one giant step into the future, a step that ensured their economic survival for decades (and a lot of Champaign).
So here we are today with a new challenge, and a new opportunity, in different economic times…desperate to take yet another giant step into the future, a step that we hope will ensure our economic survival for decades to come.
There are a few problems with this.
Digital is broader and more complex than TV, it’s not a channel it’s a lifestyle.
The speed of change and technology guarantees only one thing, and that is that change is continuous.
The conditions we live in today are completely different from what they were a few decades ago when TV advertising was born.
Yet, few seem to be taking the time to FIGURE it out – many however are talking the Mad Men learnings and principles and repurposing them. By doing this they are making the mistake of replacing one channel with another… expecting the same result.
What this industry needs is a new breed of mad men (and I mean mad in its true sense). It needs people mad enough to take the time to figure this out, in the context of today, the tools which we have to outer disposal and the reality in which we, and the people we want to get the attention from, live in.
And unlike the original Mad Men we will not be benefiting from one giant step into the future. The competitive advantage will not come from ‘figuring out how to monetize digital’. The competitive advantage will come from understanding that there will probably never be a giant step into the future…but rather a series of small continuous steps…forever and ever and ever.
By that rational, our job as marketers is to build fluidity into the way we think, do research, produce products and services, communicate, interact and manage our organisation. Our job is to learn, to prepare for change and to be ready for the next big thing.
This is why Jonathan MacDonald and I set up this fluid world. Our goal and mission is to help organisations achieve the necessary flexibility to get their head around, not just digital, but anything else on which the survival of their organisation depends on.
djojsIf you work in an agency, or for a brand, chances are that you are trying to get your head around digital. Be it how to use it, integrate it, build brands with it, avoid the threats caused by it… or how to make money from it.
To many digital is the hope of a threatened industry.
To us in this fluid world there’s something wrong with this. To us in this fluid world it seems like the industry is missing a vital point.
Let me explain.
The reason we have major media and creative agencies like Ogilvy, Saatchi, MindShare and OMD is because when commercial TV launched, these agencies figured out how to make money from TV advertising.
The key word is FIGURED OUT not TV advertising. Trust me when I say monetizing TV through advertising was far from an easy task.
These agencies realised that they lived in a time where building name recognition and capturing audience attention was essential to the bottom line. To do this well they invented the focus group, the consumer survey, the direct-mail campaign, I could go on. Why? Because they understood that marketing decisions should be based on research and a solid understanding of the target audience.
Their focus was not on TV as a channel…but on the type of people in front of the TV, the context in which they sat there, the kind of lives they lived, and what made them tick.
By understanding people in this environment, and developing TV advertising, these agencies took one giant step into the future, a step that ensured their economic survival for decades (and a lot of Champaign).
So here we are today with a new challenge, and a new opportunity, in different economic times…desperate to take yet another giant step into the future, a step that we hope will ensure our economic survival for decades to come.
There are a few problems with this.
Digital is broader and more complex than TV, it’s not a channel it’s a lifestyle.
The speed of change and technology guarantees only one thing, and that is that change is continuous.
The conditions we live in today are completely different from what they were a few decades ago when TV advertising was born.
Yet, few seem to be taking the time to FIGURE it out – many however are talking the Mad Men learnings and principles and repurposing them. By doing this they are making the mistake of replacing one channel with another… expecting the same result.
What this industry needs is a new breed of mad men (and I mean mad in its true sense). It needs people mad enough to take the time to figure this out, in the context of today, the tools which we have to outer disposal and the reality in which we, and the people we want to get the attention from, live in.
And unlike the original Mad Men we will not be benefiting from one giant step into the future. The competitive advantage will not come from ‘figuring out how to monetize digital’. The competitive advantage will come from understanding that there will probably never be a giant step into the future…but rather a series of small continuous steps…forever and ever and ever.
By that rational, our job as marketers is to build fluidity into the way we think, do research, produce products and services, communicate, interact and manage our organisation. Our job is to learn, to prepare for change and to be ready for the next big thing.
This is why Jonathan MacDonald and I set up this fluid world. Our goal and mission is to help organisations achieve the necessary flexibility to get their head around, not just digital, but anything else on which the survival of their organisation depends on.
If you work in an agency, or for a brand, chances are that you are trying to get your head around digital. Be it how to use it, integrate it, build brands with it, avoid the threats caused by it… or how to make money from it.
To many digital is the hope of a threatened industry.
To us in this fluid world there’s something wrong with this. To us in this fluid world it seems like the industry is missing a vital point.
Let me explain.
The reason we have major media and creative agencies like Ogilvy, Saatchi, MindShare and OMD is because when commercial TV launched, these agencies figured out how to make money from TV advertising.
The key word is FIGURED OUT not TV advertising. Trust me when I say monetizing TV through advertising was far from an easy task.
These agencies realised that they lived in a time where building name recognition and capturing audience attention was essential to the bottom line. To do this well they invented the focus group, the consumer survey, the direct-mail campaign, I could go on. Why? Because they understood that marketing decisions should be based on research and a solid understanding of the target audience.
Their focus was not on TV as a channel…but on the type of people in front of the TV, the context in which they sat there, the kind of lives they lived, and what made them tick.
By understanding people in this environment, and designing TV advertising around it, these agencies took one giant step into the future, a step that ensured their economic survival for decades (and a lot of Champagne).
So here we are today with a new challenge, and a new opportunity, in different economic times…and desperate to, via digital, take another giant step into the future, a step that we hope will ensure our economic survival for decades to come.
There are a few problems with this.
Digital is broader and more complex than TV, it’s not a channel it’s a lifestyle.
The speed of change and technology guarantees only one thing, and that is that change is continuous.
The world we live in today is completely different from what it was a few decades ago when TV advertising was born.
Yet few seem to be taking the time to FIGURE it out – many however are talking the Mad Men learnings and principles and repurposing them. By doing this they are making the mistake of simply replacing one channel with another… expecting the same result.
What this industry needs is a new breed of mad men (and I mean mad in its true sense because it wont be easy). It needs people mad enough to take the time to figure this out, in the context of today, the tools which we have to our disposal, and the reality in which we, and the people we want to get the attention from, live in.
And unlike the original Mad Men we will not be benefiting from one giant step into the future. The competitive advantage will not come from ‘figuring out how to monetize digital’. The competitive advantage will come from understanding that there will probably never be a giant step into the future…but rather a series of small continuous steps…forever and ever and ever.
By that rational, our job as marketers is not to ‘figure out digital’, but to figure things out, continuously…How? By building fluidity into the way we think, do research, produce products and services, communicate, interact and manage our organisation. Our job is to learn, to prepare for change and to be ready for the next big thing (or to create it).
This is why Jonathan MacDonald and I set up this fluid world. Our goal and mission is to help organisations achieve the necessary fluidity to get their head around, not just digital, but anything else on which their survival depends on.
Actually nothing mad about that…if I can say so myself.
Anyone who has worked with a Telco company, or any other organisation in a data driven industry, will recognise the following comments…
…“I will accept cooperation as long as we own the customer”…
…”If we choose this direction, won’t we loose control of the customer?”…
Also, anyone who has been part of a restructuring, or a cost cutting exercise, will have heard management refer to employees as resources. Business’ feel so strongly about this they even named a department after it – Human Resources.
The best thing that could happen to marketing in 2010 is if everyone working in this industry could accept that people, customers, consumers and employees are not a cog in the marketing machinery!
Note: the picture is of Charles Chaplin in the brilliant movie; Modern times from 1936
This however would require a fundamental mind-shift, it would mean that when we go to work we should all remember that…
People can’t be owned People have always had a free mind, and a free will, but now more so than ever. They have the freedom, and the platforms to create, to express, to share, to support and to exclude, but most of all they have the freedom to choose. Simply owning some data and a database does not mean you know the person whose data you manage, it does not mean you own something real, and it definitely does not mean you own that customer!
People can’t be controlled And more importantly why would you want to? What has ever come out of controlling anything, apart from narrow mindedness and marketing myopia? As a matter of fact I would give up the notion of owning anything in today’s marketing world (customers, consumers, brand, IP, employees, ideas….). Not only because you will find it very hard to survive in this business world if you don’t, but because you will miss out on one of the great phenomena of this decade – true collaboration, and this across nations, industries, companies, departments, and disciplines!
People are not resources Human they are, resources not! They are all different, unique, interesting, and if you let them, if you give them the right support, if you create the right environment…they are your best chance of a sustainable competitive advantage! How? Through their ideas, their innovation, their ability to think in a non-linear way, their commitment – it is through all this they will affect NPD, operations, distribution, customer service, marketing and sales. That’s what makes them individuals, that’s what makes them humans and not resources!
So in this world where we focus so much on data, and on resources…let’s remember that what backs it up is people, employees, consumers, customers. Get to know them, for real, respect them, work with them, work for them, allow them to make a difference…and often, very often celebrate them!!!
But whatever you do don’t try to control them, don’t try to own them, and don’t ever think that you do!
A few days ago I had lunch with the very lovely and smart Mike Nutley, Editor-in-chief of New Media Age. Taking a break from his pasta, Mike made a very true statement.
“Most MD’s don’t want to hear that the world is in flux, they don’t want to plan around ‘not knowing’, or around ‘not being sure’.”
I hate to say this… but can you blame them? ‘I’m not sure’ and ‘I don’t know’ is not very helpful when you try to forecast, resource, be profitable, monitor competition and keep The City happy… and it’s really not helpful when you try to write a three, five, seven or ten year plan!
This fragmented and confusing world is even more frightening for anyone running an advertising or media agency. They’ve had it relatively easy for quite some time. If you think about it, any agency that figured out how to do a descent TV ad when TV moved into our living rooms has been able to dine out on that learning for almost half a century! Listening to many of these agencies today it’s clear that they are hoping for a repeat of that performance by taking one giant (digital) leap into the future, and subsequently reap the benefits of that one-off learning and understanding of digital for some time to come.
And again, can you blame them? It sure would make working life easier for a lot of people if that was a possibility!
The truth however is that a company can no longer be in the business of forecasting, of committing to certain results, of ensuring specific ROI’s, monitoring competition or of recycling solutions, and it can most definitely no longer be in the business of creating three, five, seven or ten year plans (or 30 second ads).
Why? Because the world just does not look like that anymore, and it never will again! Also, there is no one giant leap into the future, there are only a series of continuous steps.
“Then what business should we be in?” I hear you say.
Obviously you should be in the business of delivering on your core product/service, and obviously some of the activities mentioned above will continue to be part of your life for some time to come.
But at the core you should be in the business of two things, and that is:
1) creating value – as in extreme value!
and
2) evolving – as in continuously!
If you put that at the centre of everything you do, and if you put your heart and mind into doing it brilliantly, then I believe the rest will follow. You won’t need to run after competition; you’ll be creating the path everyone will want to follow, you won’t need five year plans as grabbing opportunities when they come your way will be part of your competitive advantage, you won’t need to worry about who you should hire a year in advance (and for what role) as you will have a flexible employee network at your disposal…you won’t be… sorry I won’t go on (as I frequently do when I’m passionate about something), as this is a conversation better had over a coffee.
But suffice to say that I believe this so much I existed the agency world to start this fluid world (with Jonathan MacDonald), a company who helps organisations do just this. Whether we work on creating the ideal corporate culture, building people capabilities, designing new business models and revenue streams, advising on organisational structure or on creating new products and services, our focus is always on those two things; unlocking extreme value and building in flexibility, or should I say fluidity, in all our solutions.
Take a look at our site (click on pic) it will give you an idea of how we think and also of some of the work we have done.
I know “Most MD’s don’t want to hear that the world is in flux, they don’t want to plan around ‘not knowing’, or around ‘not being sure.’”…but I can’t help but believe that it’s by doing just that that they will become more competitive, and it’s by doing just that that they will develop better (and therefore more profitable) business models!
What can I say, I definitely believe this unpredictable future is bright, I really believe it’s orange!
Go ahead pick it!
…or maybe it’s blue, yellow, red, green … who knows, but I’m looking forward to figuring it out … as we go along!
I have had a few people ask me this question in the last week or so.
I can think of many instances where you COULD find yourself in that position. Trying to win a new client, trying to break into a new industry, participating in a cross department project meeting where people are talking about logistics, technology, complicated research methodologies, or the latest and most popular…trying to be someone’s business partner…I think you get the picture.
However I can’t think of any instance where you SHOULD allow yourself to be in that position.
I understand that in today’s ultra competitive world it’s hard to resist trying to be everything to everyone – in the hope of keeping a client or winning a new one. I understand that with all this uncertainty about ones role in the future it’s easy to try to do as much as possible in the hope that something will stick. I also understand that it’s hard to be honest about not having the answer to a client question, or an opinion about a topic.
But the truth is if a client knows more than you, then you are not adding any value to the process/project/meeting…and frankly if you are not adding any value then you should not be there… be it to sell, or to contribute as part of a greater team… and my guess is if it’s already your client, your future with this client will not be long lived!
The thing is whatever you are, whatever you do, and why you are there should not only be clear to the client and everyone in the room (in addition to being recognised and valued), but it should be completely clear to you! For this to be possible you have to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what you do, the value you bring, what your role is, when your skills are needed, and when they are not… trust me when I say answering those questions with 100% certainty is incredibly hard, (try it!!!) but the truth is if you can’t see it, there is no chance of anyone else seeing it!
This is why I firmly believe that companies should have some generalists on their books, people with a broad set of experiences, a lateral way of thinking, the ability to analyse and process on the spot, and to navigate a whole host of topics with confidence and gravitas that only comes from knowing because you have been there, and of course someone who also has the kind of curiosity that would kill the cat!
These people are hard to come by, rarely hired (as they don’t fit a box), their ROI is not always tangible, but to me they are, especially in this environment, the most valuable resource you could have… and they will definitely give you The Edge when it comes to knowing more than your client (so at the very bare minimum, bring them in on an ad hoc basis)!!!!
It was about 16.00 yesterday…I was at the Social Media event organised by figaro digital (thanks for the invite Jonathan!), at the Hospital Club when I realised I wanted to be a Dyson!
To be more precise, I was listening to Alan Moore’s, the author of Communities Dominate Brands: Business and marketing challenges for the 21s, presentation on social media, when it happened (sorry Alan I promise your presentation inspired me in many other ways ).
It’s not often I’m jealous, or envious, and it’s not often I see a statistic that makes me go WOW (apart form the size of the profit losses of the likes of Nokia, and most of the daily newspapers of course…).
But yesterday I saw a statistic that made me jealous, envious and go WOW all at the same time! Dyson it seems (according to the presentation) controls 50% of the worldwide market share for vacuum cleaners!!!
50%!!! This means one out of two vacuum cleaners that are bought in this world is a Dyson. If you are buying a vacuum cleaner there is 50% chance you will come home with a Dyson. Ok, Ok I know you get the point, but I’m still trying to get my head around it.
If I was running a company that manufactures and sells product I would want to know how, how do I get 50% market share?! Or maybe it’s just me and my fixation on a little thing called competitive advantage!
Either way I decided to check it out, and apparently ‘all’ you need is the following:
A persistence and determined entrepreneur – Dyson made more than 5,000 vacuum cleaner prototypes before the final Dyson was launched.
+
A whole load of passion and positive attitude – even when other manufacturers refuse to license your design, over and over again.
+
Total respect for design and the key role it plays in product development – even if your product wont be seen by anyone, and is used to clean floors and carpets.
+
A fundamental belief that investment in new technology is the only way to keep ahead – in other words to constantly look for a sustainable competitive advantage, even if you are market leader.
+
A willingness to explore (to quote Mr Dyson “Reinventing yourself is a fragile thing. You can’t prove it’s going to be a success, but if you don’t do something new, you will die.”.
+
If you are an entrepreneur, or a creative, hire a commercial sidekick – in Dyson’s case this was Richard Needham, former Tory Northern Ireland and DTI minister.
Mix it all up and what do you have?
A company that revolutionised the entire vacuum cleaner market by changing the nature of a relatively boring product into an aesthetic lifestyle product, a status symbol.
And this my friend is apparently how you gain 50% market share!
Now if that’s not a company with The Edge…then what is!
Yes you heard me. I’m telling you to stop doing something that is the basis for most companies strategic planning and decision-making – obsessive competitive analysis.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying observing competition is a mistake, I’m saying it should not define your strategy. If your competitors become more efficient, so should you. If your competitors enter a new market, you too should consider it, if your competitors significantly improve their product so should you, all in the name of not allowing them a competitive advantage. However, this is not the same as defining your every strategic move based on their activities.
Business is not a race where everyone runs on the same track towards the same goal (although it sure looks like it from where I’m writing).
Business is a playing field where the participants, and the rules of the game, changes – your role should therefore be to facilitate and to drive this change, your role should be as a creator of something different and new. Following competition is counterproductive to this!
Not convinced? Well here are three reasons why you should ignore competition (ok so I’m exaggerating to make a point):
(1) The blind may just be leading the blind
(2) Little innovation comes from following (and by that rational limited growth)
(3) Strategy should not be defined by competition
1) The blind may just be leading the blind
Do you think your company is well run? Is senior management some of the best you have ever seen? Are your decisions and strategy based on intelligent market analysis and on real understanding? Does your corporate culture encourage excellence? Does your company have a history of making the right decisions?
I guess many of you will answer no to these questions. If that is the case, do you have any reason to believe that the answers from the companies you compete with will be different?
Probably not…so I ask you…
“If you have no reason to believe they are better than you, why would you want to follow their actions, why would you want to do what they do, produce what they produce, communicate in the way they communicate, sell to the same customers – basically why would you trust them to do the right thing?”
2) Little innovation comes from following
Over emphasis on competition is a reactive game, a game that leads at best to matching your rivals’ efforts, and at worse playing the catch up game (in the case of carbonated soft drinks this means fighting for an increase of less than 0.5% in market share), or producing more of the same.
Kenichi Ohmae (1) illustrates this very well when he says “To start you have to ask the right questions and set the right kinds of strategic goals. If your only concern is that General Electric has just brought out a percolator that brews coffee in ten minutes, you will get your engineers to design one that brews it in seven minutes. And if you stick with that logic, market research will tell you that instant coffee is the way to go. If the General Electric machine consumes only a little electricity, you will focus on using even less.” (Thank you Knowledge for finding my favourite article )
What it does not do is lead to creativity, innovation, disruption. Yes it can lead to a growth in market share, but it wont lead to real market growth. Surely you will agree that growing the pie, or creating a new one, makes more business sense than fighting to protect your slice of, or growing the existing pie marginally?
3) Strategy should not be defined by competition
Responding to competition is not strategy; defining ways of beating competition is not strategy. Strategy is being obsessed with finding new ways of satisfying needs. In this scenario following competition only has one purpose, to ensure that you don’t do what they do (the opposite of what most competitive analysis is used for today).
If competition is already doing it, then someone is satisfying the need. Sure maybe not well enough, and feel free to go ahead and improve on an existing product/service. I’m simply asking you not to make it the basis for all your strategic activities. Look for a sustainable advantage by focusing your attention on what is not already done, what is not available, what no one has thought of, but mostly on what people need, what they value. Once you understand all this, ensure your products and services deliver on it, be it through your business model, your products and services, the customers you choose to satisfy, your communication, your processes. This is how I believe you will achieve an Edge over other companies. But more about that some other time!
So you see, ignoring competition (for a while at least) may make you look at your business in a different way, which could lead to a better way of creating, hiring, managing, producing, delivering, communicating.
Somewhere in there there is a market leader waiting to be born, if you give it (instead of the competition) some attention!
1) Kenichi Ohmae (大前研一, Ōmae Kenichi, is one of the world’s leading business and corporate strategists. He is known as “Mr. Strategy” and has developed the 3C’s Model.
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