Risking your reputation

Many brands are built on a single belief that "claims" superiority in a crowded marketplace. Managing expectations is the practice of communicating information to prevent gaps between stakeholder perceptions and business realities. The theory of strategic narrative are tools that actors employ to promote their interests, values, and aspirations. Inaccurate stakeholder assumptions can result in failures and perceptions of failure. When working with brands I think strategic narratives should define "who we are" and "what kind of world order we want."

“You have to willingly give and graciously receive, and if you have to think before you give then you are trading.”
— Burrellism

Just imagine

Why can’t we just train people to become curious and thirsty for knowledge? We can! And if we do this the number of other things, they can learn is unbelievable. We have seen that bit by bit on the internet there is a body of work that lets the employer know you’re worth hiring now. We are going see more and more free stuff and more and more expensive stuff. Just imagine if there was a portfolio system where you are hired and fired on the basis of your work. Just imagine if there is this type of relationship in place where people who know you and trust you also hire you. The education system of the future or should I say, the hiring of people in the future will look less like where you went to school and more and more what have you built, who did you work for and what would they say about you.

Don't say it

Leadership is about inspiring others to believe and enabling that belief to become reality. Inviting dissenting views and amplifying quiet voices are acts of leadership. The true leader in a group is rarely the person who talks the most, it's usually the person who listens best. Listening is more than hearing what’s said, and I think it’s also noticing and surfacing what isn’t said as communication doesn't only happen verbally.

Direction unknown

If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?

Life is a mission, not career. A career is a profession and asks, “What’s in it for me?” On the other hand, a mission asks, “How can I make a difference?” I think that if you don’t create a vision of your own, someone else will do it for you – the media, your friends or someone else. And who knows if their interests are the same as yours? Therefore, unless you create your own vision of who and what you want to be, you will be quick to follow anyone who is willing to lead, even into things that won’t get you very far.

How to maintain a healthy lifestyle

It’s a common myth that getting fit is only about eating healthy and exercising. In reality, creating a healthy lifestyle and maintaining it is also about being able to keep a positive attitude, strong mental health and a healthy self-image. Here are some key factors to keep in mind:

  1. Get more sleep

  2. Find time to exercise

  3. Drink more water

  4. Eat less sugar

  5. Do not respond to negativity

  6. Write more

  7. Remove clutter

  8. Make your bed

  9. Be patient

  10. Listen more

  11. Laugh loudly

  12. Breathe deeply

  13. Stay calm

  14. Be honest

Get back to basics

c/o Harvard Business Review

This well-known Ancient Greek tale "The North Wind and the Sun” is my favourite Aesop’s fable.

“Long ago, the Wind and the Sun quarrelled over who was stronger. Upon seeing a traveller coming down the road, the Sun said: “Now we can end our dispute. Whomever of us can make that traveller take off his cloak shall be regarded as the victor. You begin.”

The Sun retired behind a cloud while the Wind blew, blustered, and raged upon the travelling man. But the harsher he blew, the tighter the man wrapped his coat. At last, exhausted, the Wind gave up in despair.

The Sun came out and shone in all her glory upon the traveller. Soon the man tipped his face up to the warmth. He removed his coat and basked in the Sun’s rays.”
— Aesop's fable

There are many interpretations as to the meaning of the fable, I think Aesop’s fable basically says that if you want a man to take off his coat, you don’t blow it off. You make him feel warm, and he’ll take it off on his own. A metaphor is often used in framing a dispute or situation and you can use this fable as a metaphor for negotiation technique.

Rhetoric and the art of persuasion

Image c/o TED ED

When we have conflicting views over truth, we often enter into a game of persuasion where we try to convince the other that the belief we hold is, in fact, the true one. Rhetoric creates a partnership for a system of persuasion based on knowledge instead of upon manipulation and omission. Over 2,000 years ago the Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that there were three basic ways to persuade an audience of your position: ethos, logos, and pathos. To craft a good persuasive argument, we must consider these three things.

1.         The character of the speaker (ethos)
2.         The condition of the listener (logos)
3.         The strength and plausibility of the argument itself (pathos)

Figuring out a way

Sometimes you have to take things out of your head and put it on paper. In order to come up with the solutions we really have to know what the problem is, and you cannot come up with good answers unless you know the whole problem. I think that if you ask the following questions you will be able to solve almost any problem:

  1. What could I do?

  2. What could I read?

  3. Who could I ask?

Detachment yields objectivity

How come I can give valuable advice to others and not follow it myself?
You're probably aware of how easy it is to give good advice to others and how hard it is to know what to do about your own problems. One's ability to reason more sensibly about someone else's problems than one's own is known in psychology as Solomon's Paradox. I think people may show wisdom regarding others’ life problems while being stuck in their problems; Solomon’s sound general wisdom helped him deal with others’ life problems effectively, but he lacked the personal wisdom to live his own life well. The stories of Solomon and the perspectives offered by research suggest that Solomon’s paradox may represent a fundamental and widespread social cognitive bias. So the next time when you are trying to help yourself, imagine you are helping a friend.

You are good enough

Imposter syndrome can feel like dissonance or disconnect between what you see as yourself and your public view. I think a little bit of self-doubt is very good for self-development and the three elements of imposter syndrome are:
a) You believe other people have an inflated view of your abilities and skills.
b) You have an intense fear that you’ll be found out and exposed as a fake.
c) You constantly attribute your success to other factors outside your own abilities and talent.

 

Social media has a huge role to play in imposter syndrome as you can see everybody else’s successful lives and feel that you are not good enough. Here’s an exercise: Write down all the things that you are successful at and then look at all the reasons why you may have achieved that success. This is because you can mistakenly attribute all of it to luck, but when you put it down on paper, you’ll realise how ridiculous that is. Learn to accept that you will make mistakes and you don’t have to be brilliant all the time. Contact me via e-mail for 1:1 coaching sessions.

The act of comparing

As humans, we are always comparing ourselves to each other and when we compare ourselves to others, we may be left with feelings of inferiority or superiority, I have always said comparisons are the theft of joy. Era comparisons are the most fruitless of conversations given the differences in variables on aspects such as science, tactics and even technology.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

Black Friday

Yesterday was Black Friday and it showed that retail stores are no longer just distribution points for products. Bricks and mortar spaces are powerful acquisition points for customers, and I think physical shops are the most powerful way to draw customers into the brands eco-system. Once acquired, shoppers can cross any number of channels elegantly woven with branded technology. Physical stores will a become media channel and media will become the store. I think the future will be where brands drive people towards media and stores will no longer be the end of the marketing funnels; they will be the beginning.

Hindsight is 20/20

Hindsight bias is when a person looks back at an event and believes they predicted the outcome, even if they failed to act on that "prediction." For example, on Saturday evening France will play a football match against Denmark, very fewer people are sure of the outcome of the game, but on Sunday morning, many more are willing to claim they were positive the winning team was indeed going to emerge the winner.

This is because we construct a situation where we fool ourselves into thinking we knew more about an event before it happened. The idea is that once we know the outcome, it’s much easier to construct a plausible explanation. Unfortunately, this leads us to think that our judgment is better than it is, and we become less critical of our decisions and makes us overconfident about future predictions.

“Life can only be understood by looking backward; but it must be lived looking forward.”
— Søren Kierkegaard

The generation effect

George Lois (RIP) was an advertising legend and he created one of my favourite adverts of all time and a masterpiece in strategic communication. The generation effect is a phenomenon where information is better remembered if it is generated from one's own mind rather than simply read. In 1985, Lois positioned the then unknown designer, Tommy Hilfiger on the map when he created a billboard with missing letters and placed it in Times Square. The billboard made Hilfiger a household name by placing his name in the same bracket as established greats like Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and Perry Ellis.

Same same but different

When we find ourselves swimming in an ocean where everybody is trying to make similar content, the differences will be found in the intention of why people are making the content. And I think this is going to be the difference between why things work and why things don't work. The world is saturated with coaches, change your life books, do-gooders, etc., etc. The more successful we get the more of a test it is for the purity of the reasons why we create, and no one is exempt from that. We have to remain mindful and surround ourselves with people who tell you the truth, even though it can be hurtful, the truth is so important.

Act now

Strategic planning is the ongoing organisational process of using available knowledge to document a business's intended direction. This process is used to prioritise efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees, and ensure organisational goals are backed by data and sound reasoning. Goal setting is a purposeful and explicit process that starts with identifying a new objective, skill, or project you want to achieve. I think it’s important that you make a plan for achieving it, and you work to complete your goals. I am a skilled developer in strategic planning from conception to implementation. Contact me via e-mail for executive coaching and team assessments, as well as organisational assessments and strategic planning.

Things worth replacing

I am always looking for new ideas with energy and then finding good practical frameworks for transfer them from theories into action. Nowadays, I work at the intersection between theory and practice. Good theories must have problem solving power and I think the test of a new theory is its usefulness in practice.

“Ability is what you’re capable of doing.

Motivation determines what you do.
Attitude determines how well you do it.”
— Lou Holtz

Better questions

Good sales questions are measured by the level of curiosity they spark in your buyer. Buyers will create a budget where none exists when there’s a meaningful-enough problem, that’s worth solving.

  • Why do they need it?

  • How is it different?

  • Why is it better?

  • What happens if they don’t get it?

“Knowledge is having the right answers. Intelligence is asking the right questions. Wisdom is knowing when to ask the right questions. ”
— Professor Richard Feynman

The power of leverage

I think leadership is not only about vision and setting strategy, leadership is also about building a team and nurturing their talent to enable them perform to the best of their abilities. The Centre for Creative Leadership think these are the ten traits of great leaders, in no specific order:

- Ability to delegate
- Ability to inspire
- Commitment
- Communication
- Confidence
- Creativity
- Honesty
- Intuition
- Positive attitude
- Sense of humour

Which one do you think is most important? Contact me via e-mail and let me have your thoughts.