Business Strategy

We help positively change organizations from the top down.

We work with start-ups, small mom-and-pop shops through Fortune 50 CEOs to address challenges that affect their organizations. For some it's about how to get the company off to a good start. For others it's about resetting expectations to get a global organization healthy enough to be acquired or to soar to new heights.

Typical assignments include:

Vision/Mission and Values creation; Portfolio strategy; Employer branding programs; Corporate identity systems; Executive coaching; Executive speech writing; Presentation training; Innovation training; Marketing plan support; Company naming; Audience segmentation; Data analysis; and a broad range of research programs to evaluate organizational health, portfolio strength, market perceptions, market opportunities, etc.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY:

“I once had a consultant tell me that I should get a 10:1 return on my investment when working with consultants. I don’t believe that’s generally possible, something closer to 5:1 is more realistic. However, this guy is quite clever and I think he’s proving to be the exception.”

—CEO, Fortune 500 Company

Let's Talk

A collection of our latest ideas and insights to help people and businesses succeed.

Thinking

Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath

One of the things I’ve learned in the agency business is that few people have a great framework for making decisions, especially hard decisions. In the creative world, we use design thinking to generate ideas, but most people struggle to pare those ideas down to what has a chance to win. It’s often not a lack of data, it’s a lack of process. And without a process, you’re stuck with flipping a coin, going with the gut, using a Magic 8-Ball, or following the loudest voice in the room.

You Can Always Be a Barnabas

His given name was Joseph. The people around him renamed him Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement.” He sold land and put the money at others’ feet. When the early disciples were afraid of Saul (Paul) because he had been persecuting Christians, Barnabas vouched for him. His encouragement was so consistent that they renamed him for it.

Are Core Values Uncovered or Assigned?

I often get asked by executives when we’re starting the Vision, Mission, and Core Values process how we come up with the words. Or, as one executive asked, “Do you already have this stuff written down somewhere and you’re just making us go through these exercises?”

The short answer is no; we don’t already have predetermined answers. We work hard to uncover and discover the values within each company.

Core Values or Core Behaviors. What's the difference?

A 2020 MIT Sloan Review study found that more than 80% of large companies published their core values online. Other studies place the number of companies with stated core values as high as 92%. This simply says that companies embraced the concept of stated core values.

But employee satisfaction scores tell a story of broken cultures. A Fond study of HR execs found that "only 22% responded that 60% or more of their employees know their company’s core values." A Gallup poll found that "just 23% of U.S. employees strongly agree that they can apply their organization’s values to their work, and only 27% strongly agree that they “believe in” these values." And a Leadership IQ study showed that "only 20% of respondents say their company always hires people who fit well with their company values."

What’s wrong with your core values?

One-word values can be ambiguous and interpreted differently by different people. When that happens, you get inconsistent applications across the organization.

They're also hard to represent in hiring and firing decisions. Would you hire someone who doesn't act with integrity? Of course not. Do you want your employees to feel empowered? Probably. But empowered to what degree?

Are You Solving the Right Problem?

In the fast-paced world of business and brand management, it’s easy to feel trapped in a cycle of addressing symptoms rather than root causes. As leaders, it’s crucial to step back and ask: “What problem are we really solving?”

Do you suffer from the "better mousetrap" syndrome?

It's easy to get laser-focused on creating things. But those ideas need to be grounded in something more than personal preference. Before launching your next big idea, your better mousetrap, ask yourself: Does your audience even realize they have a mouse problem?

Here are six steps to consider to make sure your concepts are grounded in insights so you increase your chances for success in the marketplace.

Forget About Age. Just Stay Relevant. Why Companies and Careers Now Pivot on Continued Relevancy

The business world loves stereotypes, where old-line companies (we call them tankers) boast about their age, stability, and staying power while young startups (we call them speedboats) scream about their pace, out-of-the-box thinking, and innovation. Seasoned workers at tanker organizations get cast as rigid and resistant while their speedboat counterparts are hailed as adaptable and tech-savvy.

There is a need for both tanker and speedboat organizations. But let’s be clear here: the only thing you get with age is older. Age isn’t an indication of wisdom, sophistication, or savvy. Age alone does not determine ability to deliver.

Use “Tell” Stories to Capture Your Brand’s History

“Tell” stories are historical in nature because they address things that happened along the company’s journey to the present. They come in a variety of forms, often starting with a company or brand origin story and growing from there. Because they deal with the past, Tell stories are typically editorialized to get those unseemly rough spots out of the narrative. And they can be revisionist in the sense that history is often rewritten by those who come later, scrubbed of things we might find offensive, and enhanced to make them more exciting.

Understanding the Narrative Chain for Brand Storytelling

Brand storytelling doesn’t follow a linear path. It never has. A linear model doesn’t allow for the chaos that comes with dealing with real, living, breathing humans and constantly changing markets. It certainly doesn’t take social media into consideration.

If you’re not careful, you could fall into the trap with some narrative arc models that, though they account for some issues with the brand, often do so with the issues in the rearview. As if the challenges the brand has faced in the past will somehow predict what the brand will face in the future.

Instead, look at brand storytelling as a narrative chain made up of many stories in “S” curves.