The Importance of Being Present

Little Purple Flowers

When my oldest daughter was little, she and I were walking together on our way to someplace. Where doesn’t really matter except that I wanted to get there and my daughter kept pausing to crouch down and look at the grass. At first it wasn’t a big deal but she kept at it, letting go of my hand and bending down to pick at the weeds. I had places to go, things to do and … really no time to hand trim the landscape. Finally, I had to ask her what was so special about the grass today, using a love language dripping in sarcasm. She looked up, held out her hand and said “the pretty purple flowers.”

Purple flowers?

From where I stood, I couldn’t see any purple flowers.

But when I bent down to get on the same level as my daughter, I was surprised to find dozens of tiny purple flowers mixed in with the green leaves. They were lovely. But you had to be close to the ground to even notice they were there.

This lesson has stuck with me for many years. It is easy to get focused on the destination or goal and race to a perceived finish line and miss the simple beauty of the people and places around us.

The trick is to stay present in the moment, to breathe and enjoy what’s here, now, and bring everything you are to where you are. For some people that sounds like a bunch of nonsense. Others totally get it, take a deep breath and re-center themselves.

I’m probably closer to the first group than the second, so let’s see if I can make this a little more palatable.

The trick is to stay present in the moment, to breathe and enjoy what’s here, now, and bring everything you are to where you are.

Six Steps You Can Try Today

1. Take a deep breath

We tend to take shallow breaths when we get nervous or stressed. And that’s a bad thing in a variety of ways. There’s a considerable amount of science that says shallow breathing can negatively affect the functions of your brain, sleep patterns, immunity and much more.

Seriously. Do yourself a favor and take a deep breath right now.

It causes you to pause and gives your brain and body some of the tools needed to stay in the moment. Meditate if it helps. But give yourself a break throughout the day and just take a nice, deep breath.

2. Think fast and slow

In his ground-breaking book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, the Nobel-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman covered in great depth how our emotional, intuitive system—the one that kicks in automatically for fight or flight—unfortunately often kicks in when the more reasoned, logical and considered system should be in control.

That means if we’re not careful, we can jump to the conclusions our gut feels are right when we really should pause for a bit and let what Kahneman called system two do some of the heavy lifting.

It also means we create problems for ourselves by reacting when we should be responding. Not every problem is a crisis. But sometimes it’s hard to convince our intuitive system of that truth. This is a good time to reconsider the first point above: Breathe.

3. Stay present in the moment

Being present means focusing on what’s here and now, as appropriate. I hear parents talk in terms of “can’t wait until …” when discussing their kids. As in, “I can’t wait until he’s 10, so he can pitch a curve ball to me” or “I can’t wait until she’s 16 and can drive herself.” That’s focusing on the future. What about all the amazing things your child is doing at whatever age they are right now? Stay there for a while. Enjoy those moments. They’ll be gone soon enough.

4. Stay present in the room

One of the rules I use in facilitating workshops is to require attendees to stay present in the room. I explain that if they need to take a phone call or check email, leave the room, take care of business and return to the meeting. Don’t try to do both because you compromise both conversations. Commit to one discussion or the other and reengage when you are done.

I have friends who require everyone at the dinner table to put their cell phones in a basket in the middle of the table. Why? So everyone at the table stays present in the room. No half paying attention to the discussion and half on whatever is happening on social media. That’s staying present in both the room and the moment.

5. Worry about what you can control, not about what you can’t

I’m a big fan of having a plan and a contingency plan. Sometimes I have contingency plans for my contingency plans, just so I’ve thought through the range of options and can adjust as needed, should anything come up. This is great in some cases but it can be debilitating in others because so many factors are often beyond our control.

When I find myself getting stressed about all the things that “could” happen I have to take a deep breath and consider what’s in my control and what’s not. For example, when flying on an airplane I could get all worked up about the number of things that could go wrong with the plane, the chances of crashing or having mechanical issues. I could. But me getting all worked up over the possibilities won’t have much impact on when the plane leaves, whether the engines work, or whether the pilot will take off or land well. Those things are beyond my control. So, I have no issue sitting in my seat and resting comfortably as we jet through the air at several hundred miles an hour. As soon as I agree to get on the plane I accept that someone else has this part under control.

6. Make better choices

In their excellent book Decisive: How to make better choices in life and work, authors Chip and Dan Heath discuss at length why people make bad decisions—and how to improve the general process. They describe the usual decision process as having four steps: 1) You encounter a choice; 2) You analyze your options; 3) You make a choice; 4) You live with that choice.

But there are all kinds of flaws in this way of thinking: we narrowly frame our choices, we’re horribly biased in finding support or conflicting opinions, and we believe we know the future so we reinforce our own views of that future.

The Heath brothers offer an alternative approach and use the WRAP acronym to make it easy to remember. It stands for: Widen your options; Reality-test your assumptions; Attain distance before deciding; Prepare to be wrong.

A key idea in the WRAP process is that you think broadly and add a healthy dose of reality to your assumptions. Most of us don’t do that. We settle on what we think is a good idea and get to work convincing anyone who will listen that we are right. But the Heath brothers finish their process with “prepare to be wrong.” Avoid your own biases and breathe a little easier. Instead of adding pressure, I’ve found this actually removes much of it.

Choose to be present, every day.

Why would I end a discussion about presence with decision making? Because every day is one giant, constantly evolving algorithm of irrational, emotional decisions about things in and out of our control. You can choose to worry about the future or live in the moment. You can choose to keep little issues little and break big decisions into manageable parts. You can choose to be present and celebrate today.

We Fix Broken Brands

We fix broken brands.

We didn't start out that way. We started on the premise of doing great work from the ground up to help brands stand out from all the noise in the marketplace. There is a lot of noise out there. And it's getting worse.

But we recognized a trend in the work our shop was doing in 2020—people asking us to fix issues with their brands caused by agencies and consultants promising things they couldn't deliver. Let's be clear: there are a huge number of incredibly talented people and agencies out there working hard to do great work. What surprised us was just how many people are actively or accidentally scamming their clients. It's this lack of integrity that gets me.

Maybe I shouldn't complain. It's been good for business. Brochures, websites, naming, packaging, ads, brand strategy ... we've fixed them all.

It's 2021. If you have a broken brand, or are tired of broken promises, we can help. If we can't take care of you we will happily refer you to someone or some company who can.

Let's bring integrity back to brand building.

Let's be amazing together this year.

What Makes a Good Brand or Product Name?

There is no such thing as a perfect name. Brand and product names are hugely impacted by the companies and brands that launch them. So a name that works for one brand in one industry may be a horrible fit for another brand in another category.

For example, people loved the iPod when launched by Apple in 2001. But many of those same people bashed the brand for naming their tablet iPad. iPod in and of itself isn’t necessarily a fantastic name, but wrapped in the totality of the Apple brand it works. Consider the same product name being launched by Dell, HP or Toshiba and suddenly the iPod, iPad and iPhone don’t sound as cool.

So what makes a good name?

It starts with better insights

I believe the path to smarter solutions begins with better insights. This applies to naming brands and products as well. It helps to know a little about the company, the products, the audiences who will use the product and the people who will purchase it (especially in the case of naming products for kids), the category, channel, product tier, etc.

When naming a fruit snack for Kellogg’s a few years back, the brief said the product would be a combination of chewy fruit flavor kids would love plus an outer coating of yogurt moms would like. We had to create a name that would appeal to moms and kids as young as three years old. Young kids can’t pronounce complex words or sounds, so our solution, Yogos, was simple enough for young kids to say while communicating a bigger story to moms.

Fit versus “like”

Like most naming agencies, we use a combination of filters to narrow broad lists of words and find viable names that fit. The key here is fit, versus names people “like”. Many people have a natural aversion for new things, including new product and brand names. So if you only pursue names people “like”, you can quickly find yourself painted into a corner with a name that sounds familiar, isn’t the least differentiating and may not even be available for trademark. But people will like it.

In the following, I’ll break down the seven filters we use to use to help understand whether the names you’re considering will fit the challenge:

1. Fit to organization

2. Fit to brand

3. Fit to the category

4. Fit to product

5. Fit to consumer

6. Visual fit

7. Fit to be owned

 

Filter for success

1) Fit to organization: Does the name match the character, positioning, aspirations and voice of the organization? When naming a company, we want to consider where the enterprise is headed, the industry they’re in and how we can help them stand out.

In naming a quick serve restaurant that wanted to stand out while still communicating the type of cuisine they served, we launched with the name Currito and followed with a tag line of “Burritos Without Borders” to help draw people in to a menu that include Bangkok, Mediterranean and Summer burritos.

2) Fit to brand: When naming a product within a brand we have to ask if the names we’re considering match the brand. Should they sound like a sister product to existing collections, or should they sound like a stand-alone?

For Apple, once Steve Jobs accepted the iPod construct, it made sense to continue with iPhone and iPad in the lineup. But not everything in the Apple family carries the i____ construct as evidenced by the Apple collections (Apple Watch, Apple TV) and the venerable Macintosh collections (MacBook, Mac Mini). Regardless, it’s hard to miss the connections back to the brand.

Try to find the consistency in the Dell portfolio that sports laptops including the Inspiron, XPS, Alienware and Chromebook. This starts to look suspiciously like an “I just want a cool name” brand architecture. Not horrible, but it’s harder to discern good versus bad names for Dell.

3) Fit to the category: Does the name sound like it naturally fits in the neighborhood? This can be good and bad. Sometimes the neighborhood needs a good shakeup. I like to ask my clients if they want to be a PC or an Apple in a PC world. It’s not so much that one approach is better than the other. But understanding how the brand wants to position themselves and/or their products can carry significant influence in which direction the names go.

At the time of its launch, the BlackBerry was revolutionary partly because the industry was bloated with PocketPCs and a fascination with numbers, including the Samsung 1710, Dell Axim x50 and Siemens SX56, to name just a few.

It’s difficult to find consumers who know and love their numbered products outside of a precious few industries. BMW gets away with it partly because they group their products by tier (300, 500, 700 series), Lexus tries hard, but Infiniti just doesn’t. Interestingly, Porsche stepped away from the numbers game a few years ago and began giving their models unique names. This approach wouldn’t have been a big deal in many categories, but in high-end automobiles it made a difference.

4) Fit to product: Good names match the products or services they promote. The auto industry uses evocative names to help consumers get into the head space of the automobile: Muscle cars get beefy names like Charger and Challenger; SUVs get outdoors with Yukon, Pathfinder and XTerra; while family vehicles evoke the journey with Odyssey, Quest and Voyager.

Many brand managers think this filter means they need a descriptive name. Descriptive names are good because they need very little support to help people understand what they are. But they can also blend in with everything around them and get lost in the mix. BlackBerry fit the product AND made a huge impact on the category.

5) Fit to consumer: Is the name something the target audiences would want to say out loud in a conversation with their friends? Some names look good on paper, but you have to say them out loud and use them in a sentence with words normal people use. These filters should change depending on the audience.

I mentioned the Yogos example earlier, where names had to be simple enough for young children to say. By contrast, when creating liquor names, we use a bar call filter. Because the audiences need to be able to confidently yell out the drink name in a crowded bar. Calling out for a Red Stag for a cherry-infused bourbon is a lot better than screaming ChaCha Cherrylicious. The second option just doesn’t fit the audience, or the bar.

6) Visual fit: Almost every designer on the planet will say shorter names are better for the simple reason that the name can be bigger on packaging. That’s not to say there isn’t a place for longer names, but you need to consider that many consumers, especially Americans, tend to abbreviate long names: Federal Express became FedEx; International House of Pancakes became IHop; Government Employees Insurance Company became GEICO. The list is long. Your name should probably be short.

7) Fit to be owned: Beyond just being available for trademark, can the name be owned in the marketplace? This one gets tricky because uniqueness is tough to sell in some organizations. But uniqueness needs to be managed.

Companies like P&G, Unilever and Colgate tend to spend most of their marketing capital on the master brand name and much less on sub-brands and versions. Tide, Cascade, Dawn and Bounty are evocative, unique names that stand out in the marketplace. Tide Plus Coldwater Clean is purposefully descriptive so consumers can shop quickly and easily at shelf. The brand just doesn’t have to work as hard to get the versioning information out there.

This also helps fight against a portfolio of random “cool” names that don’t hold together. As seen in the Dell example, collections of unique names can lead to confusion for consumers. So, while we always want names to stand apart in the market, we also recommend having a nomenclature strategy that can help manage the mayhem.

There are dozens of ways to filter and sort for good names. As a naming agency, we look for tools that can help us develop successful names for our clients on a regular basis and, just as importantly, weed out the options that won’t work. If you’re looking for naming help, let’s talk. If you’re going it alone, I hope these filters help you reach success.

Is It Time To Rename Your Company? Careful What You Wish For.

A few dozen times a year we get requests from companies looking for a change. Sometimes it’s to update an identity, which can lead to the question: should we consider changing the name, too? Other times it’s as simple as “we want something fresh and new.” Our questions start with why. Why do you want to change the company name? You might be surprised at how often the answer is a blank stare. For anyone wondering, that’s a bad answer for something as significant as changing the foundation of the company.

In another post I’ll cover what we think makes a good name. But before we get to that part of the discussion it makes sense to pause and consider why change in the first place. Here are some quick guides to help with the consideration.

Why should a company consider a name change?

1. The current name is tied to a single product or technology and/or the company is limited by the association. This happens all the time with small companies that started off with a brilliant product or technology and now want or need to expand. Think outside your product at launch and you may be able to avoid this one further down the line. But if you’ve painted yourself into a corner, you may have to bite the bullet and change the name to something with legs.

2. The current name has very little awareness and equity, even after years of marketing efforts to improve the situation. If people can’t remember a bad or boring name after substantial marketing and PR efforts, then it may be time to start fresh. We find this to be especially true in competitive categories where the company name is based on a founder no one knows or cares about, or when the company name essentially describes the category. For example, I personally like the name Smith. It has a familiar ring to it. But naming a company Smith Solutions isn’t going to help many people understand what my company does or remember me at the end of the day. That’s partly because there are somewhere around 2.8 million people named Smith in the U.S. alone. But if you’ve launched your company already and are just now coming to this conclusion, it’s probably best you consider a name change. The good news is that when you rename the company, you likely won’t repeat the same mistakes.

3. The current name has been fundamentally and irreparably damaged by a scandal, tragic event or crisis. Although the events that blew up around Enron and Arthur Andersen happened after the Andersen Consulting group changed their name to Accenture, the choice was timely. Not long after the change, the Andersen name was forever tarnished by the Enron scandal, but Accenture stood mostly clear of the damage and years later few people connect the two companies.

4. Sometimes you want a little separation in your portfolio. Phillip Morris is a legacy company known mostly for its tobacco enterprises. For many people, especially those outside the fan base of tobacco products, the Phillip Morris name became synonymous with all that is wrong with corporate America. Oh, and at the time of the rebrand, they owned an 84% stake in Kraft, a decidedly non-tobacco company. Renaming the company to Altria gave the enterprise separation in the corporate conversation from just tobacco when they needed it, yet allowed them to stay connected to Phillip Morris when that worked to their advantage.

5. (In rare cases) the current name was launched but is now being forced to change due to trademark infringement issues. Every once in a great while we get calls from companies that launched under a name without doing due diligence with the trademark attorneys and now find themselves in the unenviable position of being forced to rename. We tend to have to work pretty quickly on these. In one case the FDA was coming after the company fast and hard, so keeping the old name was not an option. Generally, when the attorneys say it’s time to change the name, it’s time to change the name.

Why not make the change?

1. You’re just tired of the old name. Boredom is not a good business case for change. Ever. Take a nap, get a hug, go for a walk. You might just need some exercise or sunlight instead of a name change.

2. It’s expensive. Especially for large organizations, name changes are colossal undertakings. After the name comes a new identity. And while digital interfaces can be changed quickly and seamlessly, physical properties must be accounted for, from signage to fleets, to shipping containers and packaging, to uniforms, business cards and even lapel pens. It all has to change, all over the world. And that costs money and time. Lots of both. Make sure you have budgeted accordingly and understand the timing needed. Otherwise the change can do as much damage as whatever drove you there.

3. You haven’t fixed the flaws. If the company was fundamentally flawed before and those behaviors haven’t been corrected, people fired or jailed, or offending divisions sold off or closed, the new name will be tarnished even faster than the last one. While consumers generally want good things to happen to most companies, they desperately want to punish the bad ones. As the idiom goes, it’s like putting lipstick on a pig (no offense to pigs).

4. There isn’t clarity at the top of the organization. The CEO must be aligned to the change strategy, otherwise it’s a wasted effort. Speaking from the branding agency side of things, getting caught in the middle of a CEO and his/her senior leaders on whether the company’s name should change or not is not much fun.

5. You might not need wholesale change. What may be needed is a name evolution to update the company name in the marketplace. While this can be considered a name change, it’s not as disruptive to legacy users and supporters (think National Biscuit Company >> NABISCO; Government Employee Insurance Company >> GEICO; Federal Express >> FedEx; International House of Pancakes >> IHop). Yes, the change can still be expensive, but you won’t have to educate the world on what you’ve done and why. They’ll just kind of get it. A little strategic PR effort wouldn’t hurt, but you’re not changing from Andersen Consulting to Accenture.

Product Naming is Easy ... Until You Try to Name a Product.

When I was a kid growing up in Houston, Texas, one of the area pools had several diving boards plus a diving platform that towered above the water. In order to keep kids from randomly climbing up the ladders and causing a scene at the top, the standing rule was once you went up the ladder you had to go off the edge of the diving board or platform. So you needed to seriously consider the whole process, including the landing, before you started up.

The rule made sense to me. When you stand at the bottom of a diving platform looking up, the middle tower 25 feet (7.5 meters) above the water doesn’t seem all that high (this is supposing you don’t mind heights). However, somewhere around the middle of the ladder climb your brain starts to contemplate whether this is a good plan, whether you really want to carry through with this and whether you’ve got friends swimming nearby who can pull your battered body from the pool if things go badly.

Standing at the edge of the platform looking down is when you fully grasp that 25 feet in diving terms is closer to base jumping from the Empire State Building. Since walking back down the ladder is not an option, you take a deep breath, jump off and pray for the best.

I think product naming is the same experience for some people.

It looks easy from a distance. Seriously, how hard can it be to come up with a decent name? Like some of the kids at the pool in Houston, a handful of people take the plunge and make it into the water without drowning. The form might not be all that great, but as long as the goal was finishing the process, no one is worse for the experience.

But sometimes the stakes are higher, the exposure a little more severe, and just jumping off won’t cut it. That’s when the act of naming changes to the art of naming.

Why Have a Process for Naming?

The purpose of processes is generally the same regardless of category. They’re not there for the one-offs. They’re in place so you improve your chances of repeat success. A naming process rarely includes gathering people in a room to brainstorm for an hour and call it a day. Every naming agency on the planet has a process generally for the same reason—to increase their chances of coming up with good material that will make it into the market on a regular basis. If you insist on naming products, brands or companies on your own, at least do yourself a favor and do what the naming agencies do.

The Basic Naming Process

1. Briefing—This is where we all get on the same page. It’s led by the team/client with the business challenge. I recommend getting into the details here and not glossing over the little points. When done right, everyone can race off in different directions and yet still end up at the same finish line. Be sure to consider the success criteria for the work. It's always best to establish those here, so choosing the new name will be a bit easier later.

2. Immersion—We have clients every year ask if we can skip this stage. The short answer is yes, but generally I have found it extremely helpful to have the namers, writers, strategists and linguists all the way through to the attorneys well informed about the category, consumer, channels, products, brands, portfolio, etc. For a small client and project, this is pretty light. For a large company with global interests, it may take a little effort to get everyone up to speed. Without this step you run the risk of people generalizing solutions to a problem that may or may not exist.

3. Strategic Options—We have found it helpful to have some strategic aiming points before we send the team off to do great things. This helps ensure you don’t get a ton of name candidates in one, narrow area. For example: Dig-it, Digi-action, Digi-cell, Digi-D, Digi-Drive, Digi-life, Digi-Max and so on. Not horrible in an exploratory, but also not a great range to overcome biases. Some people focus purely on number, as if having 400, 600 or 1,000 names will guarantee success. I hate this kind of stuff. There is no magic number. Have fun with the strategy and use it to push boundaries. That’s where the great names come from.

4. Creative Development—This is where the names candidates get the biggest boost. Some people like to work in large teams, some with small teams, some just individuals holed away in a closet somewhere. I like to use a combination of approaches to generate a broad range of ideas and from different angles. I also use a number of namers and linguists around the world to bring fresh perspective and regional relevance to naming projects. Whether you send everyone down one path, use parallel paths, have a team or two consider wildly dissimilar approaches is your call.

5. Filtering—There’s a saying in songwriting that great songs aren’t written as much as they’re rewritten. The magic is in the rewrite. I think the same applies to naming. Just because you have some names people on the team “like” isn’t enough to make it great. You should take into consideration whether the name fits the company, the brand and product, etc. Does it fit the person who will use the product (or the person who might buy it for the user)? Can people pronounce the name? Does it sound right in context?

When we name for products aimed at kids, we make sure kids can say the name and would like to say the name. And don’t think that adding a Z to a name or cheating on spelling (Chipz or Krazy Kidz) will endear your product to kids anywhere. By contrast, if you’re naming liquor for hipsters, you should make sure the name sounds like something the audience can say out loud in a bar call. No one wants to shout out some awkward word in a crowded bar surrounded by their friends. And if you can't pass this basic test, you probably won't last long on shelf, either.

The point here is simple: names that seem right for some categories may be horrible misses in others. Health-oriented products probably shouldn’t sound like a cell phone, while a technology startup might not match with pharmaceutical names.

There are plenty of weighted scales, metrics and formulas to help quantify whether a name works or not. Find what works for you. But start with the basics and work outwards, not the other way around. You’ll make yourself and your team crazy if you make the solution about the complexity instead of the brilliant idea.

6. Trademark Clearance—My belief is that a name that isn’t cleared to use in the market is just an interesting word. It’s like holding a photo of someone else: no matter how much you like it, it’s still not you. This is one reason we check every name for trademark clearance before we share them with our clients. If we don’t, and people ask us to skip this step all the time, the people making the decisions seem to always fall in love with the name that can’t be used. So we just eliminated the chance for disappointment and now require all names get some form of clearance before the first presentation. No one ever regrets not having to sort through names they can't use.

7. Audience Exposure—Steve Jobs didn’t like focus groups and put a ton of great names into the market. You can, too. Since most of us fall an IQ point or two behind Steve, and don’t own the company, we’ve found it helpful to get an idea of what people think about the names we want to use. I prefer qualitative discussions first before quantitative because I like to understand what words people use to describe the name, product, brand, experience, etc. using their own words. Quant research means they have to choose between words I give them. It’s just not the same thing in my opinion, but you get to choose which way works for you.

My caution on any research is trying to combine too many things in one session. We get asked to design logos around wordmarks or product names so we can take the complete design with name options into one round of research. This is dangerous for the simple fact that people can and will kill good names because of the design or color and, conversely, choose weaker names because they like the look of the design.

8. Assess and Apply—If you make it all the way through the process with something that’s a fit for the challenge and can revolutionize the market, celebrate the success for what it is. If not, get back to work. Don’t get discouraged. Sometimes the best names come out of the third, fourth or fifth rounds of effort. Not always, but sometimes.

Like looking up at a diving platform, naming can look easy from a distance. But when you get into the details, it can seem like scary business. It doesn't have to be. That's when having a process, and maybe a good agency partner, can help you enjoy the journey from idea to product launch.

How Resilient Brands Thrive in Challenging Times

“He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Every generation has to face its own rounds of brand challenges related to the economy, public attitudes, world events, and more. Especially when things go bad, it’s easy to think that in the crisis of the moment there are no parallels to reference for a way forward. This is where despair sets in. But there are almost always examples we can look to for how to thrive in challenging times. Let’s take a look back at the 1980’s Tylenol recall.

Deal With The Challenge Directly

Through no fault of their own, Tylenol found themselves facing an unimaginable nightmare when a crazed person tampered with products and killed people.

For those who don’t know the story: In 1982 Chicago, people started dying of cyanide poisoning. Random people with no connection with each other, except that officials quickly discovered someone was lacing Tylenol with cyanide. It induced panic in the community to the degree that police and rescue vehicles were driving through neighborhoods announcing to people to toss out their Tylenol.

Think about that for a moment: police and rescue vehicles were driving through neighborhoods announcing to people to toss out Tylenol. Samsung went through a recall in 2016 when their Galaxy Note 7 products generated too much heat and the products caught on fire or exploded. At the time, in every airport gate in the U.S., gate attendants announced that Samsung Galaxy products were prohibited from the planes. It’s one thing for a product to perform badly. It’s another thing for a product to perform so badly that airlines make announcements against your brand prior to every U.S. flight for three months.

The Tylenol problem was worse, still.

Through no fault of their own, Tylenol had a major crisis on their hands. In all, 7 people died.

Johnson & Johnson, Tylenol brand owners, decided to pull all Tylenol products from the shelf. ALL of it, or 31 million bottles, since they didn’t want anyone else to die, and no one could be sure what products were affected.

Then they went to work, as resilient brands do.

Adjust Based On The New Reality

The buzz word these days is “pivot”. But companies have been adapting and adjusting for years without having a buzzword.

What I love about the Tylenol story is that the brand found themselves in a situation far beyond their control—and gained control again by sheer force and creativity. Most companies would have withered under these circumstances. But J&J put their best people to work on the challenge.

A short while later they reintroduced the world to Tylenol. To make sure people knew Tylenol was a safe brand, they launched with innovations consumers could see. Innovations that are so common today that new generations just accept that their products will be “Safety sealed three ways!”:

1. Glued boxes so consumers could tell at a glance if someone had gotten in first.

2. Bottle caps wrapped in plastic. So even if the box had issues, the plastic was a quick indicator of tamper-free products.

3. Foil-sealed lids as the final barrier against bad things happening without your knowledge.

Build On The New Reality

The Tylenol brand hasn’t looked back in ages. It’s mostly people like us who keep bringing up the story—or people who study crisis management. It’s an amazing study in how to deal with a brand collapse that’s beyond your control. But in the end, it’s what a brand chooses to control that makes the difference. J&J had the kind of culture that enabled them to take on a catastrophe head-on and thrive by making tough choices, adjusting in the new reality, acting with purpose, and building on the new reality.

There will always be crises. It’s how brands choose to deal with them that will determine what brands survive and which ones fade away.

How Do Resilient Companies Thrive?

There are winners and losers in every economy. Some people and companies collapse under the weight of changes and uncertainty while others seem to thrive. Same conditions, similar circumstances, but one group withers away while others not only survive the challenge but go on to do great things. What makes the difference?

What is Resilience?

Before we break down what resilient people and companies do differently, it might be helpful to define what we’re talking about. What does it mean to be resilient? According to Merriam-Webster, resilience means “able to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens.”

Seems simple enough. But being able to bounce back when bad things happen is largely related to the foundations laid prior to those bad things happening … and then building on the foundations as needed.

So what do healthy organizations do that help them survive the crises that take down their competitors?

Prepare: Build a Healthy Company Culture

Just as a healthy person is better able to fight off illness and injury, healthy organizations give themselves the upper hand in both good and bad times. In his excellent book “The Advantage”, organizational health guru, Patrick Lencioni, outlines four disciplines of healthy companies:

1. Build a cohesive leadership team—the people at the top understand why the company exists, what challenges are top priority, their roles and responsibilities, and how to work together to make things happen;

2. Create clarity—the leadership team is intellectually aligned and committed to the same fundamental values and actions. There can be disagreements at the top, but not dissension.

3. Over-communicate clarity—healthy organizations make sure everyone is on the same page, working together from top to bottom to accomplish their goals. People know why the company exists, how they’re changing the world, and how their particular role factors into that goal.

4. Reinforce clarity—“in order for an organization to remain healthy over time, its leaders must establish a few critical, non-bureaucratic systems to reinforce clarity in every process that involves people. Every policy, every program, every activity should be designed to remind employees what is really most important.”

Just being in business isn’t good enough to withstand real economic challenges. Companies that know what they’re about, why they exist, have leaders who are aligned and able to guide employees to the future, and help people link arms in the struggle give themselves incredible advantages in the marketplace.

Act with Discipline and Purpose

Discipline is key to resiliency at personal, brand, and organizational levels. Healthy organizations move with a sense of purpose in good times and bad. Because they establish their foundations early and understand why the exist, they can align their teams on disciplined pursuits of their goals.

In his book, “Great by Choice”, author Jim Collins details the 20-mile march concept used by explorer Roald Amundsen to successfully reach the South Pole. To summarize: “Enterprises that prevail in turbulence self-impose a rigorous performance mark to hit with great consistency—like hiking across the United States by marching at least 20 miles a day, every day. The march imposes order amidst disorder, discipline amidst chaos, and consistency amidst uncertainty.”

Does preparation build resiliency? In many ways, yes. Because it helps people not collapse when faced with uncertainty.

To quote Collins again, “Having a clear 20 Mile March focuses the mind; because everyone on the team knows the markers and their importance, they can stay on track. Financial markets are out of your control. Customers are out of your control. Earthquakes are out of your control. Global competition is out of your control. Technological change is out of your control. Most everything is ultimately out of your control. But when you 20 Mile March, you have a tangible point of focus that keeps you and your team moving forward, despite confusion, uncertainty, and even chaos.”

Collaborate or Die

There are many advantages to creating a collaborative work environment for organizations, from attracting better employees, and retaining your best people, to improving productivity and getting better ideas out of everyone involved. So why isn’t every company already committed to collaboration?

It starts with leaders—but it isn’t just leaders by title. I like the way Liz Wiseman’s talks about a better grade of leaders. In her book “Multipliers”, Wiseman defines multipliers as “genius-makers who bring out the intelligence in others. They build collective, viral intelligence in organizations.”

It’s important to make the distinction between leaders who are multipliers and people who are what Wiseman calls “diminishers”, or those who “are absorbed in their own intelligence, stifle others, and deplete the organization of crucial intelligence and capability.”

The multipliers in your organization help foster the kind of environment where people feel they are free to collaborate and share their best ideas because they feel valued, energized, challenged in positive ways, and therefore enthusiastically lean into helping the team and organization thrive.

How people feel is really important here. Organizations that post empty values about empowerment and authenticity, and then run people over when they express those values, are doomed to having an empty staff—people who come to work to get paid, not to give 110% of who they are.

Multipliers worry less about getting people in the right seats and accountability charts. They instill a sense of ownership, “provide the necessary resources for success, and hold people accountable for their commitments.”

By bringing out the best in everyone in the company, and leveraging a collaborative culture, organizations gain flexibility, agile work styles, become more adaptable and seem to have the ability to see around corners—not because their people are better or smarter than any other work force, but because every employee is fully engaged and fully utilized.

Worry About What You Can Control, Not About What You Can’t

Resilience is largely focused on companies controlling the right things and getting the right people and processes in place so they can capitalize on opportunities or shift away from issues faster. Success isn’t guaranteed, but resilient companies give themselves a better shot at success than their less prepared counterparts.

In their HBR article “A Guide to Building a More Resilient Business”, co-authors Martin Reeves and Kevin Whitaker identified four significant benefits of resilience at a corporate level:

1. Anticipation—the ability to recognize threats faster.

2. Impact—the ability to better resist or withstand the initial shock. This can be achieved through better preparation or a more-agile response.

3. Recovery speed—the ability to rebound from the shock more quickly by identifying the adjustments needed to return to the prior operating level and implementing them swiftly and effectively.

4. Outcomes benefit—increased fitness for the new post-shock environment.

In summary, resilient companies prepare for the days ahead and give themselves the advantage of a healthy culture, act with a sense of purpose and move at a steady pace, encourage collaboration in, around, and through their people and bring out the best in every individual, and take care of what they can control.

As a result, healthy companies are better prepared to enjoy the fruits—even in a down economy or turbulent environment—when their competitors struggle to survive.

Tell us your thoughts on what resilient companies are doing better and differently than others.

What’s Your Dandelion Strategy?

Your brand should perform like a dandelion: resilient, resourceful, prolific in output, delivering impressive results year after year.

Every spring my yard and I do battle. When the snow melts and the grass starts to turn green again I have visions of a deep, thick, healthy lawn stretching to soak up the sun and welcoming in the warm air. Instead, I get about 20 different varieties of grass left over from the previous owner, clover and dandelions. Lots of dandelions. I hate dandelions. Or at least I did until I started studying up on my adversary.

Now I'm thinking maybe we could learn a few things from the lowly dandelion.

Resilience
Dandelions don't need perfect conditions to flourish. They don't mind if the soil is bad, the water inconsistent, or even if they have to go it alone against all odds ... like taking root in a small crack in concrete. They accept the conditions given and find a way to succeed.

Ever try to kill a dandelion by pulling it out of the ground? Go ahead, try. It'll be back tomorrow or the next day, or the next. That's because dandelions put down a taproot up to 10 inches long which allows it to flourish in some really nasty conditions. Even better, the taproot is brittle, so when you yank hard parts of the root break off and that last little bit left in the ground is all the dandelion needs to grow again. It's not going away until you make life impossible.

How resilient is your brand? Do you need the perfect environment to thrive, or can you take it on the chin and stand up again? What are you doing to give yourself a shot at success even against all odds?

Resourcefulness
Let's look at that taproot again. It hangs out in the ground all winter long and waits for the perfect time to emerge. By the time you see what's going on, the dandelion is way ahead of you. You don't stand a chance of winning this battle, and it knows.

But dandelions don't just look out for themselves. They bring up nutrients that help surrounding plants. They loosen and aerate the soil in some places and hold on to it in others to fight erosion. They even fertilize the ground around them ... and people rave about the iron and Vitamin A they add to salads.

How would you rate your brand on resourcefulness? How do you take advantage of the opportunities around you? What do you contribute to the community?

Prolific Output
Dandelions put on a show, no doubt about it. Legend has it that hundreds of years ago people yanked out the grass so the dandelions had more room to grow. But even with just a little room, each plant produces a handful of bright yellow flowers. Each flower may bear 100 or more seeds. Each seed is laser focused on taking root and thereby continuing the cycle. And since it can take just six to eight weeks to go from seed to maturity, dandelions do everything in their power to make sure their legacy continues.

How prolific is your brand output? What are you doing to spread the tribe and make sure more people have a chance to embrace your brand?

Deliver Impressive Results Year After Year
Producing seeds in spring and fall, sending down deep roots to endure the cold winter and murderous attempts of landscapers and gardeners, dandelions return each year to prosper, grow and share. They'll happily find a home in a new neighborhood with great conditions, or replenish the area in bad soil. How about your brand?

Are you building a brand that will last, one that has the ability to keep growing and changing each year, or are you consumed with the now? What should you do to change your trajectory and give you a better chance of survival?

We can spend time debating the merits of challenger brands versus leader brands, legacy versus start up, entrepreneurs versus intrapreneurs, etc. Or, we can simplify the conversation even further and ask: what's your dandelion strategy?

In the marketplace of COVID-19, company leaders need to think like founders.

Much has been written about the difficulty of successful companies thriving in the second and third generations. The same logic holds true for the age of COVID-19. Companies would do well to revisit the founder mentality and get back to their entrepreneurial roots.

Many successful founders intuitively reinvent their business as they grow. They work crazy long hours to make their ideas come to life. They sacrifice of themselves. They're scrappy and scramble to take advantage of changes in the marketplace. And they jettison ideas that don't work in order to focus on what does.

Second and third generation leaders are often not scramblers. They focus on managing versus growing, they try to cut their way to profit when things get bad and, worse, believe that the one or two big clients that saved them in years past will save them forever. They feel a sense of entitlement to the spoils of success and blame others for the lack of growth or development. Soon enough the company crashes, fades away, or capitulates to a buyout.

In these days of quarantines, company leaders need to think like founders. Because we're all reinventing the future in real-time.

If you need help rethinking your future, let's talk.

The executives who got you here might not be able to get you out.

As this pandemic has taught us, agile organizations are the ones who are able to weather the storm and redefine their paths forward while fixed companies struggle with the change. Why?

In psychological terms it's called plan-continuation bias or, as the American Psychological Association defines it, "the tendency of people to continue with an original course of action that is no longer viable."

It's the kind of mindset that leads ship captains to run into icebergs, and airline pilots to crash in storms they should avoid. People who feel intense pressure to get the job done or who feel social stresses to not appear weak make stupid choices even when there is every indication that staying the course will end badly.

I meet executives with this tanker mentality. They believe their role is to keep the machine rolling on the course they set long ago. They argue that staying the course has always worked in the past, so why change now? Why? Because the world has changed and so, very likely, should the company.

This may call for new executives who can flex in the moment and guide the company to new types of success. They may not be tankers, but speedboats.

If you need help with company or brand change, let's talk.

Times of crisis call for rethinking top-heavy organizations.

There's an old story of two trees in a field, one a large, majestic oak with a sturdy trunk and broad branches. Not far away is a small, thin, and wiry willow. The mighty oak boasts of its strength and size and reminds the willow of all the ways the oak is superior to the willow. The willow is quiet. In time a heavy rain starts. The oak boasts of its ability to absorb so much water. The willow is quiet. After a while the winds pick up and grow in intensity, howling through the night. It's so dark and loud that the willow can't see or hear anything as it is battered in the wind. Eventually, the wind dies down and the sun rises. The willow looks around to see the once-mighty oak has been toppled in the storm. What made it such a formidable being in good weather led to its demise in the bad. The willow stretches to the sun. The oak is quiet.

In good times, it's easy for top-heavy organizations to rationalize their imbalance and boast of the number of vice presidents and executives in the system. As COVID-19 has reminded us, big and rigid isn't always better. Efficiency is.

Efficient organizations are nimble, agile, and flexible. They're able to see challenges and respond quickly to win.

So what should companies do to fix the problem?

1. Flatten the organization. Managers are not only expensive. If their roles are mostly to manage people and processes, they move further away from understanding the customers and adding value that can be directly connected to sales.

2. Increase the staff-to-manager ratio. It’s not uncommon to find a ratio of 4–1 or 5–1 in large companies. A big challenge here is that while this can help each employee think they get a lot of personal attention from their boss, this ratio can lead to incredible bloat. And since every level of management earns incrementally more than the people who report to them, senior managers and executives may spend most of their time managing managers. Increasing the ratio to 20–1 or, in some organizations, depending on roles, as high as 100–1, removes a tremendous amount of expense and process creep. Of course, this means every employee won’t get 30 minutes to an hour each week with their manager, but many employees don’t require or desire this level of interaction, anyway.

   For more information on this, read “How to identify the right span of control for your organization” by McKinsey & Company.

3. Trim the number of supervisors. This feeds off step 2 here but becomes a line item in the to-do list. As the ratios are adjusted, some supervisory roles are no longer necessary.

4. Trim the admin staff. Every executive probably doesn’t need a personal admin, much less a group of administrative people at their direction.

Does grace have a place in business?

Grace isn't something people talk about in the office. It's the kind of touchy-feely emotional connection executives can't quantify and therefore don't want to address. Yet it's exactly the kind of connection more executives could learn to use to transform their organizational culture.

I run into the fundamental attribution error in executives in all kinds of companies. If you're not familiar with the term, it's when we assign someone else's actions as tied to their core personality when we give ourselves a pass for the same actions. It's easy for us to say someone else is stupid or irresponsible when they make a mistake and without even thinking about it excuse our own similar actions as being influenced by factors like schedule, stress, distractions, etc.

We give ourselves grace for our issues but quickly blame others as fundamentally flawed for the same issues. Even worse is when we blame others for problems we've caused them.

I've found that in healthy business cultures, people work hard to do the right thing most of the time. And in pushing forward they make mistakes for all the right reasons. When those mistakes are made, management owes it to their teams to have some grace. We could all use a lot more grace.

Five steps to winning on stage in presentations

You've been asked to speak in front of an audience. Your deck is prepared. You've rehearsed. It's the day before your presentation and you still hate the idea of going up on that stage. What do you do?

Here are five tips I use with my clients to help win on stage:

1. Get rest and stay hydrated. Being tired and dehydrated affects the mind and body. You need all your reserves so you can concentrate and nail your presentation.

2. Wear something you feel confident in. It seems simple, but you need to know you look good. The mind plays tricks on you when you’re nervous or feeling vulnerable, and knowing you look good lets you focus on presenting well.

3. Smile. Smile while you practice. Smile before you go on. Force yourself to smile during your presentation. Your mind likes to follow what your body does. So smiling helps you look and sound friendlier. And tricks your brain into thinking you’re having a good time.

4. Breathe. Remember to breathe and give yourself a fighting chance. A deep breath here and there gives you the oxygen you need to stay mentally alert. So smile. And breathe.

5. Nail the opening. Then, regardless of how you do in the middle, nail the ending. Your audience will love you for both.

I remind all my clients that the people in the audience generally WANT YOU TO DO WELL. Think about this for a minute. How many times have you seen a speaker step up to the podium or on stage and hope they fail miserably. Most people don’t think this way. We like for people to do well. We want to hear a good presenter. We want to be delighted by the experience.

Relax and give them your best. They want you to nail this.

Brand Building Fundamentals: Brand Promise

Brand promise is the collective experience people have with your brand once you combine all other factors of your brand foundation. So it's not tactical or directive. It's the essence of the brand.

You may be familiar with some of the standards:

• Disney: Fun family entertainment

• Coca-Cola: To inspire moments of optimism and uplift.

• Nike: Authentic athletic performance

Makes sense for billion dollar brands. But what if you're not that?

A number of years ago I worked with the local Freestore Foodbank. An amazing organization that helps people get back on their feet through a range of services. When we talked with internal people, they gushed about their ability to help people transition into positive life situations.

But people outside the group thought they only gave away food.

We found that food was the catalyst to everything else.

If you haven't eaten in three days, chances are very good that you don't have much interest in talking about clothing, job skills, housing, etc.

Food comes first.

The brand promise became: Using food as a gateway to life transformations.

It captures the essence of the brand and gave internal audiences a focus.

Brand Building Fundamentals: Positioning

The best companies know they have to own a unique place in the hearts and minds of their consumers. In simple terms, this is positioning.

You can leverage a number of vectors including relevance, clarity, distinctiveness, and a whole lot more. But you cannot be all things to all people. Remember, this is about standing out in the hearts and minds of the people who have a chance of caring about your brand.

In his book, Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely tells the story of Salvador Assael who, through a series of trades, ended up with a collection of black pearls in a day when everyone wore white pearls.

You might think the fact that they were different would do the trick. It didn't, any more than a black t-shirt is exponentially better than a white t-shirt.

Assael teamed up with Harry Winston who crafted the black pearls into luscious pieces of jewelry with premium pricing. Now, the product had exclusivity, a connection to a superior brand and a price tag to match all the glitz and glitter. Soon, black pearls were a necessary item in any reputable jewelry case.

Trying to sell black pearls didn't work. Positioning them as exclusive alternatives did.

Brand Building Fundamentals: Desired Consumer Experience

Brands often talk about what they bring to the market. The smart ones also think about how they want their audiences to respond. In brand building, this is the Desired Consumer Experience (DCE).

Branding only from the inside out opens the door to confirmation biases. It's just too easy to convince yourself that your brand is smart, innovative and darned good looking. But your brilliant product without an audience isn’t worth much in the market.

I like to consider three vectors for DCE:

1. What do you want your audience to THINK about the brand as a result of an interaction?

2. How do you want them to FEEL about the brand?

3. What do you want them to DO?

A few DCE examples:

• (The brand) helps me feel like I can own my future

• (The brand) is always working on my behalf

• (The brand) helps me take care of what's important

• (The brand) makes me feel like a rock star!

I tend to lean towards emotion in the DCE partly because emotional connections are longer lasting than simply having consumers think "I always get a good deal."

Ultimately it's your call. Just be purposeful in your choice.

Brand Building Fundamentals: Points of Difference

Every successful brand must have attributes or benefits that make them stand out in the hearts and minds of consumers and stand apart from their competition. These are the points of difference in the brand foundation and are fundamental to helping your brand win in  the marketplace. They are what give your audiences a reason to turn your way versus the competition.

These can be rational, as in distinct product quality features or maybe even the fact that it's tied to a particularly strong parent brand/organization, or emotional, as in the way the brand makes its audiences feel.

Key here is that points of difference should be elements of the brand that competitors can't copy easily (think under six months). Unless the brand is willing to fight for trademarks, you can expect your assets to be copied.

One of my favorite examples of the nuances between points of parity and difference comes from the classic Miller Lite campaign. In this campaign they touted "Great Taste," a point of parity in the category plus "Less Filling," a point of difference at a time when consumers wanted fewer calories without sacrificing taste. Brilliant.

Brand Building Fundamentals: Points of Parity

What your brand does that qualifies you to be in the market will not differentiate you from your competition. They're called points of parity in brand building—so you can move on to what matters.

The name is fairly transparent: these are elements the brand offers that enable them to be seen as a player in any particular category. I often state it like this: If I were a billionaire and wanted to get into your category, what would I need to offer in order for people to take me seriously?

The list often starts with things like: wide range of products, good quality, a variety of experts on staff, size of company, efficacy, good value, etc.

In workshops with some larger, established brands rethinking their way, the list can fill several pages—which is perfect for the group to work through. Because many established brands fall victim to believing their Points of Parity are what separate them from their competition. They don't! They simply keep you in the game.

The next step in the equity building process is to identify Points of Difference. These are usually much harder to nail down—some brands may only have one or two true differentiators.

I'll discuss those in my Points of Difference post.

Brand Building Fundamentals: Brand Personality

Every brand has a brand personality. Not every brand chooses to manage that personality. That's a mistake.

Brand personality has been defined as the human characteristics that embody the brand or brand experience. Helpful? Didn't think so. Let's rethink this.

Brands can be fun, free willed, playful, studious, a work horse, etc. But those attributes don't drive much energy into the brand. Worse, your interpretation of "fun" may be decidedly different than mine. So we could work on the same brand using "fun" as the brand personality and end up in vastly different areas. I think that's an issue.

I recommend people start with analogies (cars, famous people, bands, etc.) and then unpack what makes them work for the brand.

You might start with mountain climber Reinhold Messner. But everyone might not recognize that name. Unpacking that might get you to: Courageous, personable mountain guide: skilled, knowledgeable, engaging, with an intense desire to help others succeed.

It can be short or long. Just help people get on the same page and visualize the potential so internal and external audiences connect with the same powerful personality.

Tankers and Speedboats: Is your innovation program solving the right problems?

What's the balance between your tankers (people who excel at keeping the train on the track and dialing up efficiencies), and your speedboats (people looking to move fast and find what's next)?

Most companies need both. Too many speedboats and you can new idea your company out of existence. Too many tankers and the world will pass you by. With innovation, it's often best to let your speedboats race out to the front.

I'll use the Peloton bike as an example. (https://lnkd.in/e3DJd-W) In your typical company, the challenge goes out to build a better spinner bike, so the tankers get on it. They hyper-analyze materials, components and electronics, adding and honing to build the ultimate self-contained unit, like bikes have always worked.

But the Peloton team are speedboats. They combined a love of cycling, problems with scheduling rides and the isolation of working out alone, and came up with a better experience in general. Now you can be a part of a group experience—at home. Log in, ride, sweat and win alone and yet still with others. Brilliant.

Tankers can now fine tune the machine while the speedboats run ahead.