Word from the Front Lines

Always Keep Evolving

2010-08-12T09:15:00.011-04:00

from a cultural conversation with Yo-Yo Ma

and the Wall Street Journal

Renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma was recently interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, "The Ever-Curious Cellist." He had many inspiring things to say. Some of his thoughts are especially relevant to the art of communicating and engaging others. And although their context is music and performing, they speak to the essence of enlightened storytelling...

You spend years trying to learn how to communicate that this sound is reflective of that thought, but then there's the question of how it's received.

My job as a performer is to make something memorable. If I do something nice but forgettable, it needn't have happened.

There are moments when the answers about who you are and what you're doing can change suddenly. Even if we don't like change, we change anyway. There's no real stasis. So the question is how do you change?

People will ask 'Are you famous?' And I always answer 'My mother thinks so.' Besides, even exceptionally talented artists need to practice and grow. I may be playing the same pieces, but the way I'm thinking about them is different.

Colin Goedecke is a strategic story developer and senior-level interviewer, with a 25-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their marketing stories. Always Keep Evolving is the 24th in a series of thought pieces to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Yo-Yo Ma is a celebrated cellist, who has played with most of the world's major orchestras. He currently plays with his own Silk Road Ensemble, which brings together musicians from diverse countries which are historically linked to the Silk Road.

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Defining Leaders

2010-08-01T21:15:00.013-04:00

A conversation about true leaders and leadership

with Richard Russack

CG: Leadership is something you’ve thought a lot about over the years, Dick. And you’ve certainly worked with your share of [corporate] leaders. Why is it so much on your mind now?

RR: If you look at the world today, it’s devoid of enough true leaders. We used to have so many. This troubles me. What has happened? Is it because people don’t want to step up to the higher responsibilities of leadership, or don’t know how to be great leaders?

CG: What in your view defines a true leader?

RR: The first quality of leadership is moral and ethical character. When we look at the [now former] CEO of BP, Tony Hayward, for example, his whole attitude and behavior from a public relations point of view was ridiculous. Making me wonder how he ever got into such a significant leadership role.

Many times individuals arrive in a major leadership position because they were great salespeople or CFOs or prominent public figures, but then didn’t behave like true leaders; in some cases revealed serious character flaws. Yet too few people ever questioned whether they met high standards of leadership to begin with.

Aside from moral integrity, another essential leadership quality is vision. In contrast to a manager with goals. And, a sense of team, which enables a leader to attract the experts they need to help them lead and help them create a culture that can achieve both short-term goals and a long-term vision. There’s also a certain wisdom, a blend of intelligence and street smarts.

CG: What about charisma?

RR: Yes, but it’s overused. I’d say courage. Because as a leader you’re faced with many unknown situations, and need courage to assess them, take decisive action -- and stake your reputation on this.

CG: Yet we have people in the world, in business, government, academia and elsewhere in society, who we call leaders but who don’t meet the criteria we’re talking about, even though they’re technically “leading,” i.e. running something.

RR: Yes. But there’s no clear understanding or commonly accepted definition of what a leader actually is.

CG: Despite countless books and articles written on the subject.

RR: All this represents are different points of view. Even if you talk with those who are considered or consider themselves leaders, you would still get a range of attributes instead of two or three consistent ones.

They used to be defined as people with deep experience, who knew how to deal with change and who had significant accomplishments. Like Dwight D. Eisenhower. He never set out to be President of the United States. He worked his way up in the military and when it came time to deal with the Normandy invasion he showed himself to be a real leader. He staked his reputation on a point of view and course of action, against great odds and opposition. And he succeeded.

CG: Looking at the landscape now, who stands out for you as an exemplary leader?

RR: At one point President Obama came to mind, who had a vision but has run into too many uphill political issues. In sports, I’d say someone like Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals stands out as a true leader. He has character, moral integrity and vision, has been terribly consistent and is held in esteem by his teammates as a leader.

CG: Other than Eisenhower and Pujols, who else is in your pantheon of leaders?

RR: George Washington.

CG: Why Washington?

RR: He wasn't a very well educated man, but he demonstrated leadership through the [American] revolution and in building a nation. He was able to bring a brilliant group of people together – philosophers, orators, visionaries, innovators and organizers – to work toward a larger purpose and vision.

Inspiring loyalty is something I didn’t mention earlier, but it is a hallmark… though we see so little of it today, to anyone or anything.

IBM’s Thomas J. Watson is a fine model for this. He was in touch, face-to-face, with his employees, and personally acknowledged them and their value, and they were extremely loyal in return.

I once advised a CEO to walk around the company campus at Christmas time to wish our people happy holidays. He didn’t want to do it. He was afraid it would appear insincere. I told him if you start and do it every year it’ll be tremendously sincere; if not, employees will view you as someone who doesn’t care about them.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, one of seven projects of the Pew Research Center supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, are leaders. Both institutions have been around for decades, and have never strayed from their visions, missions or basic criteria. They’ve kept their purpose, focus and investments vital and consistent with our evolving world.

Theirs is a different form of leadership, but a critical one, that impacts society by influencing trends, identifying individual leaders and helping to shape public awareness and opinion.

CG: An unsung leader for me is a man I recently interviewed, Claus Biegert, founder of the Nuclear Free Future Awards. Because he leads a valiant, selfless effort and vision for a nuclear freer world; championing the rights of victimized indigenous peoples, uniting scientists, politicians and activists worldwide, and doing all this with wisdom and integrity.

CG: Are leaders made, or born?

RR: I’d like to think genetics play some part, but I have no scientific proof. Some of it is serendipitous. You can have a desire to be a leader, but you may not achieve it because you lack some essential trait or simply miss the right opportunity because of timing or age.

The military has a system that over time separates leaders from non-leaders, but you find few people who left it in the last 10 to 20 years and became recognized leaders in other fields.

CG: What pitfalls do leaders need to avoid?

RR: They have to avoid becoming arrogant. It’s an occupational hazard. In business especially, also government. They move in very narrow circles of people and thinking, and many lose their objectivity and forget their humbler beginnings. Making it hard to relate in any normal way to what’s going on outside their bubbles.

Great leaders never lose touch like this.

CG: What about sustaining leadership?

RR: This is a true test of whether someone is a leader: the ability to realize a significant vision over time.

CG: Are the best leaders also heroes?

RR: Absolutely. And acknowledged by a broad not just a narrow group of people.

An inventor can be a leader. Maybe not at the point of the invention. Thomas Edison took his invention, electric light, drove the development and application of it, and made it [and electric power generation] a backbone of the world.

CG: Not to mention the phonograph and motion picture camera. What’s so pivotal about Edison’s role is his impact on mass communications, especially telecommunications. And how he led the application of mass production principles to the process of invention, out of which came the first industrial research lab.

CG: Now coming back to the scarcity of true leaders, does this leave society too rudderless? Who do we follow; support; trust; believe in?

RR: This is a quandary. Among the public, it makes people afraid to go out and vote. Which is why in most cities do you have a 10% turnout for elections of mayors.

CG: Is it a loss of faith?

RR: Yes, and part of a true leader’s role is to restore faith, confidence, belief. To be honest about things. To make decisions in the best interests of the many vs. the few.

CG: Any books about leadership you’ve found worthwhile?

RR: For a number of years, I have been reading historical fiction. Right now Tested by Fate, a trilogy about Lord Horatio Nelson, a leader and a hero. A man who held every single job and knew every aspect of operating and navigating a ship. No matter what I read, I see that those who turn out to be the most successful leaders, are also those who have learned everything along the way so when they reach a top position they know exactly what has to be done by each person on the team, bottom up – because they’ve done it.

If we could achieve this today, we would have enlightened leaders, not people racing through important steps or skipping them altogether.

CG: Is this a critical observation we should be making about our current and future leaders?

RR: It probably is.

I’m consulting for a private company that’s leaderless right now. And the question is whether to bring someone in from the outside or cultivate a leader internally over a few years. I’m in favor of cultivating, of incubating: it’s critical for forming the right and best kind of leaders.

CG: As the world changes, will the fundamentals of true leadership change?

RR: No, but because the world will continue getting more complicated, it’ll be harder to find people who have the drive and stamina and interest as well as the ability to lead in all the ways we’ve talked about here.

We have schools trying to teach leadership, but we need to look at and questions these curricula. I don’t believe you can really teach it, but I do believe you can inspire it.

As American voters head to polls this Fall, they have an opportunity to

think beyond party lines and make choices based on the defining qualities of leadership we’ve been discussing.

This is a critical time for our country. And we all need to evaluate whether the challengers understand the issues and have the ability to really lead and inspire others to follow. Because voting out the incumbents just to vote them out would be a catastrophic mistake. We can take advantage of the mid-term elections to advance a meaningful, shared vision and populate Congress with new and true leaders who will earn – and deserve – the public’s trust and support.

CG: Dick, thank you for your time and thoughts.

Colin Goedecke is a strategic story developer and senior-level interviewer, with a 25-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their marketing stories. Defining Leaders is the 23rd in a series of thought pieces to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Richard Russack, is a senior management & communications consultant. He retired in 2008 from a 16-year role as VP of corporate relations for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation and president of its foundation. His Linked In profile is www.linkedin.com/in/richardrussack His e-mail: richardrussack@charter.net

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Learning the Right Life Lessons

2010-07-20T11:15:00.009-04:00

A conversation about the value of the past

with David Melnik, Q.C.

CG: The famous philosopher, poet and novelist Georges Santayana said: those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. How is this point relevant today?

DM: To have a good view of how you should live your life, and how best to contribute to your community and avoid some of life’s large pitfalls, you should learn a much as you can about what happened in the past. About what made and makes the world go round.

That’s why the study of history and philosophy are more important than anything I can think of. Whether you do it formally or informally.

CG: When you look at your own life, how did this serve you?

DM: Over my life I learned a great, great deal about the past, and it helped me move forward. I took aspects of it I felt were workable, worth copying or following, and used them in new and constructive ways.

When we look not just at individuals, but also at companies, we see opportunities to take what worked well for others in the past and use it to improve the present and future.

However, the problem with business today is you’re often dealing with political instead of purely economic agendas: driven by getting votes instead of doing the right thing. An environment where politics rule or overrule common sense.

As a result, we have witnessed the insolvency of a company like GM, once one of the world’s great industrial giants. And, its ownership being forced by the US Government onto the shoulders of America’s taxpayers.

CG: What can we learn from this?

DM: Several things. That governments have powerful agendas of their own, like getting re-elected, and because of this they often forget or ignore the wisdom of the past; which was to have businesses run intelligently and profitably, or let them fail if they didn’t succeed on their own merits.

That we have to take careful note of what our leaders say and do, then hold them to account.

And, that Santayana was right.

I served at one time in my 50+ year career as a senior advisor to the Premier of Ontario, Canada, so I have both an outside and a very inside perspective of government and politics at work; likewise of law from leading a law practice, and of business from running a bank and serving on many corporate boards.

CG: But we don’t need university degrees to glean the wisdom and folly of the past.

DM: Well I have five degrees, but I still have to pay to go on the streetcar as they say. The key is working throughout your lifetime to acquire meaningful knowledge and experience – and the ability to seriously analyze and discuss issues.

CG: In your view, most governments are operating more from self than public interest, and exerting counter-productive control over the marketplace. So where does capitalism fit in today?

DM: I don’t have many heroes, but the great economist Milton Friedman was certainly one. Years back, he gave an interview. When asked if capitalism was a selfish thing, Friedman, like Adam Smith before him, said no, that private, free market achievement was the basis of creating wealth for more people than would otherwise be the case in any dictatorial or totalitarian state (like Stalinist Russia).

I think it’s still true; and more essential than ever that we work to restore a free market.

CG: What one book has influenced you most significantly?

DM: Perhaps British economic historian Robert Skidelsky’s acclaimed three-volume biography on John Maynard Keynes. Fifty years later, we’re still struggling with the effects of Keynesianism. In essence Keynes theory was when things go down, let the government print and pump money into the system and all will be well. Which isn’t the way a free market should work, and we – especially you in the U.S. – have paid dearly for it: tens of trillions in debt and obligations.

I did not admire Keynes in any way, because I think his theory of government involvement in the economy is wrong…but I had to study him to really understand this.

CG: Richard Maybury, publisher of the always insightful and compelling US & World Early Warning Report, has a lot to say about the crushing losses that have come from Keynesian economics -- and about what 2,500 years of economic history tell us to expect ahead in our markets.

But why aren’t we thinking more about these essential issues?

DM: When they’re working all day long, most people are tired and want to relax. The last thing they are likely to do is read Skidelsky’s biography of John Maynard Keynes, or study the meaning of history or carefully analyze where their country is heading.

CG: Yet don’t we all have a higher responsibility, to learn life lessons? To be mindful and helpful, and do the right things in our world by and for each other?

DM: Yes we do. Socrates felt virtue was the most valuable of all possessions, and that the ideal life was spent in search of the good. His ancient wisdom is as timely as ever. It’s something we can seek every day.

CG: You may remember the conversation piece “A Time for Questioning” I did last year with world performer/director/ethical business catalyst Yannis Simonides about Socratic wisdom.

DM: On a larger plane, people also have to be free to make their own decisions about how to conduct their affairs, with as little outside interference as possible. When you go back to the past, you’ll see it was the free market that worked – when it was allowed to work; while government-run or government-influenced economies were not so successful. You’re seeing these dynamics play out again in the present.

CG: So what’s your best advice?

DM: Study. Read. Think. Find people you can talk and exchange ideas with, who will listen…and respect what you have to say; and will offer other viewpoints you can appreciate.

Learn. And keep learning.

I have traveled to over a hundred countries in my 78 years; worked in business, academia and government, and sought out other ways of thinking that helped me evolve my own. I have never stopped learning.

I believe our individual capacity in modern times to transform knowledge of the past, of history and philosophy, into vital new ideas and action for tomorrow, is as great as it ever was. But we have to seize the opportunity, each in our own best way. Our own lives and our future well-being as a society depend on it.

CG: Thank you so much, David.

Colin Goedecke is a strategic story developer and senior-level interviewer, with a 25-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their marketing stories. Learning the Right Life Lessons is the 22nd in a series of thought pieces to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com. Colin's Linked In profile is www.linkedin.com/in/colingoedecke

David Melnik, Queen’s Counsel, is a leading international legal and financial consultant; who sits on many company boards. Former CEO of Canada’s Vanguard Trust, he also served as policy advisor to the Premier of Ontario, and as professor at both the University of Toronto and York University business schools… dm1976cp@allstream.net

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Choosing a Nuclear Freer Future

2010-06-16T21:52:00.003-04:00

a conversation about the surprising realities

and costs of nuclear energy with Claus Biegert

CG: Our world has been nuclearized over the last five decades, for energy and atomic weaponry. And the production, from the mining of uranium for both, to the storage of radioactive waste from both, you say has come at immense environmental and social cost, cost that much of the public is still unenlightened or unconscious or uncurious about. Despite all the hard evidence out there. What’s the root problem?

CB: Few people question where nuclear material comes from in the first place, or whether it’s wise to use it. It’s uranium, and it comes from the earth, and usually from the traditional homelands of indigenous peoples. Most of these people live in vital relationship with the earth, and these surroundings wind up destroyed and with them, their cultures. Making these mining activities a clear and ongoing violation of human rights.

CG: Why is the process of taking uranium from the earth so destructive?

CB: Because enormous amounts of rock have to be mined and milled to produce a tiny amount, just 0.1% or less, of uranium ore, that’s turned into yellowcake. Most is waste, and 85% of it radioactive in the extensive tailings left behind – that can be the size of small mountains (the largest is over 80 million tons in Europe; and in the US and Canada some approach 30 million tons) or submerged under vast areas of hazardous, dammed-up water. These toxic messes will remain contaminated for generations to come.

CG: So while an epic environmental disaster is unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, around the world the nuclear industry has been knowingly not accidentally poisoning many parts of the planet’s ecology and its people for decades, from Asia and Africa to Canada and the US?

CB: But none of this is referred to publicly or officially as anything disastrous because it’s a widely accepted aspect of the uranium mining business. Even though scientifically we know it’s highly toxic; that the nearby radiation indigenous people are exposed to are related to many cancers and other debilitating diseases, and to the unnatural sicknesses of local animal and plant life.

Likewise, uranium enrichment, a process that produces depleted uranium – which is only considered “raw material” by the marketplace and not radioactive waste. Some of this goes into the weapons industry, and some into the iron and steel industry where it winds up recycled into parts of structures people move and work in.

Something is terribly wrong with this picture.

CG: Clearly we need to realize and become actively concerned about where nuclear energy is coming from; how it is extracted and handled, and where nuclear waste is going to. Not unlike the way we’re concerned these days about how safe our food is, and where and how it’s grown.

CB: We must, and we must also face ourselves in the mirror, and ask how comfortable we are living with this situation.

CG: But isn’t nuclear an essential part of the world’s energy supply?

CB: Despite many world leaders suggesting this is the case, it’s only about 2.5% of total energy production, and electricity alone is only about 17%. Making the level of destruction to produce it far out of proportion; wholly unsustainable; unacceptable. To say nothing of the fact that a half-century later there’s still no place to permanently store all the nuclear waste that has been and is still being generated as we speak.

Imagine creating an entire industry with no solution for the back end of the process. No real answers; no real antidote. That’s the world nuclear business.

CG: When I was an Official Listener back in 1992 at the World Uranium Hearing that you held in Salzburg, one of the greatest revelations from the leading scientists present was that there’s no safe level of ionizing radiation, despite propaganda to the contrary.

I also heard first-hand from the indigenous peoples affected, from the immediate victims of the world’s nuclear pursuits; many who had never left their villages till then. Who told their stories, revealed the truth, sad truth, that brought so many of us there in Salzburg to tears.

CB: The Hearing was successful in opening a lot of eyes and minds to the dark realities, and in empowering these indigenous people by giving them allies in their struggle to preserve their lands, livelihoods and cultures. As well, in publishing their testimonies and sharing revealing scientific presentations and conclusions.

As you know, we also had a Declaration of Salzburg adopted by the United Nations, which I encourage your readers to look at. It’s something vital we can all stand for. Especially for the benefit of our younger and next generations.

CG: What other illusions or myths are we operating under?

CB: Generations of people were told by the nuclear industry, especially in the 1950s and 60s, that nuclear was a panacea and science would take care of everything. So most people stopped worrying about the profound issues and problems of going and being nuclear. But the industry and nuclear-driven governments have failed to protect us or the planet, and they still have no worthwhile answers.

We need to worry.

CG: Aside of course from what happened so chillingly in Chernobyl, the worst nuclear power plant accident in history; and Three Mile Island, which people have forgotten about. These raised red flags for a while, but all that urgent concern seems to have faded away from the mainstream consciousness.

CB: Unfortunately yes. And the industry and governments talk today about a nuclear energy renaissance. But this is just PR, because there’s a finite amount of mineable uranium left, which will be exhausted in 70-80 years; and in less time if many new reactors are built around the world. Why should we say yes to an industry that is so lethal, and one with such a short shelf life?

They even call it green energy because it doesn’t emit Co2.

The fact is, there are many countries in the world, like Austria, Ireland, Portugal, New Zealand and Denmark, who don’t have and don’t want nuclear energy. And get along fine without it. Australia is rich in uranium deposits but has no reactors.

CG: So why did you create the Nuclear-Free Future Awards in 1998?

CB: All over the world there are courageous, inventive and inspired but unsung people standing up against this destruction; "counter-nuclear" champions who are working hard to educate and motivate the public.

These are people with great visions and smart solutions; who often risk their careers, even their lives to achieve a nuclear-free world. Our goal is to shine a light on them and their efforts; to recognize and financially support their work, because it’s important for every single one of us on the planet. They deserve our thanks.

We say nuclear-free instead of anti-nuclear, because we have a vision of a wiser future, one that uses safe and sustainable energy. Even if the world will never be fully nuclear free, it can be much freer of nuclear than it is. Including weapons. Our society started the Nuclear Age. Our society has the power to end or seriously diminish it.

CG: The next Nuclear-Free Future Awards are going to be presented in New York City, this September 30^th at Cooper Union; open and free to the public. Can you tell us more about the event.

CB: We will recognize the following laureates and award them each $10,000: Oleg Bodrov in Russia for Education, Bruno Barrillot in France for Solutions, and The African Uranium Alliance for Resistance, as well as two individuals honorarily: Henry Red Cloud, from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the Lakota Nation. He’s the fifth-generation grandson of famous Oglala Chief Red Cloud who was the first Indian to speak at Cooper Union, 140 years ago. And actor Martin Sheen, who has dedicated so much of his life fighting for peace through a nuclear-free world.

They will tell their front-line stories to the audience in Cooper Union's Great Hall and to all the people tuning in from around the world to the planned podcast.

CG: What should we all be thinking about right now, Claus?

CB: About why we allow the production of energy that is harming our lives and that of our children in visible and invisible ways, and seriously damaging the near and long-term health of our planet.

We should be thinking about how we can be more aware – and more responsible – as citizens of the wider world; and as protectors of the Nature that sustains us all. Become defenders of the purity of the natural resources like the oceans and skies we share: the world’s commons.

Everyone has a responsibility, a voice, and the ability to act.

Will we wait for another Chernobyl, maybe an even larger one, to get us to think and behave differently? Or will we take some initiative now.

It's time to realize that there's nothing safe or peaceful about nuclear.

CG: How can we be more enlightened, or helpful?

CB: Learn the truth. Also learn about groups like ours, and support some of them by volunteering or donating. The Nuclear-Free Future Awards directly supports individuals working for these essential goals with awards of money. You can also listen to the awardees in their own words on our site…or by coming to the September 30 (2010) event, or listening to the podcast.

Engage in conversations about these topics with your circles of friends and family and colleagues.

Take personal responsibility, and tell your elected officials this nuclear state of affairs that sacrifices so many innocent lives and precious parts of our natural world is unacceptable.

CG: What’s the greatest opportunity we have as a society?

CB: To wake up and work together in whatever small or larger ways we can to change course from our unwise ways of treating the earth to much wiser ways.

A message and spirit to take to heart is what the great Native American Chief Seattle said back in 1854 to President Franklin Pierce: The earth does not belong to man: man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood, which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

And John Mohawk Sotsisowah, the great Iroquois philosopher, who said in 1979: the war of the future will be between destroyers of nature and defenders of nature.

CG: Thanks so much Claus for all your thoughts and all your vital efforts.

Colin Goedecke is a strategic story developer and high-level interviewer, with a 25-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their stories. Choosing a Nuclear-Freer Future is the 21st in a series of thought pieces to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Claus Biegert is a long time radio host, documentary filmmaker, author, and journalist in Germany since 1973. He co-leads the Nuclear-Free Future Awards (NFFA) www.nuclear-free.com An independent group founded in 1998, the NFFA works closely with The Alternative Nobel Prize among others, and has been called by Berlin newspaper Taz “the most important anti-nuke award in the world.” Each year’s laureates, from grass-roots activists to enlightened politicians, are nominated by a distinguished advisory board and selected by an international jury.

For more information about the September 30^th 2010 Nuclear-Free Future Award ceremony, at the Great Hall of Cooper Union; free to the public, email info@nuclear-free.com

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The Rise of the New Entrepreneurs

2010-05-13T21:41:00.000-04:00

a conversation with rachel minard

about the age of meaning, proof and authenticity

CG: You see the world entering a new and important entrepreneurial age, different from what we experienced before.

RM: Yes. A classic definition of entrepreneur is someone with a new business idea willing to accept commercial risk for profit. And being entrepreneurial has been, to most of us, a cocktail of smart ideas, naïveté and fierce determination. Now it’s more akin to the definition of a hedge fund, which (misperceptions aside) is about “unconstrained active management.” About developing and challenging ideas holistically, and evaluating all the permutations of risk and reward.

Most of the entrepreneurs behind resilient businesses in the last few years started by envisioning the entire opportunity, then laying the groundwork, then taking all the pragmatic steps to realize it.

Their business objectives, while infused with passion and conviction, were based on much more: on hard realities: they studied the fortitude of the markets they were targeting, and all the impediments. Becoming famous or making a lot of money was just a possible luxury, and secondary. While seeing the path forward clearly, and having the resources and resourcefulness to travel down it was the necessity, and primary.

This defines an emerging new breed of entrepreneurs. Those looking holistically and presciently at the environment their ideas will germinate in. Making sure they are the right and most conducive environments. And, identifying and understanding the multitude and interplay of macroeconomic forces and external risks that might dilute or derail their vision or venture.

CG: So how do they create something that can be monetized and sustained?

RM: By doing a lot of research, to fully understand everything necessary to not just start but also fully sustain a business. By being acutely mindful about the operational, market, headline and investment risks. By seeing the entire landscape – and by not backing down or away from an idea and conviction that’s valid and well supported.

CG: What about the role entrepreneurs have played in building large enterprises, like Bill Gates did with Microsoft, or Steve Jobs did with Apple?

RM: Apple’s advertisement years ago forever changed the industry: Think Different. Steve Jobs made a difference in the world. He created a brand and product around the geeks, outliers, artists, creatives, knowing it was this group that would reshape the world. He made a thoughtful tool for them; which also made the world closer, and made personal computing technology more accessible and less intimidating for millions of people.

CG: Would we all be better served by smaller, nimbler, and truly entrepreneurial companies?

RM: Yes. Eventually, we won’t even need the giants. If you spend any time in San Francisco, you know about Alice Waters and her Edible Schoolyard,and her local cooking movement that gives people incentives to produce healthy organic food locally, to sustain those in the neighboring area. It works wonderfully.

But look at any high tech, high touch company. You’ll be hard pressed to find any that are massive. Quite the contrary. They have an intimacy big companies don’t. And a level of quality, passion, attention and adaptability, that few if any very large companies truly possess, let alone could sustain.

Still, we’re witnessing huge consolidation; many companies getting bigger, more powerful and less conquerable. There’s a widening divide between the boutique and the monolithic, the Davids and Goliaths, and it will be interesting to see if and what each learns from the other. I’d like to hear what your readers think about this.

CG: What’s behind the rise of these new entrepreneurs and new style of entrepreneuring?

RM: A deep desire for meaning and authenticity. After the crash of 2008, including the Madoff scandal, an authenticity movement of a kind emerged, a drive to re-find the authentic and meaningful in business. New-style entrepreneurs began in earnest here, and started showing how to achieve this and be honest, clear, transparent, accessible and good partners in the process.

CG: If you had to name the business age we’re entering right now, what would it be?

RM: The Age of Meaning, Proof and Authenticity. In the past, you could largely succeed on reputation, image, pedigree, even performance. That’s not enough any more. Now you have to prove substance and sustainability across the board. From having a clear business vision and a structure that can support and advance it, to creating true and needed value. You’re not selling pet rocks anymore; not selling concepts. You have to prove you have a meaningful solution, and show you can not only deliver it but also keep delivering it.

CG: Are these newly-emerging entrepreneurs going to become our heroes?

RM: They are, but in clusters not solo. Most of the great entrepreneurial stories of the past were about one person or one big idea. Going into the future they’ll be based on a lot of teamwork and a rich exchange of ideas. You see it at TED, and at hedge fund industry events. I see it there, and also as a board member of various organizations. It’s forming constellations of ideas and talent with common goals. Why? Because it’s too costly to go it alone in this market. And because there’s no capital to back a great idea unless the monetization of the idea is established and vetted, and factor modeling maps out exactly what’s achievable.

CG: So it’s not the solo achievers to look to for inspiration, but groups of collaborators?

RM: Yes. Farewell to the narcissism of the nineties and early part of 2000. These entrepreneurial clusters, this actively collaborative model of entrepreneuring, are forming in many areas, from biotechnology to global warming. Niche talent is coming together in highly-focused groups, sharing thinking and resources and creating extremely meaningful and sustainable long-term businesses. Of course, there are still individual thought leaders and visionaries out there, but delivering on a big promise now involves much more than “two geeks and a Gateway” with a great idea.

CG: How do those of us who want to work as or with these kinds of collaborators succeed?

RM: You need an incredibly clear and meaningful vision. You need to figure out how to realize it sustainably (including who best to join hands with). And you need to be authentic: you cannot succeed without being genuine, regardless of the worth of your idea or the image of your brand.

CG: Is the business world becoming more thoughtful now? What about our financial bubbles and excesses? Paul Hawken says “At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product…We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation.”

RM: 2009 taught us a great deal. Some call it the last 20 Years of a Ponzi Economy, when we lived off credit – which we did. Well that party is over, and the bills have to be paid – though no one has the cash to pay them. We have to be far more thoughtful now.

Fortunately, our new entrepreneurs are going to lead the way with original thought and passion combined with wiser approaches to constructing and running businesses. They will change the landscape. They’re beginning to already.

CG: I’d like to expand your point here, about building and running businesses in wiser ways. To include being more authentic and meaningful (on and below the surface) in the stories we as enlightened or evolved entrepreneurs shape and tell the world about our businesses. A subject I often write and talk about, and work with companies of all kinds to seek and achieve in their marketing and communications.

CG: And speaking of communication, how is it changing in this new Age of Meaning?

RM: We communicate now as a society more than ever before. This revolution has enabled more people to express themselves; articulate their ideas; and connect with each other more easily and widely. But the key is managing and making sense of all these communications, and prioritizing them, in order to solve problems well and efficiently…and to build business relationships that have real meaning and purpose.

CG: What about finding time and space for reflection?

RM: I know some companies that encourage daydreaming. Including Google, 3M and Gore-Tex. There’s no question: we must make room for original, meaningful thinking in our work and personal lives.

We also need to find opportunities to connect with like-minded people, and really talk. It’s the fundamental way we gain insights, and arrive at creative solutions to problems and opportunities.

CG: Where do you see examples of this in action?

RM: More than anywhere, I’d say in the movies. Influential ones like The Road or The Hurt Locker or Jane Campion’s Bright Star. They all have to do with some form of hope; with coming together to solve some universal need or problem. They also have lead characters with deep authenticity.

When you step back, you see that what worked for the last 20 years in business doesn’t work now. Sales for example is no longer about selling but about empathy and educating, engagement and partnering. The old approaches have given way to new starting points for discussion, for truthful, useful discussion and exploration.

CG: Thank you, Rachel.

Colin Goedecke is a strategic story developer and high-level interviewer, with a 24-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their marketing stories. The Rise of the New Entrepreneurs is the 20th in a series of thought pieces to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Rachel S.L. Minard is a Partner and Managing Director of Optima Fund Management, and an active industry orchestrator and thought leader. She has been building and raising assets globally for hedge fund-of-funds firms for the past 18 years, and is based in San Francisco. www.optima.com

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What Makes a Compelling Story?

2009-11-20T16:59:00.000-05:00

A short video interview with Colin Goedecke
by San Francisco brand strategist Russell Volckmann

About this video:

"How does a brand or business tell a story, and tell one that really matters—one that people relate to and find compelling. What's essential— yet often missing — from many communications? Brand strategist Russell Volckmann of Volckmann and Friends interviews long-time strategic story developer Colin Goedecke on shaping meaningful stories for leading and emerging businesses."

Click on either link to see some or all of the 6-minute interview...

http://vimeo.com/7719983

or

www.youtube.com/volckmannfriends

Colin Goedecke is strategic story developer for leading and emerging businesses. What Makes a Compelling Story is the 19th in a series of thought pieces, to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Russell Volckmann, principal of San Francisco-based Volckmann and Friends, is an award-winning brand strategist, designer and creative director; who has worked with a range of companies in Asia, Europe and the US, including LÓreal Japan, Ziff-Davis, HP, Geffen Records, Pink Floyd, E*Trade, Landor and Bank of America. www.volckmann.com

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Our Most Valuable Assets Are On the Line

2009-09-21T14:30:00.000-04:00

An urgent conversation about the state of our health and the disappearance of our GPs with doctor daniel carlin

CG: We tend to think about our most valuable asset as our investments, our homes, our jobs, but there are far more valuable ones, one we don’t pay enough attention to let alone actively manage and appreciate…until there’s a problem.

DC: Yes, one is our personal health, our physical well being. The other, related one is the vital yet vanishing role and number of our country's primary care doctors.

I work as a medical consultant with some of the world’s wealthiest people. Individuals and families of all kinds, including senior executives. Many of them take smart, active and holistic approaches to managing their financial risks and assets, yet put little priority on their health and health risks.

Surprisingly, they fail to see their own health as a priceless asset, as a key variable in their enjoyment of life. They rarely give it the profound attention it deserves. They’re also challenged – as many of us are – in finding doctors who can help them tend to their health, prevent problems and facilitate decisions. Doctors who’ll talk candidly with them; caringly, and at length.

Of course without good health all other wealth is meaningless. It’s true on a personal level, and it’s true on a national level, meaning the health of our population as a whole.

CG: Is this what led you to a more enlightened approach?

DC: I got into the niche of 24/7 personal doctoring and started World Clinic because the system was becoming so impersonal; revolving so regressively around procedures and images.

I went completely outside the system; straight to very intelligent and enlightened people and said: you’re an expert on managing your financial assets. I’m an expert on managing physical health. The return on investing in someone like me directly will be greater well being and peace of mind…and likely greater longevity. What’s the value to you of more well being and time for your philanthropic work, family and friends, joys and passions?

A vital part of what I do as their medical advisor and point person is think. I serve as a seasoned guide, quality judge and risk “manager” for whatever’s going on with their health; for any care they’re seeking or receiving from the system.

On the most fundamental level, I help bring their awareness and attention to their greatest source of wealth: their physical well-being.

CG: You’ve said “locus of control” is a central concept, that impacts pharmaceutical marketing and helps or hinders our personal care.

DC: Yes, and this means who’s making the decisions: who has the control, you or your doctor. This affects everything. Including how drugs are currently marketed by companies, which is psychographically. From Viagra and Ambien, where marketing messages are direct-to-consumer and all about you being in control, to blood pressure medication where, because of the complexity of the condition, they’re all about your doctor calling the shots (which assumes you have a good doctor to make the right choices for you).

There’s also a strong generational dynamic at work. We have Baby Boomers who feel they’re in charge of their health decisions, and seniors who feel their doctors are or should be in charge.

My first question to a hedge fund owner or rock-and-roll entertainer client is: why did you hire me? My second question is: tell me who’s in charge of your health? I’m absolutely amazed at the answers. Many masters of the universe don’t have a sense of their own mortality: they believe they’re invincible.

Most of us need to do some emotional homework. How do you feel about your health? How invested in well-being are you? Are you empowered, and making confident choices – or do you automatically defer to your physician?

CG: Don’t most physicians help people make decisions?

DC: Sadly not really, because modern medicine is now governed by an almost pervasive fear of litigation. Physicians are reluctant to provide anything beyond basic, objective facts that can be supported in a courtroom. They’re rarely if ever willing to say to a patient is if this was me, this is what I would do…

In the specialist-driven world we live in today, we’ve lost the country and town doctor: the family doctor who knew and looked at your big picture. Who had the luxury of a real and honest relationship. Instead we have a predominance of specialists who look at and diagnose and treat you narrowly, without this vital view: without these wider, wiser insights and personal connections.

CG: How and when did we get into this worrisome situation?

DC: Going back to about 1965, the world of medicine was made up of mostly primary care doctors and general surgeons. When science started unlocking the ‘big secrets’ of the human body, the age of specialization began. As a result, internists started becoming obsolete and replaced by field-specific specialists, from cardiologists to neurologists. Advances in technology led to specialist surgeons doing only one, extremely specific kind of surgery.

More and more money started going toward procedures and less and less to office visits. The healthcare system has since favored and now richly rewards the procedurists and technologists; who rarely if ever talk to patients. All of this at the expense of the essential yet much lower paid general practitioners who do the heavy lifting with patients: who spend the time to consult with them, interpret their histories, and point them in helpful directions.

To me, there’s something very wrong with this picture.

CG: What’s happening as primary care doctors disappear, as they throw in the towel?

DC: Their essential value has become more obvious. There’ll be fewer of them to keep us on the right and best path to wellness, diagnose serious illness, be fairly immediate resources to call on with questions, knowledgeable people to tell our story to. And fewer of them out there to listen and care about us.

Technologists and procedurists don’t, can’t play this role. And none of them are engaged or invested in long-term relationships with patients. That’s the nature of the system we have. Specialists even talk about patients as organs or diseases, not as people, which says a lot. I’ve been a doctor for over 25 years, and talk about all of mine by name. I know and relate to their personal stories, to their larger life situations.

Another root problem is how we pay doctors on the basis of 7-minute primary care visits. By the time they say hello, how are you, have a chat, most of that time has elapsed. So there’s no time left for them to think properly. Or, they might quickly scan your information, say here’s the story and see you in six weeks or six months. You the patient are sent out the door unclear or unhappy or both. Even for me, a doctor inside the system, dealing with my own health issues, even I encounter this.

CG: What should we all be asking?

DC: Is there a doctor in the house, a doctor out there who truly cares about me?

CG: What’s our greater social responsibility?

DC: We need to support paying doctors properly, to do the critical thinking that gives a clear and meaningful context for patients and their medical issues. Likewise, give doctors enough time to connect with their patients in order to help them preventively, proactively. All this would go a long way to stopping or slowing the endless, wasteful merry-go-round of consult/image/lab-test/procedure, where too few are doing this thinking for too little money while too many down the line are getting richly and overly paid to do a slice of disembodied informational work.

At the same time, we have to stop compromising our personal health with poor behavior, behavior we flat out know is unhealthy.

CG: How do we keep physically healthy, individually and as a population?

DC: There’s the fledgling concierge model, where you pay a small retainer so your provider can make a decent living. In return they care for and about you. You might pay $80 a month for a doctor like this. Well I’d take that deal, it’s a good one; especially when you look at how many of us pay $1,000+ a month for health insurance with large deductibles.

Staying healthier personally? It’s not rocket science. There are basics: your weight, your blood pressure – and your general attitude of happiness and contentment with life – which I believe is the most important component of our well being. If you’re very heavy, or your pressure isn’t well managed, or you’re depressed, it’s straightforward: you’re not healthy.

Staying healthier as a country? Imagine if we had an earthquake every year that cost the U.S. 17% of its GNP. Wouldn’t we be spending money on preventing earthquakes? And moving people out of earthquake zones? Of course. Yet we have a similar situation: collectively epic medical earthquakes, from heart disease and lung cancer to stroke, most of them self-inflicted. These “man-made” disasters cost our country a massive amount of national resources year after year after year. Yet there’s no seriously productive spending on preventing them or on changing people’s unhealthy behaviors.

CG: How does consciousness change in desired directions?

DC: The national consciousness is starting to change. At the end of the day, though, money and political interest will shape the outcome.

What we need to raise first is our own consciousness. To realize there’s no healthcare coming to save our bacon. Most facilities across the country are overburdened, and are hard pressed to deliver a high caliber of care to everyone. We must also be acutely aware that good general and family practitioners, internists and pediatricians are an endangered species, a vanishing species.

Here are three rules of personal responsibility to live by:

Rule one. Make a commitment to wellness, and avoid getting sick if you can help it.

Rule two. Find a way to acknowledge your doctor for caring. Don’t take it for granted. They made a decision to care on a professional basis with no expectation of reward. So be the thoughtful, appreciative kind of person they look forward to seeing and helping.

Rule three. Vote, make your voice heard, be part of the political process, to save the good primary care doctors from becoming extinct or demoralized. It’s in your best interest.

CG: What kind of primary care doctors should all of us look for?

DC: GPs who are profoundly competent, understand the human condition, and can connect clearly and quickly with you as a patient. An individual who’s emotionally-wired and committed to care, and will go the extra mile as the rule not the exception.

Though diminishing in number, GPs like this do exist.

CG: What do you see as our biggest opportunity?

DC: Making patients an active, central part of their healthcare experiences. The key variable is not the doctor and not the medication or the test, it’s you, the patient. Each one of us needs to be actively involved with our well being. To be taking charge. To be wisely managing our greatest asset, our health – and getting a good, caring, committed physician to manage and enhance it with us.

CG: Dan, many thanks.

Colin Goedecke is a senior marketing writer, messaging strategist and interviewer, with a 23-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their stories. Our Most Valuable Asset is On the Line is the 18th in a series of thought pieces, to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Daniel Carlin is a 25-year-long physician, clinician and thought leader in medical change. He’s a former US Naval officer, and founder and CEO of World Clinic, www.worldclinic.com, a unique, global, 24/7 medical and telemedical practice serving a select group of senior executives and wealthy individuals and families.

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The Importance of Silence

2009-05-28T01:44:00.000-04:00

a conversation about why we need silence with stephen chinlund

CG: Why do we need silence?

SC: We need it for our well-being; for slowing down, for understanding what life is about, for being happy in the world as we encounter it; to tune in to what’s happening inside our own bodies – which we hardly pay attention to; for being creative; for savoring important moments; for being thankful for the people in our lives…and much else.

CG: So part of silence involves pausing.

SC: Yes. Silence is an antidote for our speeding.

CG: A remedy, for our state of overdrive or perpetual motion, which is an occupational hazard for many of us; especially in 24/7 cities like New York.

How or when can silence be most meaningful, Steve?

SC: Wanting it is the thing. If you truly want it, you’ll find it and make regular places for it. If you haven’t experienced silence before, it’s a bit of a Catch-22. Because you have to allow time for it first, in order to discover and appreciate how incredibly meaningful it is.

Being afraid of or bored by silence prevents a lot of people from trying it. They actively avoid it. And getting past this anxiety – which is often a fear of having uncomfortable thoughts or memories rush into that “empty” space – or getting past the expectation of boredom, can seem like a big step to take, sometimes too big.

CG: Hence the tendency to fill up the silences with activities, busy-ness, or the sound of our own voices. Which doesn’t allow room for other, very important experiences to enter.

SC: Yes, because when you’re truly silent, and taking the time to be quiet, whether it’s for a half-hour or a whole morning…or even a whole day, vital new things come. They don’t always come in the first five minutes. It takes time for them to arrive, and unfold. But they come.

Whole libraries have been written about silence, including books by the German philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart, the mystic-poet Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer), Francois Fenelon, the main advocate of “quietism” in the late 1600s, Thomas Merton and others.

CG: I’m sure we’d all be wise to develop our “third ears,” to hear what’s being said not just in the lines of conversations but also in the silent spaces between them, where there’s a great deal happening; where what’s unsaid is equally important to understand. I’d extend this to marketers, who could better relate to the people who buy their products and services by adding or using a well-tuned third ear.

SC: The Quakers listened in the silences, and to what was underneath what was being said. They were also a canny bunch of businessmen, and even used the power of silence in the boardroom, when they were running companies; especially when things got contentious. It worked well for them, their disciplines of silence and consensus.

There’s also a new book out by the novelist Anne LeClaire called Listening Below the Noise: a Meditation on the Practice of Silence. It’s about the promise she made herself to be completely silent all day, every other Monday. Out of this commitment, she discovered many new and wonderful things about her life and potential.

CG: Let’s come back to this key issue of commitment, to not just wanting silence but also dedicating ourselves to it, for however long or short a period of time we choose.

SC: If we’re really committed to being inside it, we’re able to drift into less active and non-verbal ways of thinking, feeling and being. To let go of all the stuff floating around in our heads. Then it becomes very exciting.

This happens for me when I paint: magic happens, once I move past all the “frontal” thinking and enter into whatever I’m painting; enter into a noiseless flow. When I engage the silence this way is when I create the most satisfying things. It’s an experience second only to sex. Blissful.

CG: How would you describe a clear state of silence as a room or landscape? What would it be like?

SC: A place full of life, of sunny and dark places, flowers and caves, pleasant and unpleasant aromas; things beautiful and strange; a place that’s endlessly rich. An intimate place you enter into; merge with.

CG: How do we set the stage for this?

SC: I’d encourage each person to do it their own way. You might go to a Quaker meeting, which has a special kind of power. Or into a church – a cathedral of silence. You might draw or paint, and make a commitment to be silent when doing this. Give yourself the luxury to sit somewhere where you won’t be disturbed, and promise yourself you won’t say anything for an hour or two, and see what happens. Go wherever it’s quiet and congenial for you.

And if you find yourself wavering, don’t get sidetracked or give up too quickly from exploring silence.

CG: Slowness and silence for all of us, and time for these, aren’t luxuries, but necessities; enriching and revitalizing.

SC: All kinds of people in this wonderful town [New York] that I adore feel if they had two or three times as many hours of the day it wouldn’t be enough to keep up with all that’s happening personally and professionally. This isn’t the answer.

CG: If we don’t incorporate silence into our lives, as a way to connect with our interior landscape, do we risk living incompletely, too much on the outside of things, outside of ourselves? A theme Robert Sardello focuses on in his book Silence: The Mystery of Wholeness, and a fount of healing for Carl Jung.

SC: The fact we spend so little time in silence, inside the quiet of our beings, and don’t even expect to spend any time, is a terrible deprivation. It’s like being malnourished or unloved.

There are cultures, especially in Asia and Muslim countries, that are far more comfortable with silence than our American one. Even in Europe you sit back after a long lunch not having to talk, and you quietly savor the experience.

Zen Buddhists are great models, partly because they’ve carried the thinking about it to an almost baroque level: Zen and the art of archery, of painting, tennis, even motorcycle repair. The root is silence.

CG: It’s also fundamental to achieving mastery, creative silence; and going back to what you said at the start, to achieving a deep state of well-being. Most of us might be surprised to find out just how deeply we can go, what do you think?

SC: Definitely. I guarantee that if you promise yourself to be silent for just five minutes each day, each week, and honor that quiet time – silence without distraction – you’ll have a deepening experience. It yields all kinds of welcome surprises, from peacefulness to creativity.

Silence is also necessary for reflection, and for pondering important questions and issues.

CG: In our virtual and digital and social networking age, where it’s about action, interaction and transactions, how is silence let alone meaningful silence possible?

SC: A good question. When two people are together physically having a conversation, there can be a shared silence, whereas in virtual conversations people feel insulted, confused, upset if there’s silence.

I think noise and speed and chatter and twittering are substitutes for vital interior explorations, internal explorations we need to engage in.

I have a character in one of my plays who says when I was a kid summer lasted forever, then I started to grow up, got married and had kids, now suddenly I’m an old man. Part of this speech reflects the absolute pell mell character of many lives, that are lacking in deeply quiet introspective time.

CG: What’s the most important aspect of silence we should be contemplating right now?

SC: That there are treasures inside us, wonderful treasures, that no other person can tell us about; that we can only discover in and through silence.

If we can get ourselves past any anxiety or boredom, and just let the silence be there; let ourselves be in it, then that remarkable hidden room, that rich hidden landscape each one of us has within will be revealed to us.

CG: Steve, thank you.

Colin Goedecke is a senior marketing writer, messaging strategist and interviewer, with a 23-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their stories. The Importance of Silence is the 17th in a series of thought pieces, to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Stephen Chinlund is a painter, playwright, minister (and Harvard man, class of ‘55). He’s a former Executive Director of Episcopal Social Services, Rector of Southport Connecticut’s Trinity Parish, and Chairman of the NY State Department of Correction, among other dedicated positions in his abundant and still unfolding 40-year career. www.chinlund.com

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The Art of Listening

2009-04-29T16:02:00.000-04:00

a conversation about listening vitally with jane hewson

JH: Charles Ives said Thoreau was a great musician, not because he played the flute but because he didn’t have to go to Boston to hear the symphony.

CG: Jane, a good entry point into our conversation about listening. So what is the real art of listening and why do we need to be practicing it right now?

JH: Listening is about being still. And patient. And generous. It’s a difficult trifecta to achieve.

Think about the last time almost anyone you know gave their absolute attention to you or someone who was talking to them.

You have to quiet your mind entirely, and be willing to be influenced by someone else’s thinking and thoughts.

You need to put aside any desire to rebut or argue a point, and be completely open and non-judgmental. Very hard to do.

CG: You say most people don’t listen because they don’t know how to.

JH: As individuals, we rarely discuss how to listen, nor learn how to listen. Unless you’re a musician, or a journalist – and I’m not sure even journalists learn how to listen any more.

As for corporations, there’s fast-growing awareness that their operating paradigms don’t foster active listening. Many now seek out teachers to help them become more proficient at it and create working environments that foster and reward it. It’s part of what I’m engaged in at The Creating WE Institute, where we talk about vital conversations. So many decisions are made through conversation. Each one of them should be considered vital, because each one provides an opportunity to create positive, selfless outcomes.

We work with corporate clients and are making remarkable progress moving their cultures out of an entrenched self-focus.

CG: What happens when we listen vitally?

JH: In the purest sense, when we really listen, we’re re-created and grow by taking in something new. When we become receivers of ideas – like great radio receivers – and attend to the thoughts and views of others without transmitting our own. So listening becomes, can become an extraordinarily creative process.

Think about a river at its source. Along the way thousands of brooks and streams and other bodies of water join it, all adding to the flow and the whole. So by the time the river reaches its mouth it has swelled with all these contributions. Think of your mind and heart growing in this same expansive way as your life progresses, as it freely receives a wealth of other contributions.

We have an opportunity to live and work this way; but we can’t do it without making listening vitally a priority.

CG: How has technology affected our ability to listen?

JH: The act of listening itself is a factor of your age and exposure to technology. Those who grew up with computers often thrive on mental multi-tasking; listening to music for example while chatting online while talking on a cell phone while watching a sporting event on TV. They listen differently – and more chaotically – than their parents, than someone like me.

Today, the art of listening has been overwhelmed by the ceaseless input of ‘noise’ in our daily lives; which gives rise to our need to be heard clearly…a need that rarely gets met. There’s so much coming in that isn’t filtered, can’t easily be filtered, so you wind up drowning in this unfiltered kind of listening.

There is an antidote: tuning in to the healthy, the wanted and the needed.

CG: There are many different kinds of noise, static, interference, from the ambient to the intentional.

JH: Yes. Just think about the noise that comes from man-made things that run on gas, electricity etc., from cars, refrigerators and air conditioning to stereos, televisions, printers and phones. Which has nothing to do with all the marketing noise that surrounds and bombards us, a whole other layer.

When was the last time you sat in a place where there was absolutely no man-made sound? Where it was completely quiet. Even in the wilds of Vermont, there’s interference. But when the power goes out there, I can sit in the kitchen next to the wood stove at night with a candle and hear a lone drop of water outside. I can hear the creak and groan of the old sugar maple in a slight wind. And listen to the hisses in the fireplace. There’s no extraneous input to contend with.

All this pure expression is always there for us to listen to. But we have to work harder these days to be in these moments.

CG: How can a company or marketer learn to listen well or better?

JH: The biggest risk for marketers is selective listening. Listening only for what supports your theory or strategy. Yet you can’t listen selectively and effectively at the same time. It may solve your short-term issue, in meeting an immediate agenda or deadline, but it’ll come back to haunt you.

CG: It seems we’re at a point where companies simply can’t afford to not listen closely, completely, sincerely.

JH: Yes, because there’s a minor form of social revolt afoot now, a dearth of trust in providers among consumers. Partly because consumers feel the scale of large companies doesn’t allow for any personal dialogue about our thoughts and feelings. Or because marketers, providers are just pretending to listen and care; which we see right through.

CG: What’s the litmus test of how well one is listening?

JH: A great listener cares more about the messages being communicated to them, than in their reply to those messages. Another test is if you’re bored, which shows you’re not engaged; that you’re not being generous in your listening. Because you have to actively care about what someone is saying; be genuinely interested.

A great listener expresses their listening with their whole body: their eyes are engaged, their posture is attentive and directed toward the speaker; their expression is naturally welcoming and supportive.

CG: But isn’t selective listening massively institutionalized? What will it take to move this mountain?

JH: It’s no easy feat. Most companies need to be up against a wall to change their ways. And they also need to have someone extraordinary or courageous enough in a leadership position to say no one’s really listening here. We don’t even know what we’re supposed to be listening to. I believe the transformation will happen first with smaller businesses.

And, many big institutions may be dismantled or crumble in part because the prevailing corporate paradigm hasn’t fostered a purity in listening. In fact, it has disabled companies’ ability to listen well.

The pressure to meet a prescribed agenda has generally overridden any reason to listen. Jack Welch in a recent Financial Times interview basically admitted that his own theory of placing shareholder value and profits at the top of the priority list was destructive. He said business leaders wound up sacrificing listening to and caring for their employees and customers, and sacrificing the quality of the products or services they were providing, because those things didn’t necessarily lead to accelerated shareholder profits.

CG: What kinds of great listeners are out there in our world that you look to?

JH: Musicians, poets, great salespeople; individuals of deep faith; teachers who work with children with physical and emotional disabilities. All people who have open minds and hearts; who thrive on creativity; who listen to far more than just words.

CG: And why do you feel face-to-face communicating is still so essential? In this day and age of distant and disembodied communicating.

JH: Good face-to-face interaction means being fully present. If we ever lost the ability to have generative conversation around a dinner table, that would be a sad day for humankind.

While hearing comes naturally, listening and interacting well with others has to be learned. It’s a skill. In my coaching work, I videotape people in small group settings making a presentation. When I play the tape back immediately afterward, most are shocked by what they see: how powerful their facial expressions are, how much others read into their tone of voice and body language. Because often what someone says doesn’t match how they say it, or how they appear when they say it. Mixed messages.

CG: Does something like Twittering close off our opportunity to listen?

JH: Twittering is a new phenomenon, one that’s self-facing, one-directional: it’s about blasting out your information. You don’t need to attend to the listener(s) at all. And if you’re only transmitting, you’re unable to listen.

CG: You did a recent radio program on face-to-face communicating for Lori Sackler’s show ‘The M Word: Money & Family’ that was very thoughtful. If anyone would like to hear it, the link is here.

What’s the most essential question we should be asking ourselves around this big issue of listening? As individuals, as companies, as a society.

JH: We have to ask how sincerely interested and capable we are of quieting our own minds, and receiving openly and deeply.

It’s difficult, because it comes back to the fact most of us are underserved in being listened to.

We have an incredible opportunity and ability to get to this important place. To practice the real art of listening, and as a result positively and powerfully affect our personal and business communities.

CG: All vital things for us to ponder and pursue. Thank you for our conversation, Jane.

Jane Hewson is principal of Beresford Partners, business development consultants, and a founding member of The Creating WE Institute focused on new forms and levels of thought leadership. Her career spans over 30 years counseling leading firms on marketing and communicating.

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Riding the Long Wave

2009-04-07T10:39:00.000-04:00

a conversation about deep presence with dan kowalski

CG: What is ‘deep presence?’

DK: Experiencing presence is coming into relationship with a person or place. Experiencing deep presence is coming into a deeply felt relationship with the living Earth.

CG: You believe this is an essential connection for each of us to find and feel; to rediscover.

DK: Our connectedness with each other and the larger living world is innate, yet greatly challenged and diminished. We have to regain our ability to experience it. It’s in our best interest, because it leads to a fundamental state of well being; not just for us individually but also for us collectively as a society.

CG: How can one go about entering this state of being?

DK: In the wilderness of Southeast Alaska, where I’ve been guiding for many years, the discovery is open to anyone.

But in a lifelong way it comes down to ‘practice,’ to an ongoing engagement you adopt versus a task you complete. What you discover is that more engagement leads to greater depth.

Engagement is fundamental, as are aspects of Eastern spiritual practices, especially mindfulness: paying attention and being present to whatever is unfolding around you. This doesn’t have to be in the wilderness. It can take place wherever you find yourself.

In my experience, the entire Earth has a deep presence, and expresses itself magnificently. It’s always there, even when muted by the buzz and rumble of human activity.

CG: Isn’t it easier to be highly present in the wilderness, because there’s nothing else to divert your attention?

DK: The wilderness offers a very straightforward place to experience this wonder and pure quality of being. Because everything flows the right way there; the rhythm is much slower; you feel at home inside it and inside yourself.

Urban environments are no less wild in their way. There’s so much stimulation going on, and sensory overload. To prevail and prosper in these surroundings our systems have evolved sophisticated filters and other coping mechanisms. But these adaptations don’t lend themselves to deep presence, or to ‘long wave’ ways of being. Which is one reason why many people establish meditation and other contemplative practices like yoga…to connect with the long wave and counterbalance the man-made stresses.

CG: Explain this long and short wave notion.

DK: I think of wavelengths of light and sound, and ocean currents, as metaphors. Long waves have more penetrating power. At sunset and sunrise we see the rich reds and oranges because these longer waves penetrate the thicker atmosphere. Or the low thundering whoosh of a whales’ breath you can hear across a stretch of water. On the ocean, there are long, storm-generated waves that develop way off in the Pacific. They move across the ocean in long, rolling, undulating swells. When we’re fishing for halibut, it’s much easier to get into a working rhythm with these long waves than with shorter, wind-driven chops which can be quite uncomfortable.

Short-wave frequencies do have a place and value in our daily lives. They sharpen our mental processes, helping us to focus more clearly and analyze and act faster.

CG: But you’re especially keen on riding the long wave.

DK: I am, because the long wave gets short shrift in our modern culture, our ‘technogenic’ culture obsessed with speed and efficiency but too often caught up as a result in short wave, multi-tasking behavior that’s percussive and chronically distracting. Chronic distraction is the opposite of deep presence.

Some wise traditions have upheld the long-wave way all along, including a deep respect and reverence for all living things. The Eastern and Native American cultures in particular, which are good models.

With the monumental challenges facing us in the world, we desperately need to have and integrate both the long and short wave.

CG: How is our relationship with the natural world changing?

DK: The Judeo-Christian tradition of thou shalt take dominion over all things is hard to support when we’ve now reached or exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet. We need to realize we’re not separate from but part of it; to understand that when we do harm to it we do harm to ourselves.

What needs to come to the fore is our beautiful, inherent nature to care and nurture, to steward. It can motivate us to reconsider our choices and our ways of living.

CG: Are there champions you look to who are making efforts to inspire positive, powerful awareness and change in this sphere?

DK: Many, which is a good sign. In the West, John Muir was the most prominent thinker to champion the cause of what today is called ‘bio-centrism,’ another way of saying everything is interconnected. Radically interconnected. Muir felt this in his bones.

I look to Bill McKibben, who writes wonderfully and stridently about our relationship with climate change. The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, who calls for doing things much differently. Whose view is this may be our only chance to get our act together and change course while we still can.

Others I pay close attention to are Joanna Macy, part of The Great Turning Initiative, essayist and poet Gary Snyder; the critic and farmer Wendell Berry, earth scholar Thomas Berry, author, naturalist and ecologist Terry Tempest Williams, Barry Lopez. Also Aldo Leopold, who was the father of wildlife management.

CG: What about the progress of the environmental movement?

DK: The ‘environmental movement,’ as it was pegged back in the 70s and 80s, is in a state of flux right now. Many of its orientations are less salient today because of the far more complex conditions we’re up against. Yet despite the complexities, there are still significant environmental champions at work promoting sensible, deep and right-on ways to proceed.

CG: Could there be an incredible simplicity that transcends all the complexity? If we could arrive at a deeper sense of the interconnectedness you’re talking about, wouldn’t respect and reverence for all living things flourish?

DK: Yes. But people can have an intellectual understanding of something and at the same time have no visceral awareness. If we don’t get it in our bones it won’t show up in how we live; in the defining qualities of our being.

CG: You guide people into the profound experience of Southeast Alaska’s Inside Passage; and facilitate conversations with Nature and the wild.

DK: It’s wonderful to witness people who travel here come into harmony with the wilderness, this awe-inspiring habitat that’s very long-wave from its native culture to its wildlife to its tides.

CG: What about the meditative visual journey you co-created on DVD, Deep Presence: Meditations on a Wild Coast? That uses an innocent eye and ear to take you into the soul of this landscape if you’ve never been there, or back into it if you have.

DK: The immersive nature and language of film is very effective in touching and engaging your heart and mind. And films like this one that celebrate the wilderness and invoke wonder can bring a deeply satisfying encounter and experience to you at home.

CG: What about engagement in terms of how companies communicate with us; the ways marketers and others want to ‘engage’ us?

DK: Our attention is precious, and our identity in many respects distills down to what we pay attention to. But our deeper being has a subtle compass: we know in our bones whether or not something is relevant and life-affirming.

The current crisis of confidence has given companies a tremendous opportunity to re-evaluate the compass-heading of their messages to us; in order to find a deeper resonance with people. In this information-overloaded environment, their voice and messages will draw our precious attention and will resonate if but only if they speak and make sense to our core.

CG: What’s the most vital next step we need to take?

DK: To move to discover and engage with our vital interconnectedness with each other and with the larger living world. Right action will come from knowing this place in our bones.

CG: Dan, thanks for all your thoughts. I look forward to joining you in Alaska and continuing our conversations there.

Dan Kowalski is a filmmaker, founder of Pacific NW-based Rollingbay Works www.rollingbayworks.com and a long-time commercial halibut fisherman and wilderness guide in Southeast Alaska. He co-produced Deep Presence: Meditations on a Wild Coast.

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A Time for Questioning

2009-03-26T10:30:00.000-04:00

a conversation about self-exploration with yannis simonides

CG: You've been touring the world, solo-performing Plato's Apology; where to me you nearly channel Socrates; who was spot on 22 centuries ago about the examined life and the virtuous way to be. Yet 22 centuries later, we’re still struggling as a society with living and behaving in right(er) ways.

Where are the clues, the insights we need?

YS: They’re right there in Plato’s text of The Apology. Plato’s and Socrates’ systems of thought, their philosophies, are still fundamental models to study and listen to – and emulate.

CG: Can we achieve a more virtuous culture?

YS: We can, but only to the degree we honestly examine our lives and apply the findings that flow from this self-examination.

Socrates said virtue is knowledge; that the only way to reach knowledge and therefore virtue, is to study, to examine and to have the opportunity to do so.

If we spend the time to have a dialectic, an investigation, a reasoning with ourselves, and not stop until we arrive at the truth – a truth that satisfies us (or satisfies us and whoever we’re engaging with, a boss, a friend, another nation)…we will be greatly rewarded.

We need to be willing to live in a culture of questions not one of ready answers. It’s a more courageous approach. And it takes more time. But it’s worth it. It serves us better in the long run as individuals and as a society, by giving us stronger foundations for our lives and for our world.

When I talk about questioning, and avoiding dogma, and achieving a change for the better in our entire ethos, it’s relevant because success here has to do with listening more versus trying to speak more.

It’s time for us to fall silent and listen. To begin.

CG: I’m reminded of Rainer Maria Rilke’s words from his Letters to a Young Poet, where he said: Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them… the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

YS: Each of us can initiate these kind of conversations, with ourselves and with others – in our families, our workplaces, our social circles; our communities, and our governments.

Socrates was never dogmatic in the way he talked. His approach was always propositions; suggestions; ways to consider being; invitations to question and discuss.

CG: Why do the simple wisdoms of Socrates, as you present the philosopher and his ideas, resonate so strongly today especially among the youth of many different countries? You’ve experienced this firsthand in and after your performances, from Athens to Dubai to Uruguay.

YS: Because it isn’t dogma. Because it engages them in questions and questioning. Because there’s great respect and dignity; a belief in peaceful co-existence; benevolent laws; an unwillingness to harm. Also because there’s no imposition of false gods or one’s own gods or ideas on them. Living to the best and fullest is the aim. These are all great gifts and inspirations for the youth of all cultures.

These are also things, deep inside, as you discover in The Apology, that we all – no matter what our politics or backgrounds – acknowledge as valuable.

The youth of today listen to Socrates because, like them, he’s not afraid to take a piss. He wasn’t afraid, as most of us are, to risk losing a job, a career, a relationship, by opening his mouth to say right and needed things. His philosophy teaches courage; it teaches examining yourself; and learning on your own more about yourself…and about what’s right and wrong – so it all becomes self evident. And in this process you become virtuous.

CG: You see a problem with the popular desire for immediate solutions, especially in dealing with crises or monumental issues personally or on a wider scale.

YS: This is a trap we fall into: looking for easy answers. Stop instead. Take a breath. Take a walk. Consider. Call a friend or colleague and have a conversation. Don’t take pride in being a man or woman ‘of action.’ No one knows enough about life to face a crisis and say they have the absolute answer. Yet this is how so much of society has acted for so long.

CG: As a long-time actor, director, teacher, radio host, you’ve mastered the art of communicating; dramatically, effectively, memorably. What are the ingredients that contributed most crucially to your mastery? What advice would you give about achieving effective communications?

YS: Empathy. Patience. Listening. Humor. Humility. And, a willingness to understand what communication actually is and should be: a two-way street; a full circle: you put something out and wait for a message to come back to you; that tells you your message was received and fully understood, as intended. Then you have communicated.

It’s the difference between the teacher who talks with you, engages you, and the one who gets up and just reads from a text; talks at you.

We can never be presumptuous about our audiences; we can’t label them.

Why? Because there’s so much more to people. Therefore, explore them; test them, as an actor would do. What is this house like, that you have before you? Is every Broadway theatre audience the same? No: the energy and interest and point of view of each group vary greatly. Those who ignore this dynamic are not the best communicators; they cannot communicate effectively.

And, don’t avoid doing something because you assume an audience won’t get it. Conversely, be sure to avoid things you think make sense but, looked at from their point of view, are likely to go right over their heads.

To be a great communicator, consciously play to people’s intelligence; to what you perceive as the best in them; using the best in you.

Anything else is deception, artifice or insensitivity.

And whatever medium you choose to communicate with, it’s your obligation to master it, as any great actor or director masters their craft.

Communication is as basic as breathing. Given our nature as social beings and our one-ness with Nature itself, we’re interdependent; in constant communication with each other and with Nature; in a give and take that happens billions of times a moment, every day, everywhere. Exchanging atoms with our environment is communication. Without all this, we stop breathing.

CG: Why do you feel such a burning personal need to examine and help others examine?

YS: Because I believe the world of our senses is just the tip of the iceberg. And those of us who live only on this level are blind, and make mistakes. If you ignore the rest of the iceberg, you’re another Titanic waiting to happen.

The world’s great difficulties now, like history’s Great Wars and Great Depressions and cataclysms, are signaling an enormous shift; one that’s not just economic. We need to understand what it means, what’s underneath it.

CG: I think despite the dislocations we’re up against, this tectonic shift is inspiring many of us, and forcing others, to re-examine their values; revisit (or re-affirm) what really matters in their lives, question long-held assumptions, and reconsider what right(er) thinking and acting is going forward.

YS: The most essential question we should be asking is should we re-examine the entire ethos we’ve been living by. My view is we should.

In every aspect of our lives and parts of society, from our governments to our faiths to our relationships to our place in the economy as consumers and as workers, we should be asking who are we? And asking what we want our future roles and responsibilities in society to be.

We all have the opportunity to initiate an exploration, in some way, in our own circles. I’m doing it through my performing and discussions around those performances. In order to bring people and organizations together in shared exploration – and discovery.

But assuming we have the answers, and following agendas and dogmas won’t get us there. Only a spirit and desire to examine deeply and freely and honestly will.

This is how we’ll evolve. And while evolution can be painful, because some things die, it can be wonderful because new things are born. This is the way, and Socrates’ way, that we’ll ultimately achieve a ‘culture of rightness,’ of higher values; of virtue.

CG: Yannis, thank you for all these thoughts. I hope some of our readers will find the opportunity to see you perform your stirring version of The Apology that continues touring.

Yannis Simonides has been touring the world as Socrates in solo performances of Plato’s Apology. An Emmy Award-winning documentary producer; actor and director, born in Constantinople and raised in Athens, he’s a former Chairman of New York University’s Tisch Drama Department, and was recently named an Ambassador of Hellenic Culture by the Greek Government. www.ellinikotheatro.org

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Getting More Attention

2009-03-12T22:32:00.000-04:00

a conversation about powerful writing with tony leighton

CG: With all the chatter around us every day, and the easy or lazy lure of looking at video, how do businesses get people to read their written words and messages?

TL: By following the cardinal but constantly violated or bypassed rule of effective communications: understanding what the audience really wants to know or hear about, then talking to them about those issues, concerns or questions, not trumpeting your capabilities.

CG: Companies that fail to connect with an audience on their desired wavelengths usually lose those people, on the spot or ultimately. But why, after all this time, hasn't every marketer learned this?

TL: It’s all common sense, yet infrequently applied. The temptation is to sit down and laundry list your company’s capabilities; gather your “strengths” or benefits in one place and try to be impressive with them. When what you need to do is be empathetic. The other dynamic marketers miss the boat on is people don't read willingly, so it’s important to do other common sense things with this in mind.

One is to make it simple. People prefer to “speed graze.” They don't want to be forced to think much. Things that aren't simple force them, and that’s a turnoff to ‘reluctant’ readers…and the fact is most readers fall into this category.

CG: So you've gotten my attention as a reader, and achieving that is of course important. Now what else will keep me actively engaged in your story beyond this?

TL: It’s vital to apply a combination of neuroscience and zeitgeist. By understanding where we are now in the evolution of the human brain and how it handles words in a busy environment. We must feed people information they way they want to digest it, and in the way their brains process it.

You have to give them the following: a good reason to pay attention; a context for the message that’s relevant and meaningful to them; and a story – which could be a single line – but with a plot, a twist and some suspense. Using the devices of novelists and great [literary] journalists to help sustain readers’ interest.

CG: Is there always a bona fide story to work with?

TL: When it’s something short, something more informational, like a series of facts, there may be no story per se. Then your obligation is to write it as cleanly, clearly and fluidly as you can.

But you can often squeeze a decent story from almost anything. How? By empathizing with the audience, and by asking bold questions or making bold statements at the beginning. You might state, for example: we have no time. Which puts forth a promise that something is going to follow, something that might suggest you're offering a solution to the issue.

People also appreciate the unexpected. Even in business writing, creativity is about ‘turning’ the story in a direction the reader doesn't expect. It’s removing their sense of the predictable, and giving them something more seductive. It’s saying things that have a ring of the profound.

CG: Speaking boldly, probingly, profoundly, but always with a basis for doing so, with a reality and relevancy and authenticity, yes?

TL: Absolutely. That’s a given.

CG: What about creating and/or sustaining a lasting relationship, marketer to customer. Beyond the written message being read and received. How do you best achieve this? So your audience connects with you again and again with equal attention, interest and enthusiasm?

TL: A clear, friendly, warm, informative and empathetic voice is always well appreciated, by anybody reading anything. If a company can consistently speak with this kind of voice, people come to expect it and to look for it; listen to it. A voice like this that people seek out is a tremendous asset.

CG: You appreciate companies that take their messaging cues from advertising agencies.

TL: Yes, because the best ad agencies have mastered the ever-evolving art of getting attention and leaving impressions. They know their audience. They speak clearly and conversationally. They appeal on an emotional level, with warmth, friendliness, flavor and wit. And they stay focused on one idea, and substantiate it – with compelling evidence.

CG: What companies out there are do you see as the most effective?

TL: The big tech companies have been the leaders with this approach. I'd point to Apple, I always point to Apple. They almost invented clarity and simplicity and cool thinking in corporate marketing. Google does it quite well; Cisco, too and others. They speak to their customers the wiser way I'm advocating.

Companies that communicate effectively are often innovators in other areas. Like GE. Car companies tend to do it. Look at most industry leaders; look at their web sites or marketing material. It’s all generally clear, conversational and empathetic.

CG: And the companies that don't get it?

TL: It’s interesting how many other companies don't get it, or aren't practicing it. They still hide in corporate-speak and jargon, which used to be called “business writing.” Well there’s no such thing. There’s just effective or ineffective writing, and degrees in between.

CG: You see a gap in the creative agency landscape? Talk to us about this.

TL: There’s an interesting gap between ad agencies and design / communications firms. Design firms almost never have writers on staff. Ad agencies do: they have and pay copywriters, the best ones, large salaries. These [agency] writers are remarkable thinkers, and have a great command of the language.

This ad agency model is one I have always felt missing from the mix. Which is why you and I are called upon to serve as these specialists, to do this thinking work, to strategize with our design counterparts on behalf of clients and serve as the storytellers, the story writers.

CG: The reality is most of the design groups can't swing having someone on staff full time. Or if they can, they can't afford, in-house, someone exceptionally capable and versatile enough. What would you suggest to these firms?

TL: That it’s essential to work with a writer who has ideas. Good, smooth writing is just the price of entry. What’s invaluable is a collaborator who understands businesses and audiences, who knows what to leave out as well as what to include. A savvy thinker who has a sense of strategic momentum; who can see the next step in the chess game and reflect that in a company’s messaging.

CG: That brings up the question of classic pitfalls companies and creative groups and writers make.

TL: There are big pitfalls, big tiger traps to avoid, including the dangerous, often fatal assumption that people are actually interested in reading whatever you want to communicate. They aren't. Or assuming you don't have to woo them You do. Or believing that useful writing is stringing words together pleasantly. It isn't. Effective writing is conveying ideas well dressed in language. The ideas are 90% of it.

CG: Is there any need to evolve the language marketers use? Would that help people engage versus glaze over which they do when they see and feel the same tired old style or approaches being used to reach them?

TL: That’s a good question. I'd say there’s no new language, there’s just plain English, without fat; presented in a way that’s easily absorbed; that tells a story and brings concrete images to the mind of the reader.

There is a language trap, though: using abstract language. It’s far less effective than concrete language.

So, instead of writing we have multiple strategic concerns going forward, it’s better to say this could be more challenging in the future. Instead of writing consumer reaction is regionally skewed, just say people like this product in Oregon.

Jargon is non-specific, flabby, and fails to shape ideas. It’s a hiding place, a refuge for people who haven't learned to write with clarity and simplicity and strategic thinking; where you shape an idea and make it memorable and edifying.

Writing simply and thoughtfully is difficult. It takes a long time to master this art.

CG: What startling questions should marketers and/or creative groups that help them market be asking right now?

TL: Do you still know how to reach people? Are you sure? How do you know? And what more can you be doing?

CG: As an exceptional and exceptionally well-seasoned writer/strategist, who has been on the front lines of business for decades, Tony, what’s the most essential advice you can offer?

TL: Learn what good writing and messaging is and settle for nothing less.

The two easy ways to do it: do some research and write down 10 rules of messaging that can never be broken; to serve as your guide and filter and litmus test. For example, 1) make it easy to read, 2) speak conversationally, 3) address the audience’s concerns etc. Rules that, when followed, result in a much stronger piece of communication. Rules that, when broken, weaken your piece.

Second, study how the very best companies communicate. Then emulate them. Anything Apple has ever written is a great starting point. I doubt most internal communications people actually do this. If any of your readers have, maybe they could share their experience.

Hold up, for example, some Apple writing alongside some internal writing being proposed for the annual report or a brochure or given communication. And see and understand the differences.

CG: Tony, a great deal of insight and practical advice to consider. I hope you'll come back and do another interview sometime, thank you.

Tony Leighton is a nimble thinker, strategist, writer and mentor, whose career spans decades of journalism, and high-level storytelling for leading Canadian and U.S. companies and institutions. tonyleighton@fix.ca

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Searching for the Giant Squid

2009-03-07T10:15:00.000-05:00

a conversation about curiosity with steve burnett

CG: What is curiosity for you?

SB: It’s the world’s greatest gift to us. It transcends race, religion, time and culture and the biases that divide us. It causes us to look beyond the hill and intrigues us to go there. And once we're there it allows us to see highly original things.

The new truths we discover out of curiosity can be so powerful, and brought back and shared as stories or science. They help us and our communities and educational institutions evolve and thrive.

CG: How do we know if a company is being curious in productive ways? Is there a litmus test?

SB: See if it’s part of a company’s strategic plan. The simplest way is to follow the money. Do they have a healthy R&D budget? Also, do they support management and employee training, and interactions that further the conversation about new things? And is there a culture of exploration and discovery, and a real acceptance of new ideas?

CG: What about the creative groups that work with those companies, groups like yours?

SB: We designers and others like us are in the curiosity business. Because we're constantly engaged in questioning, exploring and creating things. It’s wonderful how we invariably get to a point we think we have it all figured out…only to find we're turning a corner to a next universe. In the 19th century the engineering community thought it had invented everything there was to invent. They were the greatest curiosity engines on the planet. In fact, the patent office nearly closed down back then because there wasn't anything new to invent: the engineers of the day had done such an extraordinary job translating their curiosity into a vast universe of mechanical things.

CG: Is inquisitiveness an essential ingredient, something that can mean the difference between make-or-break?

SB: In any industry, curiosity plays a vital role when you're starting or re-building a business. If a company doesn't reinvent itself regularly it will wither and die. And without a way to reinvent, without giving curiosity enough rein and continually supporting it, a company can't survive in any good way.

CG: Is curiosity a natural or a learned quality?

SB: You look at a child. A three-year old on the beach. How, when they bend over as the tide recedes and see their reflection in the water, we see in their eyes how magical and wonderful the world is to them. Well, everyone is born looking at the world without preconceptions. All children are full of pure wonder. This is where our wisdom begins…in a state of wonder.

CG: I believe this is a place, a state of being we can re-find, that we can return to as people and as businesses. Yet why does it stop, or get arrested? And how do you rekindle it?

SB: It stops because people get programmed not to wonder, but to operate in an acceptable way. I think some people as they get older also get tired and fall into ruts.

But there are many ways to re-ignite our sense of curiosity and imagining. You need to step off the well-worn path into the unfamiliar, and taste the hidden or forbidden fruit. How far you step depends on how much risk you're willing to take, and what floats your boat – to explore anew. It’s an extremely personal and individual conversation.

Men particularly, at a certain point in their lives, go through a phase where things have gone along well enough but they are no longer satisfied. They feel something meaningful is missing. Reevaluating the meaning of life is part of the natural process of development, of looking at who we are in the great scheme of the human condition.

CG: How do organizations inspire or excite curiosity, both inside, among their own tribe, and outside, among their customers, clients, stakeholders, communities?

SB: It’s not about doing things with a Six Sigma approach, even though there’s some discovery in that. An organization needs to have people around whose job is mainly or solely to look for category changes, game changes, quantum leaps in opportunity, competitiveness, efficiency.

Some corporations see these ‘curious’ individuals that are hired as an invasive species, and will effectively kill their input or discount their value as soon as they enter a corporate culture. Other companies – the wiser ones -- offer these probers, inquirers, explorers a place in the garden, where their unique species of flora and fauna can flourish, can be deeply curious and greatly benefit the business.

CG: Do you know some of these exotic species, these curiosity seekers?

SB: I think this work is far too important to be left to so-called experts: it’s in all of us; inside me, inside you.

CG: That I'll second. I'd also like to raise a hand for poets present and past, who wonder and inspire wonder about nearly everything we can think of, from lightning to loving to language. Including motive poets like David Whyte, who has been a bright spark for many businesses and individuals, moving them to a rich place of re-imagining.

CG: What about others you could point to that the readers might know, or would like to know more about, as models or inspirations?

SB: I know some in the corporate world, who have been able to turn things upside down and do the impossible, because they're intensely curious about the way things work and have been willing to take calculated risks. Fred Parnon of Jnana Technologies, Alisa Zamir, designer and professor at Pratt, Bill Dunk, a social engineer, provocateur, and eminence gris to corporate chieftains – and his curiosity-satisfying site The Global Province, and Michael Grisham, an inventor, are some creative investigators that spring to mind.

CG: So tell us about your search for the giant squid. Why has your curiosity about it taken you all over the world, and thousands of leagues under the sea?

SB: It’s the largest fish on the planet. It has been written about and documented, yet no humans have really been eye-to-eye with it, in its native habitat; and studied it close up. It’s just marvelous that on a planet where we think we know so much, we can't be together with something this magnificent right where it lives.

CG: Should we allow ourselves to be much more curious, immensely curious? Using the giant squid as a metaphor.

SB: One of the reasons the giant squid has never been seen, is because (less out of curiosity and more out of man’s hubris) for years people went down into the depths in umbilical rovers, robot submersibles with big lights, to search for it. But they never put two-and-two together: the giant squid has the largest and most sensitive eyeball in the animal kingdom and here the ‘unenlightened’ seekers go down with the brightest light ever made then are puzzled why they can't find any.

You see, what goes along with good, curious exploration is empathy: you need to enter another world and see and feel it the way its inhabitants see it. Deep down, the giant squid gathers light with its large eye: the bioluminescent light of flashing dinoflagellates.

If you're engaged in any pursuit, being true to it will open up myriad and often marvelous angles of thinking and approach. This is where we can touch places of great wondering and pondering and innovation and realization.

CG: Steve, what else in the landscape are you insatiably curious about these days?

SB: Getting to know more about the chef you introduced me to, Cyril Renaud, at Bar Breton.

And variations-on-themes, ones that have been worked forever keep me curious. How to remake what everyone has become bored with. Adding new energy to old clichés.

CG: What one or two companies for you have a rich and productive sense of curiosity? That capacity that leads to breakthroughs and competitive advantages.

SB: One was Alltel, and a fellow named Frank O’Mara, the marketing director there. He took a niche player and turned it into a national one, through some extremely innovative positioning work.

The line between curiosity and competitiveness is very thin. If you asked O’Mara if he was curious, he might not understand the word but he would understand the competitive part big time, and immediately. Motivation in his case came from the competitive side but his deep curiosity led him to figure out how to jump ahead differently as a business.

CG: There’s something pure and innocent about curiosity, and it seems the world could do with a lot more of that right now.

SB: Sometimes it’s not all that innocent. Einstein was a curious man, and did a lot of musing around interesting scientific possibilities, but some of that was applied quickly and critically to making an atomic weapon.

CG: How do social networks play a role?

SB: Quite often the only frame of reference a company has about whether it’s doing something right or wrong is to put it in front of other people. Social networks are perfect this way, because they're a mirror that quickly and clearly reflects whether there’s a receptive ear or eye or mindset for what a business is offering publicly, or how it’s thinking.

CG: How do companies get their audiences to have a sense of curiosity and wonder about things they, as a business, are doing in the world; in the marketplace? So that communities of interest they interact with become genuinely intrigued, meaning in a wholly un-persuaded way.

SB: An exciting thing that happens at certain times in human history is the hive or herd mentality. Where suddenly everyone is turned on to exploring the same thing at the same time. Where there’s pervasive curiosity with affirmation around an idea. Especially in times of stress. Unfortunately war and poverty are great motivators here. You have other cases, in more recent history, where curiosity led to suddenly huge inventions, like fossil fuel and its potential, that completely changed the landscape, changed the world’s industrial and social fabric.

We're on a similar path of searching right now, especially driven by the stress of the global economic meltdown. The landscape is changing and the people in it will need to adapt and invent new things to survive. And they will.

CG: Many of us have been fascinated by people and businesses using curiosity and creativity to do truly incredible things, that make life and work significantly smarter, better, more rewarding. Is this happening enough, or visibly enough? You also had something you wanted to say about Google.

SB: In the not too recent past, you had to go to a University or church or company for knowledge. And they protected that “library” of knowledge, and if you wanted access to it you had to pay tuition or tithe or buy a product. In the academic world, they opened the library to you while you were a student, then closed the doors to you after you left. The curious experiment is: what if you took the walls down – and made all the knowledge transparent, and accessible to any one, any where, any time. What would happen to the world, and its curiosity?

In building this kind of resource, Google is making a lot of money. But are they engaged in one of the greatest experiments of civilized man right now? It could go massively to the good or to the detrimental side, depending on how people use it.

You can go onto Google and look at the nuclear footprint of Iran through Google Earth, or find the plans for Marine One, or see a satellite picture of your neighbor sunbathing naked. There are so many curious things being made available. What are you, what are we going to do with it all, or about it all?

Fast forward 10 years, to a stone tablet. Will someone be chiseling into a rock that the end of man arrived because the genie got out of the bottle; because there was unlimited and unwise use of information?

CG: We need to wonder about all this, seriously wonder; about where we are heading and why, in business and society. I hope we find the right insights and answers. And that the only genie we uncork is a genie of deep curiosity inside us, our communities, our companies and the minds of the big thinkers that help keep the world turning and evolving.

Thanks for all the rich and roving thoughts, Steve.

Steve Burnett is a mercurial thinker, artist, adventurer and long-time principal of The Burnett Group in New York.

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Are you evolving?

2009-03-01T13:56:00.001-05:00

a conversation about enlightening companies' stories

with salvatore rasa

CG: How should companies be telling their stories differently today?

SR: It’s more a question of understanding that their stories are being told differently by others, by other groups of people.

And it’s not as much about using new business language, as about understanding, beyond the intellectual meaning, the change that’s meant by language like ‘communities of interest.’ I think the better term here, that isn't used enough, is ‘communities of need.’

Forget the rhetoric of ‘dynamic market space’ etcetera. The reality is we're in a state of emergency, of urgency, where financial institutions and other underpinnings are disintegrating and disappearing. We are all part of this reality, all members of one or more communities of need; sharing in both the opportunities and the stresses.

CG: You're saying that these stories take on lives of their own, by other 'carriers,' outside of companies’ control. What’s important to think about here?

SR: Companies’ stories are being carried around in all kinds of places. The view of the future of Twitter’s CEO is a perfect example of this fact. Many companies would be surprised if they investigated Twitter and saw all the things being said about them.

I worked on recent projects with Isocurve where several clients said they wanted to enter the social networking area for their advertising and brand awareness. We told them they were already in it, and gave them each a set of things said about their company in the prior 24 hours alone.

And look at glassdoor.com, a community where people tell candid stories about the places they work; that give potential employees on the outside a free and detailed inside-look at those companies, pros and cons; including actual salaries. So they can make better choices about what business to work for.

But this network is just as useful to potential investors who go there, to help them evaluate if a company is worth investing in. For both groups these workplace stories provide ratings, and concrete ways to measure otherwise intangible or hard-to-gauge value.

CG: How, in this increasingly socially-networked world, does a business get a clear – and more complete -- picture of its issues and opportunities?

SR: Significant measurement tools are out there, proven ones like Organization Network Analysis (ONA) and Value Network Analysis (VNA). They map out actual patterns of information and task-sharing in organizations. There’s also a new one called ORA (Organization Risk Analysis).

There are other ways as well to create, encourage and collaborate. Like Base Camp that allows for shared on-line workspaces. These frameworks cross boundaries and include people in the conversation who were previously left out of it; which is the best way to leverage formal and informal networks.

From where I sit, though, I still don't see enough significant change occurring at major organizations – despite the availability of all these valuable forms of information-gathering and sharing.

Even when compelling evidence, that’s scientifically-supported and visually mapped, reveals a company’s serious misunderstanding about knowledge-sharing and communication, they still resist acting; understanding. Why? Maybe these new methods that push you to ask challenging questions are too difficult for companies to accept, or too threatening for them to confront. I'd be interested to hear your readers’ thoughts on this.

Attitude is also an issue: many companies still have a paternalistic one about social networking, and this is not productive.

CG: You believe formal and informal social networks are not just useful but vital to companies. And not just to their communications, but to their ROI. Why?

SR: One of the most under-realized influences on return on investment (ROI) is self-expression. It’s an under-appreciated influence and an under-leveraged asset.

We tend to think of a business as having a brand identity and guidelines. And while these are good and expected things, they're like buoys in the ocean now: they no longer control the way the social ocean currents move, they just serve as demarcation points.

A corporation has two kinds of self-expression. One is its ‘collective expression,’ which includes people inside its walls with interesting knowledge; who can share ideas on innovation. Tapping directly into this expression is invaluable, versus getting information and insight from outside consultants or market research. The other is individual expression; but large organizational structures tend to inhibit instead of encouraging this.

Many companies pride themselves on hiring creative people who bring rich and different points of view to the table. But when you examine things rigorously, does their human resource process really do this? Or, do they really only single out people who are a fit. What’s the real story?

CG: This ties into your view that there’s ‘dangerous language’ out there.

SR: Among the dangerous terms in business is someone is ‘not a fit.’ Much the way radio host Don Imus was fired from his job. It was immensely hypocritical; an extreme reaction to seemingly prejudicial statements, made by a station that like many news agencies didn't have enough deep diversity to respond or work it out honestly.

The issue here is companies’ inability to react or respond the way any normal person would. Which brings us to another dangerous word, to me the most treacherous one in our society: the word they. Because using it reveals people’s bias.

When you hear ‘they’ under too many circumstances in business and social networks and social conversations then it’s already minimizing someone else. It’s a form of prejudice. In the recent Presidential election, it was employed by radio and t.v. pundits as both a positive and a negative reference. They, for example, was used to refer to ‘voters we were told had no interest in voting previously.’

CG: In other conversations we've had, you talk about the need to allow a story to evolve. Why does this matter, and evolve to where?

SR: Every large organization in the world feels it needs to live in a state of continuous improvement. Yet this process often becomes management-consultantized and misses the deeper dynamic that needs to happen. Real continuous improvement is high risk. But it’s risk with relevance, and high reward. Because you learn to work differently and with different business models that meet, serve and support the changing demands of the [business and social] marketplace.

Sometimes, as you evolve a business model in order to continuously improve it, you have to move away from what you do well. And that’s where the risk and the resistance to change lies.

CG: Therefore, to evolve, a company has to be willing to stop resisting and take these risks? Risks that are somewhat counter-intuitive.

SR: When a company is fixated on one way of thinking and working, or wedded to one belief system, it’s less open and able to innovate.

The automobile industry is a good example. Toyota realized they had to look to other dimensions; they saw building a hybrid as a way of doing something they didn't do well then, but needed to learn to do. It worked for them.

This is all related to your original question. Because a story may not always be true at heart or root. It has to be evaluated for its truth. A company’s collective expression is the best way of evaluating that truth.

At the time, all the American car makers were saying the hybrid was nonsense, that no one was going to buy it, that it was a waste of their time; we'll sell more SUVs. They were locked into one way of thinking. Well, we all know what happened.

Toyota swam upstream against these stories, against these prevailing currents of perceived wisdom, none of which were true. They went ahead and tried something they had never done before; they put their innovation out in the world, and a new story began; then that story began to tell itself.

This is widely known now. And, like other breakthrough stories, it became part of ‘best practices.’ But what’s missing from the discussion is a far more critical change management issue, that lies underneath the surface product innovation issue.

A familiar reference like Toyota’s, that becomes so constant, puts all the emphasis on others, on what others did or are doing. However, this can be detrimental, counterproductive. Why? Because it removes our own accountability: to take action within our own organizations; to provoke real change, seismic change and innovation in the places we work.

CG: What’s fundamental in all this? To achieving a transformation.

SR: All business transformations, small or large, involve a transformation in understanding and language. If you only speak from your place of current expertise, you can't move from where you are…to where you need to be.

Only when you begin to allow your story to have ‘disruptive’ elements; when you challenge accepted behavior and question [institutional] assumptions, will you move into dimensions that enable you to grow -- healthily grow -- your business.

CG: And I would add, grow your business consciousness.

CG: Innovation in your view is not well enough understood or engaged.

SR: Innovation isn't about an event or a clever premise. Those are just ways of trying to understand it. In business, we understand a subject, but often fail to understand its deeper significance.

What’s needed for true innovation is a cultural catalyst, that affects, enlightens and alters the fundamental ways we think and work – alters them for the better.

Let’s be clear: a real culture of innovation is very different than an organization that prides itself on a small group of innovators. An innovative business culture is highly responsive and proactive across-the-board, not one that glimpses innovation and gets lucky.

Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM, said I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn't just one aspect of the game – it is the game.

CG: Given the nature of the corporate beast, its structure and bureaucracy, is achieving an innovative culture unrealistic?

SR: No, in fact it’s the most natural form in the world of people working together. Everything we do tends to support this premise. Every person working with another person innately understands it. But it’s very hard for it to happen, let alone thrive inside organizations as they exist and operate today.

A deep belief of my mentor Cicely Berry, O.B.E., Voice Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company – who I produced a PBS documentary about – a belief I share profoundly, is that everything we do we do out of a need to survive. ‘Survival’ is a loaded word for most people. But it isn't negative, or desperate: survival is a natural state of growth and development. It’s the way we're constructed, and motivated.

CG: What’s antithetical to companies’ survival, in the natural – and positive – way you define survival? And can you give us an example?

SR: When companies understand survival, at a root level, as a positive force, it can transform the landscape. It allows good, even great things to happen, and less-than-good things to stop happening. The fact is some companies have a business model or tradition(s) built on a doubtful premise or promise; and this puts them in peril whether they realize it or not.

You don't destroy these models or traditions, that’s not the goal. You change them, evolve them to ensure the right kind of survival and growth.

CG: What one or two startling questions should companies be asking themselves right now?

SR: One question is: what’s one unhealthy tradition in your company that you avoid talking about, or tell the public you've left behind (but haven't). Now is the time to look at it again, in this society; with a clear and honest eye. Because that’s the first step to improving things.

I could make a case that there were troubled traditions that led to the collapse of certain companies, and even entire industries like our banking sector, in part because those traditions excluded human beings or de-valued their well being. Or as Swarthmore psychologist Barry Schwartz talked about in a post-TED 2009 interview…People who work in financial services don't have one shred of concern about the well-being of the people they serve. They're only interested in themselves. And why are they that way? Part of our argument is that when you incentivize everything, you de-moralize it, you take the moral dimensions out of it.

The other question a company should ask itself, on the other side, is: what’s an outstanding tradition you have from your recent or distant past? And, if you contemporized it, if you progressed it, what would it look like today?

Robert Wood Johnson wrote the first Johnson & Johnson credo in 1943. J&S still lives by that credo today. What most people don't know is that during the Great Depression he also wrote he wrote a manifesto to industrialists, brilliantly called ‘Try Reality.’ Basically what he was saying to businesspeople was the world is changing. We’re in a modern industrial age; and how do we find the language for that and the right way to be and the best way to treat our workers safely and ethically?

He wrote in his 1930s ‘reality check’ industry only has the right to succeed where it performs a real economic service and is a true social asset.

Well, what if he was sending that manifesto out today? What would your response as a company be to it? How would it impact your story? And how would others tell your story differently among themselves?

In my view and experience, paramount to everything is the need to include not exclude people from being part of the critical conversations that drive business and society ethically and economically.

Paramount, too, is following and encouraging the natural instinct we have to survive, which is the ultimate pathway to personal and professional growth; and to both business and society’s growth.

In this Information-with-Understanding Age, companies have to shift gears from unnecessary competition to collaboration. Collaboration that involves all the other important conversations going on -- and all the other ‘conversationalists.’

I invite those businesses that have made the paradigm shift to this place to share their stories; to share their experiences and enlightenments with all their communities of interest and need. And I encourage other companies out there to take the opportunities they have in front of and around them to evolve.

CG: Sal, provoking as always -- in ways our thoughts and actions need to be provoked. Thank you.

Colin Goedecke is a strategic story developer and senior-level interviewer, with a 25-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their marketing stories. Are You Evolving is the 11th in a series of thought pieces to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Salvatore Rasa is a provocative social & organizational change enthusiast & specialist, and a senior partner of im21

www.im21stcentury.com His blog is www.worksurvival.blogspot.com email: sal@salvatorerasa.com

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Reaching More Responsible Communications

2009-02-19T11:53:00.000-05:00

a conversation with peter knight

CG: Among the stories various companies tell to the marketplace, are ones about their corporate responsibility (CR), social responsibility, sustainability and citizenship. But many of these are laden with masses of data or top-heavy with detail, does this make sense?

PK: Data is important because it differentiates hard performance from soft assurances. But more vitally important to many groups is the nature and quality of the [top-line] corporate narrative. Because these people want to read the stories that are told [by and] about the company, not concentrate on all the metrics and supporting detail.

CG: Most of the reporting and messaging that’s done looks largely backward, like annuals do, at prior-year performance. But couldn't they do more heavy-lifting, both for themselves and for their audiences? Especially by being more, and more meaningfully – not just lightly – forward looking.

PK: Yes. A lot of companies have a big opportunity to use a CR report to show and discuss [for stakeholders] their road map for taking the business toward a higher plane of responsibility…and profitability.

It's a powerful but underused platform, one that could be far better leveraged to convey the company narrative; from its management to its vision. In a way that can go beyond [the limitations of] what’s possible with often hidebound and jargon-filled annual reports.

CG: What role should designers of CR reports, sites and other communications play beyond making content look and lay out well?

PK: It depends on the medium for the given messages, whether that’s on paper or the web or something in between, like PDFs. But regardless, good design is imperative. And, it must always be done with the understanding it’s just a tool to help convey information successfully, and not an end in itself. It should support but never trump the content.

Designers need, as well, to look carefully at each audience and each medium involved, and figure out the right visual styling for each. Because it can vary widely. Some audiences, for instance, are only interested in data and not in pictures.

Designers can also add value by helping clients define and differentiate the needs of given audiences, and by recommending the right channels to reach each of them.

CG: You believe the practice of communicating CR is still too immature. Why? And what growth agent is needed to mature it and improve all these stories and messages?

PK: Only when CR is taken more seriously by a large majority of the more important stakeholders in companies; only when they demand this kind of content – as I'm sure they will in time – will the whole exercise evolve. Right now, for most, this messaging is only a nice-to-have not a must-have.

As for improving these communications, my advice is look to an inspiration like George Orwell: stick to fundamentals. Write simply. Be direct. Be brave. Be adventurous.

CG: So why isn't the ‘Orwell Approach’ in wide use? If it would make companies’ stories of their responsibility all the more engaging and impactful?

PK: Because so many companies are spineless when it comes to corporate communications. They're terrified of breaking the mold. They benchmark furiously. Never want to step out of the fold. They retreat into soft assurances and old shibboleths, where they feel safe. That’s the tragedy of most forms of corporate communications.

CG: Paging the brave and adventurous out there...we need you.

CG: What useful things can companies, and the design, marketing and other consultants assisting them, learn or borrow from the corporate responsibility realm, to enlighten other parts of their business narratives?

PK: Talking straight. Corporate responsibility stories demand it, even though those who practice this straightforwardness are still in the minority. There's no question every company would benefit by it.

In addition to this, recognize that “negative” topics can actually enhance [through contrast and balance] the positive elements of a story.

CG: Do you also believe companies have a ‘responsibility’ to tell their audiences richer and more dynamic stories, ones aligned with readers’ needs? Versus giving people vacuum-sealed presentations that miss a sense of active listening [by the company], or lack the feeling of a desired kind of "conversation" or running dialogue happening between the lines.

PK: Some companies want to be more engaging. You can see this in the corporate responsibility blogs by McDonald’s, Intel, Sun Microsystems and others. But these are early days, and these blogs are suitably sanitized. Unfortunately, the willingness to put forward edgy, engaging stories -- even though it would be welcome and beneficial -- is outweighed by the perceived risk of litigation.

CG: How far away are we from truly enlightened or at least more enlightened stories in this area?

PK: Very far away. Especially since the dysfunctional economy is making it more difficult for companies to behave with integrity. Maybe the economic change we're going through will catalyze business to align its values more closely with those of society.

That said, never before has integrity been so high up on the scale of need than it is today.

CG: And I would add, never before has the integrity of companies’ stories themselves, and telling those stories more responsibly, been more important – to everyone on the receiving end.

Thanks, Peter, for your good thoughts.

Peter Knight is President of Context America, a leading corporate responsibility communications group, that advises some of the world’s most well-known businesses on CR strategy and content, www.econtext.co.uk He is also a former UK Environmental Journalist of the Year, and was a regular contributor to the Financial Times in the 1990s and 80s.

Colin Goedecke
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Content Drives Everything

2009-02-14T10:42:00.000-05:00

a conversation with sebastian kaupert

CG: Sebastian, as a seasoned creative director and design educator, why do you believe “content drives everything?”

SK: Shaping the delivery of a message is no longer enough. The most enlightened designers bring a wholly fresh point-of-view. That’s the new price of entry: an original form and visual point-of-view around equally original and interesting content. This is what will engage and is engaging people; what will drive brand and business success now and into the future.

You have mainstream marketers today who 'sponsor' original art, entertainment and thought; and support creative endeavors of all kinds, somewhat like the Medicis did during the Renaissance. The quality and relevance of this content casts a welcome glow on their brands, and on the 'patrons' behind it.

Take L Studio, Lexus’ Internet channel and its bleeding-edge content. None of it has to do with cars or selling cars, but draws instead on and across art, entertainment, science and literature. The intent is to have the Lexus brand thought of more favorably.

The other big dynamic: the many millions of people who curate their own media diet. They go wherever they need to go in digital space to get messages. But only messages that are relevant, that make sense to them. Those that aren't relevant they pay no attention to.

CG: Are creative groups still living in an old paradigm? And where do social networks fit in?

SK: Yes, mostly groups resisting giving up their well-oiled but failing business models; and those unwilling or unable to evolve with our new paradigm. Consider Facebook: in December of 2008 it had 222 million members. Its demographic has gone from mainly young people to people of all ages and places. It’s a vital part of how a lot of us communicate and get information we're interested in. It's a valuable part of the media mix now, or should be. All marketers need to tune into these social networks,but only with customized, relevant and rich content; that’s well designed-and-delivered, in order to engage and compel audiences.

And let's be clear, it's not about 'using,' manipulating the Internet as a marketer: it's about being where your audience is, where it hangs out. If that's in and around social media, then it's simply sensible, not revolutionary, to be there. If your audience is watching a lot of television, then by all means that's where part of your advertising and/or marketing needs to be happening.

CG: How do creative professionals get their clients to this essential next dimension?

SK: They need to think of themselves as higher level program directors. They need to look beyond the creative brief, strategy, themes and goals, and also understand the conversations audiences are having with each other. It’s not about creating beautiful images and layouts or clever visual puns. It’s about inventing original stories and brand worlds that relate to those conversations, and intuitively express and validate a brand and its promise and experience; and do all this within a context not in a vacuum.

CG: What do you mean inventing "original stories?”

SK: I mean originality like the Japanese artist Murakami. Or Damien Hirst, who makes art from industrial materials, formaldehyde and dead animals in ways that both attract and repel, but ultimately engage, move us, make us talk.

It requires all of us as designers to rise to a next level of creativity and ingenuity; one that doesn't look for validation in focus groups, but begins and sustains a rich, real-world conversation; creates a new and worthwhile brand currency.

CG: What creative groups are already out front, thinking and working in this way?

SK: There are more and more that are breaking the old mold. Crispin Porter + Bogusky is one. Look at their work for Burger King, Ikea, Mini Cooper. Often it’s more an event than an expected campaign, and it creates starting points for conversations...that take on lives of their own.

Also Anomaly, which has the right business model to deliver this kind of compelling approach. A great example is outofyourleaguegirl for Converse. The paid-for media was just a small portion of the significant actual ‘distribution’ it achieved.

CG: Is B2B marketing a much different story than B2C?

SK: No. When you look at the most successful marketing in either category, you'll see it transcends all the usual statements about the product or service, and speaks to audiences’ real-life issues; seeks to inspire them where they live and work and think.

CG: So what about those who believe there’s nothing wrong with plain-vanilla marketing messages that are “well designed.” Are they out of synch?

SK: Yes, because this kind of marketing has little impact or credibility today; engages no one; builds no equity. Anyone selling this isn't serving their clients, or their own best interests. But some marketers and designers just don't know how (or why) to take any other path than the familiar one.

CG: How do you teach this to up-and-coming designers, like your students at Pratt?

SK: I start by helping them develop critical communication skills. I also push them to stretch their notion of creativity to include business thinking. Especially how to understand a client’s business, and marketing issues, and to see as their first and foremost goal solving those challenges.

CG: What distinguishes the best designers? What should clients look for? Or expect of them?

The best designers aren't distinguished by their design skills, but by their human skills: their capacity to listen, observe and analyze, and help create genuine connections that lead to lasting relationships.

This is what transforms our value as designers; and leads to entirely new insights and stories. This is what helps our clients succeed, in a marketplace where success revolves in an increasing way around the viral power of individuals' preferences. It cannot be bought, is has to be earned -- by the quality, originality and relevance of their stories, messages and other content.

CG: Thanks for your good thoughts, Sebastian.

Sebastian Kaupert is an inspiring thinker, creative director and design educator. His Brooklyn-based practice is Cradle Studios; his professional profile can be found at www.linkedin.com/in/sebastiankaupert

Reality Check Up

2009-02-03T14:28:00.000-05:00

Is your story in excellent shape, inside and out? Diagnose how healthy, unwell or at risk it is, by giving it a proper check up, looking for telltale symptoms and treating issues including…

OVER OR UNDERWEIGHT?
Chubby or bloated stories put too much stress on readers’ systems. Slimmer is better. And those that are too thin – in character, or too slight on benefits – are even worse. Add calories and build more message mass; more muscle.

PRESSURE TOO HIGH?
When a story markets too hard, readers black out or back away. Don't force it: take care to convey thoughts and points in a low-or-no pressure way.

ACTIVE OR SLUGGISH?
Well worked-out stories move with vigor in the marketplace, and leave lethargic ones gasping for air. The best exercise programs include voice toning and rigorous editing.

HYDRATED OR DEHYDRATED?
Fluid stories are far more quenching than stories bone-dry in style or spirit.

BALANCED DIET?
Put all the right nutrients into a narrative, from premise and promise to relevance and openness, to enrich and energize audiences -- and satisfy their needs.

AND REMEMBER TO KEEP A FINGER ON THE PULSE
Actively observe the condition of your content, as internal and external realities change. And use a trained eye. It’s good preventive medicine.

Regular check ups will help ensure a story’s well being, and enhance the long-term fitness and vitality of the business.

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strategic story development

Leaping Off Points

2009-01-28T16:50:00.000-05:00

It isn’t information that strongly engages and motivates people: it’s stories, ones with energy, thought, texture, longevity – and meaningful messages.

Giving audiences anything less than a real narrative puts you at risk of being boring, lifeless, uninspiring; and wasting effort.

STAND BACK
You can’t appreciate the full sweep of a landscape when you’re sitting in the center of it. Assume a higher and wider perspective: see how the company’s entire story will appear; will contrast with other stories out there; will fit into the overall business environment and social climate.

CHECK YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR
Personal outlooks and instincts have their place, but not here. It’s not about you: it’s all about the company and the purest possible embodiment and expression of its attitude, beliefs and voice.

OPEN SESAME
Ideas can become hermetically sealed, or held captive to one person’s thinking, and suffocate. Fling open the story-shaping to input from the strategists, writers, designers and others involved in the effort and the basis of your messages. Openly airing and hearing thoughts around the table is invaluable.

GET OUTSIDE
What the company’s outside world truly cares about – and doesn’t care about, are essential things to find out and factor in. Things you can’t assume or presume to know. Go and talk candidly with a cross-section of them, on their turf, about what matters. Everyone will benefit.

SYNCHRONIZE
Most companies tell their stories one way externally and another way internally. When you remove the difference, dramatic things happen. Conventional thinking moves to the back seat, and opportunities for new clarity, language and breakthroughs come forward.

STRIKE CHORDS
The best stories reverberate in the mind’s ear. Big Ben-like; Steinway Grand-like, between the lines. Find ways to strike deep chords with your audiences, ones that will echo long after their reading.

PRODUCE SPARKS
People want their imaginations to be inspired; their spirits to be stirred. Use animated, illuminated language, anecdotes and metaphors to ignite, intrigue and excite them.

GO WITH THE FLOW
A company’s story is a living thing. Allow it to be supple; to evolve with changing times and needs -- and keep it from becoming static, inflexible or stagnant.

LITMUS TEST IT
Stories that succeed strike the right balance on every level. As you develop yours, and before the ink dries, make sure it’s completely 1) clear, 2) relevant, 3) engaging, 4) believable and 5) compelling.

ENJOY THE RIDE
Freely interacting with diverse creative and business people to bring a story to life is a great pleasure in and of itself. It also leads to a richer process and a better outcome.

www.tenowls.com
strategic content development

Going from Black-and-White to Color

2009-01-20T00:20:00.000-05:00

When The Wizard of Oz goes from black-and-white to color, the story springs to life all the more vividly; extraordinarily.

In the eyes of today’s audiences, many companies’ stories, images and messages are missing a richly individual character: a truly distinctive color, contrast, aura; personality.

Looking and sounding monochrome or mundane; or running with the herd is not only inadvisable but strategically suicidal, when people are fleeing sameness and clamoring for uniqueness.

Fortunately, otherwise lost or plain-vanilla identities can be brought to real life and living color. Partly by communicating with…

A One-of-a-Kind Voice. Anywhere, anytime you hear Sinatra or Elvis singing, or JFK talking, it can only be them. Each company can and should sound like no other when it “speaks.” Cultivate a singular voice.

A Decisive POV. Anyone with a strong point-of-view is more sharply defined in people’s minds and memories. Project personality by showing how intently the company thinks and feels about the world.

A Definitive Energy. Dynamic personas rivet attention; excite; engage. All content great and small should both embody and emanate a strong spirit, and a deep sense of passion and purpose.

And remember, it’s not about adding character, like varnish or veneer. It’s about finding and revealing the unique character that’s already there; that exists within. And infusing those qualities into the molecules of every communication, every message.

Building character takes boldness and brainpower, including the ingenuity of storytellers steeped in business and strategic thinking.

The rewards can be dramatic. Even cinematic.

www.tenowls.com
strategic content development

Authenticity Matters

2009-01-08T16:42:00.000-05:00

How authentic is the company’s story?

Because the world is different. There's sky-high demand for businesses that say and do genuinely meaningful things…and low-to-no tolerance for those that pay little more than lip service.

Being true to the core, and to clients, customers, stakeholders and others is fundamental to companies’ success. Which makes authenticity a powerful engine, anchor, and beacon.

Inauthentic stories and messages are simply risky business. Pretending to be authentic is just as perilous. People sense what’s sincere; are sick and tired of spin; and have the power to ruin or revitalize even the largest reputation.

How to communicate authentically? It means marketing and selling from a true-blue place, a place of top-to-bottom integrity:

Creating a perception based on an actual -- not a virtual – reality. Audiences should be able to see and feel what makes the company tick, its ethic, outlook, intrinsic qualities.

Showing the genuine value the business is bringing to its marketplace. Qualify and quantify wherever possible the most relevant and competitive benefits.

Being open-handed. Candor is king, and transparency is a prized currency, so companies need to be as up front as possible in every communication.

Speaking to audiences’ vital concerns. Help them see and believe the company is on the exact same page, and pro-actively on top of their big issues.

Not claiming authenticity but proving it; reflecting it. Let it resonate and be revealed through the company’s actions and activities; illuminated by good, real-world examples.

With so much opportunity and risk riding on the faithfulness of your story, make sure you bring all the right thinking and skill to telling it.

www.tenowls.com
strategic content development

Brief Encounters

2008-12-23T19:17:00.000-05:00

A creative brief is central to any truly smart communication. To put and keep everyone on the right page. Yet it’s often overlooked or underpowered.

As the road map, resource, prime fuel source for the messaging platform, writing and design, it deserves fierce attention. As does the quality and clarity of the briefing input -- and analysis.

How to gather the vital input? Go higher, deeper, farther.

Make the briefing as long as necessary to flesh out the story, to set the stage; especially the fine points.

Pose astute and thought provoking questions. Among other things, make sure you...

>look at the company and project from different levels & layers: from 40,000 feet up, and below the surface: from guiding vision to fundamental values

>define goals, practical and emotional angles, and desired opening & closing impressions

> cover all the bases; connect all the dots, including

greatest strengths & weaknesses

key challenges & opportunities

seeing what candid outside input would be valuable to bring in, such as informally interviewing a cross-section of constituents

> establish the crux of the communication

the single most important idea or sense to convey, and what will make it authentic, relevant, believable -- and compelling

the ultimate promise to the audience

> fully profile the audience and their m.o., including their

shared needs & expectations

inflection points of interest & resistance

urgent or underlying issues or concerns

Just as crucial to the process is how strategically, not just creatively, the resulting input is analyzed…and alchemized.

So why not take the time and opportunity to focus more sharply on the front end of your story. And transform lightweight or lackluster briefs (and the communications they’re piloting) into blockbuster ones.

www.tenowls.com
strategic content development

The Art of Selling

2008-12-15T18:01:00.000-05:00

The art of selling…is not selling.

Whether it’s a service, a product or an image.

The old ways of selling aren’t working. Especially when trust in companies’ mantras and motives has worn thin, and more individuals want to be in control - not be convinced.

The real art is enabling people to…

make and validate their own decision to “buy” what a company is offering, instead of being sold, or skewed into one way of thinking;
see and feel the true value or virtue in it;
easily weigh against competing choices and voices in the marketplace

Strategically written and designed communications achieve this. Where to begin?

Change your perspective. When you look 180-degrees, and take the audience’s point of view, the right (and wrong) messages reveal themselves.

Furnish useful facts, without the frills. Give the audience decisive input; without bias and without wasting valuable time or space. Focus on what will inform their overall understanding and/or decision-making.

Talk a straight line. Being direct and objective earns big appreciation in this extra-sensitive marketplace. Anything less leads to uncertainty.

By moving to a more enlightened model of marketing and messaging, companies can bolster their reputations and set themselves apart from the crowd of same old-same old sellers.

www.tenowls.com
strategic content development

Inspire Confidence

2008-12-12T19:21:00.000-05:00

Business is on the line. In some cases business survival. Inspiring confidence has become critical. To

preserve what's there today
regain what's lost or wavering
build more of it among the people the company is counting on for its daily bread…and tomorrow’s butter

Too many messages in this anxious environment are meaningless, or, worse, counterproductive. Why? Because they appear out of touch with the burning issues clients, partners and prospects are most concerned about. Because they offer no candid or constructive point-of-view.

So, how to inspire confidence, in and through every written communication?

Get real. Understand what the audience urgently needs to know. Then give them the straight story. Lay out the central challenges the business is confronting; how it's meeting them; how it plans to survive -- and prosper.

Hot air is history. There’s no point, never was, in using hot air or hype. In this Epic Crunch, people have lost all patience for it. Companies that blow smoke rings risk their credibility and revenues receding. Only what really matters really matters out there right now.

Dialogue trumps monologue. Make every communication part of an ongoing "conversation," especially on the web and in the annual report. Audiences are motivated when they feel the company is responding to their most essential concerns; providing insights, and keeping them in the loop instead of in the dark.

Cheap talk is expensive…because it's a liability. Even the biggest companies can be gone or bypassed tomorrow in a flash of no confidence when what they say lacks substance. Money may be tight, but it’s shortsighted to skimp on messaging with merit. Done well its worth its weight many times over in goodwill and good business.

Getting the writing right takes a strategic approach. To platform messages effectively, unite style and substance, and spread the word in ways that inspire that most precious commodity, confidence.

www.tenowls.com
strategic content development

Empowering Presentations

2008-12-12T19:10:00.000-05:00

Companies of all kinds are up against the same essential challenge, now more than ever: how to present their stories, especially their new business pitches, in ways that connect meaningfully and powerfully with each audience, and are

easily followed and immediately understood
competitively differentiating
to the point

Make a real connection. Most presentations are static, generic and impersonal, when they could sound and feel more dynamic, tailored and conversational; with an authentic vs. synthetic personality.

Get on the edge. Many otherwise smart presentations miss a big mark: not establishing their key competitive edge fully, or early on. They could benefit by having a “curtain-raiser” message that sets a promising stage; that creates a sense of curiosity and opportunity, and ties into a true solution.

Less is more. Information overload is rampant: far too much information, too many ideas and points to digest in one sitting. It’s self-defeating, especially with Powerpoints. The most successful stories (a minority) are shaped in a streamlined way; with presentations used as “talking sticks,” to

convey key thoughts succinctly
keep audiences listening instead of reading
maintain all-important momentum

Revisit, rethink, revise. Highly effective presentations can mean the difference between make and break in this environment. Weak ones risk leaving a lasting losing impression. Companies should be taking every opportunity to intensively edit and empower them.

Done right, i.e. strategically, stories and messages can be clear, relevant and compelling to everyone on the receiving end. And help get the company closer to its goals.

www.tenowls.com
strategic content development