Lesson Two: The Truth is Out There (and it's not always what you expect)

Day Two: The Truth is Out There

Like Mulder, we want to believe.  Like Scully, we can't quite get there.

We rolled into Roswell, New Mexico, ready to try, though. Roswell is not on the direct route between Phoenix and Naples, but we took the detour to seek the truth.  We are a family of sci-fi geeks. That truth is already out there.

So early morning on Day Two took us to Martin's Country Cafe.  It was loud with chatter and the waitress was friendly, however, it took over ten minutes to get a cup of coffee and another ten to place our order.  This was not setting up a great expectation for breakfast, as we were four hungry, grumpy tourists amid a cast of cowboys and rough hewn senior citizens.  No, really.  Real cowboys. And real seniors.

Lesson Two: Managing Expectations Requires Flexibility

When breakfast arrived, all prior concerns dissipated.  My eggs were over-easy just right (not too hard!) and the carne asada was spicy and simmering.  Silence hovered over the table we immersed ourselves into hot platters of pancakes, chorizo, tortillas, hash browns and more.  The cowboy/owner - Martin?  - replete with giant belt buckle and broad brimmed hat, kept my coffee topped off and brought extra cream and napkins.

We were now ready to find the truth.

I had planned a full morning of alien hunting and research.  After all, the crash of 1947 started a frenzy of newspaper articles and speculation about life beyond earth and government cover ups.  But we wanted to get into the details, see the evidence that has so many believers staring into the starry night skies.  We wanted to see what the residents of Roswell claimed to see 65 years ago.  So we were heading to every place in town that advertised a little more information about the truth being out there.

First stop: The UFO Museum and Research Center sits on Main Street like an old style cinema.  Blazing lights on the marquee.  A few of the neighboring downtown storefronts have little green men painted on the windows and proclaim, "Aliens welcome here!"

We expected kitsch.  Really, we did.  But we also thought we would find that something more…  You know what it's like when you meet the ultimate coworker - smart, funny, great background - and then you're two days into a four day business trip and you learn he can't meet a deadline and has a Turrets-like affect whenever the client leaves the room?  This was the UFO Museum and Research center.  Only it took just fifteen minutes to fulfill our disillusionment.  We went in - healthy disbelievers but hopeful for that nugget, that little extra something that made it plausible, to so many people, that alien life was not only 'out there', but 'down here' as well.

We didn't find it.  There was no more evidence, no more research than you could find through a Google search and marathoning the X-Files.  It was a tangible let-down and left us staring at an agenda of alien-friendly destinations that no longer held any appeal.  Kitsch is fun for a few laughs, but how many photos of latex aliens does one really need?  In the case of that coworker, the jokes may be funny but you're still left doing double the work to meet client deadlines.

So we reset.  For future projects, you finagle a role for your coworker that doesn't impact your work load or better yet, keep him off your projects altogether.   In the case of alien hunting, we went to Starbucks. Having refueled on our expected caffeine-laden favorites, we changed our game plan and then made our way through three hours of Texas oil fields to face our next adventure.

Lesson One: On Any Journey, Bring Extra Napkins

Fellow Dirty Girl, Shirley Ramos, and I are forever talking about how life is a journey… we discuss the views, the weather and cautiously examine those 'less traveled' paths…

My new year journey is a real one, not just a metaphorical one.  And while it's personal, how much of our professional lives are truly isolated from our personal ones?  Especially as wives and mothers, fathers and husbands. It may be easy to keep the Tuesday afternoon dentist appointment and the Wednesday morning staff meeting distinctly compartmentalized, but that's mere scheduling.  Is the Mother-Me, the Wife-Me and the Personal-Me really so different, so distinct from the Work-Me?  I think not.  After all, whether it's my youngest son or a co-worker, talking with your mouth full of food still irks me.  You can be my 16 year old daughter or my graphic designer, and I will be equally annoyed when you interrupt me.  And say so.  In the work environment, I am still me… with every single personality quirk fully intact.  And why would we work so hard to create a separate Work-Me?  After all, we are hired for who we are and what we bring to the table.

So I am sharing some pieces of my journey in the next few blog posts, a few lessons from our very real journey and how the experience impacts the Total-Me.

Day One
I started a six day journey from Arizona to Florida.  Yes, it can be done it fewer days but I'm taking advantage of the drive to see some sights along the way - both noteworthy and notorious.  And while enjoying the physical beauty that is the southern swath of our country, I am also getting a closer glimpse into the inner workings of my traveling companions.  There are few situations that put you in such close contact with other physical beings - in this case, my children (ages 11, 15 and 16) - than cruising I-10 in a cozy 2004 Toyota Corolla through 550 miles of desert.

The first day of any long journey is the easiest - energy is up, adventure is forthcoming and, if you have a mother like mine, you've got plenty of snacks. Our cooler is apocalypse-ready: abundant with turkey sandwiches, ham sandwiches, chicken, ribs, chips, cookies, brownies, edamame and almonds, just for a start. Dad threw in the emergency kit, extra towels and had the car looked over by a mechanic. Twice.  (It doesn't matter if you're an adult over 40… your parents are still your parents).  All this prep meant that our nine hours of driving started with a punch colored sunrise and only stopped for coffee, diet coke and the loo.

Lesson One: Bring Extra Napkins for the Unexpected
Our journey took us east on I-10 to Las Cruces, NM, then we cut north on 70 to Roswell.  We didn't realize we'd be rising high enough in elevation to see snow, but we did.  And so we stopped the car to reacquaint ourselves with it… before our newly acquired Floridian genes kicked in and we jumped back into the Corolla with icy, wet fingers and glee.

I thoroughly expected someone to spill a drink in the car - I have three kids, so really, when does someone NOT spill?  I did not expect it to be me, but there I was with my Starbucks soy mocha splashed generously across the front of my white shirt only two hours into our journey.

For entertainment, we have over 30 hours of audiobooks - a novel, a stand-up comic and a collection of short stories.  Turns out, the standup comic's schtick was so uncomfortably bad that even my 11 year old squirmed and the discs were duly pitched at the next rest stop. So the kids filled the void with their own jokes.  Some of these a mother does not need to hear.  Others were surprisingly clever and my 15 year old son laughed so hard at one of his own jokes that he vomited.  Down the front of his sweatshirt.  Humor is known to help heal but apparently an overdose can also make you sick.

The mass of napkins and paper towels we tossed at the end of the day were a mess of coffee, hot chocolate, melted snow, snot, vomit, zucchini bread crumbs and a lot of optimism that we will get through the next five days still speaking to each other.

Any journey has moments that get messy.  Look at your own Work-Me: for any project, you do a certain amount of preparation. Some of us prepare like my parents, for every possible contingency.  Others, like me, grab our keys and sunglasses and believe we'll figure it out as we go.  And our cast of coworkers/traveling companions then impacts the decisions we make, the amount of time we spend planning and the way in which we execute. There will be spills, spews and other mishaps that require cleaning up or brushing aside.

Fortunately, we brought a lot of extra napkins.

Smashing Status Quo: Creating Pauses in the Change Process

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. (Lao Tzu)

Human beings are primed for patterns.  We love consistency and predictability. It gives us a sense of security and control.  It allows us to create our own comfortable sphere in which we can rule and relax.

It is a knee-jerk reaction for most of us to resist any new proposal, whether we're in our personal life sphere or our professional life one.

Can Brandon spend the night? No... I'm too tired...  

Can we adjust the agenda to include a benefits discussion?  Sorry, no time...

Should we implement that new marketing automation software? That will change our lead process... oh, dear...

Our "no" response has slipped through our lips before we've given most proposals even two full seconds of consideration.  

But when you are the leader of an initiative to alter the status quo, how do you manage the tsunami of resistance that is inevitably crashing against your sandy shores of change? 

You have to create pauses. That pause is a momentary reflection - for you. For your team. It gives you space to breathe and think about what is really about to happen and put it in perspective.

First pause: let's recognize the status quo. Openly acknowledge and understand that this is where we are today, and this is what it means. Take your team through an "impact analysis" (current-state, future-state, gap analysis) exercise.  It's a common exercise, but it's one we often forget to do in the context of helping our teams through the change process. Going through this exercise reveals several important points to - and about - your team:

• it provides an agreed-upon understanding what today looks like
• it ensures a shared vision for where you're going
• it involves everyone in identifying the "gaps"
• it will show you the different levels of self-awareness among your team members
• it will show you who's bought in, who's not, and how far you have to go

Progress is a nice word. But change is a motivator. And change has its enemies. (Robert Kennedy)

The impact analysis exercise will help you identify who on your team can be helpful change agents, and who is going to require some nurturing to get them to the desired end state. While you want to employ your champions to help drive necessary actions, you also want to coach them along helping their more reluctant team members to open up to change. If your champions merely push forward with implementing change, they will be seen as puppets of the regime, enforcing an agenda... not a team player working to improve the business.

One way to help shake up the status quo way of thinking, and empower your team to embrace new and original approaches, is to stop talking and give them something to do.  Second pause: exercises that test their mettle when faced with non-traditional dilemmas.  Do you recall the exercise Mel Gibson went through in "What Women Want"?  He put on pantyhose, wore lipstick, tried to figure out how it felt to be a woman.  Way outside his comfort zone. Maybe you don't have to go that far, but looking at problem from a different point of view - from a different constituent, from a different industry - can be enlightening.  Or think about it from the "Apollo 13" angle: you have a limited number of supplies and you have to solve a life-saving problem - how can you use those tools, not at all designed for your problem, to save lives? 

Less dramatic but no less illuminating is an example I read about in an article last week: hand your team a candle, a book of matches and a box of thumbtacks.  Their mission is to somehow attach the candle to the wall, light it and ensure no wax drips on the floor or wall.  What do you do?  You empty the box of thumbtacks, tack the box to the wall and put the candle in it.  Who in your group, however, will literally think "outside the box"?  But once they see the light (pun intended)... you've shaken up the status quo.

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked, "If this were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" 

And if the answer is "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.  (Steve Jobs)

Sometimes going beyond simple acknowledgement can help your team let go of an entrenched pattern. Years ago when we were integrating a new team from a company we had recently acquired, I was battling the newcomers over the fact that we were changing the product name to be more in line with our corporate standards. While logically the team understood why we were making the change, there was still resentment and concern over the process.  Third pause: a mentor of mine made a suggestion that I thought was bizarre... and yet... at that stage I had nothing to lose and after pausing long enough to consider what affect it could have, we did it. We hosted a funeral.  The old product name was dead, but the spirit of the product lives on... in a different name, of course.  But the act of hosting a funeral - well, truthfully, more like an Irish wake with many rounds of Guinness and some great story-telling - allowed the acquired team to both laugh at the absurdity and mark the end of an era.  

We can't always promise that change is for the better. We can't ensure that every team member will embrace it and go forth. But we can be sensitive to the fact that our patterns are ingrained in us, for better and for worse, and if we work with them instead of pushing so hard against them, we can move forward a lot farther and a lot faster.  So pause. Breathe. Reflect. And then find a new way to smash through that status quo that brings everyone along with you, and not just staring at shattered pieces.

Is Debate Derailing Your Decisions? Four Keys to Stay On-Track

Deja vu.  I am leading a team meeting that starts off as an energetic brainstorming session. It evolves into a practical discussion around strategy. Then it devolves into a debate over execution. How can I keep the debate from derailing what has been, so far, a productive team session?

As a leader, it's my job to solve a problem.  I've called my best and brightest to help.  Now, how do I manage a passionate conversation to a practical outcome?  I've ridden this train before and I can still smell the fumes from the wreckage. So now a little wiser and with some help from my friends, here are four keys that keep me, and my team, on track.

Key #1: Maintain focus. Often times we get side-railed once a debate begins.  Whether it's bubbling up from a personality clash, burgeoning egos or a philosophical difference in tackling the issue, the bottom line is that there is an impersonal but very real business problem you are trying to solve.  Keep the focus of your team on the best possible outcome for the business - and acknowledge that there may be more than one path to getting there.  If you can keep a difference of opinion from escalating into more personal or emotional zones, you increase your chance of coming to a mutually agreed upon resolution.

Key #2: Establish evaluation criteria. Agreeing upon which elements are important when selecting a course of action is critical for the team to be able to come to consensus.  Your criteria might include the basics of budget, location, revenue generation, new market opportunity... it might also be "never been done before".

Key #3: Drive decision-making, not approval.  The difference here is driven by Keys #1 and #2. By maintaining focus on the desired business outcomes, you can keep everyone focused on making decisions that achieve those goals. The mission of the team isn't to nod their approval for every good idea. If you have a smart, motivated team, you're going to have a plethora of smart, executable ideas.  The goal is to drive to a smart decision that achieves your desired outcomes, aligned to your established criteria.

Key #4: Be willing to call a time-out. Just because we are all big boys and girls doesn't mean we don't occasionally require a time-out.  If a team member loses her temper, storms out of a meeting, or starts injecting outside issues into the conversation, it may just be time for a break. Acknowledge you're at this point and walk away.  But schedule a session to regroup within the next few days and before you re-start, review the focus and criteria for your meeting. Bring everyone back to the real purpose.

Differences of opinion are often great fodder for getting beyond our comfort zones.  A very smart person recently said to me, "There are probably 26 ways to solve every problem."  When we can acknowledge that as a leader, we are then more open to the depth our team brings to every situation and can encourage smarter, more original problem-solving approaches.  It enriches our experience, our leadership capabilities and our teams.

Messy, Fussy Human Behavior = Multi-tasking and Multiple Screens

Last week I posted an article by Mitch Joel, “Welcome to the One-Screen World” (http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/05/welcome_to_the_one-screen_worl.html) in which he makes the case that for marketers and media, the most important screen we can adjust our messages to is the one in front of the customer at any given time. And of course, this makes sense – where ever your attention is, Mr. Customer, is where I want to be selling.  But as he discussed screens integrating – which is clearly the path we’re on, where all types of ‘screens’ can basically perform the same functions: email, web surfing, music playing, video downloads, etc.  But where I diverge from  him is where he says we only have one pair of eyes – and therefore the only screen that matters is the one in front of you.

I will not argue that multiple-ocularity (yes, I believe I made that up…) is the wave of the future.  I rather like the human race with its two eyes in the front of its head and am not suggesting any evolutionary adaptions.  Or surgical ones, for that matter.  But I believe most people will continue to interact with multiple screens in any given moment, despite the multi-functional abilities of the devices.  Why?

Because I can sit with my laptop and create a presentation, but will still catch up on Game of Thrones on my television at the same time.  Thank goodness for On-Demand. That’s two screens.  Meanwhile, my phone is next to me because I may be texting my Dirty Girl partner-in-crime.  I can text her via my laptop and Facebook, sure, but sometimes she’s running an errand or hanging out with her dog, so she texts me via cell phone.  That’s screen three.  If I tried to watch my movie, text a Dirty Girl and work on my presentation from all one screen, I would have multiple-ocularity issues indeed…

Multiple screens don’t go away until multi-tasking does.  Technology will continue to cross-platform pollinate, as it should since we consumers demand that convenience.  But as marketers, we still need to be cognizant of the context in which each device may be used, and therefore develop the right content to drive our messages.  Context and location awareness are not a fad, but are more critical than ever to your marketing strategy when you have competing screens.

A one-screen world sounds neat and convenient, but we human beings are messy.  We just don’t operate that way.

CULT-ivating Your Own

Purple sneakers.  White robes.  Secret handshakes.  Mysterious symbols.  

An apple.   A green mermaid.  A swoosh.

There has been a lot of discussion recently around how you can create your own brand 'cult of personality':  creating polarity in your market position, tracking Net Promoter Scores, developing initiation processes, implying secret knowledge and getting your brand to the ultimate aspiration in brand maturity, the "essential" brand.  That's a lot of market-ese.  And just like the recent articles and blogs I've read - with titles like 10 Steps to Create Your Own Cult-like Following and  Developing Your Cult Brand in 12 Step - we marketers tend to over-complicate some pretty simple concepts.

In quest of cult-like status, we develop complex, layered messaging, find controversy with competition, create abstract and sometimes befuddling campaigns... all to get the audience to buy-in to our brand.  In the process of trying to establish that cult clientele, that oh-so-reliable base of fans who readily, even happily, open their wallets and their goodwill, we forget the other audience that makes the kernel of your cult even possible - your internal fan base, the company employees.

The simple truth is that cults are based on a singular, common belief.  That belief may very well be polarizing, it may be controversial, it may even be abstract higher thinking that's meaning is obfuscated to the 'average' consumer.  It could be all those things, but at the core, it's still a single theme that binds.

And marketers can't create cults.  We want to.  We truly do.  And we will continue to try.  But cults are built from the inside out.  Cults - of any kind, religious, business, personal - are birthed through a single person's vision... a compelling personality who pulls others into his vision... and those others adopt the vision as their own.  This creates a team that starts to live and breathe and act according to the vision. This is more than understanding the potential of a product, seeing the opportunity in a market or trusting an executive leader.  

This is faith.  

The leader believes so powerfully in his or her singular vision, that he/she takes whatever path necessary to see it through. The employees then drive the vision, the powerful feelings associated with that vision, through to the new recruits.  They push it through sales and marketing channels so that their customers feel it.  Believes it.  And buys it.  The personality of the brand is tied deeply to that singular leader, but it's driven by the employees.  Without them, there is no cult.  The personality is not cultivated, not communicated.  

Think about the brands that do this well... every interaction with every employee, regardless of their position within the organization, has a consistency.  It feels like you're dealing with the same set of core values, the same belief system, that had you buying into the product or service in the first place.  That's not just good employee training.  It's not just a simple, scripted interaction.  It's faith.

If you're looking for that cult-like feeling for your business, you need to look within.  What is the vision of your company that your employees rally around?   Not just the sales and marketing teams, but everyone, from the developers and engineering teams, the customer service team, all the way through to the administrative support teams and up to the executives.  If you can clearly identify that, then your job as a marketer is to amp it up - focus on that single theme and drive your internal culture around it. If you're company is living and breathing this internally, it unavoidably becomes part of your canon - part of the ongoing dialogue that is both internal and external.  And thus, your customers start hearing, seeing and believing the same singular theme.  And buying.

So you can read the articles, you can follow the 10 steps... or 12... but none of those will get you any closer to creating that cult-like customer base you're looking for.  You might create an interesting brand personality.  You might launch some marvelously creative campaigns.  And that can all be good for business.  But if that singular vision isn't clear to you, if there is no focused rallying cry, your job as the marketer is to go find it. Not create it, but find it.  Every company has one - and often it's just buried under layers of data - market analysis, customers surveys, historical buying patterns, product roadmaps, analyst reports and more.  We bury our business with too much data and mislay that initial intention that we got into business for in the first place.

Go find your intention.  Find the faith.  Then you can have your cult.

What You Can Learn About Brand at a High School Reunion

It's a funny thing, going to a high school reunion.  You take all this baggage with you - stuff you didn't realize, until the moment before you walk through the reunion party door, that you had been hauling around all these years.  Or maybe you did realize it... and thought you had "dealt" with it... well, the real test of that comes at that awkward moment when you pass through that reunion party door and make your presence - your new, grown up brand - known to the room.

In that moment, we have a tendency to forget about our new grown up brand.  In that moment we revert to that awkward teen brand that never felt smart enough, pretty enough or interesting enough... (wait, is that just me?  Somehow, I don't think so).

As marketers, we are sometimes so steeped in our brand history, that we forget to look outside at how our customers, our partners and even our competition define us today.  We slip into that mode without even realizing it... you can have all the right feedback tools in place to "hear" from your customers and prospects, to share with partners and to track your competition and their positioning... and yet be so set in your brand identity that you forget to really listen. To stop, think and decide.  Actively.  Who do you want to be when you grow up?  Are you grown up yet?

This is a dangerous trap.  More dangerous now, certainly, than when I was in high school oh-so-long-ago.  The advent of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google+ and myriad other communications channels, not to mention the mobility of ipads and smartphones, means the feedback loop is constant and immediate.  Your brand will change without you if you aren't monitoring it and very quickly your message and your goals will misalign with your market.  Then you are trapped in Reactive mode, not Active mode.  A much more difficult market position to manage.

What you quickly learn at a high school reunion is not just how old everyone got, who's divorced, who's rich and who's still a player... if you listen, you can learn a lot about your own brand.  And it might surprise you to learn how people remember you, what they remember about you, and how they perceive you now.  Layers of yourself you never paid much attention to because you were so busy tending your own teenage angst and baggage.  What happens when you acknowledge these new insights?

The opportunity here is immense.  To see your brand in a new light offers the potential of adding rich new layers to your brand personality.  You can explore new facets of not just your  message, but identify new markets and opportunities in places you might not have considered - but your customers have.  Think about those brands who listen well... Starbucks started serving hot breakfast sandwiches when they realized that after getting coffee from them, their customers were still going to McDonalds.  A Bain & Company survey last year spelled it out beautifully... 80% of surveyed organizations felt that they had solid customer feedback systems in place and responded well to customers.  8% of their customers agreed.  Ouch.

The real fun of high school reunions is discovering who everyone is today... what really did happen to that athlete, that class clown and that prom queen?  Are those high school brands you remember the same today?  If we don't stop, think and decide, actively and deliberately, we become that one person at the high school reunion who didn't change... at all... and if you didn't like her then, you're sure as hell not going to like her now.