Tom Asacker

Howard Thurman on what the world needs

"Do not ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. For what the world needs is more people who have come alive."

We are going to see an explosion in the number of business start-ups during the second half of this decade.  Many will open shop in hopes of making a lot of money.  Most will simply hope for freedom from the dispassionate agitation of the corporate world.  But a few - the successful few - will innovate in an area that truly lights their fire.  Be one of those few!

Orison Swett Marden on the golden rule

"The golden rule for every business man is this: Put yourself in your customer's place."

Which means that you should NEVER do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That particular rule simply isn't relevant for our postmodern, heterogeneous culture. Instead, you should do unto others as others want uniquely done onto them.

Dalai Lama on making it meaningful

"Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day."

Or a meaningful business. In the book Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them?: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama, the eminent psychologist Paul Ekman describes the four qualities shared by "extraordinary" people - those who excel at a range of admirable human qualities (note: other than intellectual). I believe the list to be relevant to leaders, managers and organizations as well:

1. The first is that they emanate a sense of goodness, a palpable quality of being that others notice and agree on. This goodness goes beyond some fuzzy, warm aura and reflects with integrity the true person. On this count Ekman proposed a test to weed out charlatans: In extraordinary people "there is a transparency between their personal and public life, unlike many charismatics, who have wonderful public lives and rather deplorable personal ones."

2. A second quality: selflessness. Such extraordinary people are inspiring in their lack of concern about status, fame, or ego. They are totally unconcerned with whether their position or importance is recognized. Such a lack of egoism, Ekman added, "from the psychological viewpoint, is remarkable."

3. Third is a compelling personal presence that others find nourishing. "People want to be around them because it feels good - though they can't explain why," said Ekman.

4. Finally, such extraordinary individuals have "amazing powers of attentiveness and concentration." Ekman found the Dalai Lama "one of the closest listeners I have ever encountered - he's totally concentrated. And it's contagious: When I spent those five days with him, amazingly, my mind rarely drifted for a second."

Michael Porter on seduction

"The pursuit of operational effectiveness is seductive because it is concrete and actionable."

Are you being seduced? Are you so caught up in the day to day that you're missing the radical changes in a marketplace that has been revolutionized by an abundance of choice and a limitless amount of information?

Here’s why I’m asking. About a year ago, I was brought in to work with an executive staff and their board on a new, strategic initiative. After some lengthy sharing of information, insight, and debate, we created a powerful new purpose and identity. So far, so good. About a month ago I called to see how the new strategy had improved their operating performance. And what do you think I heard? Right. They had not even begun to implement.

There are two elements necessary to long-term business success: strategy and operational effectiveness. The latter bogs most leaders down. The mistake they make is that they see all of the change and all of the new technology, and they get caught up in it and start implementing like mad. They forget that if you don't have a solid strategy, if you don't have something emotionally powerful and distinctive, you’ll never win. Right? What do you think?

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche on experience

"No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access."

And that's what bothers me a bit about books and blogs. They may provide a lot of great questions and some relevant examples, but please don't expect to find the answers. The answers are in the complicated, messy lives of your audience. So log off, get out of your Aeron, and take some of your customers and/or employees to lunch. You just might learn something.

Ralph Waldo Emerson on the purpose of life

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."

The same is true of business and of work. Because after all, it's still life isn't it? And I'm talking about purpose . . . not mission. Not vision. Not money. Purpose. I keep coming back to this critical aspect of one's brand, because it seems to differentiate the best from the rest.

1. Useful - Is you business helpful? Is it enjoyable? Does it improve the lives of your customers and employees? Or are you simply filling the world with more noise and more stuff and lining your pockets in the process? If you're not sure, take a good, long look at the faces of your constituents. Are they smiling and serene? Do they feel good about themselves and their decisions in your presence? No? Then wake up! This is your big shot at making a difference in people's lives and in the world.

2. Honorable - Are you honest, straightforward, trustworthy? Do you play fair? And if not, whom do you think you're fooling? I'll tell you who. You're fooling your kids! You are not doing them a favor by providing for their financial security through your Machiavellian methods. That's simply more b.s. self-talk to make you feel good about yourself. What they need during these chaotic times is a role model to teach them what's truly important in life. So for their sake, get real!

3. Compassionate - If you think compassion is a wishy-washy concept in business, think again. Compassion is the deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it. Isn't that the key to innovation? Developing a deep understanding of the problems people have with their present life situation and developing products, services and business models to eliminate those problems? Of course it is. The days of make and sell are SO over. Sense and respond is the new branding mantra.

Helen Keller on knowledge

"Knowledge is love and light and vision."

If this is true, and I believe that it is, most employees today are clueless. They're getting no love, little vision, and most are totally in the dark. So now what? Curse the darkness? That seems to be what many executives are doing.

Desiderius Erasmus wrote: "Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself." And that light in organizations is a sense a purpose. Meaning. A creative environment. Respect. And love. Remember . . . in the absence of light, darkness prevails.

Shakespeare on work and life

"There are no small parts, only small actors."

Business is like a movie or a play where every person can make or break the performance. Picture yourself lost in the stirring production of a Broadway musical when suddenly one of the bit part performers (tongue planted firmly in cheek) slips totally out of character.

You can't believe your eyes and ears. You slowly shake your head in disgust. You readjust your position in your seat. You begin to feel uncomfortably warm. What has happened? You've suddenly been snapped out of your suspension of disbelief. You've lost the feeling of the play . . . of the brand. And you've been quickly transported back to the realm of rationality, where $340 for two tickets was a huge extravagance and a bad decision.

The same thing happens with your audience, albeit on a different scale. When one of your customers is treated poorly (this is subjective, remember), they begin to wonder whether your rates are too high and whether their decision to select you was a poor one.

John Bradshaw on Zen

"Children are natural Zen masters; their world is brand new in each and every moment."

Which reminds me of a great Zen maxim: "Great Doubt: great awakening. Little Doubt: little awakening. No Doubt: no awakening."

What's this have to do with business today? Everything. Because societal (and technological) change drive business change and vice versa. If you don't have GREAT doubt that your present business approach is wanting, then you are slowly - but surely - going to sleep. Just like KMart, Vlasic, Chiquita, Sunbeam, Owens Corning, Bethlehem Steel, TWA, Polaroid, FAO Schwarz, Excide, US Airways, et. al.

Wake up! Building a great business - a great brand - is like producing a great film. It must fit the evolving spirit of the times. The old ways of static brand building through top of mind awareness are DEAD. You can advertise the hell out of a new movie, but if it stinks it will never provide a decent return. Today, like great actors and producers, you're only as good as your latest work. Your brand is nothing more than the background presence behind your series of new innovations. Unfortunately, good enough is no longer good enough!

That being said (and believed), what the heck were these people thinking?  $1.27 million for a slogan and tagline?

Mae West on performance

"An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises."

A brand is NOT a promise. It's a performance, which then creates an expectation. So let's stop all of the brand ranting and get down to brass tacks. Your job is to decide precisely what kind of performance your audience is willing to pay a premium for, go out of their way for, and/or recommend to their friends, and then get on with orchestrating and refining that performance.