January 10, 2011 by Uwe Hook
Generally, I record my book reviews on Goodreads but this book by Tony Schwartz was so close to the core mission of BatesHook that I wanted to share it with a wier audience.
The basic premise of the book is: “The furious activity to accomplish more with less exacts a series of silent costs: less capacity for focused attention, less time for any given task, and less opportunity to think reflectively and long term.”
Below are a few of the big ideas that resonated with me:
” Rather than trying to get more out of people, organizations are better served by investing more in them and meeting their multidimensional needs in order to fuel greater engagement and more sustainable high performance.”
“We think of leaders as “chief energy officers.” The core challenge for leaders is to recruit, mobilize, inspire, focus, and regularly refuel the energy of those they lead.”
“Our core emotional need is to feel secure – to be valued and appreciated. The more we feel our value is at risk, the more energy we spend defending it and the less energy we have available to create value.”
“When we default reactively to telling negative stories, we almost invariably assign ourselves the role of victim. It feels better not to blame ourselves for disappointments, but the victim role undermines our power to influence our circumstances. The alternative is to intentionally look for where our responsibility lies in any given situation – and then take remedial action on any part of it that we’re in a position to influence.”
“The key capacities of the right hemisphere – creative and big-picture thinking, openness to learning, and empathy – are a largely untapped source of competitive advantage, both for individuals and for organizations.”
“Deeply held values define the person you aspire to be. They’re what we’re rooted in and what we stand for – an internal compass that helps us navigate the storms and the choices we all inevitably face.”
“There’s a deep disconnect between what many companies say they stand for and what they actually do. This disconnect takes a toll on employee engagement, on productivity, and ultimately on organizational success.”
“A new way of working ultimately requires an evolutionary shift in the center of gravity of our lives – from “me” to “us”.
This is a mature book, deeply rooted in research and real-life examples. It’s for anyone that feels that we’re in the middle of a transformative revolution and doesn’t have an internal blueprint how to work and live in/with this new reality. The content is not limited to workplace issues, it deals with the much bigger issue of becoming a better person and leading a fulfilling life.
Highly recommended.
Category: Uncategorized
Tags: chief energy officer, Collaboration, Corporate Strategies, engagement, fulfilled life, goodreads, Human Business Design, Organizations, Performance, right hemisphere, Stakeholder Contribution, Stakeholder Satisfaction, Stakeholder Value, tony schwartz
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December 12, 2010 by Uwe Hook
I love going to my kid’s school.
I feel very jealous every time I walk into their premises.
I see a few kids huddled around a table, working, co-creating, collaborating, exploring, changing the world.
They have circle time. Everybody shares, no egos, no titles, just being themselves.
Each day they start out with a blank slate. No history, no legacy, just the present.
All the tools they need (Paper, crayons, glue, scissors) are waiting for them. Ready to change everything.
Books and books and books ready for them to read, absorb and mash-up in their innocent minds.
And, when they have recess play time: It’s on. They just play. Because that’s what they are supposed to do.
When are we going to play?
Category: Uncategorized
Tags: change the world, Co-Creation, Collaboration, Kids, Stakeholder Contribution, Stakeholder Satisfaction
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November 19, 2010 by Uwe Hook
(I liked this image, no connection to content overall…still like the picture, though)
In a world of gazillion ways to connect with people, innovative tools emerging each and every day and advertising budgets that would make James Cameron smile, why can’t we make advertising fascinating, interesting and engaging?
Because we rather craft a lie than tell the truth.
The job of advertising is to change the perception of a brand and, ultimately, change behavior. In the age of political correctness, we tend to think that crafting a good lie is really all we can do. The car is under-powered? Let’s come up with new metrics that hide that fact. The product is ugly? Group beautiful people around it. Hiding from facts and misrepresenting the truth has become a common practice in the marketing world. Where have the days gone when Avis confronted the fact to be #2 in the category with “We try harder” or when Volkswagen proclaimed “Think Small”?
While it seems so easy to craft beautiful lies, it has become almost impossible to change people’s perception because of those lies. Have you ever changed the behavior of a cynic with lies? They expect lies, nothing else. Just like the people we advertise to expect nothing but lies and crafted half-truths from us.
Political correctness as a societal malady has brought us to a point where telling the truth is the most impactful communication form. Just should try it. It works.
Category: Uncategorized
Tags: Advertising, brand perception, Co-Creation, Collaboration, Political correctness, social media, Stakeholder Contribution
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November 17, 2010 by Uwe Hook
This post was first published on Jack Myers’ MediaBizBloggers site.
Last week’s Monaco Media Forum with the theme “Mobilization” was a fascinating event filled with superstars of the media, advertising, VC and emerging technologies world. As usual with conferences of this magnitude, the most insightful conversations took place outside of the main event center.
It is pretty apparent that the advertising/media industry continues to optimize ways delivering relevant messages to people: Data warehouses, behavioral targeting, and contextual targeting – you name it. While the powerhouses of that industry shared the main stage, emerging technology providers and VC’s are starting to build new tools that focus more on the intent of people.
Advertising faces a race to the bottom: studies have shown that the least desirable customers click on ads and paying people specifically to look at advertising is likely to catch lower income people with time on their hands – not a good option for marketers. Sure, we’re getting better at delivering relevant messages to people but the success rates of our marketing efforts are fairly low and the privacy questions comes up more often. Which leads us to the question: Where are we going from here?
The Intention Economy
A more effective way of engaging with people is to build tools that engage both parties (customers and vendors) in ways that work for both. While CRM systems are very one-sided in their benefits, ask vendors to bear the burden of the whole engagement and don’t allow customers to engage on their own terms, VRM systems (Vendor Relationship Management) help customers to be equipped with tools that transform them from followers in the marketplace to leaders. Let me give you an example:
Location-based apps are the big craze in the emerging media world right now. I visit a place, check-in and the marketing tactic is to receive special offers from the place itself or competitors. The VRM idea would be different: It’s noon and I plan on going to lunch in 10 minutes. I declare my intent to restaurants within a specific radius, even specifying my budget and the size of my party. Restaurants have now the opportunity to engage with me during the next 10 minutes to send me specific offers, based on my intent. Clearly, brands have a real captive audience for a limited amount of time and don’t need to waste any advertising inventory with guesswork.
VRM used to be an intellectual framework, nothing more. The Monaco Media Forum convinced me that entrepreneurs are starting to buy into this concept and building the necessary tools to bring VRM to life. I saw apps and sites that are based on the VRM model, and I’m convinced that the end of data collection for advertisers (Foursquare, Facebook) is near. The future is bright and the future is based on intent. |
Category: Uncategorized
Tags: Advertising, attention economy, behavioral targeting, emerging technologies, intention economy, media, mobiliztion, monaco media forum, Stakeholder Contribution, Stakeholder Satisfaction, vc, VRM
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November 15, 2010 by Uwe Hook
Brands often consider creating communities on their site or social platforms. It sounds so appealing: You create a community and now you have an easily accessible group of people that you can engage and converse with.
The problem is: You can’t create communities
Think about your local community. It wasn’t created by plopping down a Starbucks, Target or a local snack shack and then hoping for people to show up. Communities are places where like-minded people can come together. That’s why you have art communities, food communities, religious communities – you name it. And that’s the reason why certain stores and brands don’t work in your community because they don’t understand the mindset of your local world.
In the digital space, brands often consider communities as a place to be worshipped by people. Instead, online communities are places where like-minded people hang out and, if you’re really lucky and doing a great job managing the community, where people can interact with brands and tell them how to do a better job delivering their product/service. At the minimum, brands need to help communities do what they want to do. Brands need to give people something concrete to gather around for. You have to kill your corporate hubris and believe that participants in your community can actually improve your product/service. Foster discourse and an open exchange of ideas.
Tap into the need of people to be heard: People have transformed from passive consumers to active collaborators and co-creators of the products and services they produce. These principles help you tap into the power of communities by developing a foundation of trust, motivating people to become more active participants and providing access to peer group knowledge and skills. It requires a lot of work and community management to tap into the power of communities. You don’t create communities, you merely help them get things done. On their terms. Based on their needs. Not yours.
Category: Uncategorized
Tags: Co-Creation, Collaboration, communities, community, motivation, peer group knowledge, social platforms, Stakeholder Contribution, Stakeholder Satisfaction, Stakeholder Value, trust
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