Chapter Ten
Who Are You?
There are plenty of books that skillfully address specific business subjects, such as organizational behavior, finance, marketing, leadership, entrepreneurship, technology and operations management, among other critical disciplines. Think Like a Futurist doesn't add yet another category to the pile; rather it provides a framework for strategy and innovation that applies to all business functions.
There is one business discipline that directly relates to thinking like a futurist—brand strategy, in that its chief concern is to answer “Who are you?” In fact, a ZoD that is solely focused on defining who you are is, essentially, a branding exercise, which is precisely what this chapter presents.
The field of brand strategy manufactures jargon like no other. This is largely because “brand” and branding methods defy precise definition. The result is a jumble of terms that mean something to people who make them up, but communicate very little to anyone else: brand promise, brand position, brand personality, brand equity, brand story, and brand image.
The struggle to define “brand” in language arises from the fact that the true vocabulary of branding is evocative, not literal. What communicates “brand” are inarticulate, squishy things, such as image, symbol, metaphor, archetype, memory, and sensation. Its syntax is formed in the relationship of these things to one another, in a web of association that confers meaning. The process of defining a brand is sometimes referred to as finding its North Star, its essence, or its purpose. For me, a brand is simply who you are.
Before you can articulate who you are in a spoken, objective language, you have to first distinguish it in its inarticulate, subjective form. Only then can you know how to translate it back into the objective vocabulary of written word, design, packaging, brand experience, and the whole assortment of forms that fit under the “Brand” headline.
Yet who you are is more than a brand. Knowing who you are also informs what your products and services should be, what business model makes sense, and, as important, what practices, standards, and activities don't reflect you. It is this knowing that will fortify you when, at some point or another, you have to go against the flow of industry standards and practices or, for instance, when you're evaluating the R3OI of a bold innovation project. To get at the subjective material that is true to who you are, you have to go to an exotic location: the right brain.
In this chapter, we take a deep dive into the right side of the brain, to mine meaning, identity, metaphors, dreams—all the juicy subjective material related to the “Who are you?” question. To guide you through it, I share the story of Karl Benson and Marie Dwyer of Cooks of Crocus Hill, who, by moving through the left brain–right brain–left brain (L-R-L) exercises, arrived at a clearly articulated answer to the question, “Who is Cooks of Crocus Hill?”
When I first encountered Karl and Marie several years ago, they were at a turning point in their business. Karl was the general manager of Cooks of Crocus Hill, a high-end kitchen shop and cooking school with two stores in the Minneapolis area and a loyal, enthusiastic local clientele. Marie was the director of marketing, the designer behind the company's personal flair, and Karl was negotiating a deal with Marshall Fields.1 Attracted to the Cooks spirit, the Field's wanted Karl and Marie to develop a line of branded cooking tools and design a demonstration kitchen to anchor the kitchen department in every store. Karl and Marie would work with the Marshall Field's Culinary Council, a group of celebrity chefs who had an association with the Field's, to create in-store experiences. Cooks of Crocus Hill was to serve as curator, infusing its sense of style into the Marshall Field's brand in all things related to cooking. This was a big opportunity.
Marshall Field's wanted to capture the Cooks magic: a carefully curated store has a soul, and is both inspirational and aspirational. The challenge that Karl and Marie faced was to capture their Cook's personal feel and replicate it across Marshall Field's stores—without becoming mass-market.
To do that, Karl and Marie had to deconstruct what made the Cooks experience distinctive, to evaluate the essence of “What's at work when it's working?” Karl came to me to inquire about a ZoD program a colleague and I offered in Minneapolis called Brand Theater Workshop. Over the course of several days, participants from several small businesses, each in a different industry, joined together to go through the ZoD steps in order to gain insight into their companies' identities and futures. Karl was immediately excited about the prospect. But Marie, who had taken numerous branding and marketing classes and seminars, was initially concerned that the ZoD workshop would be a waste of precious time. “Not another branding workshop!” she complained. But Karl convinced her that this one would be different—and it was.
Define
When clients engage me to design innovation programs, they might say something like, “We want to build competencies for innovation and design thinking.” Huh?
Connecting business jargon, like “competencies,” to trendy terms such as “innovation” and “design thinking” is very common. Unfortunately, it does little to communicate what the group really needs. Defining those needs in terms that are specific to the culture and aspirations of the organization is where the ZoD process begins, typically in a workshop setting.
The advantage of the workshop format is that it requires you to step away from the regular pressures and patterns of daily life. This clears the way for new inputs and ideas, and allows you to take an idea and think it all the way through. No emails, no phone calls, no deadlines or emergency meetings.
Shifting focus takes some time and encouragement. Generally, when people enter a workshop, they are preoccupied with the meeting they still need to schedule, emails to respond to, arranging children's after-school activities, errands—all the responsibilities, large and small, that tug at one's attention. My experience has taught me not to fight the preoccupation but, instead, to use it as the starting point in the Define process.
Exercise 1: The “Do” List. When people arrive at a workshop, having taken time away from their busy lives, their brains are swirling with an exhausting list of “shoulds” that distracts them from being fully present. For the brain to switch gears, you have to give it a chance to discharge everything that is taking up attention, and put it in a safe place for later. I like to do this by having participants create a “Do” list of all the things they need to do—after the workshop. It remains an open, working list for the duration of the ZoD, at the end of which we return to add, subtract, and prioritize action items.
The first pass at Do items includes whatever's on your mind. Marie's list included design of third store, signage, private label program, and how to market Marshall Field's. The second pass is to make a list of everything you do—your actual activities—at work. The third pass at the Do list adds in all the functions that exist in your organization.
This list may feel overwhelming to generate, but it's incredibly useful when you revisit it at the end of the workshop to evaluate whether what you're actually doing is aligned with who you are and where you're going. It's one of the best ways to assess whether your time and talent are being used in a way that serves you or whether, instead, you've been engaged in little more than busywork. Any goal, activity, or function that doesn't serve who you are and where you're going should be eliminated. And if any goals, activities, or functions needed to fulfill these aims are missing, they should be added.
Define: Objectives
Once participants have cleared their heads, it's time to look at what they hope to achieve in the workshop. We ask them to think about what they want to walk out the door feeling, knowing, and doing.
Exercise 2: ZoD Objectives. In this exercise, participants wrote down what they hoped to get out of the workshop, using language that was as plain and truthful as possible, whether their goals seemed smart, savvy, self-serving, self-aggrandizing, silly, or sophomoric. There was no judgment.
On the first page of her notebook, Marie wrote her two objectives:
Did I mention that Karl and Marie are also husband and wife? Because I'm a futurist, not a marriage counselor, I let Marie's first goal go by with a laugh; we returned to the second one—and added to the list—over the course of the workshop as a part of Marie's conversation with herself about process and goals.
Define: Subject of Investigation
This step is extremely important. If you want to design an innovation program, for instance, you'll have to define what exactly you mean by “innovation.” With Cooks of Crocus Hill, of course, the subject of investigation was brand, so we challenged them to define what “brand” means to them.
Exercise 3: What Is a Brand? In this exercise, participants paid attention to word choice, looking for words that most accurately reflect their intentions. Armed with Sharpie markers, each participant approached his or her own big sheet of paper on the wall and answered, in one or two sentences, “What is a brand?” From Marie's sheet:
Next, participants broke into teams and presented their definitions to one another. As a team, they discussed and agreed on wording that they felt is the best definition of a brand. A spokesperson for each group presented the team definition to the larger group. Each participant wrote down the words and phrases that resonated for him or her.
Notice the progression in exercises from analytical to associative thinking. One of the reasons we began the workshop by creating a Do list was to acknowledge that our brains have a hard time switching gears from left-brain mode to right-brain mode. It's much like having to exercise a puppy before you'll get her attention for any kind of training. You've got to drain all the background chatter (left brain) before you can move the brain into a receptive state for Pour and Stir activities (right brain).
After the group discussed the definition of a brand, they dug in a bit deeper to discuss the function of a brand. Given that a brand is a representation of who you are, your very essence, it's useful to map out which brand elements are right-brain phenomena and which are left-brain representations. In this way, the excavation and articulation of who you are follows the L-R-L process. Marie wrote:
The progression of exercises continued in this way, slowly cajoling the brain to shift from left-brain mode to right-brain association. Taking time to establish left-brain guideposts not only helped the brain let go but also generated material that would be continually refined through the process, allowing participants to reenter the objective, left-brain world with language that matched the right-brain experience.
Exercise 4: Statement of Purpose. This was the first exercise that attempted to get at the core material of who you are—a subjective, right-brain reality—and represent it through the objectifying, left-brain expression of language. The statement of purpose was the through-line for the workshop, established here first, uncovered later through Phase II: Discover, and rearticulated in Phase III: Distill. Right away, people experienced just how awkward and imprecise language can feel. Instead of coming up with a statement of purpose that was anthemic, that would pull people to their feet and to the future they're creating, participants usually spouted some version of “We exist to . . . help people everywhere . . . doing great things . . .” Yada yada yada. This kind of Miss America talk does little to truly rouse the spirit or inspire faith in your vision. The challenging nature of this exercise was evident in Karl's and Marie's earliest stabs at a statement of purpose:
Marie:
Karl:
Notice that Marie's response related more to her objective, what she wanted for the Cooks brand, but did not address purpose. It's no surprise, really. When confronted with a question for which the answer is unknown, our brains will default to the next best answer. Karl struggled to come up with an answer, too—so much so that he copied Marie's!
That these responses came from two articulate, engaged ambassadors for the brand, who had a strong but still inchoate sense of what made their business special, underscores the difficulty in making the transition between the right-brain feeling of what makes Cooks of Crocus Hill tick, and the left-brain objectification of that feeling. In order to get past this inherent difficulty, we went back to making lists, by category.
Exercise 5: Like That! Prompts. This exercise primed the Like that! reflex by asking participants to begin lists including people, places, ideas, models, experiences, atmospheres, objects, environments, and styles that, for any reason, inspired a Like that! response. They didn't have to know why something rang their bells (remember that when in Discover mode, we want to minimize left-brain activity), but were directed to simply record that something about it resonated with them as it relates to the question “Who are you?” We suggested that they note which occurrences and occasions prompted the Like that! response in the following categories.
Brands. Which brands inspire you—for any reason? We suggested that participants list the iconic brands (Apple, Starbucks, Google, and the like) that spoke to them. Then we told them to think about brands they were loyal to or that always grabbed their attention; brands within their industry or not; local businesses that had “done it right,” that were self-assured and consistent; brands that had some kind of magnetic charm; even dead-and-gone brands. They could choose a brand for its image and marketing; for the way it does business; for its leadership, culture, and systems; for the way it bounced back from adversity; for how it conducts itself in the world. Again, the only criterion was that it resonated with them.
Organizations. The category of organizations is far more expansive than the identity-centric definition of a brand and is defined by any unit of cooperation that is governed by rules and regulations. We posited that organizations can be businesses, but they can also be community coalitions, think tanks, public and private institutions (Congress, libraries, schools, foundations, civil engineers, the World Economic Forum, G20, charities, and the like). Perhaps it was a neighborhood dog-walking group, a family a participant admired, or a land trust. Whatever organized groups landed on a participant's brain and heart and evoked a Like that! response belonged on this list.
Experiences. We asked participants to think about memorable environments they had been in or exchanges they had had with people. We were after experiences that made an impression, whether they made participants look twice, made them laugh, made them mad, or made them think.
Thinking about their question, they scanned their memory for childhood impressions; restaurant experiences; trips; parties; nature walks; art; meaningful conversations; an exchange with a customer service representative; a home, business, retail, museum, or institutional environment; a favorite scene from a movie; a stirring speech; a time they conquered a fear or achieved a goal; a turning point . . .
People. Participants created a list of their personal heroes, living or dead, whether they know them directly or admired them from afar. We asked them to consider people who represented the qualities that they believed satisfied their Best Questions, people who had impressed them with their thinking, attitude, creativity, ease, way with people, resilience, achievement, heroism (no matter how small or personal), leadership, tenacity, generosity, humor, humility . . .
Using the names on the list, we asked participants to ask themselves “What would do?” with regard to their situation, issue, or question. The imagined responses of their heroes opened up new perspectives on the matter.
As it turned out, Marie didn't need the Like that! prompts I've listed here to spark her thinking, because her list poured out easily:
Exercise 6: Statement of Purpose, Take Two. Following the Like that! listing exercise, we took time to take another pass at finding a meaningful vocabulary to express each participant's purpose. We asked participants to write about purpose, continuously, for three minutes. The continuous nature of the writing minimizes the judgmental, censorial activity of the left brain, and favored the right-brain capacities for association and surprise. By persevering and producing words for a full three minutes, participants found themselves accessing all kinds of spontaneous thoughts that might otherwise have been shut down.
Here is an excerpt from Marie:
Food knowledge is expressed and shared love. Not only to eat but see, taste, hear, and exchange all food experiences through chefs, writers, knowledgeable friends, students and customers. To future engage people with an interest in food. To encourage people who don't have an interest in food. Everyone eats. Food is at the heart/soul of all of us. We want to share in others' food pleasures.
At the end of the three minutes, we asked everyone to review what they had written, in all its nonsensical glory, and highlight any words, phrases, and ideas that made them feel (guess what?) “Like that!”
Exercise 7: Values, Attributes, and Aspirations. As the next to last step in the Define phase, participants took an inventory of values, attributes, and aspirations for their brand.
Brand values. Identifying values is a tricky business, because people tend to want to pile them on without having distinguished which values really define them. Integrity—who doesn't want that? Passion—oh yeah, me, too! Authenticity—why, that's the most important value of all! Words, words, words. That's the problem: they become so inflated, and so common, that they become meaningless.
In ZoD workshop, I always approach this challenge by suggesting that participants can start to identify their core values by noting what upsets them. When something happens that you just can't abide and your anger rises in protest, it's because the offending action constitutes a violation of your core values.
Karl, who had deferred to Marie on many of the previous exercises and lists, jumped at this question. What upset him? Williams-Sonoma. Sur La Table. All the usual national chains and a few other local competitors to boot. As he said, “They're all about products. It's like a live catalogue of stuff. We're a cooking school with a store attached. There's nothing we have that isn't used in our kitchen by our chefs and in our home by me and Marie. They're car salesmen. We're cooks.”
Again, what you don't like is often obvious, and it helps define what you do like—and who you are. Before long, Karl and Marie had made a long list of values, which, on closer inspection, was repetitive. Their next step was to group values that were more or less representing the same thing:
- Passion, curiosity, energy, engagement
- Authenticity, legitimacy
- Warmth, hospitality, compassion
This assortment was later distilled down to passion, legitimacy, expertise, and sharing.
Brand attributes. We asked participants to consider: What are the characteristics of your brand? What adjectives would you use to describe your brand? What would others say? The list of brand attributes for Cooks of Crocus Hill reflected its ambience and character, which Karl and Marie described as
- Eclectic
- Warm
- Educational
- Interactive
Brand aspirations. We continued, asking, What activities and interests inspire you and put you “in the zone”? What draws you in, commands your attention, and makes you lose track of all time? The Cooks list included
- Travel
- Food experiences
- Design
Later, these brand aspirations were related to their statement of purpose as “build relationships” and “connect people through food.”
Exercise 8: Review of Brand Assets. To conclude Phase I: Define, participants rounded up the materials they had gathered thus far—collectively, their brand assets: their definition of a brand; statement of purpose; values, attributes, and aspirations; existing mission (for Cooks, “Share discoveries of food”), tagline (“We're a cooking school with a store attached”), and logo. We asked them to scan the items in their brand asset collection for both notable congruence and contradiction in theme, tone, or content.
One of the best ways to determine whether your objective expression is matching your subjective reality is to ask for feedback. For that reason, we asked participants to repeat the Review of Brand Assets exercise with a partner, giving an outsider the opportunity to give a thumbs-up where he or she heard congruence, and a thumbs-down for contradiction.
Discover
In the Define part of the ZoD process, we ask participants to go through a series of structured exercises that act, in essence, as that inner four-year-old I spoke of in Chapter Seven, poking and prodding the adult brain to challenge assumptions and define identity at the most basic, specific level in order to help answer the question “Who are you?” A goal of Discover is to use what we learn about ourselves in Define as we delve into more subconscious territory. To that end, I find it enormously useful to borrow from the work of psychoanalyst Carl Jung and have clients acquaint themselves with his twelve archetypes.
In general, an archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior. Most of you will recognize them as the building blocks of myths and stories: the Hero, the Sage, the Caregiver, the Outlaw, the Lover, and so on. According to Jung, archetypes “form a dynamic substratum common to all humanity, upon the foundation of which each individual builds his own experience of life, developing a unique array of psychological characteristics.”3 The beauty of the archetype is that it translates the unique personality, motivation, and story of any individual—say, a corporate founder or CEO—into a universal story of purpose, pursuit, and accomplishment. In other words, each of us has a mountain to climb in our lives, and the unique circumstances and philosophy that influence how we pull ourselves to greater heights fall into one of twelve types of climbing strategies. By identifying your strategy—how you're going to get to the top, what you use to get there, and what you expect to find—you also become identified with others who see the challenge as you do. As Karl and Marie discovered, this is the root of a brand and what accounts for the “That's me!” response your brand inspires in customers who relate to your archetype.
As we began our Discover phase, we asked the group to look at a table, shown in Table 10.1, that lists Jung's archetypes and the values and brands associated with each. We asked them to consider the question “Who do you think you are?” and open themselves up to an Aha! insight or two. When beginning this self-identification process, it is vitally important to relate to the archetypes as expressions of who you are, not what you do. We often confuse doing with being, especially in the business world, yet the real point of differentiation is in your basic orientation in the world, a representation of your point of view and drives.
Source: Adapted from Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson, The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001).
| Archetype | Values | Brand |
| Innocent | Faith, wonder, purity | Disney, Ivory, Nature's Gate, Hello Kitty, Aveda |
| Caregiver | Compassion, generosity, philanthropy, trust | AT&T, Campbell's, Milk of Magnesia, Volvo, Allstate |
| Ruler | Responsibility, efficiency, organization, accomplishment, luxury | The Sharper Image, Lexus, American Express, Ralph Lauren, Wall Street Journal |
| Jester | Fun, pleasure, entertainment | Ben & Jerry's, Motley Fool, The Daily Show, Virgin |
| Regular Guy or Gal | Equality, dignity, community, reliability, common sense, wholesomeness | People, Gap, Saturn, George W. Bush, Walmart |
| Lover | Love, beauty, sexuality, femininity/masculinity | Guess, Hallmark, Jaguar, Victoria's Secret, Versace |
| Hero | Courage, justice, discipline, achievement | Nike, “Livestrong,” Geek Squad, FDNY |
| Outlaw | Revolution, nonconformity, disruption, catharsis | Harley-Davidson, MTV, Fox, Dirty Girl, Madonna, Jack Daniels, Tabasco |
| Magician | Transformation, spirituality, self-determination | MasterCard, Calgon, Botox, Dannon, Red Bull |
| Creator | Innovation, self-expression | Martha Stewart, Apple, Movado, Target |
| Explorer | Authenticity, adventure, individualism | Starbuck's, Amazon, Levi's, Wells Fargo |
| Sage | Wisdom, education, truth, expertise | CNN, Joseph Campbell, Oprah, MIT, New York Times |
My experience has been that because none of us is one-dimensional, identifying a primary and a secondary archetype feels more truthful and adds depth to the next phase of work: sketching out story, character, and, again, purpose. So we asked the participants to keep in mind the material they had gathered in Define (brand definition; statement of purpose; values, attributes, and aspirations; and current mission, tagline, and logo) to help articulate their sense of self, and then to select two of the twelve archetypes that best described them and their brand.
If you're Virgin, for instance, the basic orientation is one of boldly charting virgin territories. This is Virgin's take on everything it does, regardless of industry, and what allows the brand to be instantly recognizable when it does announce itself in another new business. (Virgin now has more than two hundred businesses.) The Virgin personality, however, is irreverent; it loves to turn convention on its head with a wink and a nudge. So, which archetype is Virgin? Its primary archetype, the Explorer, reflects its basic orientation or purpose, while its secondary archetype, the Jester, reflects its jaunty personality.
Archetypes are useful because they are the foundational blocks of myths and stories. Each type is out to accomplish something in the world and thus automatically suggests a story structure. As participants started to think about the story that emerged from their primary and secondary archetypes, we asked them to consider the following:
A story is simply a conflict in need of a resolution. It gives the actor in the story (you) purpose and direction. How you discover and deliver the resolution is your story. Here is another chance to approach the core of the “Who are you?” question: your primary and secondary archetypes help locate the problem and solution in your story, such that you further define who you are. What is the conflict? What is the resolution? Is the protagonist your customer, or someone else?
As we told the group members: You are the protagonist in this story. What is your purpose?
They started by looking at their own brand history. What was their founder's story? Businesspeople are motivated to start companies by a combination of three factors: (1) they see an unmet need; (2) they're excited by what's possible; and (3) they see an opportunity for taking action. The founder's back story is a demonstration of his or her purpose—an archetypal story.
At the time that Karl and Marie were taking the ZoD brand workshop, Martha Kaemmer, the founder of Cooks of Crocus Hill, was still an active owner and board member of the business. She'd begun the business in 1973 (with her sister, who left a year later) with a desire to “turn people on” to new ideas about, and experiences with, cooking. At the heart of her vision and business model was a cooking school. “What better way,” she thought, “to transform people's relationship to food than through education?” Education had always been at the heart of Cooks' purpose.
Martha was delighted to have Karl and Marie working with her. Both brought bright energy and passion for the Cooks mission. Karl had entrepreneurial fire and loved people, and Marie had given the Cooks experience a magical combination of down-to-earth soul and worldly sophistication. The three of them formed a full circle of gratitude: Karl and Marie for what Martha had created, and Martha for the energy and leadership Karl and Marie brought to making Cooks all it could be.
We spent some time in the workshop reviewing Jung's twelve archetypes (referencing the work done by Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson in their book, The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes). People generally gravitate to three or four choices, but then have to work through the particular distinctions of each archetype to determine the best fit. We warned participants not to get confused by brand image or style; the task was to distinguish motivation, conflict, and resolution in the founder's story, determine to what extent that aligned with their business's current definition of purpose and vision, and then choose the archetype that was the best fit.
For Cooks of Crocus Hill, Martha's story revealed elements of the Creator (the act of creation and expression is central to the Cooks point of view), Explorer (desire to introduce new experiences), Sage (learning as the vehicle for full individuation), and Caregiver (the Cooks spirit of family) archetypes. Arguments were made for each, but the ones that really rang true were Creator (primary), for the sense of the kitchen as a playground, and Sage (secondary), for Cooks' view that, in everything it does—from product selection to consulting and cooking classes—education is its core offering.
Pour and Stir
Identifying their two Jungian archetypes as Creator and Sage brought Karl and Marie one step closer to answering the question “Who are you?” in their quest for a statement of purpose.
In order to engage with purpose at an even deeper level, we presented the group with a Sensory Circuit activity. The senses connect to your expression of self by lighting up many of the brain circuits at once. Direct sensory stimulation draws from associated fields of memory, emotion, context, imagination, and all the wondrous nuances that are unique to the experience; participants selected the elements that captured their own Je ne sais quoi. In this particular workshop, the Sensory Circuit included the following stations:
- For atmosphere, narrative, character, visual worlds: the movie The Pillow Book on a DVD player with headphones
- For evocative imagery: Art in America magazines and art books
- For phrases and language: literature and poetry
- For environments and design aesthetic: lifestyle and design magazines
- For tone: five iPod Nanos, each with a playlist from a different musical genre
- For texture: stress balls, soft socks, goo toys, Play-Doh, steel rocks, pine cones, a 3D pin impression pad, a cat drinking fountain full of cool water
There are endless ways to conceive of these sensory stations. I've set them up with scents, with flavors, and with flowers, and could imagine creating others such as video games; textures (cool, heat, prickly, pressure, tickly . . .); ambient sounds (café conversation, river, birds, city life, kitchen noises, babies, a sporting event, a wedding . . .); colors; physical activities (jump rope, hopscotch, balance balls, stretches, weights . . .); and so on.
The idea behind the Sensory Circuit is to notice what grabs you viscerally, without judgment or reason, just the pure connection or revulsion. Karl and Marie's group spent three minutes at each station. In that time, participants simply recorded, in their notebooks, anything to which they had a strong reaction. The three-minute time limit kept things moving and kept people from getting stuck in their heads, but still allowed enough time for them to play with a number of different stimuli at each station. A timer went off after three minutes. Another minute was given to complete any thoughts or reflections, then thirty seconds to switch to the next station.
Marie's notes reflected an interesting collection of sensory impressions, including these:
- About a landscape architecture magazine: “Way too many ads for bad commercial furniture. I hate that. Maybe it's too ‘to the trade’ for my tastes.” But she liked an old photo of the botanical gardens at Penn State.
- From watching a clip of The Pillow Book: Marie liked the brushstrokes on skin (calligraphy), a life's story told on the body, candlelight for love and art, and the typography in the credits.
- From Surface magazine: “Ads good, like Wallpaper—the magazine.” She found it stylish, but added, “I am not sure I like blown glass.” She made notes about the public steps of a building she liked and the return of plastic as a popular material, and then commented, “this is way more interesting than the last architecture magazine I looked at.”
- About a poem by Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic, Marie described the setting on the page and its effect on her: “Good tapestry on cover. Makes me think of worn/old/familiar. I am happy this is poetry. This helps.” Then she captured a few lines she responded to: “Be empty of worrying,” and “More outside the temple/ of-from thinking.”
- From Art in America: “I am so glad I picked this up. Yellow is good. I want to paint. Really paint with time and technique and abandon. Cool type on page 5. So mind-freezing. My dad always thought Kim Novak was hot. 1963 Goldilocks in London. Visual imagery is good for my head. Remember our guide in Barcelona?”
Having made it through the entire Sensory Circuit, participants were asked to write down what they noticed about their responses, any themes that emerged, and what the process felt like. Marie wrote, “Time was short. I think way too much. Art, architecture. Started with many ‘don't likes’ but gradually moved to things I did like.”
Marie's notes don't mean much to anyone other than Marie. But what we get from it as readers is a front-row seat to right-brain associative thinking in action. Marie also became aware of this process, learning about what attracts her, what repels her, and why.
This is precisely what is happening for your customers when they scan the shelf of available products (literally or figuratively). Their right brains are pinging with reactions—attraction, repulsion—weaving a web of memories and associations that give your product meaning. A brand's role is to focus those associations toward a particular meaning, which is why Jungian archetypes are so useful. Karl and Marie had determined that a Creator-Sage archetype combination was the right fit for them. Their job now was to make sure that there was alignment among the working versions of their statement, purpose, and chosen archetypes, and the material they collected in the sensory circuit.
The last step in the Sensory Circuit exercise did just that. Participants were given what we call a Discoveries Worksheet, with the working version of their statement of purpose written across its top, along with their primary and secondary archetypes. They were asked to go through the material they'd collected in the Sensory Circuit and sort it into four categories: (1) Direct Relevance, (2) Indirect Relevance, (3) None—I Just Like It, and (4) Hated It!!
A side note: when people are working through this process for larger organizations and brands, their most common question is “Am I to go through these exercises representing myself or representing the organization?” The answer is that it's a little bit of both. The “Who are you?” you're trying to solve is for the brand; however, each participant should respond to the stimuli in the exercises from his or her personal point of view (with respect to the organization's purpose and archetypes). The goal is to find a subjective expression that relates to the brand's purpose, so playing within one's own pool of associations adds a lot of value and dimension to the collective effort. You will arrive at a consensus on the statement of purpose, archetypes, and brand assets at the end, when you collect and refine the themes that emerged from the group.
At this point in the workshop, we were as deep in the collecting and sorting of subjective Like that!s as we were going to go. The next step was to start using this material to create form, which would finally deliver the answer to “Who are you?”
Play and Make
The ultimate goal of a “Who are you?” ZoD is to align your external expression of who you are with how you internally experience yourself. By creating physical representations—say a collage, an installation, or even a garden setting—of the material you have identified in previous exercises as self-expressive, Play and Make begins the transition from subjective discovery to objective form.
“Who are you?” A mad flurry of cutting and tearing of pages from magazines took over the workshop room. The Sensory Circuit exercise introduced a range of metaphors and experiences that have sensitized workshop participants to the variety of inputs they might consider as they begin to make collages that represent their discoveries so far. This is a relatively quick and painless search, as each exercise has added really rich reference material to their “Who are you?” quest, so that associations and Like that!s now just pop with ease.
Everyone went home with fresh discoveries and materials with which to create a collage or “brand world” to share with the group at our next meeting. It was to be a visual expression of purpose, and participants were invited to consider staging a vignette or creating an environment that people could pass through. The objective of this exercise was to create an experience, such that people could “get” what each participant was about, a feeling of his or her purpose.
When the group met again and it was time for Karl and Marie to share their “brand world,” they entered the space wheeling in a kitchen cart, eager to create their stage. The cart was full of food and cooking utensils and had a hot plate on it. On the wall behind them, they'd hung a collage of a variety of words and images, including the following:
- Kitchen table
- Garlic
- Hot air balloon
- Lion King
- Mother with babe
- Madonna
- Bridges
- Kids
- Tomatoes
- Old desks and kids
- Books
- Steam from a boiling pot
- Chicken soup
- Markets in Stockholm and Barcelona
- Sports car
- Small kitchens
- Creating new from old
- Farmer's market
- Smell of eucalyptus oil
- Unexpected architecture
- Surprise, humor
- Connection, community
- Empty bowls
- Oatmeal
- Sicily
- France
- Sleeping
- Old, overstuffed couches
- Not fancy
- Good lighting
- Glassware
- Spinning dishes
- Nature
- Intimacy
- Farm near Limoux
Karl and Marie treated us to a playful scene that they intended as a quintessential expression of Cooks. They began by showing a clip from Mostly Martha (Bella Martha in its native German), a German romantic comedy about a high-powered, control-freak chef being won over by her relaxed, fun-loving sous-chef. Their relationship forms over food in a rustic kitchen—the environment that Karl and Marie wanted to evoke. As Karl said, food is influenced by the environment in which it's prepared, so a kitchen that delights the senses with natural textures and materials, offers comfort and warmth, and naturally inspires creativity is the manifestation of Cooks' brand identity. Later, when talking in a group discussion about the importance of these attributes, he said, “Cooks is the anticommercial kitchen. We feel no connection to the cavernous, stainless steel pro kitchens that are in so many homes and restaurants, and believe that most people feel the same way. We want the kitchen to be where people share discoveries with food as a natural part of sharing their love and their lives.”
In the background, Marie and Karl played Italian singer Paolo Conte singing “Via Con Mi” from the Mostly Martha soundtrack, lending a fun, European atmosphere in which sensuality and simplicity are celebrated. I found myself smiling, and noticed that people were tapping their feet (kinesthetic play). My colleague was laughing out loud. While Karl turned up the heat on the skillet and heated oil to a sizzle (auditory stimulation) and chopped and sautéed garlic, onions, and mushrooms (olfactory stimulation), Marie handed out to each person unusual cooking utensils she'd taken from the Cooks school (tactile play). The idea of handing someone a tool that could open up a world of new tastes and techniques with food was intended; blending curiosity and intrigue with an invitation was definitely a key part of the experience. They moved through their “Kitchen Ballet”—a well-coordinated sequence that felt like an invitation to dance. They asked each of us to take turns making up how we might use the tool we'd been given (object play). Then Karl prepared and shared delicious scrambled eggs (gustatory stimulation).
The Cooks experience was performed with a great sense of fun and precision, and at the end of it, both Karl and Marie could hardly contain themselves. Karl leaned forward, trying to get a word in, while Marie shook her hands and danced around. They felt that what they had presented was a perfect reflection of what Cooks was all about and kept saying, “That's IT! That's what Cooks is! That's our IT!”
Yes, but what does “it” mean? Patience—we are getting there. Our brand theater-collage exercise was all about making the transition from right-brain subjectivity to left-brain objectivity. It was all about finding the “it,” then translating it into a form for others to experience for themselves. The shift was enhanced by reintegrating language; after all the presentations were given, we asked everyone to offer “bold, daring, generous” feedback to one another with the instruction to simply describe what they saw and felt expressed the brand's
Finally, each presenter was asked to choose the feedback and words that felt essential to who they are. For Karl and Marie, this meant keeping the language that passed this test: For Cooks to be Cooks, what has to be included? The table here shows what they recorded.
Table 10.2 Cooks' Style, Themes, Story, and Activities.
At this point, it was time to work on finding the precise words to express their purpose, words that eventually form a tagline. From this most recent iteration of discoveries—related to style, themes, story, and activities—Karl and Marie started to play with new language. They tried a number of phrases:
And then Marie returned to what she'd written in the continuous writing exercise:
Our purpose is to provide tools and education for people who love food and to cook. To get groovy product into the hands of people who want to experience food at a new level. To provide education surrounding food. To get at the hearts of true food lovers. To share all we know about food and food history. Food knowledge is expressed and shared here. Not only to eat but see, taste, hear, and exchange all food experiences through chefs, writers, knowledgeable friends, providers, students, and customers. To engage people with an interest in food, and encourage people who don't have an interest in food. Everyone eats. Food is at the heart/soul of all of us. We want to share with others in food pleasure.
As you read this, you can feel that her flow shifted. The first sentence was a warm-up, just putting anything on the paper to get the brain moving. By the time Marie hit on “groovy,” you could sense her relating to purpose more personally. After that, her viewpoint shifted to the transformative nature of the Cooks experience, a kind of purpose in action.
Remember the “That's it! That's what Cooks is! That's our it!” declaration Karl made after he and Marie presented their Kitchen Ballet mise-en-scène? Well, with that almost-articulated breakthrough, they were already very close. All the work of Define and Discover up until this point came together as they played with language to express purpose, and, suddenly, they were there:
“Our purpose is to create joy and connection throughfood and food experiences.”
Most often, a statement of purpose lives as a work in progress. As you work with it and grow over time, the word choice generally becomes more specific and more condensed. What matters most is that however your word choice may change, the expression of your purpose remains clear and steady.
Taglines. Taglines are used to relay brand purpose in customer-facing communications.4 They tell people what they'll get, the solution that your brand provides. The following are some examples of good taglines:
| Geek Squad | “Serving the Public, Policing Technology, and Protecting the World”5 |
| FedEx | “The World. On time.” |
| Target | “Expect More. Pay Less.” |
| Sharper Image | “For the person who has everything, we have everything else.” |
| Southwest Airlines | “You are now free to move about the country.” |
| Hebrew National | “We answer to a higher authority.” |
| Club Med | “The antidote for civilization.” |
Taking a cue from these examples, the next step was to condense the statement of purpose to as few words as possible. We suggested that participants play with saying it in five-word phrases, three-word, then two- and one-word phrases. How much meaning could they concentrate into a few words?
The results from Karl and Marie's run at this game included
But the one that captured it all for them, the phrase that made them jump for joy, was a five-word tagline that captured what Cooks was really about:
“Life Happens in the Kitchen.”
Dream and Scheme
At this point, Karl and Marie got to exhale. They had done lots of hard, purposeful work, made an exciting breakthrough, and probably felt like collapsing on a couch. Fortunately, a relaxed attitude worked just fine for the next exercise: dreaming.
The “Who are you?” process naturally lends itself to naming your big “Aha!” From the first Like that! through to the last collage or workshop activity, every input Marie and Karl considered built on the previous one. They had done enough digging, gathering, and then sorting of New material to know that the solution they were looking for was lying right in front of them. It was time to change their focus from broad discovery to careful consolidation of their best insights.
We gave all our participants these instructions:
Step back from all the work you've done and pick out the themes that are consistent. What are they telling you? Next to them, consolidate your list of Awe, Aww, and Aha!s—all the moments, questions, and insights that popped. Edit them down to no more than ten themes and ten insights (there may be far fewer insights, because the individual insights often coalesce into one to three really big ones). What do you see?
Looking at the themes and insights side by side, and with your “Who are you?” or “Where are you going?” question in mind, start to generate ideas. At this point they'll probably be flowing, though if you can't get anything more definite than a general feeling that there's something here (in a relationship between insights and themes), take note, and include it in your final list of ideas.
Choose your top three ideas. Mash them up. What happens if you combine all of them—what's the big idea that results? Now, with full permission to dream, to conceive of a reality that has no bearing on the one you currently inhabit, blow it up.
To blow it up is to consider (with the big idea in mind) what the future would look like if you could have, do, and be anything and everything you can imagine. In the case of a “Who are you?” process, the prompt is to imagine what could be the highest and boldest expression of your purpose. If you cast the world according to your vision, what would that look like? What role would you be playing in that world?
The dream for Cooks was for it to be a portal to joy and connection, delivered through experiences with food. As they were going into the partnership with Marshall Field's, Karl and Marie saw the opportunity to be that portal in the housewares department, which they viewed as a kind of Mecca for inspiration and engagement. The kitchen would be in the center of the space; people who came to the department store to pick up a new pair of boots and a shower curtain would be drawn to gather around a table where a welcoming chef and tantalizing tastes and aromas would spark new journeys; the food, the ingredients, the cooking classes, the cookware were there to foster the creative spark in everyone.
And not just at Marshall Field's. In their dream, people everywhere would grow up with an appreciation for food. Children would be included in food preparation at an early age, and obesity and other lifestyle-related illnesses would disappear. A core belief for Cooks is that people who prepare their own food aren't only healthier but also more present in their lives, more joyful and connected. And so, as part of their dream, Karl and Marie envisioned a world where people came to learn and share in different cultures and to develop creativity; where a sense of generosity and abundance touched all who passed through; where friends and family sit at a Tuscan farm table, sheltered by grapevines and set with fresh milk cheeses, off-the-vine tomatoes, grilled meat seasoned with rosemary and garlic crushed in a mortar and pestle, and wines with a bite of pepper and a hint of berry. The sun sets, candles are lit, and friends share stories and laughter late into the night. All of it is served up on an eclectic mix of plates and glasses collected from friends and travels over the years.
Inspiring people to bring more of that kind of farm-table-in-Tuscany experience into their backyard in Toledo, an alleyway in Toronto, a tailgate picnic in Topeka, or a tiny studio kitchen in Tribeca, and to find health and creativity in the sharing of food, would be the Cooks philosophy and vision made manifest.
Distill
When Karl and Marie began the ZoD process, they had a strongly felt but unarticulated sense of their purpose. Not surprisingly, the vague nature of Cooks' self-identity tripped them up when they thought about their future. They refined their statement of purpose with the left-brain work in Define and the right-brain work of Discover. Creating their tagline was the bridge back into left-brain territory, where all the work of Distill happens.
You will remember that Cooks was in negotiations with Marshall Field's to build out the kitchen department of its flagship store in Chicago, designed around a Cooks Culinary Center. This would be the first of fifteen stores and a branded product line. Part of the work for Marie and Karl in the Distill process was to figure out how to make the essence of their tagline—the essence of Cooks—replicable and scalable, without selling its soul. Yet the big vision for Cooks, as articulated through the ZoD, from the first Do list to the final Dream and Scheme exercises, wasn't just to expand its retail stores but to educate and evangelize for the power of food to build vibrant communities, wherever and however people gather to share meals.
The really big dream for Cooks was to create a successful consulting business. What Cooks does best is create fresh, engaging, personal experiences and environments that inspire people to be in the kitchen. Karl and Marie wanted to sell that expertise to businesses, schools, stores, and restaurants. Wherever people and food were coming together, there was an opportunity.
The Cooks Now-to-Future Portfolio
From their big dream, Karl and Marie composed a Now-to-Future Portfolio made up of the following components:
Short-Term Projects
- A kitchen always has to be at the center of the store.
- Run team-building programs through the school. (Isn't that what we do? Bring people around food to strengthen relationships?)
- Training for Marshall Field's that instills the personal character and care that is Cooks in the on-site teams. (Our success depends on our ability to inspire the same passion for food and connection, with clear design and customer service guidelines.)
- “Use the guy!” was a big note-to-self in Marie's notebook, indicating that the outline of a chef that had historically been used on some marketing materials, but not others, should be modernized and used consistently as a mark of brand identity.
Medium-Term Projects
- Product development (Why wouldn't we apply our curator's eye to a select group of food products, produced in limited editions that bear our name?)
- Trunk shows (We have personal relationships with some of the finest, most elite, family-run cookware manufacturers. We should take a page from the fashion world and host trunk shows, with the “designers” present to demonstrate their wares.)
Long-Term Projects
- Create “LifeRecipe,” a national program that gives people hands-on experience with food, shows them how fun and easy cooking can be, and gives tailored nutritional programs for their individual health concerns. (Wow! Don't know how it would scale, but it's definitely the right idea.)
Once Karl and Marie had broken down their dreams into specific pieces with a basic timeline, it was time to create an actionable game plan, using the basic categories of time, people, and money, as presented in Chapter Nine, to create a framework.
Plan in Reverse
As I discussed in Chapter Nine, the process of reverse-engineering an idea is essentially an accounting exercise. At each step, you thoroughly consider the resources needed—time, people, money—as well as specific goals to mark progress. The calculation of resources assigned to each project in your Now-to-Future Portfolio, along with your assessment of resilience, relevance, and reward, gives you the closest thing to a measurable ROI (return on investment) that you can get. The Plan in Reverse process is absolutely vital to transitioning innovation projects from the conception stage into the execution phase.
Remember, the process begins with the long-term project first, then builds a project timeline backward to the present. Along the way, the medium- and short-term projects will be folded in. Because they all reference the same big picture, there are built-in efficiencies that can give you a lot of momentum, provided you're intentional about building on those efficiencies. By following a simple series of questions, you'll produce a progressive series of projects, organized as an action plan.
Time. I always advise clients to begin with the time factor. Realistically, how long will it take to make your vision come true?
There's no way to know exactly how much time it will take, but make a reasonable estimate. Sometimes the long-term goal is so big and nebulous that it's likely to be ten years before you can achieve it. Ten years is not a long horizon for planning, really, but it is hard to relate to. Articulating a timeline will help make it real, tangible, and measurable.
This was true for Cooks. Karl and Marie knew that getting the Marshall Field's deal off the ground and stabilized would take several years, if all went smoothly. It could be as little as three years, but if there were hiccups—and it's always smart to plan for some—it would be closer to five years before they could really turn their attention to a new venture. LifeRecipe, their long-term project, was in their ten-year plan.
People. Cooks could design the curriculum and provide training, but implementation of their vision would require partnerships.
They asked themselves, what kinds of organizations have a mission that would be supported by this kind of program? Which have an infrastructure for delivery? Which are national? The core elements of the LifeRecipe program were health and education, so the best partners would be found where there was already a commitment to both. Health care institutions, schools, fitness programs, grocery stores, restaurants, and more were all candidates, but the field that probably had the most at stake, and the most resources, was health care.
You do not have to know who your partner will be. Having the profile and criteria for partnership is all you need to start looking for some Like that! candidates.
Money. What will it take to fund your project? What kind of revenue might it generate?
The primary cost for the LifeRecipe project would be Karl and Marie's time. The development of curricula and training wouldn't cost money, though they would require intellectual property protection. Other relatively nominal costs would be for the design of communications materials, including a Web site.
They would need staff to administer the program, perhaps someone to cultivate and manage relationships with partners, event management, orders, and such. Would there be an interactive component? If so, costs for software development would have to be included.
When it comes to figuring out revenues, it's best to check into a few Like that! models to see how it's being done and what people are charging, and then come up with ballpark fees. For LifeRecipe, that meant asking these questions: Would it be licensed? By subscription? What percentage goes to the partner? When these parameters are known, hypothetical numbers can be dropped in to see what the revenue streams would be.
The Best-Laid Plans
Karl, Marie, and their staff spent two years creating the Cooks experience for the Marshall Field's kitchen department at its flagship store in Chicago and opening their third retail store in Minneapolis. “Life Happens in the Kitchen” was the design direction for their new store. Because they felt that it so perfectly captured the essence of the Cooks brand, Karl and Marie often reprised their Kitchen Ballet in workshops for culinary and customer relationship training for the Marshall Field's stores as well as their three Cooks of Crocus Hill stores.
Using their Life Happens in the Kitchen model, they built a kitchen at the front of the Marshall Field's housewares department. As Karl described it, customers “had to pass through Mecca” to do their shopping. Their model would be transformational, not transactional, inspiring people to connect to their inner foodie, before trying to sell them anything.
The feedback was tremendous. By the end of its second year in Marshall Field's, the culinary store had the highest year-over-year growth of any department in the store! This was especially impressive considering that it was the first growth the culinary department had shown in fifteen years. The partnership had exceeded expectations.
The next year, Marshall Field's was sold to Target Corporation. Then, in 2005, Macy's bought it, absorbing Marshall Field's stores and real estate, and retiring the name and all it stood for. There were similar shake-ups at Cooks' new store: the shopping center that had brought Cooks in as a part of an upscale development suddenly dropped all its plans. This hit came in 2007, just as the department store relationship was winding down and the recession began.
In the first few years following the ZoD brand workshop, Cooks' revenue had grown exponentially. When all of these bad-luck circumstances converged, Cooks' sales revenue fell by 30 percent. But Karl never lost his optimism. He knew that they had something really special: Cooks of Crocus Hill is still a store that people love.
Karl never lost sight of who they were and where they were going, which was his foundation for rebuilding the business. The Cooks identity as a cooking school first, retail store second, helped them stay afloat. Karl and Marie had their cooking classes, corporate team-building programs, product development, and consulting services.
Their role with Marshall Field's had fundamentally been that of a consultant, which played naturally into what Karl and Marie had always envisioned for Cooks. They became design and menu consultants for other clients, and as they retrenched their commitment to their own stores, they also began to develop the LifeRecipe program.
Marie says, “We've built this business back up fifty cents at a time.” Every decision mattered, and every move was a strategic move. Despite the hard knocks, Karl and Marie determined that “this was Cooks' time.” They were just as passionate about their business as they'd always been, and felt that their vision of a LifeRecipe program was still the right thing to do.
They launched the LifeRecipe program in 2009 with a major health care provider. It is a corporate wellness program that teaches people how to cook and eat well so that they can live well. Karl says, “You cannot be obese if you cook your own food,” and the mission is to provide hands-on, personalized, experiential education that makes cooking joyful for people.
Today, Cooks of Crocus Hill has its own product line, its stores are back on track, and the LifeRecipe program is poised to go national. The clarity, passion, and commitment with which Karl and Marie have led Cooks, through good times and bad, is a testament to the fact that knowing who you are and where you're going is the key to resilience—especially in uncertain times.