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Tag Archives: Business Schools

TRUST, Values & turning up in the I’m Funny T Shirt

22 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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Authenticity, Bonus Culture, Brand Agencies, brand behaviours, Business Schools, Consumer Rights, Contracts, Corporate Affairs, FMCG, Funny, Gladiator, Iconic, Integrity, Keynote Speakers, Management Consultants, Maximus, Oliver Williamson, purpose, Retail, Rigour, Rome, Spinal Tap, The Big 4, TRUST, Values

keep-calm-and-remember-im-funny

… I maintain that trust is irrelevant to commercial exchange and that reference to trust in this connection promotes confusion.

— Oliver Williamson

 Trust. Small Word. Massive Impact.

But which ‘Trust’ do we actually mean when chiseling the word for the umpteenth time onto the Values Plinth? There are a few versions out there – and none more corrosive that faux TRUST or the TRUST that comes from the dressing up box of corporate affairs – fancy TRUST – a word draped in Savile Row charcoal cashmere, or beautifully typeset and set high on the wall – yet inert – made moribund at the moment of its stitching and forging.

Then there’s buttoned up TRUST. Ironed repressed imprisoned – bear baited into a contracted commitment between one actor and another.

In these contractual prisons, the real power of TRUST; as a proof that liberates people to act decently and respectfully and with singular purpose at all times, gets twisted and shoved; and roughly cut away to fit into the self interested margins of the contract it supposedly underwrites.

Then there’s the TRUST of the podium, the BIG TRUST of soundbites and ‘our journey’ and the soaring oratory of perseverance and endeavor – an ephemeral fleeting TRUST that fills both the chest of the corporate speaker impugning it and the hall into which they decant it, only to wash out of the back doors into faint memory and insignificance – sullied and cheapened by having ever been bought there in the first place.

And then there’s the TRUST that protests too much from the statements and the releases of those who have traded, stained and manipulated it most. (Yes, banks and financial institutions, that will be you, and your FMCG and retail friends there on the bench next to you; with their palm oil and indentured labour hidden in some foreign field that is forever England: or the provider of its pants at least.)

If you wish to speak of real TRUST, speak in hushed respectful tones; speak rarely; in fact, come to think about it, we’d rather you didn’t speak of it at all.

Much like the exquisite blue guitar in Nigel Tufnel’s Guitar room in Spinal Tap, there is a sense that to even point to TRUST would be to destroy it.

“its special, look, see, still got the old tagger on it, never even played it”

“you just bought it”

“dont touch it”

“…was just looking at it…wasn’t going to touch it”

“…well, dont point …even”

TRUST is a dream that so many institutions crave but in that craving lies the source of self deceit. In their idolising of it lies the greatest measure of how fragile it is in their world: and how often and easily it can be compromised, corrupted and set aside.

In one of the opening scenes of the film Gladiator, Marcus Aurelius explains to Maximus that Rome is not a place but a very very fragile dream:

“There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish…”

TRUST is that fragile. So it is best kept safe and sound and away from prying eyes under purposeful lock and key. It is made all the greater by remaining invisible and unreferenced.

But invisibility and absence are two very different things. The absence of TRUST renders every other corporate buzzword insignificant. Rigour, openness, expertise, integrity, promise, commitment and guarantee – all are simply conjuring tricks if not underwritten by real TRUST.

Real TRUST, the silent knowing kind, is the one that walks through relationships and partnerships without braggadocio or pomp.

Real TRUST never speaks its own name, claims its own accolade or states its own credential.

Much like its culturally-rooted cousin – ICONIC – it is an accolade for others to apply.

To state it is to turn up in the I’m Funny T Shirt. Don’t tell me that you’re funny, tell me a joke. I am wholly capable of deciding whether to laugh or not all by myself.

Real TRUST is not an academic concept or an intellectual exercise; much to the irritation of pretty much every business school, who seem to see TRUST as a compound fraction as opposed to the complex chaotic collision of context, circumstance, tangible and intangibles that it really is.

Real TRUST is felt, sought, fought for, prized, pursued, missed, believed, encountered, received, gifted, hard won, quickly lost, broken.

Real TRUST is to some professions a supply chain issue – the most critical systemic element that needs sustaining above all else – the securing of its source, its protection of its integrity, the sage management and application of its use, the zero waste and optimal energy processes that support it – all mandatory for its continued and unadulterated presence and role as the primary tool in the mitigation of risk for those professions

Real TRUST draws its potency from its paradox – from its staggering strength and precious fragility – while whole, real TRUST moves the hearts minds and mountains that find themselves in its thrall – but it can be shattered irreparably by a look, a word, the flick of a pen, the click of a mouse, an act sometimes so small as to be barely noticeable.

Real TRUST is the UNICORN of professional endeavor. While it exists in the world, all is well – but if it is forgotten, mortally wounded or set aside, the dark side will prevail.

A MATTER OF EMPHASIS

Real TRUST The assured reliance that someone else will do everything in your best interests and to the best of their ability.

Real TRUST The faith that they will, even in your absence, act faithfully and respectfully in regards to you and the things you hold most precious

Real TRUST  The sure knowledge that no exceptional, proprietary or empiric expertise knowing insight or skill will be held back or remain obscured in their undertakings for you.

Real TRUST  The singular base fabric of any profound relationship: woven from myriad strands and threads of multiple and relentlessly reoccurring and improving emotional and functional transactions of every shape size and hue

Real TRUST The invisible certainty that allows rigour to act unfettered in the room and in the moment

Real TRUST The slingshot of integrity: the champion of authenticity: the springboard of exception:

Real TRUST the most dynamic currency in the assurance economy: selectively invested but never traded or brokered.

Real TRUST the only critical investment worth making in any and every relationship no matter how big or small.

Real TRUST the unquestionable and immutable truth of any profession

Real TRUST is a market shaker, a world turner, an opinion shifter and a deal breaker – the one precious thing that cannot be bought or begged.

Real TRUST cannot be faked, cannot be belittled, cannot be impugned and will not be sold.

Real TRUST is more than a flat inert word on a values plaque or a commitment in a corporate mission. Real Trust is a living extant dynamic and irrepressible thing.

You cannot put real TRUST down, diminish it, demean it or set it aside.

It is the silent ROAR – the mighty Yawp – in every meaningful conversation: and cannot be talked over or shouted out

In the space between TRUST and WORTHY

TRUSTworthy is a simple word to describe a process person or material thing that can be relied upon to fulfil particular tasks time and time again with little decay or degradation in performance or effect –and in doing so make themselves worthy of trust.

It usually involves an incremental journey undertaken by two parties towards belief in each others ability to ‘do what they say they’ll do’ – a journey that is mostly undertaken via proof – measurable evidences great and small – of each’s ability to engender trust in the other.

The levers and pulleys of TRUST?

TRUST seems to be most often engendered by people with an unshakeable sense of Purpose to effect good things in the world – for both themselves and others: People with an irrepressible belief in the simple authenticity of what they do, doing the right thing and keeping their promises. These people regularly demonstrate an inappropriate degree of naked courage – effortless and comfortable in their transparency. They relentlessly apply this belief, commitment trait and nature in everything they do. They are meticulous in their approach – rigour never far from their mind. And they value integrity above all else.

UNSHAKEABLE                 Purpose

IRREPRESSIBLE               Belief

NAKED                           Transparency

RELENTLESS                   Application
METICULOUS                  Rigour
TRUE                              Integrity

I TRUST you to have an opinion

I TRUST you to have the right intention in proffering it

I TRUST you to design your particiaption  in commercial ethical and value terms acceptable to all parties

I TRUST you to price what you do fairly

I TRUST you to do what you say you’ll do

I TRUST you to not compromise the relationship or other interests while doing it.

I TRUST you to reconcile fairly and in good time

I TRUST you with my interests

I TRUST you

Brands, old-school Diplomacy & the New Humanities

26 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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Tags

7 Revolutions, Adaptive Governance, Al-Indirsi, Back to the future, Brand Diplomats, brand futures, brand Influence, Business Schools, Castlereagh, Consumerism, corporate leadership, Cosmography, CSIS, DAVOS, Diplomacy, ecosystems, geopolitical leadership, Human resilience, Humanities, Napoleon, resilience, WEF

Screen Shot 2015-03-26 at 14.06.29

We’re up to our ‘proverbials’ in Brand Advocates, Influencers & Champions. The social shock troops have to no little degree saved a lot of the big consumer multinationals from themselves. They have proved themselves both central in driving relevance and a vastly improved and far more respectful model of customer service. They are to that end critical in securing the survival of relevance in many multinational brands who until quite recently had acted with old school impunity and arrogance when called to account.

But the blunt grass roots tool for creating better is just one of two required to secure an improved human existence in the face of our stratospheric levels of consumption and the brands who feed it.

The other (just as important as its grass roots cousin in shaping what better looks like) is though of a more nuanced and rarified nature. It is subtler, sharper; multi-faceted, fluid; intricate.

To build the more resilient and adaptive form of governance and influence that multinational businesses are increasingly going to require will take more than just a an MBA upgrade on the usual business school thinking and doing.

It will demand a new creature.

“The effective leader will jettison vertical integration information hoarding and dogma in favour of optimization, recalibration and negotiation.” (CSIS 7 Revolutions).

To navigate the ever-greater complexity and turbulence of our accelerating world, Leadership must be augmented by a new kind of executive corps.

The cats-cradle of interdependencies, interrelatedness and infra-connectedness of global business and the ascension of global brand potency in regards to global acts of responsibility demands more than a just ‘a faster executive horse’.

“A well-run business that applies its vast resources expertise and management talent to problems that it understands and in which it has a stake can have a greater impact on social good than any other institution or philanthropic organization” (CSIS 7 Revolutions).

Execs are increasingly finding themselves participants in and the conveners of dynamic and diverse conventions of actors and agents within the sphere of their commercial and social interests.

This new and more fluid model of engagement in the scale challenges that face both their businesses operationally and systemically and the communities in which they seek to thrive will become the norm.

Strategic coalitions consisting of governments, corporations, NGOs, and academic institutions will be necessary in mounting effective responses and capitalizing on important opportunities (CSIS 7 Revolutions).

The brutal truth is that they will be ill-prepared and increasingly incapable of managing and orientating these groups to any great degree.

This is because they simply do not have the skills and the training to do so.

To be brutally frank, the Davos & Done school of global stewardship needs a hearty and well placed kick up the arse.

Watching the currently fitful and flawed nature of a new world brand conversation should be all the proof we desire.

Current 21st Century Brand dynamics demand that Brand Leaders be capable of meaningfully engaging in a conversation that often spans a staggering breadth and depth of subject matter:

  • operational and systemic excellence, innovation and advancement
  • geopolitical sources of volatility and influence
  • the impact of global and local financial governance & volatility
  • the evolving nature and mandate of labour rights & the social contract
  • enlightened and reasonable understanding of adaptive governance models
  • the impact of technology both systemically and socially on global Value Chains
  • clarity and influence on relevant local, national and transnational regulation
  • a clear understanding of the value of enlightened sustainability practice and value
  • resilient growth modelling that embraces both quantitative short term and qualitative long term objectives

Add to these the escalating nature of responsibility and the multinational businesses ability (and more importantly its obligation) to focus all of its skills on improving both its own systemic nature and ecosystems as well as that of the societies, cultures and environment in which they are rooted and the need for a master-class in Brand Diplomacy quickly becomes critical to the successful evolution of our human existence.

The new leader and those that advise them will not only require an audacious breadth and depth of understanding but also, even more importantly, the artistry to navigate the nuances, multiple agendas and cultures of the multiple actors and agents operating within their realm.

This is what leads me to believe that this is the dawning of what I like to call The Age of Global Brand Diplomacy – and the rise of The Brand Diplomat.

Real diplomacy is a rare gift of the few that exists usually only by accident, quirk or happenstance. It requires a very particular education: a highly diverse immersive and passionate pursuit of breadth over fashion, depth over trend. It demands a real investment of purpose and person – a commitment of measurable integrity.

Given the scale and importance of the challenges they will be faced with and in which they will need to have a profound impact, the new breed of leader will at best be schooled in both the arts and discipline of geopolitics, anthropology, civilisation & culture, the Arts, the history of diplomacy and the intuitive Social Sciences.

So the question for me is not whether a Business School of global merit and stature should do this; but which School? Which business school is going to rise to this challenge and embrace the task of shaping this new creature more formally?

Which school can credibly host the Master-class in Brand Diplomacy?

It requires access to and the benefit of an environment that enjoys an effortless multi-cultural aspect. It requires exceptional immersion in a dynamic accelerating ‘living’ throng, not splendid isolation. It requires an audacious fabric of skills and disciplines to be stitched together into one compelling proposition.

But mostly of all it requires people steeped both in the commercial marketed and applied world and that of the NGO the government think-tank and the venerable institution.

It will also I sense require a new trajectory and term of influence and engagement: a longer and greater arc of nurture and devwlopment coupled and a more interdependent quality of rolling assessment and dispositional measurement from a far earlier point in the shaping of a mind.

It will also demand a clarity of purpose sparked and elevated at an early age – in much the same way that the British Public Schools of old shaped the disposition and the ascent to position of boys from their prep school years – through the study of War Craft, the Classics – a living, breathing understanding of how one fits into and then, if in your interest, how one starts to run and lead a ‘mini me’ hierarchical society; through the use and leverage of various tools at ons disposal – the pride and allegiance of the House system, Corps duty, prefecture and eventually the position of Head of School.

The only difference now is that having stepped through that system – the rest was quite straight forwards – based upon an assumption of position underwritten by an impenetrable right of entitlement.

The modern world has different demands. The fierce competitive nature of it cannot be dissuaded simply by an accent and a tie anymore. Quite the opposite. The brutally mercantile nature of it allows no easy options of rides. resilience and adaptability are critical in the survival of the Brand Diplomat.

In shaping the curriculum of the new Brand Diplomacy we also have the benefit of hindsight and the sensibility of foresight

We have the advantage of knowing that setting foot in the real world beyond the hypothesis and the theory is what ultimately shapes an exceptional leader so we are already one step head of the old model; the raw talent pouring into the world is more connected, engaged, Worldly and far more rounded. We also have the welcome addition of living in a time of the female competitive advantage is in its ascent (something the British Public Schools could have done well to embrace a lot earlier than they did).

The Business School that chose to accept the challenge of Brand Diplomacy would need to very clearly set their sights on those at a school age with the potential to fulfill their potential in this rare space where global politics, commerce, finance and cultural anthropology collide.

I believe that a course in Brand Diplomacy would need to be designed to be the culmination of a journey to enlightenment. And enlightenment is the word here.

No posturing blue-tooth slide show talker will be able to busk or bluff this. We already see in the sustainability and social purpose ‘game’ the limitations of the stage walker: too many rooms: too may panels: too little progress: their ceiling all too apparent to everyone but themselves.

This will demand true leadership skills from enlightened and measured minds.

A meaningful course in Brand Diplomacy should plumb not only the usual texts and case studies to hand but also look beyond the 20th Century scholars and Students of Diplomacy to the Birth of it in the Italian City States of the Quattro Cento and amongst the Bourbon Courts of the Southern Mediterranean. It should look to the life work of the likes of Castlereagh (the subject of Henry Kissinger’s thesis I believe), the much maligned but now redeemed British Foreign Minister from the era of the Napoleonic Wars: a master statesman who shaped much of the best of the interrelated and more stable nature of European politics – but only by virtue of combining foresight and the subtlest of diplomatic arts to everyone from Tsar Alexander and his own Regent to the masterful Austrian, Prince Metternich et al.

To shape the a more resilient future the business world needs to look past the lazy interrogation of the same old business school tenets and brand pillar thinking to the expansive landscapes of the Humanities and the depths of Geopolitics – to look beyond the One Size Fits All model and embrace the diversity of an Renaissance perspective.

idrisi2

Brand maps and models should begin to resemble more the cosmographic maps of the middle ages and the early powers – where character, tribe, geo-centrism, chronology and purpose exist on one plane seen as a whole.

This would be respectful of the new broader more complex and dynamic world that superbrands exist in and in which they have enormous influence on.

And to be frank, I sense it would be a damn fun course to attend.

So my original question stands: which business school?

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