Lest we forget

Day 6 (Tuesday 6th December 2016)

6 number one hits - Bon Jovi proved their enduring ability to 

entertain when their latest album "This House Is Not For Sale"

(the Group's 13th studio album, released November 4th 2016) reached

top spot on the Billboard 200. The band were formed in 1983 and play 

Hard, Pop and Arena Rock and Glam Metal.

Today's piece is a sober read from Alan Gilmour, which touches on one of humanity's hollows. It puts many things in perspective and it certainly made me think. Alan's writing does that. Alan has a day job as Head of Acquisition and Retention for the Police Mutual, but since he last contributed to the Advent Series he has taken up a not-for-profit Non-executive Directorship with BCRS Business Loans - an organisation that provides money for SMEs who struggle to access funds through traditional banking channels. 

Alan is a delightful and broad thinker - he studied Chinese History at Glasgow, long before China had risen to its position of global prominence and has an MBA from Aston. I am one of many who enjoy Alan's company, debate and engaging/thought-provoking opinions. You can follow Alan on Twitter (his handle is @alan_gilmour) or read his (sporadic) personal blogging.

*****************************************

Lest we forget  

So what moved me in 2016?

An interesting question for a dour Scot. As a race we are not easily moved. Life is easier that way.

But this year while idly gazing at a board which listed the Head Boys at a local school, I noticed something that achieved this rare feat.

For on the list was one K.R. Owen, Head Boy in 1913.

I know nothing of this individual or his family or his circumstances.

Maybe I should.

But what caught my eye was the next board. A list of all those who gave their lives in the Great War.

And there was the name, K.R.Owen, again. Killed in action in 1916.

In the space of 3 years this boy had grown into a man and become a memory.

Tragic.

A member of the Army Chaplains' Department (AChD) tending
a soldier's grave during the Battle of the Somme, July 1916. © IWM 

Every day I, like many others in business, spend time poring over numbers and spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks with statistics, charts and graphs.

Every day we obsess about sales, income, costs, FTEs, profit, capital, assets, liabilities, and many more numbers. These are the heartbeat of business.

School boys being taught about Zeppelins 1916

But as we say goodbye to 2016, a year that remembered that the 100^th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, here are the numbers that really matter.

Numbers that should give us a real sense of perspective.

141 days. 420,000 British casualties. 127,000 British dead, 19,000 on day one alone.

Plus many more hundreds of thousands German, French and British Commonwealth casualties.

And if we include the families, millions of people seriously impacted by the events of those 141 days on the Somme.

Like a ripple across a pond.

Numbers like these make you think. They bring it all home.

And should make us think when we obsess about the numbers that govern our daily business life.

For our numbers are not a matter of life and death.

They do not amount to a hill of beans.

We may think they are important but when stacked up against the numbers of 1916 and the lives of the many, many K.R. Owens, are they really?

For they come to nought when stacked up against the lives lost, lives ruined, by the events of 1916.

It is all too easy for the anonymised count of the slaughter to obliterate the human cost for war. Any war.

It did for me as a historian. I deal in facts and figures and dates. Not people.


Until I saw the name of K R Owen. Twice.

The numbers that I deal in are unlikely be remembered by the end of January 2017, never mind recorded and remembered and commemorated 100 years hence.

Unlike K. R. Owen and his ilk.

Who went from boy to man to a memory on a board in 3 years.

He may not even have been involved in the Somme.

But that doesn’t matter. That is not the point.

It was potential lost. Brilliance snuffed out. A tragic loss.

And that is my abiding memory of 2016.

A memory that has humbled me.

The lesson I have learnt.

Christmas 1916 on the Somme Front, painting W.B. Wollen

Our numbers may be good. They may be bad. Even indifferent.

They might please or disappoint our bosses.

But we still get to go home every night, limbs and minds intact.

Unlike K.R Owen.

Ensuring that I go into 2017 with a more acute sense of what matters and what doesn’t. More acute than ever before.

Thanks to K.R. Owen and the memories from the Somme.

Lest we forget.

All we need is love

Day 10 (Thursday 10th December 2015)

10 past 10. In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch 
is approximately 10:10. The reason for this is to "frame" the logo of the watch maker.
The hands at that number cause the eyes to look right at the logo! 
contributed by Shaun Hussey, Graphic Designer

This inspirational post was written by respected Marketing guru and wit Alan Gilmour. Alan has recently started a new role as the Head of Acquisition and Retention for Police Mutual. Alan and I should have crossed paths at Lloyds TSB (as he was Head of Marketing at the time when the group acquired a business I co-founded). However, we only met face-to-face when he became responsible for the high profile project of establishing Identity Cards for the UK's Passport Office. He is highly engaging company and those I know who have worked with him describe him as an inspirational, entertaining and remarkable leader. You can follow Alan on Twitter (his handle is @alan_gilmour) or read his (sporadic) personal blogging. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------

You don't have to shine in a flashy and ostentatious manner to be a high flier.

Earlier this year Burt Shavitz died.

Burt, a bearded, free-spirited, hippy, who was 80 at his death, turned his affinity for nature and beekeeping into the multi-million dollar personal care products company, ‘Burt’s Bees’.

A man of deep principle who turned his back on the company he created and walked away with virtually nothing. And went back to the bees he loved.

Yet the company he created lives on and describes itself on its website as ‘basically a bunch of hands-on, tree-hugging, greased elbow do-gooders. It's kind of what makes our company special. We think the bees would agree.’

Burt would have approved.

And Burt’s story begs the question - Why is that ex hippies have built and run some of the world’s best brands?

Think about it

Michael Eavis and the Glastonbury Festival.

Richard Branson and Virgin.

Anita Roddick and Body Shop.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield and their eponymous ice cream.

Yvon Choinard and Patagonia.

And the biggest hippie and biggest Hippie Brand of them all, Steve Jobs and Apple.

The list goes on.

And if some of these companies were not exactly begat by the Hippie era, their founders certainly betray Hippie-esque tendencies.

But what is it about the Hippie culture that it has spawned such a litany of great brands?

It is because they have a cause.

A clear mission and vision statement that transcends making money or being first in our chosen market or improving shareholder returns. Or some other corporate guff.

They want to change the world for those they serve, those they work with.

For us a brand must have a cause.  A cause that inspires and motivates all who work for the brand, all who buy the brand. A cause rooted in a brand truth.

Brands do not necessarily need to change the world. But all brands must have a belief in what they are doing, why they are doing it, who they are doing it for, where they want to be.

The more succinct, the more inspiring, the more emotional, the better the brand.

Maybe Hippie Brands are just better at doing this.

At building a vision and a mission for the brand that resonates, that is distinctive, that is believable. Better at creating a cause for their brand.

And if you want to see what great looks like in this context, here is one example:

‘Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis’ (Patagonia)

But no matter the words on the paper all will come to naught if your brand and its people cannot live and breathe the brand, strive for the cause. It all comes down to brand execution.

Great brands, hippie or not, not only define what they stand for and what they want to achieve, but can execute against this with great consistency and great rigour through the organisation and across all touch-points. Including those who work for the brand.

This is how you build a brilliant brand and soar.

It is not about being a hippie.

It is about defining and being true to an inspiring, emotional and motivating brand cause.

We can all do that.

The "Hippy Hippy Shakes" - sung by the Swinging Blue Jeans