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Mission, Vision, and Values: But First, Executive Alignment

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Start with Executive Alignment

Vision, mission, and values give a company direction. They describe what a company stands for and what it doesn’t. Solid mission, vision, and values statements give guidelines for a brand’s behavior, help distinguish a company from its peers, and serve as a foundation for the brand’s ultimate personality. Without them, a company is rudderless.

So, when’s the right time to write these statements? Some companies don’t launch before they have a mission, vision, and values. Others develop them when time allows. With COVID-19 changing so many things from the way we show up to what gives us meaning in our work, now is a perfect time to embark on this exercise.

Though timing varies, the most important element in creating your mission, vision, and values is executive alignment. I promise it will be the hardest part of the process, but if you miss it you’ll end up with meaningless fluff. Start with alignment and the wording of the mission and vision almost takes care of itself.

Here are the steps to get you there:

1. Get your executive team on board

Include your executive team from day one. Yes, another project that takes time away from your “real work”. We get it. Mission/vision work doesn’t feel as urgent as launching a new product on time or making this quarter’s sales goal. But the longer you delay, the longer you have to wait for the impact. And if executives don’t take ownership of the project, they won’t have respect for the work that comes out of it.

2. Put it all out in the open: one-on-one interviews

Once you’ve got your executives’ attention, gather feedback from each exec individually. When we work with clients on mission/vision projects, we start by interviewing the key internal players. (If you are doing this project on your own, someone on your team, preferably a neutral player, could handle this step.) Big picture, you want to know where they think the company should go in the future and how it will get there. Again, 2020 has likely thrown a wrench in what you had previously planned for the business.

You also want to gather opinions on the current business and service offerings, market and competition, trends and regulations affecting the market in the short and long term, and current and future target customers.

3. Tackle the big issues and hot topics: executive alignment

Coming out of the interviews, you’ll have a list of statements that cover the kind of future that people in the organization desire for the company, how comfortable they are with change, and where they want to focus first.

For example, in a recent engagement, these were a few of the statements we generated for our client:

  • “We need to change the status quo.”
  • “Our vision should be internally vs. externally focused.”
  • “We’re more comfortable as an ingredient brand than an innovator.”

4. Expect disagreement

If you are like most companies, people won’t always be in agreement. So rather than be frustrated by this, see it as your opportunity to find alignment.

Bring everyone together into one room—even virtually. Remember, people own what they build. Put each statement on a poster with an “agree/disagree” scale and ask individuals to use a post-it to show how they relate to the statement. When everyone is done, it’s time to discuss. (Pro tip: Google Jamboards combined with Zoom are a great way to do this virtually.)

Second, pull out from the interviews the “hot topics”, the issues that are holding the company back. If the team doesn’t address these issues, they’ll destroy the company.

We recently worked with a disability insurer. Their hot topics included things like the following:

  •  “Startups have already moved into term life and car insurance and erased the middleman. How will we prevent this from happening to us?”
  • “We’re in the midst of digitizing the underwriting process. How does this project and that one overlap?”

 5. Follow the Critical Path

Get everything out in the open before you start building a vision and mission. It can be painful and frustrating to hash out these topics but it’s an essential step in the process. You learn where people sit on every important issue and you figure out the hurdles you need to jump over to get to the mission and vision development stage. Only then can you decide together where the company is headed.

Speaking of the critical path, don’t focus on marketing before you have set your vision and mission. People get excited when they hear about a new strategy. They want to get started. We recently worked with a company that lacked a strong, energizing strategy. The marketing department recognized this more than any other part of the organization. They realized that the company was moving in a new direction and was so eager to communicate a new mission and vision that they put something in place before the executive team reached alignment on the mission and vision.

When we talked to the executive team about the mission and vision work we planned to do for the company, though, many felt uncomfortable with the marketing work communicating the new strategy. Misalignment all around.

Alignment Drives Business

Put in the hard work to get everyone around the table aligned on the path you’ll take. Focusing on alignment will pay off in the end. It will save you time, frustration, and energy, and allow you to better focus on what really matters—what will drive your business and brand into the future, with everyone on board.
If you need help building alignment, please reach out.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California

What Generation Z Values From Brands

Posted on by Dominique Smith

Just a few years ago, Millennials were the hottest and most talked about generational cohort on the block, driving consumer behavior and value trends in the market. But in 2020, Generation Z has noticeably taken the wheel, accelerating actions and demanding accountability for brands to live and breathe diversity & inclusion, authenticity, and social responsibility.

Who is Gen Z and why are they so influential?

Gen Z, ages 8-23 today, are true digital natives. The first generation to be fully foreign to life before the digital landscape, Gen Z accounts for 20.46% of the total U.S. population (67.17 million), represent the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in history, and together with Millennials account for $350 billion in spending power in the U.S.—an impact impossible to deny for today’s leading brands and businesses.

Gen Z is a generation who leans into the value of self-expression from a non-binary lens, leverages voice and action to force change, and cares deeply about ethical and sustainable consumption.

The generation behaves completely differently from the generations before. Hyper digitally intelligent, Gen Z, and the brands they buy from, have a completely dynamic customer journey—whether the journey begins with an enticing Instagram ad or a pop-up event. Gen Z has made it clear that a hard-hitting, consistent, and relatable brand narrative, online and offline, plays a huge role in winning their attention, hearts, and pockets.

So, what should brands pay attention to when thinking about resonating, connecting, and engaging Gen Z?

1. Diversity & Inclusion

To start, if you’re looking to attract Gen Z, your brand’s diversity & inclusion has to run deeper than performatively plastering words on your careers page or adding more stock photos of people of color on your digital platforms. It’s about being authentically who you say you are. Gen Z’s can tell the difference between the posers and those authentically disrupting the status quo—with ease.

For example, when Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty in 2017, she completely shook the beauty industry. Her line offered 40 shades of foundation (now 50), ranging from the lighter shades typically in abundance in any given makeup aisle to deeper and darker shades that Black and Brown people have struggled to find for decades.

In my 24 years of life, the arrival of Fenty Beauty was the first time I’d ever seen any brand launch a campaign that depicted such a wide range of skin tones and that clearly celebrated people of color who weren’t predominantly lighter-skinned or racially ambiguous. And it didn’t just appeal to me because it was a clear representation of diversity. It was also raw, real, and relatable. It was content I’d never been exposed to. It was content I’d never seen so much of the world witness.

The Fenty Beauty brand, then and now, celebrates and normalizes what it looks like to be a HUMAN. But, it doesn’t stop there. Rihanna has continued this brand narrative across all of her brands including Savage X Fenty, her lingerie brand that recently added pieces for her male audience, and now Fenty Skin which is completely gender-neutral. She’s built her brand around diversity & inclusion and continues to deliver that promise at every touchpoint which is why it’s believable, truly authentic, and here to stay in people’s hearts and minds.  

2. Sustainable Consumerism

It’s imperative for any retailer looking to connect with Gen Z, Millennials, or Gen X to focus on ethics and sustainability. Immense access to digital information has educated and impassioned Gen Z and Millennials to become more environmentally conscious, influencing their consumer behavior and their parents.

As the rejection of fast fashion brands continues to grow, second-hand fashion retailers like ThredUp and peer-to-peer online shopping platforms like Poshmark and Depop continue to gain and maintain popularity. It’s clear that Gen Z wants to consume more while wasting less. In fact, ThredUp’s 2020 resale report estimates that the second-hand market will hit $64 billion by 2024 and is expected to grow to 69% by 2021.

Increased desire to consume more sustainably has also made room for niche household brands—Caboo bamboo toilet paper, Unni biodegradable trash bags, and Blueland eco-friendly cleaning products—to enter the market and appeal to both younger and older generations. This trend is likely to continue as Gen Xers come into more financial maturity and have the means to spend more money.

3. Authenticity

The civil unrest following the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor earlier this year sparked BLM protests around the world and pushed brands to speak out on Instagram to express their solidarity for Black lives. Anthropologie, who posted a quote by Maya Angelou highlighting the importance of diversity and equality, received backlash and public callouts by former and current employees. It became viewed as hypocritical and performative across audiences when it was unveiled that the brand, including brands like Urban Outfitters and Zara, had racial profiling practices within their organizations (racist behaviors like using internal code names for people of color who enter their stores).

Nike on the other hand is a great example of a truly authentic brand. They get their hands dirty in abundance when it comes to corporate social responsibility whether it’s partnering with grassroots organizations to help bridge opportunity gaps for youth in urban communities, responsibly sourcing materials for products, or taking a stand in support of socio-political issues and not just when it looks good. No wonder they’re a Gen Z favorite.

Why do brands need to embrace Gen Z values?

This generational cohort is young, but they have the power of influence when it comes to behavior and value. Not just on themselves, but on all generations. This is why brands must pay attention to this generation. To be a lasting brand, you have to focus on authentic and ethical brand behavior to build brands that Gen Z’s are going to trust, value, and love.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California

Embrace Constraints to Unleash Creativity

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

Breaking the Conventional Wisdom of Creativity

Creativity is often idealized as something that flourishes within a boundless environment and thrives under a lack of regulation. As creative thinkers ourselves, we’ve often fallen into the trap of dreaming of empty days with nothing to do but create, no person or particular task or restriction to attend to, no strict directions to follow…Without rules and impediments, the world of creativity and innovation would be our oyster…right?

But, contrary to popular belief, constraint can actually power creativity. HBR, based on 145 empirical studies, found that people, teams, and companies benefit from the right dose of constraints. Similarly, psychologists have found that limitations force new perspectives. And Tess Callahan, in her TED Talk, calls the relationship between constraints and creativity ‘an unexpected love affair.’

This data and research have huge implications for teams, companies, and brands leaning on creativity and innovation during this year where change has established itself as the new normal. Constraints, when embraced and leveraged, can be productive, enlightening, and even exciting.

Creativity Within Our Studio

When we moved our studio to remote work in March, we were unsure of how we would continue to create with the agility, passion, and creativity that’s always lived within our studio walls. At first, it was easy to think only in terms of new limitations and unwelcome rules. Lack of in-person collaboration. The inability to meet clients in person. The pressures and constraints from forces of disruption all around us: economic and beyond.

Now, months later, creativity within our studio is thriving. We can see that the constraints of ‘stay-at-home’ have forced us to rethink how we work and why we work that way. We’re thinking outside the norms to figure out challenges like collaboration, building client trust, and workshopping strategy, and creative work through emotive, digital experiences.

Our Clients’ Creativity is Soaring Too

We’ve seen in real-time that our clients have been pushed to think differently as well. The value of creativity is skyrocketing and teams are relying on creative, strategic problem solving, and solvers more than ever before. HR teams that have relied on in-person college fairs to recruit are building immersive, digital experiences that compel candidates further, with less budget. Product teams are using their data technology and applying it to solve new problems like health, wellness, and virus tracking. C-suite executives are embracing this time of transformation, using it to reassess their position and establish relevance in a market that values trust, purpose, and empathy more than ever before. 

Creativity in the Brand and Business World at Large

The world is watching as today’s brands prove their creativity under dynamic constraints. Dyson saw a need, identified a capability outside their usual application, and brought 15,000 ventilators to the world. Small, local restaurants are reinventing the dining experience with QR codes and other technology. Technology companies like Whoop are working with researchers from leading health organizations and universities to help populations with earlier detection of the virus, repurposing their fitness tool as a detection tool.

Although we might not hope for the continuation of many of these limitations or challenges, embracing them as mechanisms for change, seeing things anew, and pushing what’s possible forward is proving to be one of the silver linings of these challenging times.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Photo Credit: https://icons8.com/

Strengthen Your Health Care Brand During Your Digital Transformation

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Room for Digital Transformation for Health Care Brands

You’ve probably had a friend tell you about her amazing physician. But did you ever hear anyone brag about their health insurer? Unlikely.

Overall, individuals are pretty happy about the quality of care. What they complain about is customer service. According to the Advisory Board, the top patient complaints include: communication (53%), long wait times (35%), medical practice staff (12%), and billing (2%).

Fortunately, powerful organizations—companies who see shortcomings in today’s system—recognize the room for improvement. The triumvirate of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase say they want to disrupt healthcare and we all eagerly await their solution.

Of course, the existing system operates at a disadvantage to the growing cohort of startups. These companies have no legacy technology baggage and are digital-first. Fitbit, Apple, and Omada Health offer individuals new ways to manage their overall fitness and health. Others focus on corporations and companies—the major healthcare payers – that watch the costs of care for their employees rise exponentially. For example, Collective Health helps self-insured companies manage their healthcare investment and support operations. Another, Lyra, helps companies and their employees connect directly to mental health providers.

Don’t Wait Around for Transformation, Start Strengthening Your Brand Now

Not all health care companies have the luxury of starting with an all digital approach. In fact, the biggest, most important players don’t. It’s why traditional healthcare providers, insurance companies, hospitals, and clinics are all in the midst of a digital transformation. This doesn’t mean, though, that they—or you—should wait until after a this transformation is complete before you start making changes to your brand.

Take the opportunity to strengthen your brand so your customers are still there when you make that transformation a reality. Here’s how.

1. Make the Process Feel Good

A great place to start when looking to build a better process is to think about how you want to make people feel. Maybe your customers now feel frustrated? Unconfident? Even anxious? How can you make them feel optimistic? Even calm and confident?

The midst of a transition is the perfect time to start thinking about this. Focus on building a more frictionless process and making quick changes across the board that make for a more positive experience.

Ask questions like: How can we make it easier for customers to access the information they need? How can we better understand how they can prevent illness? Get in touch with a doctor or nurse when they need? Or even pay a bill more quickly and easily? Can we communicate with less complicated, more human language? Can we better train our people to act with empathy and patience?

It’s these small changes that will help build the frictionless experience people now demand from the brands they pledge loyalty to. And making the experience feel good can sustain your brand and ensure you keep your customers while you’re in the midst of a digital transformation. They’ll be committed to you, and delighted when you do transform.

2. Behave Consistently

It’s great when a health care brand says they “care about their patients”. But when a customer calls and has to go through multitudes of layers just to get a terse answer to their question and can’t even understand the coverage they signed up for months before, the brand loses credibility.

So while you’re in this transition, ask yourself what promises you make your customers. Are you living up to those? How can you better behave at every touchpoint? How can you really act like you care?

People don’t want the health care brands they buy into to be unpredictable. And businesses in the middle of change tend to let all rules go to the wayside. Just because you’re in the middle of digital disruption, doesn’t mean you don’t need guidelines for the present. Behave in line with your core values and make sure your behavior at every touchpoint lives up to what you promise the people you want by your side when you do transform.

3. Employees – Activate Small Wins

As your company invests in cutting-edge technology, dedicates time and resources to innovation, and prepares itself for a digital transformation, it’s integral that employees know and understand what’s important right now.

Leaving employees behind for a future state that is yet to come is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. When you are clear and transparent with employees about what they should be focusing in on and why, they can activate small wins.

It’s easy to think that change comes in one fell swoop. But small, incremental changes can make worlds of difference—especially in struggling industries with low trust, low convenience, and low brand loyalty. Employees are the people who are going to build that trust, leverage that convenience, and help build loyalty. Look to them and communicate with them about what matters.

There’s Always Need for Improvement

Health care is ripe for disruption because people want something more. Whether it’s a frictionless experience, a more empathetic brand, or a clearer and easier way forward, you can start delivering people what they want while you’re in the midst of a digital transformation. Ask yourself what should happen while you wait. What can you do to make improvements today?

Consider how you can better behave, better connect, and better build meaning with the people most important to your business. And dedicate time, energy, and resources to making those changes. Small changes can bring big rewards. By focusing on what you can change now, you’ll be more ready for digital disruption later—with a better process, a better way of communication, a better strategy, and better people behind you.

If you need help creating and implementing strategic change, please reach out.

Other posts you may enjoy on the subject are Digital Health: A Future With Millennials, and Why Digital Health Brands Need a B2B2C Strategy

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Navigating Between Good and Bad Failure

Posted on by Chris Ames

Silicon Valley loves the idea of failure. In the world of tech startups, messing up is practically a religion. People wield that Samuel Beckett quote – try again, fail again, fail better – like it’s a Louisville Slugger.

As Adrian Daub writes, “People take jobs and lose them, and go on to a new job. People create products that no one likes, and go on to create another product. People back companies that get investigated by the SEC, and go on to back other companies. In Silicon Valley, it seems, there is no such thing as a negative experience.”

But the thing is, not all types of failures are treated equal. A wholesale embrace of failure misses the point. From our point of view, there’s a big difference between good failure and bad failure.

Good Failure: Ideas and Experiments

As a brand strategy and design agency, we work in the business of ideas – and ideas fail all the time. That’s kind of the point. For us, failure is a necessary means of growth. We experiment with ideas, not always as perfect options, but to gauge, measure, provoke, challenge, and enlighten. Often, our favorite ideas don’t ring true right away for the client. But the bumpy road of hiccups, near-misses, and tangents only makes the end product that much stronger.

These types of errors – pushing a visual identity too far, leading with language that’s too bold – never feel like true failures, because they are all in greater service of the work. Each failure helps define the parameters a little more. It’s our job to push the imagination and expectations of a client. As it goes, you can always reign something in. The worst thing we could hear is, “This feels a little too safe.”

In brainstorms, in pitch meetings, and in workshops you need bad ideas to help shape what’s truly good. It’s almost like negative architecture or sculpture. Sometimes you build by taking away everything that doesn’t fit.

As Steve Portigal says in his great talk, “In design and in brainstorming, deliberately seeking out bad ideas is a powerful way to unlock creativity. Generating bad ideas can reveal our assumptions about the difference between bad and good, and often seemingly bad ideas turn out to be good ones.”

Establishing a culture where you feel free to fail is key. When you’re in generation mode, you need a loose enough space for jokes, puns, bad taglines, jingles, and wacky suggestions – because often the right idea is hiding just behind your strangest impulse. It’s the classic “no idea is a bad idea” maxim. Under the right conditions, it’s absolutely true.

Bad Failure: People and Processes

Where things fall apart is when people and processes fail: toxic cultures, breakdowns in communication, not looping in the right stakeholders, not operating with enough information about your target audience, your timeline, your budget. There is nothing charming or creative about a broken project schedule, unless your goal is to create stress. On paper, these are the easiest failures to avoid – and yet they are the most devastating.

When an idea fails, you head back to the drawing board. But as Dean Brenner points out, company-wide communication failures disrupt businesses on a fundamental level. It leads to a “lack of focus, failure of purpose, lack of innovation, drop in morale, and eventually, a loss of credibility.”

Contained Chaos

The best situation is when there is a clearly articulated and defined space for failure. Think of it as contained chaos, lightening in bottle. Here is the time for us to experiment and fail – and here is the system of consolidated feedback that will keep on us on track and aligned. How different would your ideation process be if instead of being asked to present one perfect PowerPoint presentation, your assignment was to come up with 10 experiments, knowing that you had adequate time to refine?

As author Michael Chabon says, “Because I believe in failure; only failure rings true. Our greatest duty as artists and as humans is to pay attention to our failures, to break them down, study the tapes, conduct the postmortem, pore over the finds; to learn from our mistakes.”

Here’s to good failure, bad ideas, and all the mistakes in-between.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Innovation: You’re Thinking About It Wrong, Part II

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

Let’s Reimagine How to Innovate: A Thought Piece by Robin Goldstein, Part 2

Robin Goldstein has been a part of some great teams learning and thinking about innovation and disruption at companies like Apple, Zoox, multiple startups, and now, the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign. In this continuing series, she offers her accumulated wisdom around how to reimagine innovation, shift your mindset from ‘what and how’ to ‘why and who’, build the right team, and create a future that isn’t simply the past with fewer bugs. This week is the second installment in her feature. Please keep posted each week for new sagacity from Robin. If you missed last week’s, you can read it here.

Be Wrong and Be Ok

I believe that founders in particular, and great leaders in general, need to develop a clear and precise vision of how they believe the world can and should look and behave, and then be able to articulate that vision to their organization. In other words, like it or not, if you want to be a founder, some part of you has to be a futurist, or at least play one on TV, with a well-defined POV. (And no, ‘wouldn’t it be cool?’ doesn’t qualify as a point of view. The only truly cool things are flying cars, talking dogs, and chocolate donuts that cure disease and make you better looking!)

You also have to be comfortable with being completely wrong. Many of the greatest were: Edison… Einstein… Steve Jobs was famously wrong about a bunch of things (not having more than one button on a mouse and not allowing third-party apps on the original iPhone). But being wrong isn’t a problem if you’re paying attention, testing your plotted course against the prevailing winds, and taking decisive action when the need to pivot arises.

I often ask teams, “If we went bankrupt today and a new party was able to purchase all our assets and talent for pennies on the dollar, would they simply pick up where we left off, doing exactly what we’re doing or, knowing what we know now, take a different approach or head in a different direction?” Because if the answer is “different”, then my second question is, “Do we have to fail for someone else to be successful, or can we pivot and be the beneficiary of our own experience?”

The cautionary tales of Silicon Valley frequently involve bright people with the best intentions plowing forward, heads down, not recognizing or acknowledging that change is happening all around them. The nimble pay attention, embrace truth, and find the ability not to be attached to a specific outcome. I believe it was Tennyson who said, “Tis’ better to have a vision for how the world will change, be wrong, and incorporate that knowledge into a new vision, than to simply ‘try stuff and see what happens.’ ”

Think Full Stack

This is another element of the ‘but I only want to work on the cool things’ challenge many teams face. Real change, the kind that doesn’t simply make existing systems better, but makes them obsolete (Buckminster Fuller’s definition of disruption) often requires reimagining large parts of an ecosystem. But only considering the part that’s interesting to you, and relying on someone else to ‘magically’ take care of everything else and lay the foundation for your success, rarely works. I’ve seen this at play in a wide range of spaces, including healthcare, transportation, and education.

I liken it to developing an amazing new seed, one where a single plant could feed 100 people for a month. But that seed has very specific and unique soil requirements, different than any soil that exists today. And you, as the seed developer say, “Seeds are cool…Soil is boring…I’ll show the world my cool seed and someone else will figure out how to make sure there’s suitable soil for it to grow.” Why would you ever put your success into someone else’s hands? You have to think full stack, even if you’re only going to be working on a small part. Expand your view to understand as much of the landscape necessary for your success as possible, even if you’re only interested or able to focus on a very small piece.

To be clear, you don’t have to take responsibility for all the elements, but you do have to consider all the components necessary for your success and find ways to tell the whole story of the experience you want to enable. That moves the conversation from ‘what’ to ‘so what’, and in turn gets others excited, too. This results in sparking interest and innovation from those who want to work on a different section of the puzzle (the soil geeks), in turn providing incentives for the creation of a more robust ecosystem and the development of community, multiple stakeholders, and ultimately larger, more transformational wins.

Keep posted for more insight on innovation from Robin next week in Part 3.

Emotive Brand is an Oakland based brand strategy and design agency.

From Failure to a Future: Bella Banbury on Our Agency’s Plan For Equality and Representation

Posted on by Bella Banbury

A Note From Bella Banbury, Co-Founder, On Equality and Representation.

Six weeks ago, following a weekend of protest and unrest in response to the murder of George Floyd in the hands of the police, I facilitated our weekly Monday morning team meeting. I did a terrible job.

Aiming to facilitate a meaningful dialogue around what action we should take, I stumbled through the conversation not finding the right words or actions to address our team. The meeting ended, we agreed to make a donation to the BLM movement, and simply proceeded with business as usual. That was a failure.

As I look back, I am grateful to the people on my team who stood up and demanded something better from me and asked our company to do more than talk, donate, and move on. Their demands forced the discomfort of addressing the topic of race in the workplace, in our industry, and in our own company. These conversations are not easy. We will continue to make mistakes, but the important thing we know now is that business as usual is not enough. Business as usual does not make change happen. And so we have begun.

We’ve asked ourselves what will we do to make an impact, not just today, but for the future? This question directed our focus towards the youth and looking for ways to raise awareness of our industry among BIPOC students, starting with middle schoolers. We will develop a grassroots program that introduces design and branding to students, with a focus on Oakland schools, as well as establishing an annual fund/donation for Black high school students with an interest in design.

In our own studio, we are looking for ways to actively promote more inclusive content through our thought leadership channels that’s more engaging to all people, to help attract more diverse talent into our team, connect us to our greater community, and link us up with like-minded organizations and teams.

We know change will take time, but if we can make even a small impact on our industry by making it more equitable and representative of all races, that makes for a better future and better work.

A Black Perspective On Discomfort, Design, and Doing Something

Posted on by Keyoni Scott

A Thought Piece from Keyoni Scott, Designer at Emotive Brand.

Demanding Change

Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, the list goes on and on. The murder of George Floyd has been a trigger for a lot of people to finally stand up and demand change. People are flooding the streets and protesting. Signing petitions and sending emails to government officials. Sparking conversations they used to avoid. Donating money to Black Lives Matter and other impactful groups like Campaign Zero, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the ACLU, Black Visions Collective. Racial aggressions are being brought to the surface. White leaders are resigning. The weight of discriminative and racist cultures is being felt—finally. And I’ve thought a lot about why this murder? Why now? And what can I do–as a Black man working in a predominantly white community? What can my community do better?

I wanted to write this piece for many reasons, some said and some unsaid. One, I want to hold my friends, my colleagues, and my peers accountable. Two, I’ve been inspired by Black voices during this time and I want to inspire other Black peers to share what they are thinking, doing, and feeling. Three, I want to better connect my workplace and our skills with groups, organizations, and schools in Oakland. We all need to begin somewhere to spark change in the world. I’m starting here.

My Perspective on Discomfort

We live in a world where systemic racism is by design. Many Blacks have been living this reality for hundreds of years. I live in a pretty diverse community in Oakland, but yet find myself surrounded predominantly by white coworkers. Being one of the only Black people surrounded by white people, it can be hard to speak out or let your voice be heard. I have no problem having those uncomfortable conversations about race with my Black peers. But that same conversation with a white person quickly turns into an uncomfortable situation that turns into silence.

The murder of George Floyd and the events that have happened have forced these conversations, dialogs, and uncomfortable situations where non-Blacks can truly grow to better understand what it means to be Black in America. I love and embrace that discomfort.

This is a moment for white people to accept the conversation, accept that they don’t know, and accept being uncomfortable—like we’ve felt for so long. And it’s through these conversations that I’ve discovered that most all of the people around me do care. They are on my side. They do want to step up, listen, learn, and do better. They do want change.

Inspired By

Seeing my peers and fellow Blacks stand up inspired me to do what I can. To question: what’s the thing that I can do to change the world? For some, bringing about change means marching at the protest frontlines. For others, it’s running for office and bringing a change to the system from within. I think it’s important to say that action is meaningful—period. No action is less meaningful than the next. Action is the thing that matters. For me, it was important to accept that. To not be discouraged by the small things. Small things matter. A million small actions together can create collective change. Think about the ripple out effect of one conversation. How those people in dialog at work bring that conversation back to their homes, their friends, their neighbors, their kids. So how did I start? How did I inspire myself? I asked myself: what can I realistically do? What am I good at? That’s how I will make my mark.

Supported By

I’m fortunate to work in an environment where these conversations can take place. These past few weeks, more than anything, have proved that dialog between your peers can spark change. We’ve had difficult, uncomfortable conversations at Emotive Brand—hard but important dialogs. But, I have felt invited to speak my mind in a culture where everyone can speak their mind. We’re calling each other out more, talking about what content is important right now. We’re dividing and conquering, we’re figuring out how we can do better. We’ve got work to do but we are doing work.

Where Are the Black Designers?

Being Black in America for me has always meant I was one step behind. Always playing catch up in a system that wasn’t built for me. I was 22-years-old when I got my first Mac and started to explore the creative possibilities in the Adobe Suite. As someone who has worked twice as hard to learn and grow in my field, I see the lack of equity and representation in the design world as a deeper, larger issue than recruitment.

So, when I thought about my profession and where I can realistically help, the place for impact was obvious to me: schools. It makes sense to try to focus my efforts in the Oakland community where kids of color might not have the same opportunities as others. I want to give back to the youth of Oakland and give them a chance that I didn’t have when I was younger. To show the world of design to them and inspire them to pursue that as a career if it interests them. To even the playing field as best I can. So they won’t have to play catchup like I did. And so that they can look around at the desks next to them and see more black and brown faces than I do today. This inspired the action we have decided to take as a Studio.

Here’s What We Plan on Doing as an Agency

We’re thinking long-term. Short-term actions are great, but that’s the bare minimum. How can we create a sustainable plan for the next 10 plus years? Here’s our roadmap thus far. We will update our plan as it evolves as we are actively shaping it. We’ve created four Equality and Representation committees that will lead the following initiatives both internally and externally.

1. Establish a grassroots program in schools.

We will create a grassroots program that introduces design and branding to middle-school-aged kids, with a focus on Oakland schools.

2. Establish a gift.

We will fund a scholarship for Black high school students in Oakland looking to pursue a college degree in a graphic design-based program.

3. Create a more inclusive dialog.

We will look for ways to actively promote content through our thought leadership channels that is more inclusive and engaging to all people.

4. Increase diversity in our team.

We will actively look for and encourage BIPOC to join our team by opening up different channels for seeking out and appealing to top talent.

Again, this is just the start. Let’s work together. Please reach out if you want to talk, connect, or are looking for greater support or partnership. Emotive Brand and I stand with our Oakland community.

[email protected]

 

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Innovation: You’re Thinking About It Wrong

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

Let’s Reimagine How to Innovate: A Thought Piece by Robin Goldstein, Part 1

Robin Goldstein has been a part of some great teams learning and thinking about innovation and disruption at companies like Apple, Zoox, multiple startups, and now, the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign. In this series, she offers her accumulated wisdom around how to reimagine innovation, shift your mindset from ‘what and how’ to ‘why and who’, build the right team, and create a future that isn’t simply the past with fewer bugs. This week is the first installment in her feature. Please keep posted each week for new sagacity from Robin.

You’re Thinking About It All Wrong

I come back to this concept a lot. I’ve encountered it everywhere: Apple, Zoox, startups, Stanford…amazing, bright, well-meaning people who want to disrupt and change the world for the better. But, they all begin the design process by imposing limitations, overly constraining the problem, encumbering themselves with needing to know “all” the facts, and subsequently restricting the space and freedom they allow in formulating their approach, ultimately curbing the promise of developing a truly impactful solution.

I remember one meeting at Apple where I got to be a fly on the wall. The presenter, someone Steve really respected, began talking and Steve looked at their first slide, walked over, turned off the projector, and said, “No, no, no…you’re thinking about it all wrong.” I reflect on this a lot; the power of simply shifting your perspective.

One day, pre-COVID, I was hanging out with some Biodesign students in a Stanford innovation class where they’ve been kind enough to allow me to be a mentor. The prescient topic was ideating a solution to increase the flu vaccination rate among at-risk populations. Everyone’s answer? “We have to make people smarter. More education from the employer, the insurance company, the doctor…” As I listened, my comedian’s mind conjured up a fantastical image and I said, “I don’t know anything about this, but if I wanted to inoculate more people, I might try sneaking up behind them at the McDonald’s drive-through. They’ve already got their arm out the window, and as they’re grabbing their fries, BAM!” Everyone stared. One of the folks said, “That’s a terrific idea!” and I said, “It may be a horrible idea, but it suggests perhaps we’re thinking about this all wrong.”

A different way of framing the same problem can unlock a ton of creativity and inventiveness. Where can we reach people when their arms are already extended? (Which is really a way of saying how can we reduce friction to adoption?) And yes, at first it may lead to terrible (though amusing) solutions. But, when I’m working on a problem with, as I like to say, “the confidence of an idiot unencumbered by facts!” and offer an idea, the words I most love to hear from a colleague are, “yes, maybe not that, but…” In other words, that’s silly, but what about…? This mode of thinking opens up a whole series of questions leading to truly innovative solutions that would never be found by simply trotting the traditional track.

Start by Standing in The Future and Imagining the World You Want to Exist

On my last day at Apple, after 22 years, a young engineer introduced herself and asked me what was the most important lesson I had learned. That was a big question that I wasn’t sure I could answer. I thought for a bit and then walked over to a whiteboard and wrote,

“The future should not simply be the past with fewer bugs.”

When most people think about innovation, they stand in the present and try to peer into the future. And what do they see? They see problems: technical, economic, social, regulatory—problems that lead to a model of innovation that works best at creating a better/cheaper/faster version of what already exists. But I noticed something while working with true innovators…disruptors…the crazy ones. They stand in the future and look around and imagine the world they want to exist. The experiences they want to enable. The kinds of products that lead users to say, “I didn’t know I needed this, and now I can’t imagine living without it.” They don’t start with cool technology and try to figure out product/market fit. They imagine the world they want to live in, the way things would work if a magic genie granted them wishes, and then they look ‘back’ to today and start figuring out what problems they need to start solving now in order to make that future a reality.

If you listen to people talk about a driverless future, you’ll invariably hear them say something like, “and then when you want to go somewhere, you’ll pull out your phone and launch an app and…” No, no, you’re thinking about it all wrong. What if we imagined a future where transportation was as frictionless and ubiquitous as water or electricity? What would a daily commute look like in this world? I leave from the same place and go to the same place at about the same time most every day. I’ve allowed my life to be instrumented with a smart thermostat and a smart speaker with access to my calendar and a connection to my smartphone and toothbrush and toaster. So, in the future I want to live in, my transportation ecosystem will confidently predict where I’m going, when I need to arrive, and the best way to take me there.

In this future, I really only need to launch an app when there’s an exception to my routine that isn’t obvious from all the signals in my life. Take a moment and think about how much time and energy (mental, physical, and emotional) you spend on your daily commute. Worrying about when to leave, where to park, which route, Waze, or Apple Maps? The stress. Now, think about mobility in 10 years as being a ubiquitous and frictionless experience, there when you need it, no worrying required. Do you want to live in that world? Can you imagine someone saying, “I didn’t know I needed this and now I can’t live without it?” Great, now what problems (technical, economic, social, regulatory) do we need to start working on solving today so when the future arrives we’ll be ready for it?

Keep posted for more insight on innovation from Robin next week in Part 2.

Emotive Brand is an Oakland based brand strategy and design agency.

Talking Purposeful, Global Leadership in a COVID-19 World: Interview with Emily Chang, Senior Executive

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

An Interview with Senior Executive, Emily Chang: Purpose and Profit, Meaningful Global Leadership, Commercialization, Innovation, and Mentorship in a COVID-19 World

We sat down with Emily Chang, a Senior Executive with 20 years of global experience in Customer Experience, Business Strategy, Cross-Cultural Team Leadership, Change Management & Organizational Renewal, and Brand Building at enterprise organizations such as P&G, Apple, IHG, and Starbucks. Emily is in the midst of writing a book that focuses on ideas of purposeful leadership, community, and culture. In this interview, she shares insights and thoughts on her career and life path, the implications of this time on brand, commercialization strategies, marketing, and culture, as well as the kind of mindset leaders—young and established—should be adopting as this crisis continues to unfold.

It’s apparent that you’ve followed a rich and diverse career and life path. Can you tell us a bit about your journey?

I’ve tried to follow a path that offers opportunities for learning and joy. I started out pre-med and then found my way to business school, which opened the door to an internship at Procter & Gamble. My career really unfolded at P&G, where I had the opportunity to move across a range of business units over the course of 11 years: retail sales, international, upstream design, brand management, and marketing…These experiences were like the ultimate sampler platter of general management! I was then recruited by Apple for a dream job, helping establish the face of the brand in China, just when we were first opening stores. Then an incredible few years working for and with world-class leaders at InterContinental Hotels group, and then Starbucks…which eventually enabled our family to move from China to Seattle. Most recently, I’m considering family alongside career and providing my daughter the chance to experience living in America.

I feel incredibly lucky to have had such rich and joyful learning experiences so far. And importantly, I’ve discovered what I love to do. The opportunity to connect dots that haven’t been previously connected, unlocking new potential. What motivates me is adding value to people and to business. Regardless of industry or geography, realizing that potential gives me deep satisfaction.

While COVID-19 continues to affect the health and economies of countries across the globe, what do you think must be top of mind for executives at global enterprise companies?

I’ve been advising a number of leaders as they write their strategic plans, and three common themes have emerged.

  1. Exercise a new level of agile strategic thinking: We need to stop thinking of “post-COVID” as a solid milestone. It’s quite likely we’re not done with the after-effects of the virus and there’s not going to be a “new normal” as much as a series of “next normals”. COVID-19 has triggered a series of consumer and market shifts that will only give rise to further behavioral transformation. We will need to plan, engage, and lead with unprecedented agility.
  2. Allow shared purpose to unearth new capability: Living life with intention and purpose has been a huge passion of mine. It’s what I’m focused on in the book I’m writing. In the workplace, I’ve been so inspired by those who have pivoted their operations to serve a broader purpose. Sports and auto manufacturers are producing ventilators, while distilleries are pivoting to producing sanitizers. These companies seem to be identifying new capabilities, even as they challenge old sacred cows. They’re serving new needs and streamlining processes—and making money! They’ve discovered the beautiful, value-added intersection of purpose and profit.
  3. Interrogate the data: We must recognize that the world has changed. Consumer habits, media consumption, online behavior, and digital engagement have all taken a quantum leap. As we seek insights from our databases, we must exercise discernment and not allow old data to inform new decisions. Obsolete data isn’t that which was collected and shared in 2018… it’s as recent as January 2020.

What kind of leaders do we need to lead amidst a COVID and post-COVID world?

Leaders who balance head, heart, and soul will draw followership. Those who don’t just deliver business performance, but also nurture and advocate for their people (heart) and identify ways to do good while doing well (soul). I agree with the Business Roundtable; social leadership is a business imperative. That’s really the intent of my book. I wanted to share an example of someone in the business world embracing personal contribution because I truly value it and believe the social legacy we create resonates as much as our professional legacy. It’s going to be tough to drive a purpose-driven brand if you’re not a purpose-driven leader.

Selling in a time where uncertainty is the norm is a challenge. What’s your approach to shifting commercialization strategies right now? Does Marketing continue to market? Does Sales continue to sell?

It really comes back to purpose. Some brands are investing in heartfelt messages like “We’re all in this together” and, although those messages might be completely genuine, they can come across as generic because the purpose of the brand doesn’t necessarily align. First, you have to get clear about who you are and what you stand for. Then, you can communicate in a way that feels authentic and cohesive. I think McDonald’s hit the right chord here. They did a spot highlighting the workers who work all night, thanking them. It paid authentic tribute to the workers, but also communicated the message, “hey, we’re open”. Another recent spot I loved required a celebrity spokesperson to be a little vulnerable. Eva Longoria uses at-home hair color, providing an incredible product demo, a peek into her own home, and loads of credibility (e.g. she really uses the product herself!).

Many think of constraints as obstacles to innovation. But, creativity and innovation often thrive under constraint. Do you have a perspective on how global enterprises should be defining innovation today?

I think innovation requires the constant reinvention of the value we contribute to the world. Grounded in a deep commitment to who they are (their purpose), innovative companies unceasingly ask how they might improve their offering and disrupt their industry. Innovation tests the limits of and then transcends those perceived boundaries. This is a time to see, think, imagine, and do differently.

How do you see the ripple effect of this on culture and how we connect as global entities and communities? What are the long-term implications? How does this ripple out on the internal cultures of companies?

When we view trends over time, we often observe a pendulum effect. For instance, the deeper we move into the future of AI and ML, the more we discover a craving for hands-on learning and manual creation. We see close-knit communities struggling while physically apart, and leveraging technology to maintain togetherness. At the same time, communities that haven’t been close in the past are more connected than ever before. In our neighborhood, strangers are hiding painted rocks on the hill for others to find, infusing delight into each other’s lives even from afar. Pre-COVID, people would have been like, “Who are these people?” Now, we’re craving that sense of togetherness.

In terms of culture in the workplace, teams always learn faster than individuals. Progress unfolds when egos are set aside. When a company’s culture allows the best idea to win, the business serves customers better than ever. IKEA did some incredible, insightful work, leveraging ideas from their open source platform to make novel accessibility add-ons available via free download and 3D printing. This was a good idea for an underserved population that was also good for business.

What advice would you give to younger talent looking for work or early in their careers? How can they use this time to their advantage?

I think it’s about adopting a growth mindset vs. a scarcity mindset. Recently, my family took an RV trip across the western states. Instead of focusing on what we had lost, we asked ourselves, “What new opportunities have presented themselves?” I would ask young people today, “What’s your COVID story?” You’re living through something unique, something that hopefully people won’t live through again. And in the future, you will be asked, “What did you do during that time?”

So, what’s your answer going to be? With this in mind, you can more intentionally adopt a growth mindset. Are you going to say, “I sat at home in my PJs and got Zoom fatigue?” Whether it’s learning to make bread, sewing masks, or getting in an RV, this is your opportunity to write your story.

We will continue to look outside of our own agency for inspiration, advice, insights, and perspective on COVID-19 and the implications on business, brand, and culture.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency based in Oakland, California.