π£ Strategy is nothing without this small (but huge) thing
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Hey friend β Rob here. I hope this email finds you in a thoughtful state, at least before the weekly chaos starts. But even when the chaos starts, stay thoughtful folks! If said chaos is about the rise of synthetic research, well, we now have a guide for that too. On with the salmon-y stuff. Strategy is what you doIf i could take a guess, i would say 98.12% of strategy documents never go anywhere. Not because they're not smart, clear or doable. Not even because there's no interest. Rather, it's because there's no commitment. Being interested means someone's willing to listen to you. Being committed means they're willing to do something about it. And, ultimately, strategy is about the things that get done, not the things you wish you'd done. Not just cleverness, or clarity. It's a statement or commitment for a group of people to do something. It's not fancy pants academia. It's full body action. The world's a non-binary mix of dualitiesStrategy and ideas are a pure reflection of the human dilemma. Are we rational beings with emotions, or emotional beings who rationalise? (It's the latter, btw.) Now, this isn't to say strategy is the rational side and ideas are the emotional side. But rather, it's to say we live in a world that isn't binary, but is sure as hell full of duality. And each of these dualities can and do co-exist, even if we love to semantically debate them to death:
This came to mind because of something i posted on LinkedIn last week. And two friends privately pointed out they disagreed, and we talked about it, and... they were also right! What a wonderful feeling this is. To know that each duality offers two sides of the same coin. But also, different sets of dualities can co-exist and make us all richer practitioners as a result. Arguing about definitions can be pointless when those definitions are different dimensions of the same point. The two mantras of memoryIt's healthy that we increasingly think about how our work becomes memorable, not just "relevant". But within this debate there's a(nother) duality which i find extremely useful:
And i find this useful because some categories err more on one side than the other. If you're an insurance provider, you want to be remembered first and foremost. Because this means when you're thinking about getting a policy, you might bypass price comparison websites. Or even if you don't (and most wouldn't), you're already on the consideration set before the search actually starts. And this gives you tremendous relative advantage that isn't related to price, it's much more powerful than that. (This is why companies like Direct Line are consciously not present in price comparison websites at all.) On the other side of things, consider a chocolate bar. Sure, you want to be the most famous chocolate bar, but the commercial gain is when you get recognised in store. There's no point being the most famous chocolate bar when you're not physically available for me to buy you. So i find this to be a useful way to evaluate a category and the role of communications within it. Is the most important thing to be remembered, or to be recognised? Five quick bites"Tell your prospective client your weakness before they notice them. This will make you more credible when you boast about your strong points." David Ogilvy This is what true authenticity really means. βItβs hard not to be afraid. Be less afraid.β Susan Sontag The world is a collection of least bad scenarios, not optimal ones. βYou can either experience the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The choice is yours.β Unknown It takes a huge degree of self-awareness to know in which camp we play. "The antidote to envy is one's own work.β Bonnie Friedman Inversely, if someone bashes your work, get them to show you theirs. "AI gives you results not answers." Unknown For now, anyway (no one knows anything, etc).
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Salmon Theory
Helping strategists grow with compassion, clarity and creativity.
I recently interviewed Kevin Chesters (you can watch it here), and boy what a dream conversation it was. Kevin has a wonderful way of being both a very smart man, and a very generous one as well with his thoughts. And although we never worked together, i could see a level of thoughtfulness that frankly i wish more CSOs displayed. Rare stuff. Anyway, heaven forbid i discourage you from watching the full thing. But at the same time, sometimes we're short on time and headspace to watch YouTube...
A few weeks ago, while at Frankly Speaking, i stumbled into a pretty neat way of attending a conference and taking notes. The answer? Don't take notes. Send texts. Specifically, find a buddy you can trust (in my case, the spectacularly smart Sheeza Anjum who is also part of the Salmon Crew) and swap your impressions as you go. It's pretty insane the level of insight you might get to by sharing the responsibilities of coming up with it. Maybe there's a broader lesson in this for strategy as a...
So the first Salmon Theory panel (featuring Salmon Crew members) was a wild ride. And by wild ride, i mostly mean pretty successful, with tons of positive feedback along the way. Thanks again to Pollyanna, Alexi (subscribe to Idle Gaze!), Sheeza, Jaskaran (subscribe to The Social Juice!) and Berk for helping make this the epic vibe session it was. The aim of the session was simple: To look at five under-discussed brands (Wealthsimple, Curry's, Flex, Starface, immi) To reverse engineer the...