Hi friend – Rob here.

Today in Salmon Theory+: a summary of 'Maxims', by François de La Rochefoucauld (part 2).

Last week, we did part 1​ of this book.

Powered by the King of Twitter before Twitter was Twitter, La Rochefoucauld.

Today, we're doing part 2, because his zingers were that good.

And also, because i wanted to write 'zingers' here.

📝 TL;DR (part 2):

1. Culture is the set of behaviours you want to emulate (not the one you feel you have to)
2. There is immense cleverness in simply stating what's common sense
3. If someone's bored by you, consider it's not them, it's you
4. We all win if we have people who don't admire us
5. Adversity is a greater marker of trust than 'the good times'
6. Don't demonise vanity, cultivate as many vanities as you can
7. Find an 'enemy' who can call you out on your bullshit

1. Culture is the set of behaviours you want to emulate

My guy L-Roc was not a leadership expert, but this would suggest otherwise.

Everyone talks about culture as if it were the pristine words you put on walls.

Or a slide.

Or the things you keep saying at the company meeting.

But while that cements culture, that's not culture.

And neither are the croissants, casual Fridays or heaven forbid the 'option' to order pizza for a late one.

No, culture as i see it is how you deal with mistakes.

This is my favourite, non-academic definition.

Tell you why: because it's tangible.

And because it presumes mistakes will happen.

We all make them.

The real question is, what then?

How do we respond to mistakes?

What's the self-talk?

How do our peers respond to mistakes?

What's the water cooler story (is there even one)?

How do your bosses respond to mistakes?

What's the guidance?

What's the tone?

Bad culture is people scream at you for making a mistake.

Good culture is they recognise mistakes happen because we needed help, so you go deeper.

Why did a mistake happen in the first place?

Assume this person is not dumb or incompetent.

What else is going on?

That's good culture.

That's leading by example.

That's what contagious leadership sounds like.

It's the set of behaviours that you want to emulate.

Not the set of behaviours you feel like you have to.

2. There is immense cleverness in simply stating what's common sense

Or, indeed, 'person'.

But the guy was from the 17th century, so let's move on.

This is the other thing about people who think for a living.

They sometimes feel the need to show how good their thinking is, lest they're seen as expendable.

Look, i've done this tons of times too.

In fact, i can plot my level of nervousness against how unclear my language is.

Perfect correlation.

Then there's when you feel psychologically safe.

You actually feel you can slow down.

To ponder your thoughts.

To find the right word.

To sit – blasphemy! – in silence as you look for them.

To feel the tone of your voice lower, so that others can't help but stop and lean in to listen.

The most effective people i've ever worked with do it this way.

They're not interested in over-powering the conversation.

Their role is to lower the temperature and clarify minds.

There is an art form to all this, though.

Because you can still lower the temperature while coming across as pretentious.

This is where the language we use comes in.

How come there's a bias in strategy to sound like the privately educated folks many of us are?

Not everyone.

But many.

Ten dollar words may justify retainers, but they don't solve problems.

The real clever thing is to keep your language so simple others can't help but nod in agreement, and act on it.

There is cleverness in normalising common sense.

While leaving the impression they couldn't have gotten there without you.

Or they could, but not as fast or clearly as you helped them do.

3. If someone's bored by you, consider it's not them, it's you

This one is counter-intuitive to me.

But then again, the most interesting ideas are.

So let's see where we go with it.

It seems to me that the ego of a strategist is born of insecurity.

Before you go all LinkedIn godzilla on me, this is not a strategist thing.

It's a 'being a human being' thing.

Our ego is our consciousness' way to protect ourselves from what would look like disaster.

This is why when someone challenges us, we have a moment of defensiveness.

The real trick is in knowing how to identify that moment, breathe, and listen to what is being said.

But if we don't do this, our ego assumes it's personal.

And how dare you!

But it isn't about you.

It never was.

Even when others attack your person or worth, it's not about you.

It's about their perception of you.

And their perception of you is born out of their perceptions of themselves.

Bullies are bullies because they have been bullied.

Always.

It still stings when they do it to us, of course.

But what does all this have to do with forgiving the people we bore?

It's simple.

If someone feels bored by us, we can also take it as an assault.

I thought you were here to listen?

How dare you not give me the benefit of the doubt?

Who do you think you are?

And all these are valid.

But as with writing, it's not the writer's fault if the reader can't comprehend the message.

Some writers will say the audience is dumb then.

That's a copout.

The great lesson from working in communications is that if a message didn't land, it's 100% on you, not on the audience.

So if you're boring someone, pause and think.

Is it your role to forgive them for having the audacity to feel bored by your brilliance?

Or is there something more effective you could have done to make sure they understood?

Sometimes, the best presentation is an actual prototype.

4. We all win if we have people who don't admire us

There are pretty dodgy analogies out there about how to think about business.

And marketing.

One of the most notorious ones is physics.

There's a saying.

Anyone who compares business to physics doesn't understand business or physics.

Fair enough.
​
And yet, this feels simplistic.

Because business and marketing can operate like physics.

But there's a catch.

You need to go quantum for it to make sense.

This lets you recognise that there are laws of big brands, which mag differ from laws of small brands.

John V Willshire wrote about this in 2020, its still one of my favourite blog posts on our discipline.

​Ever.
​
Thinking of markets as parallel realities helps us be more humble about them.

And about the people within them.

Especially people who don't interpret market dynamics like we do.

It bores me when people argue over definitions.

Or insist approaches are mutually exclusive.

This lack of praise comes from a lack of respect.

And this lack of respect comes from knowing others do not admire our thinking.
​
The great irony?

We all win if we have people who don't admire us.

And others win if we don't admire them.

It means we collectively stress test our arguments.

And helps us see that choosing sides is nowhere near as powerful as knowing how to use all sides of the debate.

5. Adversity is a greater marker of trust than 'the good times'

Culture is how we deal with mistakes.

The scale of the situation dictates our moral fibre.

This goes beyond mistakes too.

It's any situation where the stakes are high.

For good and bad.

The point is simple.

Big wins and big losses tell us a lot about ourselves.

And modern marketing operators seem to have to deal with those on a daily basis.

Especially as they get more senior.

For example, i have been working with a client on a big portfolio brand strategy project.

Two things define this project: the team are smart and lovely.

And there's a lot of moving parts.

Some might consider this a problem.

How dare you keep changing the inputs of the brief?

Either have it all signed off or we don't start.

But we chose different.

We chose to operate on daily sprints.

Quick iteration.

Full transparency.

Shoulder to shoulder collaboration.

Zero fear of challenging each other.

Mutual respect.

The right chemistry makes any adversity bearable.

But it's beyond bearable.

In a twisted way, we should welcome more adversity.

It tells us more about a client, partner or hire than a fancy CV, meeting or presentation ever could.

It's a greater marker of trust and good intentions.

And it normalises that shit, quite simply, happens.

6. Don't demonise vanity, cultivate as many vanities as you can

I have a fundamental belief we are all vain.

You might think i'm insulting you.

I'm not.

I'm saying that i have vanity, and you have vanity, and this is what makes us interesting.

Vanity is like bias.

It's what makes us have a distinct point of view.

Instead of mirroring others' views.

Accepting vanity may lead to greater diversity of thought.

You read that right.

Our vanities, like our biases, are born of our upbringing and predispositions.

So you don't get to better thoughts by removing vanity.

You do it by embracing as many different types of vanities there are.

To do anything less is to deny someone's emotional reality.

And that is never a winning strategy.

Now, some types of vanity are detrimental.

And some people are just dicks.

This isn't about those folks.

It's about everyone else who, like you and me, are playing their best hand based on the cards they were given.

If we accept that, we are more likely to approach projects with humility.

With open-mindedness.

With care.

For the results, and the people making them.

Vain as they (and we) may be.

7. Find an 'enemy' who can call you out on your bullshit

A few years ago, in conversation with Alex Smith, he made a cool point.

He said he aspired to having an arch-nemesis of some kind.

I thought that was fun, but left it at that.

Over time, i started understanding what he meant.

Or least, i developed my own interpretation of it.

You’re not setting out to be contrarian.

But it’s a good sign if other voices want to challenge you.

It means you are doing something worth challenging.

You are trying new things.

Knowing full well 95% of them might fail.

You do it anyway.

What i call ‘venture capital’ strategic thinking.

As opposed to ‘value investing’ strategic thinking.

But more to the point, an enemy helps you check yourself.

Because guess what, they may have a point in their challenge.

The hard part of this game is knowing what is being challenged out of pure fear.

That happens a lot too.

Now, we’re exaggerating here.

I’m not saying to actively create an enemy.

What i am saying is, there’s a danger for us all that we drink too much of our kool aid.

And when (not if) that happens, you need someone who can judge you precisely because they don’t agree with you.

I hear a lot from senior folks that the more senior they get, the more bad news doesn’t travel to them.

The problem is when the bad news are about… well, them.

This is how we get to delusions of grandeur at the highest level.

Having an ‘enemy’ to judge us can help counter it.

Maybe there’s a market for coaches that are not there to pump you up.

They’re precisely there to call you out on your bullshit.

It would take a lot of egolessness to buy this service.

But the long-term results would be well worth the investment.

Hmmm.

📝 TL;DR (part 2):

1. Culture is the set of behaviours you want to emulate (not the one you feel you have to).
2. There is immense cleverness in simply stating what's common sense.
3. If someone's bored by you, consider it's not them, it's you.
4. We all win if we have people who don't admire us.
5. Adversity is a greater marker of trust than 'the good times'.
6. Don't demonise vanity, cultivate as many vanities as you can.
7. Find an 'enemy' who can call you out on your bullshit.