How to Grow into Great

How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies

from Biz Group blog 8/12 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz

I first experienced Author Jim Stengel’s work at the “Growth Summit” conference in Atlanta., He was an engaging speaker and shared some ideas that resonated with me & the rest of the audience. I eagerly ordered his book to learn more. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. It was a hard to read and although, I still think he has well formulated ideas & insights we can apply, it was hard to understand.

The Basic Idea. The overriding concept of his research & career experience – as the Global Marketing Officer for P&G – is that companies who have centered their business on improving people’s lives have a growth rate triple (3x) that of competitors. Stengel studied 50 brands over a 10 year growth period, connecting their financial performance to their impact on fundamental human emotions, hopes, values & greater purposes. Throughout the book, he does ‘deep dives’ into specific products & companies and how they have an ideal/ purpose/ objective to their brands & performance.

He calls the link ‘Brand Ideals’ and a viable one cuts through the clutter of their advertising and clarifies what you & your people stand for & believe. Your role is to establish what your company or brand ideal is (purpose) and then connect it to improving people’s lives. Through the research, Stengel’s Team established that there are five fundamental human values that improve people’s lives by:
1. Eliciting Joy – Activating experiences of happiness, wonder & limitless possibility
2. Enabling Connections – Enhancing the ability of people to connect with one another & the world, in meaningful ways
3. Inspiring Exploration – Helping people explore new horizons & experiences
4. Evoking Pride – Giving people increased confidence, strength, security & vitality
5. Impacting Society – Affecting society broadly, including by challenging the status quo & redefining categories

Your brand might cross over two or three, but you should find your dominant value and then center your marketing activities & brand building + the whole company culture behind this. In the keynote address he focused on just five words from these values and that helped me see how I could apply them to our own business:

[ Joy, Connect, Explore, Pride & Impact + Examples in Premium Section ]