Leap And The Net Will Appear

Brand owners, marketers, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs — ever jumped off a plane and tried to fix your parachute on the way down? Audacious yes, but worth giving it a shot (or jump)!

I have the advantage of writing this on Feb 29 from the inspiring springboard of a leap year. Gratitude.

Ideas are aplenty but ideas without action are regrets. Worry is never the substitute for activity. But action certainly is.

Whether it was Louis Armstrong's first step on the moon that became a giant leap for mankind, or Martin Luther King Jr's rallying cry for Civil Rights or Mahatma Gandhi's Non Cooperation & Quit India Movement, leaps of faith are the trigger points that become movements and change the course of history.

"When land was the productive asset, nations battled over it," wrote Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer in futureWEALTH. "The same is now happening now...for talented people."

The knead (and the need) of the hour (and our) is to cultivate and nourish the land of the brave. Merely having a couple of intrepid geniuses at the top of an organisation wanting to bring to market game changing brands and products/services won't win this battle. What we need are organisations that are chock-a-block with obstreperous people who are determined to bend the rules at every turn... and to invent something really exciting..before the other guy does. It is like the bench strength of a sports team... each of them are as good (if not better) than the full team on the playing field. Each of them when substituted can be game changers in their own right.

Waiting for the customer or market to tell you what they need or want is primitive thinking. You better remain with your backside glued to the Lazyboy bean bag if that is the idea. Proactive, agile initiatives are all about creating products, services or solutions for customers rather than finding customers for your brand. Contrarian yes, relevant, definitely yes. Under utilized approach — yes, yes, yes. Counter WINtuitive — Most Certainly!

The great historian Daniel Boorstin quotes: "No prudent man dared to be too certain of exactly who he was... Everyone had to be prepared to become someone else. To be ready for such perilous transmigrations was to become an American."

"I don't think there is anything worse than being ordinary." — Angela (played by Mena Suvari) in American Beauty.

"Blame No One. Expect Nothing. Do Something." — this is the inspiring sign put up in the New York Jets locker room by their former coach Bill Parcells.

It's Brand You or ... Bust

In terms of enterprise — that is work, brand, business — the upshot of re-imagining the individual, is a tectonic shift in perspective towards what we can call...Brand You Thinking.

Irrespective of where you are in the organisational or social hierarchy, you are well advised to behave as if you were the CEO of Me Inc. In other words: view yourself as the boss of your own show, even if that show happens to be playing at Citigroup, Singapore Airlines, Tata Group, Emaar or ExxonMobil.

In other words (again): DISTINCT or EXTINCT! For all the reams and reams of stuff that have been written on branding, permit me a distilled essence. Contrary to hardwired System A thinking( respected shout out to Daniel Kahneman), branding is not a marketing issue at all — it is an attitude issue, pure and simple. What we call "brand outside" (that is, what the marketplace 'experiences of us') is a function of "brand inside" (what lies within us as an enterprise..or within our individual soul).

To offer a caveat to the idea of Brand You — there is definitely an element of self-absorption. But that said, the impetus is not ego, it's something more primal- survival — the downside of cubicle slavery notwithstanding, it is fine not to be self-absorbed-if your organisation is taking care of your every need right down to your coffin allowance and death. Call it Brand You or whatever, but do not relegate it to the 'optional' check box.

Brand You captures the spirit of offering (selling-period!) one's services in that wide-open, largely unprotected global marketplace that is perceived to be of economic value (like Adam Sorkin's Screenplays). If that is labeled as narcissism or self-absorption, so be it. Not the one to be giving any quarter on this. Guilty!

"All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience." — Henry Miller

— Suresh Dinakaran is Chief Storyteller, ISD Global, a branding & strategy consultancy, Managing Editor of BrandKnew and Founder of Weeklileaks.