Quickly and with haste.
But what happens when you get there?
Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday. It gives us an opportunity to connect with the power of gratitude. Dr. Andrew Weil recommends considering each day what went well and why as an antidote to our chaotic world and as an opportunity to uplift our mood.
We are thankful for each of you, and so many other leaders who work towards making the world a better place.
Stay thankful.
The mall isn’t dead, but it needs a makeover.
The current model of the mall is broken. It no longer serves the purpose it once did: for adults, it’s no longer convenient; for teens, it seems too much like something uncool from their parents’ generation to make them want to hang out there.
Decades ago, having an Athlete’s Foot a few doors down from a Foot Locker wasn’t a bad thing: it gave people more options. Now, with a culture that feels time-starved and that has been taught that you shouldn’t have to go to more than one place to find what you want, having to go to two stores that are interchangeable from a customer-perspective seems like an unnecessary burden and turns the mall into a poor customer experience.
And, when you multiply that by all the cases in the mall where that’s the same–stores selling seemingly the same things–and the mall becomes a beacon of wasted time and a symbol of inconvenience. It’s like a big box retailer putting half the black dresses on the first floor and the other half on the second floor, at the opposite end of the building.
With teens increasingly turning away from malls, malls are becoming places that no longer contain positive memories of childhood. This will become an increasing issue if nothing changes: there won’t be any nostalgia to bring them back.
The model of the mall hasn’t changed in a long time: it was dated before most teenagers were born–in two years no teenager will have been born before there was an iPhone. It’s a remnant of their parents’ childhood that isn’t even relevant for most of their parents anymore. The mall has become horribly uncool.
To become relevant again, the mall as a whole needs to focus on serving the customer, it has to be destination-worthy, and the mall itself has to be a brand.
The mall can no longer allow retailers in based on whether or not they can pay rent. Instead, the mall needs a curator that selects stores based on whether or not they contribute to the overall mall serving the customer better.
In the new model, having two stores selling the same brands of sneakers or two stores selling similar styles of clothing wouldn’t make the cut: they inconvenience the customer.
And, shopping must be easy: a woman’s shoe store shouldn’t be at the opposite end of the mall as a store selling dresses.
The stores must be selected to make the whole experience convenient for the customer and inspire them.
Food courts passing out samples of Bourbon chicken are outdated. With a culture that’s becoming increasingly obsessed with food, the same care in selecting stores must be applied to selecting food vendors: they must be places people want to eat instead of just being there.
Malls must also provide more than a shopping experience: they must be cool to teenagers. They need to be built to be shared in an online, social world.
The mall should be like a mini-neighborhood where people can get all their shopping done, go to a favorite restaurant, and hang out.
The power of the mall of the future is in its curation. Without curation, the mall is just clutter to today’s consumer. With curation, the mall can regain its identity and again become an essential part of culture.
In a society that values goals and results, it’s easy to see why play isn’t valued by adults.
Play is a state more than it is a thing. Play involves doing something enjoyable for its own sake. There is no goal aside from enjoying the experience.
But, play is not a trivial activity: play makes people happier, it helps develop empathy, it reduces stress, and it strengthens resolve.
“Before I can tell you the story, you have to try the shot.” – Fred Mossler Co-Founder Zappos.
You mean the one with the scorpion in it?
“Yeah and you should shoot it together, you definitely don’t want to eat the scorpion alone.” – Fred
“BJ, The Scorpion Shot is so popular, that we are now vertically integrating scorpions into our business model.” – Tony Hsieh Zappos CEO
We are celebrating Nacho Daddy’s 5 Year Anniversary in Las Vegas.
Fascinated by all things culture, I am naturally intrigued by the story and the sense of community that taking this shot provides.
Gulp! It’s gone, scorpion and all.
Soon after we are sitting in the middle of T-Mobile Arena where the biggest show in Vegas is about to go off, the Knights take the ice, and the crowd goes wild. Maybe it’s the tequila or the scorpion, but I am vibrating even though I have no clue about the game of hockey, but I understand people can feel the energy and it is electric.
Separating Oreo’s and dunking it in milk, or Breaking a KitKat into halves and eating it on a break, Popping the cap of the Pringles tube or if you want to get fancy The Stella Artois’ 9-step pouring ritual. These brand rituals play a crucial role in building a sense of belonging and community around the brands.
Rituals offer consumers the chance to interact with a brand. Because people want more than just consumption – they appreciate experiences.
Over the years I have observed different strategies that work towards creating powerful and emotional experiences. Here are a few questions to consider when building your plan:
Can you create and experience specific to your audience?
How can it be specific to your brand?
Our job is to explore the elements of your brand that lend themselves to becoming ritualized. How might you make your product or service part of the daily lives of your customers? Is it even possible?
How might you use brand rituals to create a greater sense of “team” and “family” with your employees, and to fuel their passions for supporting the brand?
Creating a ritual around your brand, whether it’s focused internally or externally, is one of the most useful tools you have to engage people and it’s one of the critical components necessary for building a successful cult brand.
Onward!
“The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.”
Jon Kabat-Zinn
The truth is that many of us spend most of our time in the office. Think about how you can transform the lives of those around you by becoming more aware.
This shift toward more humanistic management practices doesn’t merely improve productivity, creativity, collaboration, loyalty, and profitability; it can also help the people around you become better spouses, better parents, and better citizens.
You can invite your employees to grow by finding ways to make the workplace more engaging (less static), more inspiring (less mundane), and more open (less fixed). As Abraham Maslow put it, “We must try to make a particular kind of people, of personality, of character, of soul one might say, rather than try to create directly particular kinds of behavior.”
When we practice mindfulness, we are training our brains to examine internal and external cues rather than react to them, so we can better manage emotions and develop into our full humanity.
A brand becomes stronger when you narrow the focus.
Al Ries and Laura Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding.
Keeping a brand on course is one of the most critical and difficult challenges executives face. A narrow brand focus will help keep your brand aligned with your core business and in tune with your best customers. Below are four questions that can help your organization stay focused on what is most important for the brand.
Beyond making money, it is essential to know what purpose your brand serves. Knowing what problems your brand helps solve for its customers is key to building a strong, profitable brand.
Recruiting a high-performance team is vital to your organization’s ability to deliver on its brand promise. Knowing the core values that resonate deep within your organization and with your Brand Lovers is essential for attracting passionate employees and creating customers who love your brand. The more you understand what your brand stands for, the better you will be at drawing in people who love working for you and enjoy doing business with you.
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. Having a brand promise of what success looks like allows your organization to remain focus on the big picture.
Making progress toward the brand promise of a brand is not easy. It does not come without sacrifice and a lot of hard work. To be successful, you have to let go of the norms and embrace discomfort. The solutions that worked to get the brand where it is today will not ensure success in the future.
Now that you’re in the final stretch of 2018, have you done a thorough, top-to-bottom progress evaluation on your brand? Where are the big misses? What’s behind or underneath the numbers? What needs to be done differently?
Which of these challenges will you take into consideration as you plan for 2019? Pick one or two to bring to your next executive session.
Onward!
How often do you daydream or even allow yourself to get bored?
It turns out there’s a lot of value in letting our minds wander. Daniel Goleman calls this “open awareness” and says when our minds wander we’re free to constructively envision our future—essential for planning and goal setting, and we can reflect on our thoughts and actions—central in making new and creative associations between ideas.
Our brains aren’t designed to go nonstop. When we drop into neutral, ideas flow on their own, memories sort themselves out, and we give ourselves a chance to rejuvenate. If we eliminate this natural rhythm, we won’t be more productive. And we won’t get ahead. We’ll start falling behind.
What could happen to your creativity, energy, and attitude if you took the time to wonder?
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” Albert Einstein
Continuously learning is how you will stay relevant at any level of an organization. Consider stepping outside of your comfort zone, diversifying your areas of knowledge and establishing rituals and habits that support learning.
Lifelong learning has long been understood to be a critical success factor. But today, it’s taken on even greater importance. The pace of change continues to accelerate, and the level of complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty means that what you knew yesterday may be irrelevant today. The half-life of technical skills continues to shrink.
Try the following actions to enhance your growth mindset:
Curiosity is a spirit, intention, and skill we can bring to our work, interactions with others and the world in general. It involves a genuine inquisitiveness, desire to understand, and willingness to step into a void with nothing more than questions and a receptive mind.
Traditional learning models rooted in the educational system rely heavily on individual research and study. A growth mindset, however, is based in large part on learning through and with others. Intentional connections offer a range of benefits, including the sharing of knowledge, insights, and experience. Consider the power of dialogue in your business to uncover new ideas.
While deliberate, scheduled efforts to learn are essential, it’s equally important to recognize that learning frequently doesn’t occur on a schedule. Life offers a range of moment-by-moment opportunities to gain experience, tap wisdom, push boundaries and try new approaches. A learning mindset means being open to and ready for these ad-hoc possibilities. It means mining the routine for richness.
Investing in learning today can help address current day-to-day pressures while building long-term, a sustainable capacity that will contribute to future effectiveness and satisfaction — at work and beyond.
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
William James, Philosopher, and Psychologist.
Stress in the workplace can have damaging effects, such as stifling creativity and risk aversion.
When we operate under pressure, we shift into survival mode and in this mode of perception, we can have a much harder time thinking creatively and seeing things with a broader, longer-term lens.
Similarly, when your associates are stressed, they tend to avoid taking risks and have a hard time thinking creatively, which ultimately affects their potential.
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—“ said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“—so long as I get somewhere,’”Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Organizations that last know where they’re going. They know how they want people to perceive their business and they know what they want to achieve.
In short, they have a strong vision.
Creating a strong vision is a key to long-term success: it gives you clarity on what you should and shouldn’t do for the continuing health and prosperity of the company.
The vision, however, is only one of the keys to success, you must also have a purpose that drives the vision; and, you must have missions, strategies, and tactics to achieve your vision.