THE BIG IDEA: Cohesive organizations and customer communities are created by the same mechanism. If you know what’s at the heart of both, you can build a thriving organization that fosters passionate customers.

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Like a hand full of marbles pouring into a bowl, when you put a bunch of people together, there’s chaos.

Egos bump heads like marbles colliding.

But then, a group begins to constellate around the center.

This center can take various forms.

In sports clubs and political groups, the center is a common goal, like winning a championship or an election.

In activist groups, the center is a cause, a slogan, or a set of beliefs.

In religions, the center is a God-image.

In corporate cultures, the center can be an inspiring vision, mission, or set of core values.

In destructive cults, the center is a charismatic leader with narcissistic and messianic qualities.

In Cult Brands, the center is usually an ideal, a set of values, or a theme of interest.

What Draws Groups Together

The group’s center acts as a magnet, attracting members to its core. The more powerful the center, the more cohesive the group.

Here’s the secret to transforming your organization and your customer relationships: the more archetypal the center, the more solid, enduring, and cohesive the group.

Archetypes draw people together. They inspire loyalty and connectedness.

As inherited dispositions in every human being, archetypes cause us to react in typical (instinctive) ways. Archetypes bind us together as members of the human family.

An Illustration of Archetypes in Action

Historically, world religions have kept the largest groups of humans together. The center of these religions (Christ, Buddha, Krishna, Muhammad) is the archetype of the Anthropos, the cosmic man, a collective soul that unites all people.

Destructive cults, too, constellate around this God image. Its members project this powerful archetype—what Jung called the Self—onto the leader.

The Self, as well as God or Nature, has been described by many ancient philosophers as an “infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” (We can all ponder that on our lunch break today.)

Symbolic images that point to the Self, like the circle, the apple, the star, the tree, and the egg, are found in countless religious narratives, myths, fairy tales, and individual dreams.

The Self, in its masculine expression, often takes the form of the wise old man, the guide, the mentor with supernatural aid. This archetype is expressed by characters like Merlin from the Arthurian legend, Gandalf in the The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit series, and Yoda in the Star Wars franchise.

In its feminine expression, the Self may take the form of an earth mother or love goddess. Southwest Airlines, for example, is aligned with the feminine expression of the Self. Their organization is guided by the principles of relatedness, care, and love—all attributes of the feminine Self.

Putting Archetypes to Work in Your Organization

How do you put archetypes to work?

Start at the center. The center is unique for each organization. Your strengths hint at it. Your organization’s passions point you in the right direction. The forces that drive your customers to do business with you provide invaluable clues.

This center should be expressed in your ultimate vision, your core values, and the language of your corporate culture.

How will you know when you’ve found your center? Your heart will awaken. Your employees will come together as teams. Innovation will increase by virtue of the passions of the men and women guided by archetypal forces deep within them. Your stakeholders will observe it. Your customers will hear the call.

Remember: the more archetypal, the more essential, and the more human your center is, the more cohesive your organization will become. And, the more easily you’ll attract customers who want to join forces with you.

THE BIG IDEA: Goals, strategies, objectives, and tactics are four powerful tools for providing organizational direction and achieving results when chief executives can clearly differentiate between each of them and know how each one relates to the whole.

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On the third move of a chess game, nine million positions are possible.

This is only a board game. Imagine how many more options you and your team face in the normal course of business.

New campaigns, new markets, new customers, new product launches, repositioning … your options are endless. In this confusion, you can sink into a vast ocean of to-dos, of action for action’s sake.

When this happens, you start confusing motion with progress, busy-ness with business.

We live in get-it-done-now world. The temptation will always be to become tactical first and fast, to focus on getting things done ASAP.

If this cycle is not understood correctly, you can unknowingly trap your teams in endless meetings and empty tasks with only marginal progress on the horizon.

In order to avoid this maze of confusion, infuse your thought process with four simple distinctions: goals, strategies, objectives, and tactics.

1. A goal establishes your target—the end picture of what you want to achieve.
2. A strategy sets your basic guidelines and approaches to realizing the goal.
3. An objective is a key result you set in order to execute a strategy.
4. A tactic is an action step or tool used to achieve an objective associated with a strategy.

These four elements are great companions in leading your organization because they give you the cohesion to keep everyone on your team moving in the same direction.

Goals: Establishing Your Desired End Picture

The team whose coach says, “We are going to make it to the super bowl,” makes it to the big game … then loses.

The team who wins never intended to just get there. Their coach said, “We are winning the whole damn thing!”

When setting goals you have to state exactly what you want.

Southwest Airline’s primary goal is to operate a low-cost business in order to offer low-cost fares to their customers.

Walt Disney World’s primary goal is to make attendees (of all ages) of their parks happy.

Strategies: Determining the Best Approach

Once you know the end picture, you need to develop your strategies.

Your strategies are how you grow and manage your business. There are three core categories of business strategies: operations, marketing, and innovation.

There are countless strategies in each of these categories. We conjured up 52 of them for marketing alone.

Strategies developed in each of these key areas should help the business realize its primary goal.

Everything you and your employees do—every single activity that influences the business and affects your customers—should push a defined strategy forward.

All employees need to clearly know, understand, and internalize these key strategies so they are empowered to make decisions and take actions that will move the organization closer to the goal.

One of Southwest’s key operations strategy is built into its goal: operate a low-cost airline. Only if they can operate a low-cost airline can they hope to offer low-cost fares, which they have been doing successfully for over 30 years.

Disney’s key operations strategy is to create a magical experience for every customer who enters their theme park.

Objectives: Defining the Critical Results

To execute your strategies effectively, there are certain conditions that must be in place for your end goal to be realized. Your critical objectives are these conditions.

Southwest realized that they make money when their planes are in the air; they spend money when their planes are on the ground. They created an objective to get off the ground fast.

But to make objectives actionable, they need to be specific and measurable. You need to be able to clearly determine if the objective is achieved or not.

Southwest invented the “10-minute turn” to get their planes in the air quickly. Their objective was to get off the ground in under 10 minutes. Today, with larger aircrafts, their turn time is now 25 minutes, but this on-going objective still helps them keep fares low.

Disney executives realized that every employee of the park will likely interact with customers at different times. And these chance encounters either help create magic or kill it. In order to create a magical experience for every customer who enters their park, they set an objective that every employee must help create this desired experience.

Tactics: Deploying Effective Actions

Having a strategy won’t automatically make the tactics apparent, but understanding your critical objectives will help make these choices clear.

Executives who solely focus on tactics too easily abandon the overall strategy and its objectives when a tactic fails. They confuse a tactic with the objective.

When a coach loses a game, he doesn’t change the objective of winning the championship. He simply changes his approach after learning what he can from his prior failure.

Tactics often fail. You still have to spend endless hours testing and retesting, refining and thinking about your tactics.

Southwest deploys numerous tactics to execute their low-cost strategy. For example, it only flies one type of aircraft: three models of the Boeing 737, which creates efficiencies in training and maintenance. Their open seating initiative helps passengers flow onto the aircraft faster, reducing Southwest’s turn time (how quickly they get back in the air). A faster turn translates to a more profitable airline.

One of the most effective tactics Disney deploys to help ensure that their customers experience a magical day is their employee training. Disney University is a three to four week training that every Disney employee in their park system must go through, whether you’re a janitor or a park executive.

Leading with Vision

If you want to steer your business toward a new, compelling, and sustainable future, you first need to have a clear vision in mind.

You can’t expect anyone to understand your vision unless the direction is clear within yourself.

Goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics provide a top-down approach to leading and managing your organization. They are four invaluable friends on your journey to growth and outperformance.

May this New Year bring you inspiration, passion, and clarity for the adventure that lies before you.

THE BIG IDEA: Customer obsession is a fundamental characteristic of long-term, outperforming leadership. Inspired leaders find practical ways to keep their top executives connected to the front lines of their business.

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Sitting in their corner offices with unfettered views of the city skyline, like the untouchable professors hiding away in their ivory towers, it’s all too easy for chief-level executives to become far removed from their customers.

Outperforming leaders of Cult Brands and other businesses with loyal customers, however, demonstrate a desire to know their customers. The great ones, like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, obsess about them.

How Inspired Leaders Stay Connected to Their Customers

Sam Walton, the late founder and CEO of Wal-Mart, scripted one of his ten rules of success:

“Listen to everyone in your company, and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front line—the ones who actually talk to customers—are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know.”

Walton kept his sights grounded by communicating directly with the associates working the floors. He also democratized the corporate structure through his “cross-pollination” efforts where managers from different departments swapped jobs, to keep them challenged and on top of the market.

Like Walton, Colleen Barrett, retired president of Southwest Airlines, understood the value of cooperation, teamwork, and empathy in bridging divides. In the early 1990s, Barrett established the Culture Committee to preserve and enhance the airline’s unique culture.

One project was the “Days in the Field” program where executives and managers spend a day every quarter doing front-line work. You might see senior officers serving as flight attendants, baggage checkers, or ‘appearance technicians,’ working through the night to ensure that the planes are clean for the next day’s flights.

IKEA’s founder, Ingvar Kamprad, instituted a similar initiative to foster egalitarianism, stave off the bureaucratic mindset, and keep decision makers in touch.

During “anti-bureaucracy week,” executives are required to leave the comforts of their corporate offices and work the front lines of IKEA’s stores for an entire week. During the week, you’ll see chief officers manning registers, hauling furniture, and helping customers in the showroom.

Yet there is one caveat.

“All of the executives must be there on weekends, when the stores are the busiest, teeming with shoppers of all kinds,” explains IKEA country manager Kent Nordin. “It’s not enough to check in on a Monday and out on a Thursday afternoon. You have to be there when the heat is on.”

If you’re a retailer, can you imagine working the registers this Friday? Does the thought terrify you or excite you? Imagine how much you can learn about your customers on the biggest shopping day of the year?

The Art of Listening to Your Customers

Being on the frontlines has several advantages. It increases managerial empathy while decreasing bureaucracy. It improves cooperation and strengthens the corporate culture. It provides intimate customer knowledge, leading to more effective decisions in marketing, product development, and corporate strategy.

Listening is the cornerstone of the world’s best businesses because it leads to the discovery of what will surprise, amuse, and reward its customers.

Turning a deaf ear to the life blood of your business will keep you sheltered from the day-in-day-out realities of your company’s operations. In today’s competitive and constantly changing marketplace, you can’t afford to be deaf.

Are you willing to get onto the frontlines?

Can you hear what your customers are saying?

Happy Thanksgiving from your Cult Branding team!

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P.S. BJ Bueno was recently interviewed by The Customer Edge to find out how to extend the buzz beyond Black Friday. Read the interview here.

THE BIG IDEA: Every business has a unique set of strength-based values that shape the organization. Once uncovered, these “superpowers” help guide your vision, energize your culture, differentiate your business, and attract customers that love you.

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It’s a rainy Wednesday morning. You enter your office an hour before everyone else.

As you close the door behind you, you hear a voice from the corner of the room.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” The voice sounds sincere but serious.

Startled, you turn and face a man in a dark overcoat with a brimmed hat overshadowing his eyes, sitting in your upholstered chair.

“Excuse me?” you reply as you keep your hand firmly on the door handle in case you need to dart out of the room.

“The High Council requires the assistance of your enterprise,” he replies.

“Look,” you say, “You have the wrong person. I have to get to work. Can you please leave my office?”

“Yes, you most certainly have work to do,” he says. “Your company has many challenges ahead. Your employees need your help. Your customers do too. But to help them, you must first discover your organization’s untapped powers.”

Wondering how the man got through security or if you’re dreaming, you play along. “What powers are you referring to?”

“Individuals, on their own, have tremendous evolutionary potential. This potential often lays dormant. Organizations are made up of individuals with this potential. When this potential is harnessed, magic happens.

“The organization finds greater harmony with individuals working together as teams. Its customers are uplifted, forming a greater whole with the organization. Your business, then, serves a higher purpose.

“But to make this come about, you must first activate your superpowers,” he finishes.

Intrigued, you ask, “How do we do that?”

What are Superpowers?

Your business might not have super strength, telekinesis, levitation, or invisibility, but it has unique strengths it can capitalize on.

Superpowers are like super-charged ideals.

Internally, superpowers align your organization to a set of core values.

They attract talented people who rally around a set of values because they find them meaningful. These superpowers also fuel your efforts toward a compelling vision.

Externally, superpowers make you stand out from other businesses. Your superpowers act as a homing beacon, attracting a unique breed of customers that are inspired by what you represent.

When you celebrate and embody specific higher values, you elevate both your employees and your customers out of a mundane world while inspiring them to live these higher values. In this way, your superpowers make a meaningful contribution to society.

And yes, substantial growth and increased profitability follows.

Superpowers in Action

Southwest Airlines uses the superpower of love to create a unique organization that inspires both employees and customers alike in a relational way.

Zappos uses the superpower of happiness to create a desirable place to work and a joyful experience for their customers.

The Life is good Company uses the superpower of optimism to celebrate a quality of the good life that helps lift its customers out of pervasive negativity.

Apple uses the superpower of creativity to inspire its organization to push the aesthetic limits of technology while providing a platform for self-expression for its customers.

Under Armour uses the superpower of empowered athleticism to support both their employees and their customers in living an active lifestyle.

Superpowers are Powerful

Organizations have more than one superpower. In fact, your business probably has anywhere from three to ten, each of varying strength.

Each superpower can be activated in different ways, both within your organization and in your marketing efforts.

Applied creatively, intentionally, and consistently your superpowers can elevate your organization to the level of greatness.

Your organization can be a powerful force for good in your community and the world at large. As a major enterprise, you can use your superpowers to change the world. While this may sound grandiose, the businesses listed above, and many others like them, are doing just that.

If you’re looking for a big idea to inspire change in your business, this might very well be it.

Discover your Superpowers

Assemble your all-star team.

Identify the core values that define your organization.

Determine your organization’s greatest strengths. What are you the best in the world at?

Next, consider why your best customers love you? What higher needs do you help them actualize? What tensions do you help them resolve? Why do your customers relate to you more than your competitors?

Be patient with this process. Open up your imagination. Commit to uncovering your company’s superpowers that will lead your organization to a compelling future.

P.S. Life is good CEO Bert Jacobs and Cult Branding Company founder BJ Bueno shared how superpowers can help grow any business in their keynote address at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show. Click here to watch this popular talk.

THE BIG IDEA: When you know what drives you, you have insight into what motivates your employees and your customers. Calling on the research and motivational theories in behavioral psychology illuminates the answer.

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You didn’t get where you are by accident. You worked hard. You assimilate new information rapidly. You stayed on your toes, capitalizing on opportunities when they arose.

And, if you’re reading this, it’s still true of you today.

Even if you’re the CEO, President, and Chairman of a multibillion dollar enterprise, you’re not resting on your prior achievements. You’re still seeking better answers and bigger ideas, looking for new ways to improve.

So what drives you? What motivates you to continually improve yourself and push towards a bigger vision for your business?

To answer this question, we start with Maslow. Maslow, as you recall, gave us the Hierarchy of Human Needs.

Maslow’s Theory of Motivation

These needs are physiological needs (hunger, thirst), safety needs (shelter), belonging needs (connection to family, friends, and colleagues), esteem needs, and self-actualization.

When you think of the Hierarchy of Needs, you probably visualize a triangle. Although that’s how it’s virtually always depicted when people refer to the hierarchy, Maslow never conceptualized it that way.

Maslow merely said that, in a general way, these human needs are prepotent, meaning that lower level needs have to be met before higher level needs can become the focus of attention.

This is very logical: you’re not going to be too invested in what people think of you (esteem needs) if you’re starving or thirsty (physiological needs). Your pride eventually breaks down when your survival is threatened.

In daily life, however, most of us are pursuing all of these human needs simultaneously.

A Different Spin on Maslow

Another psychologist, Clayton Alderfer, proposed a related theory of human needs that turns Maslow’s model on its side.

He grouped Maslow’s five levels of needs into three categories:

1. Existence Needs (including physiological and safety needs)
2. Relatedness Needs (including belonging and external esteem needs)
3. Growth Needs (including internal esteem needs and self-actualization)

In Alderfer’s ERG Theory, instead of stacking the needs one on top of the other, he put them on a level playing field:

In terms of motivation, what’s important about Alderfer’s model is the direction you’re going. If your focus is progressing from existence needs to relatedness needs to growth needs, you feel satisfaction. This satisfaction will fuel your efforts in growth and self-actualization.

This assertion has been confirmed by Martin Seligman’s research. Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, has found that people feel more gratification (or lasting happiness) when they are pursuing growth while playing to their natural strengths.

If, however, your momentum is carrying you away from growth needs in the direction of relatedness needs and survival (existence needs), you feel frustration. Frustration diminishes your motivation to grow. (It also leads to the formation of bad habits.)

Motivation in the Workplace

How does this theory of motivation apply to your organization?

If you employees are not given the opportunity to grow, they may regress to satisfying relatedness needs and socialize more with colleagues (in unproductive ways).

Similarly, if the workplace doesn’t satisfy the employees’ need for social interaction, there can be an increase in focus on existence needs such as making more money or finding better working conditions.

Organizations like Google, Apple, Amazon.com, and Netflix are hubs for talented professionals because they support the higher needs of their employees.

Motivation in the Marketplace

Conveniently, you, your employees, and your customers are motivated by the same needs.

Any business can help customers meet their existence needs. Cult Brands go beyond existence needs by successfully creating a space for customers to belong (relatedness needs). These business also find ways to support their customers’ growth needs.

Apple creates tools for creativity and self-expression. Harley, Vans, and Linux promote freedom. The Motley Fool teaches financial independence. Personal brands like Oprah and Tony Robbins offer self empowerment.

In other words, Cult Brands capitalize on our human need for self-actualization by developing products and services that support higher-level needs.

3 Factors that Drive High Performance

Using 50 years of research in behavioral science, author Daniel Pink highlights the three elements that best motivate high performance:

1. Autonomy: the urge to direct our own lives
2. Mastery: the desire to continually improve at something that matters to us
3. Purpose: the yearning to do what we do in service of something larger than ourselves

Notice that money and external reward are not on this list. Notice that all three of these motivators are related to growth needs.

In the end, needs like creativity, productivity, meaningfulness, contribution, and personal development drive performance more than anything else.

This is true for you. It is true for your employees. And yes, it is true for your customers too.