The Meaning of Life

The meaning of life is to live fully with ultimate hope.

Let the debate begin. I know I’m not wise enough to nail this. I don’t think any of us are…but we sure seem to spend a lot of time in pursuit of identifying and understanding the meaning of life—especially around this time of year—the New Year. This is the time when I seem to rest the most, play the most, and wrestle philosophically the most. The turn of a new year for me is a time to consider the personal question of “what do I want to be this year” in pursuit of the meaningful life.

This consideration always comes back to purpose. So in the transition to 2009, I found myself, yet again considering … well, me. And I found some things I liked and some things I didn’t like. These were some of the questions I considered.

1. Where am I not honest with myself?
2. What needs more of a disproportionate amount of my attention?
3. Where did I screw up? Do less of that.
4. Where did I succeed? Do more of that.
5. Where would I like to grow the most this year?

For me, in ‘09 I’ll make a greater commitment to my spiritual growth, new adventures with my family, and business growth. What about you?

Tags: 2009, business, champion, lead, Leadership, life, new, organizational, purpose, reflect, resolution, review, year

Jim Stengel’s Final Words as P&G’s Chief Marketer

Kim Partoll of AOL is a cutting edge, high performance champion.  She sharpens and inspires me. She’s also a tremendous source of knowledge for me as I write The Organizational Champion. She forwarded me this final speech from Jim Stengel – and wow! does he get it. Jim has brought himself personally to his amazing career and he sees the significant worth of living with a strong sense of purpose. Jim’s comments are below:

Jim Stengel’s presentation at Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing conference in Orlando, Fla., on Friday was also his last as CMO at Procter & Gamble. He took the podium to look back at a company he joined in 1983 as a brand assistant, and to delineate the five lessons he’s learned about brand building.

“We were a company with $11 billion in sales, and now are one with $83.5 million in sales and 24 $1 billion brands. So it’s steady and sustainable and remarkable growth journey.” He says it’s also all about growth in terms of what the company stands for. “We have a tendency to over complicate things. The simpler the better, the simpler the more profound.”

Five lessons he’s learned: why five? “It’s my favorite number. I was born on 5/5/55.”

Lesson One: Put people at the center of all you do. Treat your people the way you would want your customers treated. “We too often forget brands are people. It’s the collective intent of people behind them,” he says.

“I have learned in my career that the most important legacy is the impact you will have with the people you work with. We all have rough months, rough years, which blend together, but what you will remember is relationships and people.”

Lesson Two: Engage your heart and mind in everything you do. Says Stengel, “We need balance. Too often as an industry we approach everything with head, not heart. We often talk within P&G of personal relationship as a metaphor for marketing. How many of us internalize that and apply it to how we approach business and customers?”

Stengel brought in audience participation: What’s characteristic of great relationships? He asked. Trust, respect, love, humor were some of the responses. “If we thought about everything we do in marketing, if they all tried to emanate from this idea of great relationship we would do and measure things differently.”

He offered brands other than P&G’s as examples: Apple, Southwest Airlines, online shoe company Zappos, and Amazon.com. “What we find with the strongest brands is they have strength and competitive advantage in emotional areas that drive brand,” he said.

Lesson Three: Results. “In our industry we tend to make things complicated, focusing on activities that don’t drive brand,” said Stengel. “Why are CMO tenures short? Look at organization designs across companies; they are all over the place Too much spend goes to short term and tactical that doesn’t build loyalty and relationship with consumers.”

He asked, rhetorically, why many CEO’s and CFO’s don’t value marketing. “Because too much we focus on a bustle of activities, not the few things that drive growth of brand. Sales are important but if you don’t look at other measures of brand health, you are being short sighted.”

Lesson Four: Creativity is about solving problems. We too often have the wrong discussion with agencies. We talk fees, etc, short term stuff, not how to come together about how to create a powerful brand.”

The last lesson led into a preview of what Stengel plans next: have a purpose. “I am devoting the next chapter of my life to this mission. He cautioned that, by purpose, he doesn’t mean cause-based marketing, but an inspirational, motivational reason for being. “For example, Nike’s purpose is to build self esteem, to be an inspiration for athletes around the world.”

The purpose of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish? “To bring optimism to children. Old Spice? To help guys navigate the seas of manhood,” he said.

Next he will form a new venture called Jim Stengel, whose mission, he said, “is to be catalyst and change agent globally to lift marketing to a higher level of purpose and performance,” he said. He said he is writing a book, Package Good, which he says builds a business case for purpose marketing.

Stengel’s last public statement as a P&G employee, at least at the ANA: “If you have been inspired by these lessons, make a personal commitment to try to bring some of this to life in your organization. We have so much talent, we spend so much money,” he said. “We can lift this to a higher level together if you take this back and make some personal commitments.”

reference: by Karl Greenberg / Karl Greenberg can be reached at karl@mediapost.com

Tags: AOL, brand, career, champion, inspire, jim, Leadership, marketing, organizational, P&G, purpose, stengel

The End Result from Organizational Champions – Championship Companies

Champions build championship companies. What are championship companies?

Championship companies don’t compete, they win. They are most often category or industry leaders, or at least on their way to a category leadership position. Sometimes you might find a newly formed championship company in a turnaround effort. These companies are easy to spot.

1. They have great agility in an ever-changing world
2. They maximize partnerships and operate globally as an enterprise
3. Their culture is a highly diverse and performance-based culture
4. Accountability moves in all directions (evaluations happen up and down)
5. The organization operates as an interdependent system of cross-functional teams, clients, and suppliers.
6. These companies make bold plays and are disruptive by nature, often changing the game.
7. These companies are authentic – they walk the talk.
8. These companies have a genuine concern for their success and their contribution to society.

How do champions help build these championship companies?

1. They have trust and build trust within the organization by their example, their authenticity and consistency, their pure pursuits (win-win), and through accountability.
2. They are highly encouraging to others and spend a great deal of time investing in the highest potential.
3. They are inspiring through their emotional energy and drive for what’s possible.
4. They are always reminding people of the vision and connecting the dots to execution.
5. They are amazingly persevering and always get back up after a set-back (perspective).
6. They receive and give feedback regardless of hierarchy. They elevate above the politics. They have no time for politics.
7. They value the unique styles and experiences of all.
8. They personally engage. Their work has purpose, and therefore, they have a strong sense of mission.
9. The world doesn’t happen to them, they happen to the world (Jib Ellison).

Tags: agility, business, champions, championship, change, collaboration, companies, diversity, ellison, emotion, energy, enlighten, executive, interdependence, jib, Leadership, mutual, opportunities, organizational, performance, possibilities, purpose, risk, team, values, vision, win