In January this year, inspired by the awesome ‘Born to Run’ story, I decided to try barefoot running. As I kid, I spent most winters cross-country running. I loved the isolation, being in nature and the endurance challenge of 10 miles of frozen fields and horizontal pissing rain. But at about 18 I started to struggle with chronic shin pains, then diagnosed as shin splints, I never really recovered and running became just too painful.
So most weekends this year I’ve been out running in these – barefoot/minimal running shoes. Barefoot running is a response to the intervention of the running shoe industry, it is based on a body of medical research which suggests the continuous innovation of the running shoe has resulted in the disconnection of the foot from the earth, an inability of the foot to naturally respond to the terrain beneath it, and using thousands of years of evolutionary innovation to naturally adjust the posture of the body and prevent foot, knee and back problems. That made sense to me.
It’s actually been a very painful transition, because I’ve been learning to run again, but this time by ‘listening to my feet’, noticing how they feel against the terrain, responding to calf pains and achilles aches, understanding how the system works, tweaking my gait and posture accordingly.
Learning to unlearn.
So what’s this got to do with brands and business?
Learning to unlearn is I think one of the uber challenges of the now for brands and business and more accurately the human folk and communities behind them.
Because much of what we have learnt in our marketing and business careers and indeed from mainstream culture is now becoming increasingly irrelevant, and more importantly dangerous, if we are serious about trying to maintain a healthy planet and societies which can provide for future generations.
Or for those in denial that we’re reaching a tipping point of resource depletion, energy constraints, societal inequality and runaway climate change, I would say that the inability of an organisation to learn to unlearn will result in the collapse of the business in the not too distant future.
Arne Naess who kick started the ‘deep ecology’ movement, (essentially a systems thinking idea, which puts people and self as part of and connected to a vast web of life, human and non), said that what is destroying our world is the persistent notion that we are independent of it, aloof from other species and immune to what we do to them. He argued that our survival requires a shift to more encompassing ideas of who we are.
I think this is extremely relevant to business today. Environmentalism aside, what is the role of a business or a brand and indeed a marketeer in the 21st century in the world which we find ourselves in?
Challenging and exploring our ingrained assumptions is enormously difficult, especially in the corporate and marketing world, but without it, imho it is impossible to evolve, at least for the long term, to be fit for the future.
Justin’s post on the future of marketing made me smile, the future according to the majority of male dominated CEO’s of 50 of the worlds most successful companies appears to be the consumer is king, life is digital and growth. Few signs of unlearning there.
Peter Senge from MIT (who if you’re interested in more spiritual approaches to business and organisational learning and development I would highly recommend), talks here about what is the actual purpose of the corporation in the 21st century? In a world with extraordinary inequalities between rich and poor, with accelerating climate change, massive resource and energy pressures and finite growth. What is the game we are now playing?
For me there has never been a more critical time for learning to unlearn. To start to challenge and explore our everyday business and marketing assumptions, to look at the world we operate in with a much wider lens, to start to try and see things in wholes and to understand that we are part of a vast interconnected system. A creaking system.
To ask ourselves why are we here? What are we really trying to create? Why does this matter?
Part of the mission with the pipeline project is to help support teams to get on this journey of learning to unlearn, of helping organisations be effective in dealing with the realities and complexities they face but at the same time creating an empowering orientation of where they want to go.
Why?
To help create resilient businesses with strong internal cultures built around a shared purpose and a positive legacy vision.
Joanna Macy argues that living systems evolve in complexity, flexibility, and intelligence through interactions with each other. These interactions requireopen-ness and vulnerability in order to process the flow through of energy and information.
Far out? Spot on I reckon.
Open-ness and vulnerability I think are key in learning to unlearn, because challenging our assumptions, acknowledging and accepting that much of what we have learnt in our career’s and what we know about the world is no longer that relevant is at times extremely tough to accept. It requires honesty and trust, compassion, the ability to really listen to others, to examine and be open about our own behaviours and beliefs.
But open-ness and vulnerability are also the sort of behaviours rarely encouraged in organisations.
So here’s the rub, I’d argue we need to rapidly start developing a more reflective, honest and open culture within business to really create organisations that want to learn to unlearn. Only then can an organisation truly progress, evolve and prosper in the long term.
I’m hoping we can help more business and brand teams with this challenge.
And the running?
After several months of pain and late night questioning, time reflecting, noticing, adjusting, researching and experimenting, my feet feel awesome, the pain has gone. I’m running twice a week and l’m feeling reconnected, focused and totally energised.
But I’m still learning.
And unlearning.
And hope I always will be.
Bring on the Cardiff half.
Conversation at Pipeline has naturally turned towards football as the World Cup kicks off in South Africa this weekend. We’ve seen the adverts, read the predictions and planned our important meetings carefully over the next month.
We’ll be backing England of course. After so many years of underachievement, we’re really hoping that Fabio Capello has instilled a greater sense of purpose and built the camaraderie needed to turn a bunch of highly talented individuals into a world-beating team. Like the rest of the nation, we’ll be keeping everything crossed on that front!
No tournament like this is really complete without a surprise or two. We’d also love to see a challenger footballing nation punch above their weight and put a mark on the map with a bit of giant-killing. Maybe even an African nation given the importance of this tournament in putting the forgotten continent back on the map in the world’s eyes.
This is of course the very first World Cup in Africa. Having been born in Nairobi and lived in various places across Africa as a kid, the World Cup coming to town should be a huge catalyst for the continent. As an event, its rare in its ability to galvanise the world for a month, capture the imagination and provide hope and possibility to the billions of people watching it. Not least of which the huge population across Africa whose lives are so very different from our own.
And that’s what got us thinking….this event really could be a real force for positive change but has there been enough real innovation around the advertising money being spent? Are the organisers and advertisers are missing a trick?
It’s been estimated that $1.5 billion (yes, that’s right….BILLION) has been spent on advertising for this event. Elsewhere it’s estimated that $1.6 billion has also gone against sponsorship.
Whatever the actual numbers are, we’re talking about an enormous amount of money. Think of all the human energy that’s gone into getting everything just perfect for these 4 weeks. Think about the real impact of all that effort. Some of the ads might float your boat, others not. But they pretty soon become wallpaper, competing with each other for attention and frankly when everyone is shouting, are any of them being heard? How much is going to waste?
Indeed, the early evidence suggests that such massive investment is not having the intended effect. A massive 88% of people interviewed said that their opinion of the sponsors hadn’t changed as as a result of their link to the tournament and 84% of people said that they were no more likely to buy a brand as a result of its sponsorship of the tournament…
Based on that, you can’t help but wonder if at least some of the money and effort might have been pooled to do something a bit better – something tangible for the host continent possibly?
Pepsi have set a precedent for this earlier in the year pulling out of the Super Bowl and launching their innovative Refresh Everything campaign
Taking that idea further, what if the top 10 advertisers had teamed together to fund a project that could really make a difference around the World Cup? If 10% of all the spending had been pooled to create a project worth $150 million? How much benefit could that have had to both the contributors, and the continent?
It would be a big bold move requiring strong collaboration and leadership. When you think of the pressing needs of the African people in areas like basic sanitation, health, medicine, education and housing, it makes the idea of needing to sell more beer, crisps and sneakers seem a little insignificant. But in Africa, $150 million could go a very long way…..
So, here’s the open challenge to the marketing community……how could you find new ways to engage the world during these kinds of events? Ideas like these that can meet not only your own commercial agenda, but creatively address the bigger social agenda?
Now that really would be something worth talking about
Photo: courtesy of Picture Taker 2, Flickr
George Monbiot wrote a piece in this Monday’s (14th Dec) Guardian raising the idea that we are at the end of the ‘age of heroism’ and that we must embrace the ‘age of accommodation’ if we are to stand a chance of saving the planet from climate change:
‘Copenhagen’s premise is that the age of heroism is over. We have entered the age of accommodation. No longer may we live without restraint. No longer may we swing our fists regardless of whose nose might be in the way. In everything we do we must now be mindful of the lives of others, cautious, constrained, meticulous. We may no longer live in the moment, as if there were no tomorrow.’
Looking at this from a marketing perspective, it feels like there are lots of brands that are still very firmly entrenched in an ‘age of heroism’ view of the world. Look at this clip on Mercedes Benz’s site for example: http://bit.ly/7VZLsz
The challenge is that for many people ideas of ‘heroism’ are hard wired into their identity.At a very basic level many of us still equate masculinity with what we should perhaps now be calling ‘old fashioned heroism’. Leading from the front, going faster and being a winner remain behaviours and attributes that are still pretty central to who we are and how we aspire to living our lives. A lot of this is down to human nature – some people will always be more individualistic and more competitive than others. However a lot of it is also down to the brands we have grown up with. They have consistently told us that we should be living ‘heroic’ lives and that ‘going large’ and having the biggest, best, shiniest toys around is where it’s at.
Our belief is that as the ‘age of accommodation’ becomes our reality, businesses and brands have a very central role to play in helping people to find new more ‘accommodating’ ways to express themselves. Brands should be coming up with more ideas that bridge the gap between heroism and accommodation.
So Mercedes Benz (and Ferrari, Renault etc. etc.) how about lobbying for a rule change as you gear up for the new F1 season, how about extra championship points being awarded for the greenest team on the grid next season?