Brand Story Coaching
Brand coaches help organisations understand the stories that already exist within, make them visible to everybody, and get alignment and agreement on what their core story is.
How do we help more people create a brand together? Good story coaching.
Our simple definition of a brand is that it’s a collective story that helps a group of people achieve a common goal.
Organisations should be consistent with that story when they communicate with the world and themselves, and express it beautifully wherever they do their work.
As brand coaches we help organisations understand the stories that already exist within, make them visible to everybody, and get alignment and agreement on what their core story is. We then enable people to tell that story themselves in the best possible way with the help of creative tools.
In coaching one of the core objectives is to build accountability, and if you coach teams it’s all about building shared accountability.
If you translate that into brand coaching it’s about building shared accountability around one story, one brand. Not relying on one department and asking them to tell that story to a client or audience, but being able, comfortable and confident to tell that story right here and now yourself.
The biggest change moving from brand experts and consultants to a methodology of coaching and co-ownership of the brand is that everyone understands the core story, and owns how they share that story. It could be how they represent the brand in a service, or how they introduce themselves to clients, or how they react in social media.
We’ve discovered that brand coaching enables our clients to get down to the core, to cut down all the noise that is around things.
It’s vital to first unearth the stories that already exist across the organisation, let everyone hear them, and then craft them into a brand story.
Brand coaching helps create accountability, and gives people permission to do things themselves and own them. In an organisation or a product team, you do that collectively. We all have shared permission, accountability, and responsibility for the brand.
Which is really exciting because suddenly its your brand and the story belongs to you.
That’s pretty cool.
Alex Mecklenburg is a creative business and leadership coach at Consequential CIC, a fellow of the RSA, and storyteller in residence at SIX, the Global Social Innovation Exchange.
Ivan Pols is the creative director of what3words. Together they are the co-founders of Truth & Spectacle, creative consultancy coaches.
How to practise gentle creativity
We assumed that being ‘creative’ was something that teams and organisations wanted to be, but we quickly learned that it wasn’t that straightforward. Here are some thoughts about how people can experience creativity as an inclusive, more gentle force.
When Alex and I started working together it was with the shared belief that people are more creative than they imagine.
We assumed that being ‘creative’ was something that teams and organisations wanted to be, but we quickly learned that it wasn’t that straightforward.
To many people creativity is a ‘gift you’re born with’, for others creativity evokes stories of ego, genius, loudness or elitism.
This style of language and approach means a lot of very creative people in an organisation don't participate.
We'd like people to experience creativity as an inclusive, more gentle force.
Here are 8 things we practise:
Be more gentle with other people's creativity - it’s always personal
Open your eyes and listen harder - because people can share ideas in unexpected ways
Be aware of the metaphors and language you use to describe creative: workshops, big ideas, brainstorms - are they inspiring or terrifying? They’re just words, use different ones
Create space for leaps of logic - be aware of designing out surprise
Being creative in a group is incredibly hard - find ways for everyone to participate
Use questions and gentle provocations to help people make new connections
Help people maintain co-ownership of ideas over time with a well designed and maintained workflow
Be fair - lots of ideas are mediocre, you can acknowledge that with grace
If you're interested in this idea of gentle creativity, we discuss it in episode 7 of our podcast: listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. (24 minutes ⏰)
We also asked for any other ideas from friends on LinkedIn. We had an amazing response and here they are in full.
Group wisdom about gentle creativity
The way we talk about people with creative in their title and people without it but who are, by virtue of being human, creative; is to say that creatives have to come up with ideas on days they don't feel like it. It's their job day in and day out. This helps take out the intimidation factor so those without it in their title see it as a job like their own, and bring it down to size. This helps to open creativity out to different ways of seeing which is invaluable, but retains the creative's accountability. (Pixar's Brain Trust principles are a good reference - it relies on encouraging honest feedback but with the final decision still being in the hands of the person accountable for the final product - Ed Catmull's Creativity Inc book). I, for one, am a big fan of a brainstorm or informal creative chat with lots of different people in small groups of four. Just hearing how people play back the brief in their words is useful and often brimming with insight. I've never walked out of a brainstorm without new useful stimulus.
Start by messing around and laughing. Show people how different they are and how useful this is. My current favourite is to make up a word and get people to come back with a made-up definition. Never fails to reveal their creativity and differences to themselves and each other. No one can be wrong.
Creativity can be about self-expression and taste (eg: executional, art world) but it's also about problem-solving (eg: engineering, innovation, strategic creative, lateral thinking). Dave Birss talks about creativity as 'applied thinking'. Sharing this definition helps people see what they can offer
We use Pixar's Dream it Build it Critique it as a 3 stage/ mode framework which enables everyone to identify their safest place within the process and feel useful - as one needs all three modes/ stages. It also helps people avoid 'crossing the streams' i.e. jumping from Dream it to 'Bin it' without giving something new and unfamiliar a chance by getting the right 'Builders' in the room.
I always try to get people to put their idea out away from them into the centre of the room - often physically on a piece of paper on the floor - and encourage people to walk around it as if looking at a statue to observe objectively what could be better, what they love, what questions need answering to move to the next stage, new builds or possibilities - which helps with not taking it personally, and when an idea is still fragile.
It's not a sprint, but a relay - no one nails it in one. Or if they do, it still requires patience, humour, tenacity and support to get it finally delivered. So it helps to frame the process as a journey. Neither is it hierarchical - it's a chain with each link as important as the other.
100% it's all about providing a supportive and nurturing environment. In my world, we encourage everyone to become cheerleaders and rally around and support each other. Then take everyone on the journey and see solutions vs. obstacles.
Lastly don't waste time striving for perfection, nothing is ever perfect. Press print if something is 80% there. It’s far greater to have 10 ideas go live and learn vs. wait years to perfect 1.
Something I’ve been grappling with for years. It is so very hard to find that safe space. You always have to fight for the idea. I try to offer an environment where I protect the creative process. This is the safe space where anything is invited to the table and nothing is judged. I prefer just the creatives to be involved in this process as we all know what the process is about. You have to voice all the ideas before you can get to the fight one.
Another learning I have had is to only comment on what’s good about an idea and not go into the negative. But that’s the creative process.
Creating a supportive culture where people aren't afraid to fail is also key. And encouraging discussions as a team around any 'failures' so as to learn and move forward.
I've also personally always believed that a creative idea can come from anyone, so building the right teams packed with a diversity of skill sets is important to ensure that people don't feel that the 'creative' is the only person with the answer!
Look after yourselves wherever you are and keep creating.
Ivan & Alex
Turn strategy into action
There’s a basic truth about new strategies: people require space and permission to understand them and their relevance, while they’re under pressure to maintain the day to day business.
An Amish barn raising by Randy Fath - Unsplash
There’s a basic duality about new strategies: people require space and permission to understand them and their relevance, while they’re under pressure to maintain the day to day business.
And if the process is badly managed new strategies are ignored and inevitably forgotten.
Opening creative conversations
Truth & Spectacle recently ran a Provoke game session with a large organisation who had just launched a brave new strategy. The players came from across the country and had been selected as future leaders for the company.
With their Learning and Development, and Leadership team, we decided to use their new strategy as the Big Question for the game. In Provoke, the Big Question is the focus of the game and is usually framed as, “How can we (insert strategic objective)”. It’s a simple and well practised method of opening a creative conversation.
Dedicated space and time
Through creative play in a safe environment teams explore the Big Question as thoroughly as possible, with the objective of creating their own questions that can lead to better answers.
Provoke is as much a game as it is a practise which allows for dedicated space and time to have conversations and insights that can lead to better business.
During the process, this large group of future leaders, many of whom had just met for the first time, came to understand they weren’t alone in feeling confused by the brave new strategy.
Many of them weren’t sure what it meant for their teams, or how to implement it.
Curious collaboration
What was amazing to see though, was how a questioning mindset and creative play quickly opened the conversations up and kept them open rather than jumping straight back into solutions and answers. One person remarked, “Provoke showed me how to keep conversations open and diverse for as long as possible”.
The questions swiftly moved from “why” to “how”, which is what new strategies are actually for - making things better.
The players quickly helped each other understand the possibilities of the new strategy, both positive and negative, and create meaningful questions their teams would answer later.
Collective understanding
Over the period of 4 hours we observed how teams built shared understanding and a change of perspective. People were really surprised about the diversity of thought amongst people in similar roles and how a better question, a second question is sometimes all that’s it takes for abstract ideas to start making practical sense.
Turning strategy into action.
Provoke Good Question cards with the all-important workshop coloured dots.
How to ask better questions
Great teams know how to ask the right questions at the right time. So how can we help teams ask better questions?
Great teams know how to ask the right questions at the right time. So how can we help teams ask better questions?
Over the last 24 months, I have had the pleasure to work with brilliant teams and leaders who are all weathering change and transformation.
They say you learn as much from your clients as your clients learn from you.
What I learned is that the best most successful teams and leaders are not the ones with the best answers but the ones with the best questions.
When you think about it, it makes complete sense. Having the answers does not necessarily mean you are asking the right questions.
But it is hard. Most of us are trained to be the ones with the best answers. Why do we need to ask more questions when we already have the answer? We have the experience, we have the expertise, we have the solution. It is an impulse reaction, but not one that serves us terribly well today.
To quote a friend of mine: “A lot of new products and services that did not make the mark have been developed because people solved the wrong question really well.”
To become the ones with the best questions, we need to re-train ourselves to break through the behavioural muscle that makes us want to jump right into the answer. There is a lot written about this but very little practical support and tools to help teams ask better questions.
So we made something. We have developed a card game that helps teams think creatively about questions.
We call it PROVOKE, because throughout the moderated play session we use provocations and challenges in a safe and playful environment to help teams get creative, ask questions and build practical creative leadership skills.
How does it work:
Our methodology is tried and tested in education and in industry and uses provocations to work through a real problem while developing creativity, critical thinking, and meaningful questioning habits. We allow teams to explore with play. Provocations encourage new connections with creative challenges and good questions about assumptions and habits.
The game is a catalyst to help break away from more conventional ways of thinking about projects and organisation in a safe and playful environment.
What do teams get out of it:
As teams work on a ‘live’ project question, we have seen teams walk out of the session with a much richer, accelerated understanding of the question, with new thinking connections and provocations that they bring back into the organisation. We have also observed the sheer energy and joy when teams allowed themselves to explore the question in creative, often non-linear ways.
We’ve been beta testing it over the last weeks and the feedback has been amazing. So we thought it was time to share it with you.
Let me know if you are interested to play.
Alex
BBC Analysis - Maintenance
BBC Radio 4’s Analysis show spends some time looking at Maintenance and interviewed Truth & Spectacle’s, Alex Mecklenburg.
BBC Radio 4’s Analysis show spends some time looking at Maintenance and interviewed Truth & Spectacle’s, Alex Mecklenburg.
As Chris Bowlby discovers, keeping our infrastructure in good condition is one of the most crucial and creative challenges we face.
They look at the creativity required in maintaining and improving the roads, bridges, buildings, and technology we already have and don’t look after properly.
Alex talks about responsible innovation and the role of maintenance and legacy in ensuring we make a better world. She makes the case for responsible innovators and says;
“You can maintain something in innovative ways. ”
It’s a really interesting look at getting maximum value from good ideas. Even if they aren’t your own.
David Edgerton (@DEHEdgerton) who teaches History King's College London had an interesting comment that helps contextualise the world we work in now;
“Most of us are imitators rather than innovators […] Creativity today means getting rid of the idea that we live in a radically innovative culture and to set about our world in new ways that may not be quite as dramatic as the false prospectus that is on offer.”
It’s definitely worth listening to if you work within an existing structure and have the responsibility of maintaining and improving it, whether it’s a bridge or a brand.
How to add Spectacle: Where's the battle scene?
It doesn’t matter whether you design vacuum cleaners or brief in sales videos, every now and then you should ask yourself the question, “Where is the battle scene?”.
A dramatic reenactment of Spartacus fighting Romans.
⚔ When Stanley Kubrick was directing Spartacus, he said, "You can't make a spectacle movie and not have a battle scene in it."
Kubrick was referring to the fact that he’d inherited a film script that had missed the point completely. It’s a film about a slave army who battled the Roman army for their freedom, and there was no battle scene!
It’s human nature to become blind to a story when we’re working very hard to produce it day in and day out. For most of us, we’re telling stories about the organisations we work with and those can too easily become pointless.
I think speed and efficiency are key but generally easier to do since you’re basically removing obstacles to help water run downhill faster.
Spectacle needs more. It doesn’t matter whether you design vacuum cleaners or brief in sales videos, every now and then you should ask yourself the question,
“Where is the battle scene?”.
How to add Spectacle: The power of a lobster
🦞Salvador Dali understood the power of a lobster to make a dull telephone absolutely memorable.
Image from tate.org.uk. Art by Salvador Dali
🦞Salvador Dali understood the power of a lobster to make this dull telephone absolutely memorable.
Lobsters may not be your style, so think of a small element you can add to usually humdrum work stuff that will create useful cognitive dissonance (i.e. get some good attention). It can be as simple as a hit of colour in your PPT, or a well devised metaphor in a speech.
Courtesy of the artist Michael Keith Chapman
If you’re not sure where to start, Ivan gets his lobsters here.
Creativity is dead! Long live create!
I believe we could do with less narrow minded rhetoric about who owns creativity and concentrate more on how we’re going to create.
This a wonderfully (un)chained piece of graffiti from Mexico City. I love the duck.
These are interesting times for the creative industry.
Traditional hotshot agencies are protecting their creative turf and talent pool with statements like BBH’s Sir John Hegarty that the in-house model is for “boring creatives”.
Big agencies are watching their bottom lines get squeezed into oblivion (read Madison Ave Manslaughter) and responding with aggressive resizing (Ogilvy) and mergers (Wunderman Thompson).
Old holding companies like WPP are streamlining to become a “creative transformation company”, while new holding companies like S4 Capital and You and Mr Jones are built on the idea that data drives creativity.
Not to mention management consultancies like Accenture who have seen the value of delivering creative assets, not just business services.
Organisations of all sorts are experimenting with in-house creative services, or subcontracted units of agencies, or communities of creative collectives, with various degrees of success.
The CMO of RBS has said that clients “can’t do creative communication”, yet 78% of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) in 2018 had an in-house agency.
So, are they all failing at their jobs?
With so many opinions about what is and isn’t creative, who is right?
After 18 years as a creative at Ogilvy and adam&eveDDB I co-founded a consultancy called Truth & Spectacle to see what creativity in business could become.
A big part of my journey outside of the traditional creative industry has been working with an award winning tech company called what3words.
Over the last two years what3words has successfully scaled up to create most of its marketing, brand design and product design in-house; and we’ve had the same debates everyone else is having about the quality of work, striking the balance between pragmatism and belief, attracting and keeping talent, outsourcing and in-housing.
what3words x Airbnb with the reindeer tribes in Northern Mongolia in 2018. Photo by Chris Sheldrick.
How has a tech company like what3words become good at creating?
Early on the management team understood the impact of storytelling on the company’s value and sales, and invested in their own people to improve that skill.
There’s a studio but there is no “creative department”, creativity is the responsibility of everyone in the business.
what3words is confident in telling its core story through everything it does, whether it’s through products, sales conversations, video content, PR, or event posters.
And finally, we’re comfortable challenging our best ideas and experiment constantly to be fit for purpose.
When management consultancy McKinsey looked at the correlation between creativity and financial performance they found that more creative firms outperform their peers, so it seems to be more important than ever.
I believe we could do with less narrow minded rhetoric about who owns creativity and concentrate more on how we’re going to create.
In these interesting times it’ll take open minds to help the industry and discipline flourish in every organisation.
What do you think?