This past weekend, more than sixty Minnesota-based CEOs signed an open letter calling for “immediate de-escalation” and cooperation after unrest connected to federal immigration enforcement operations and two fatal shootings. The letter is restrained. It doesn’t perform moral certainty. It doesn’t posture as a conscience. It doesn’t sound like the world can be solved in a paragraph. It reads more like an attempt to hold the center of the room while everyone in it is...
The real risk when adding sustainability into a brand narrative isn’t saying too much or too little. It’s failing to connect—emotionally. Failing to enable people to feel why the work matters and how to participate in it.
Authenticity. It’s a word we continue to hear and see everywhere. And yet, so often, it rings hollow. Over the past few years, authenticity has become one of the most overused words in brand leadership—and thereby, perhaps, one of the most misunderstood. I hear many brand leaders, marketers, and communications teams speak about authenticity as if it’s a tone of voice, a transparency policy, and even a creative brief.
Recently, someone asked me: What is your theory of change? This question has stayed with me. Not because I didn’t have an answer—intuitively, I knew—but rather because I have never quite explicitly articulated the thread that weaves the different strands of my work—brand strategy, leadership, trust, and purpose.
I’ve been reading about soft power a lot lately. Soft power…. It’s a term we typically associate with nations—with their ability to influence, attract and persuade without coercion. There’s no doubt that soft power hinges on culture, values and diplomacy—forces that shape trust not through control, but through resonance.
