Let’s start “an arms race of goodness.” That’s a proposal coming from FastCompany.com in their recent article Why Market Your Company with Stick-On Emotion When You Can Tap the Real Thing?
Marketers and businesses have always tried to attach their brand to some kind of emotional appear. Beer companies sell beer and sex. Axe deodorant sells deodorant and sex. FastCompany authors Dan and Chip Heath explain that even Downy the fabric softener sells fabric softener and a mother’s love.
Then Dan and Chip make a modest proposal: “Why not simply replace the fake emotion with a real one? What if Downy started doing things to help struggling mothers — and then used their ads to talk about the work?”
That’s basically what David&Goliath did with the Weingart Homeless Project (see the video in the upper right of this post; hattip to Sam Van Eman for pointing me to David&Goliath in his fun post about snowglobes and marketing).
We’ve discussed this idea before at TheHighCalling.org and HighCallingBlogs.com. Last year, one of my favorite messages from Howard Butt was about Hair Dryers and Eternal Significance. A true story of how a real hair dryer company is giving back to society.
Reading that story again, though, I realized the power of FastCompany’s suggestion. They don’t qualify goodness with spiritual language or theological litmus tests or religious creeds. Unlike the stick figure in this cartoon, they don’t spiritualize anything at all.
They keep it simple: Just do good. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love others by respecting them enough to share what you love. The golden rule means we are free to serve people out of our passions.
That’s what National Instruments does. Dan and Chip explain it so well at FastCompany.com that I just have to quote them:
Austin-based National Instruments is an unlikely exhibit for the power of emotion. The company makes high-end scientific testing equipment used by particle physicists and biotech engineers. As you’d expect, NI’s employees care deeply about science. So when NI’s leaders considered how to give back to the community, they wanted to tap that passion.
As described by the Stanford Social Innovation Review, NI set out to inspire more kids to fall in love with engineering and science. (The number of degrees awarded in these fields has been falling for years.) The company now sponsors robotics competitions for 9- to 18-year-olds, and it designed the software that powers Lego Mindstorms robotics kits. (You can’t possibly hate science when you’re building Lego robots.) NI employees also mentor STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) students from local schools.
This work is valuable for its own sake, of course, but it also boosts NI’s brand credibility. When customers assess NI, they see a company obsessed with engineering — to the point where, as a hobby, NI’s employees volunteer at robotics competitions. Other scientific companies could try to make that point in an ad; NI lives it.
Meaning it also pays off in an unexpected way: It motivates employees. When a company stands for something valuable, it makes workers happier. [Read the full article here.]
It’s practical. It’s helpful. And it’s valid game theory. The rising tide of goodness raises all the ships in the harbor.
I know, I know, I’m dangerously close to some naive idealism that forgets the reality of competition and deceit and genuine human meanness. I’m expecting people like Bradley Moore and Glynn Young to push me back on this. But darn it, why can’t we just do good anyway?
Think about where you spend each day. Whether you’re in an office or classroom or clinic or courtroom or home nursery, you need to invest in your community. (I’m talking to myself here too.) Investing in our community means something more than generic financial donations. Giving to charities and churches is important, but it isn’t enough.
What good will you do for your community? What is your passion?
How can you share that passion with your community in a way that is not overly spiritualized, but humble and valuable to others?
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Marcus – Great post. I will not push back, because we absolutely believe in this at my company. I have never given away too many details, but one of my company’s primary businesses is in food. And we do a tremendous amount of philanthropy in giving back to the community – not just withthe food we make (alot), or financially (way more than most other companies would give), but also through people’s time (“giving back to the community” is built into the leadership profile from which we all evaluate one another). It’s a huge part of how we do business that – get this – we totally take for granted. It’s just how we do business. No trumpets sounding, or Fast Company article. And lately, we are having discussions that say “We should do more to promote and market all the good we do!” Somewhat ironic.
Aside from that, I would say just about everyone who works for my company is passionate. We can’t afford not to be – you won’t make it here if you are not passionate. That passion overflows from passion about the product and the community, right to performance. No one gets a free ride for being passionate for the sake of being passionate. It must translate to results.
Anway, I like your challenge, and I would say it seems to be working pretty well around here.
“No one gets a free ride for being passionate for the sake of being passionate. It must translate to results.”
I’m going to have to chew on that for awhile. I wonder what are the best ways to help people tie their passions to results…
God, in the form of Jesus on earth, instilled significance into people’s lives and if I am able to put my head down on my pillow at night, knowing that instilled at least one bit of worth, into a dying soul, then I can feel the goodness seeping through my veins. It is however completely seperate from my sinful self. It is the Spirit at work. It is not Claire who instills. It is God through Claire.
As for my own company… Every single aspect of my company whether it be the marketing plan or the financial plan is driven by our core values, and at the top of that list is the value of giving, because I have freely received.
God takes care of the nasty competition and the bullies who try to step on others. He does this without fail.
Marcus, like Bradley, I won’t push back, either. There are a lot of good things that are already being done by companies. My own company has a longstanding commitment to reaching out to people in need — and we seem to have made a practice of helping (donating funds) to victims of natural disasters.
One example: We have a manufacturing plant near New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina, about a third of the plant’s employees were homeless — flooded out, severe storm damage, etc. Many prepared to send their families out of the area for extended periods. And the company was looking at (1) getting a facility back into production and (2) a disrupted work force trying to deal with some abysmal living conditions. So the company brought in trailers and set them up on the parking lot. The affected employees and their families could live there for however long it took to get their lives back in order — at no charge. Yep, it was smart business – the work force was held together. And while it may have not been the most aesthetic of communities, people had a place to live and keep their families intact. In addition to the funds donated for general relief, the company set up a fund for employees to donate to help their fellow employees at the plant — and people responded from all over the world.
The golden rule works, and it’s alive and well.
re Passion vs. Results – I am just being practical. We need to hire and retain people who are both passionate and effective at their jobs. That’s all I’m saying.
Claire, I know God takes care of the nasty competition in the end, but sometimes it takes years and years and years and I’m not very patient about it. That can be hard to take. I’m thinking of Psalm 37 when it says “do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.”
Bradley and Glynn, your responses surprised me. I wasn’t trying to call you out or anything, but I figured you would see through my naive stance here.
But now I hear you saying this isn’t naive at all. It’s smart.
So now I’m wondering. Are businesses picking up on this? Are they already doing good? Is so, why don’t we hear more about it? Is the good too little too late?
Very nice Marcus! I like it. What if more companies could be started with the sole purpose of doing good. The main point in the business plan. Like a for-profit non-profit, that used its revenue to help lift others up. A people first, profit last idea. I would like to work there.
After spending 15 years in management consulting, I’ve worked with literally hundreds of businesses (mostly small-midsized – under $1 billion) and by and large, I have to say that most of them were led by good people who were trying to do good. Even if they didn’t make it a focus or obvious priority, it was there under the surface. I rarely ran into a company or business leader that made me go, “blech.”
I think there are a few well-publicized corporations that give a bad rap to capitalism.
Wait, Brad. If I’m reading you correctly, then the biggest problem with capitalism is a branding problem?