Friends,
I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.
A couple of updates before we go-go
The June conferences are getting closer:
The Techsylvania organizers have very kindly offered me a complimentary free pass; if anyone is in the area and would like to attend (we do have several thousand subscribers, so it is not entirely out of the realm of possibility), do let me know. Speed wins.
My Cannes Lions schedule is now almost entirely full, with new meetings being set up daily. As I am writing these words, there are still meeting/cocktails/rosé slots available on Tuesday evening in central Cannes (I will be at Hotel Martinez until 8pm), late Wednesday evening (after 9pm), and early Thursday morning (8-9am). If you want to have a chat, I would highly recommend getting in touch as soon as possible.
Starting in a few weeks’ time, there will be a number of guest writers on Strategy in Praxis. I have decided to do this for two reasons.
Firstly, and most importantly, I want to highlight some absolutely brilliant thinkers that continue to inspire me; their contributions will only improve the newsletter.
Secondly, I want to, at long last, finish the book that I am writing together with Steve. This will enable me to do so.
The confirmed authors for this inaugural run are: Sera Holland, Will Humphrey, Gary Rivers, Claire Strickett, Doug Garnett, Tom Kerwin, and Keerti Nair.
In the news:
Shareholder proposals that question environmental and social stances of companies have doubled YoY, proving that brand purpose can be precisely as divisive as few marketers seemingly have realized. While proponents have long argued that companies need to rebuild their entire business around a particular set of values, it was always a theoretical argument for most; their businesses could not be rebuilt, nor would their shareholders allow it anyway. Cue the culture wars headlines.
Speaking of which, Target has reportedly withdrawn its Pride Month and LGBTQ offerings after customer pushback and threats (!) to its workers. This story has all kinds of odd nuances, but appears rooted in one particular product that the company never actually sold. All apparently is fair in love and culture war, particularly if you happen to live in the intellectual dark ages.
Peloton has repositioned itself as “more than just a bike company”, which, given its track record as a bike company (if that were actually ever the case), sounds like a good idea. However, the rebrand is based on survey data from existing customers. In other words, Peloton is betting on its currently non-buying future customers looking like its currently buying customers. If that were true, why would they not already be buying?
Item of the week
William Starbuck (no, no relation to that) is a strategic management thinker that, I believe, deserves a far wider audience; in a world of academics who find little difference between theory and practice, he is refreshingly pragmatic and direct. In this paper, called Teaching Strategists to Take Advantage of What Happens, he argues what will be familiar to long-time readers of this newsletter: courses in strategic management should teach future strategists how to react to unexpected strategic events.
Business firms need to recognize the implications of complexity and randomness. They should not rely on events to follow previous patterns, and strategic success may depend on their abilities to react effectively to unexpected events. Important events may occur in unfamiliar parts of the business environment, so firms must scan widely.
Because managers often do not understand fully the events they observe, they have to live with ambiguity. Some events have hidden causes; some turn out to be peculiar accidents. Strategic outcomes may expose unknown causal relationships. The results of strategic actions may have been unpredictable beforehand and unexplainable afterward. Such uncertainties make it useful to entertain multiple viewpoints and to avoid committing too strongly to inflexible courses of action. Strategies often evolve through experimental trials, so strategists need to hedge their bets and to learn from their mistakes.
Moving on.
Openness is reserved for the dead
But is late too late?
Once or twice every year, I take a detour far off the paths we normally walk in order to discuss something of greater importance than matters of strategy, management, and complexity. Today, as I am sure you have already surmised, is such an occasion.
I am not so disconnected from reality that I would, even for a second, believe that anyone (else) will care about that which I about to write, but I do believe that most of you will understand where I am coming from. Either way, rest assured that normal services for all will be resumed next week; premium subscribers will still get the usual fare below.
So.
Over the last few weeks, a number of beloved celebrities have passed away. In a way, it is a sign of oneself aging as much as it is them falling victim to the inevitable passing of time; the older one gets in this world, the more people one once looked up to leave it.
When they do, people open up their hearts, sing praises, and tell stories of how utterly wonderful the dearly departed were. Such an outpouring of affection may, of course, console or support those left behind, and perhaps provide a way in which to alleviate one’s own grief by sharing it with others. Australian comedian Adam Hills once said that each warm word fills the balloons by which the deceased will be taken to heaven; a rather lovely sentiment even for an atheist such as myself.
However, while wonderful demonstrations of humanity in one of its best senses, the central figure is no longer within earshot. As the words that we never said become those that we have, the recipient is incapable of receiving them.
We have been told not to speak ill of the dead, but for some reason, we fail to consider that it may be worth more to speak well of, and to, the living. Even the richest of lives are typically too full of regrets to afford not telling someone how much they mean until it is, for whatever unfortunate reason, too late.
I will begin.
With Mother’s Day coming up in my neck of the woods, I am now going to write a couple of paragraphs about the mother of my daughter. I would encourage you to do something similar; call your parents, your children, a friend or a loved one. Write an email, a postcard. Show someone how much they mean to you. Not tomorrow, not next week, but today. And then again tomorrow and next week.
…
Elin, I will never be able to find words that do you justice, for such words do not exist, yet I promise to never stop trying. You are the center of my universe, my wife, the mother of the most beautiful little bundle of pure happiness that my heart has ever seen, and my best friend. Nobody can make me as strong, nor as weak, as you.
In the now decade that we have lived together, you have transformed my life so radically for the better that the annals of my life will forever be divided into a before and after we met. Each page forever after written in color, each question mark replaced by an exclamation mark. You are the heroine of my story, a protagonist the likes of which no book will be able to replicate.
And so, when I fall asleep exhausted after the longest, most arduous of days, I ever do so with a smile on my lips – for I know that your face will be the first thing that I get to see in the morning, and how that will make me feel.
I love you, with my entire essence.
Onwards and upwards, together
JP
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