A friend recently emailed me to point out an apparent contradiction in “Making Meaning,” the book I co-wrote that’s out in late December, and a recent blog of mine. The blog, entitled “How Cheskin Destroyed Civilization as We Knew It,” argued that Louis Cheskin came up with the idea for the modern fast food restaurant as a revolutionary “casual dining” concept. The result, eventually, was a decline in the idea of “formal” anything, dining or otherwise.
My friend noted that, in the book, we argued that business thinkers don’t really invent revolutionary ideas, they just respond to what’s already there.
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Denise Klarquist woke up one day last week and started her 11th year at Cheskin. How does a company recognize somebody who has solidly contributed for 10 years?
It is tempting to get creative in describing Denise and the contribution she makes to Cheskin. Diving deep into adjective-land to chronicle her contributions doesn’t do her justice. Denise is all about the verb. She gets things done — a rare talent in today’s process-centric world of employment. We have asked her to take on roles and responsibilities that stretch her in numerous ways and she consistently exceeds the mark. Simply put, we thank Denise for the time she’s devoted to Cheskin. We’re better because she’s so good.
Writing Making Meaning has been an interesting process. Not only was our topic and material born from hundreds of thousands of interviews over many years of professional work, but as we get closer to the publication date, the book has also resulted in an increased intensity at Cheskin of internal discussions about our own treasured objects and the respective personal meanings behind them for us.
This round of discovery was kicked off when I asked all my Cheskin coworkers to do a short exercise and send me the results. My requested was that each person choose an article that he/she had purchased and which had provided a meaningful experience, to write a short essay about it and to send me the results. I also requested a photo of the object with the author.
To make clear what I was requesting, I wrote one myself and attached it to the request. Here’s mine:
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Mention computer gaming and what springs to mind? A niche market? Teen grunge? Think again…
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Thanksgiving nears. My gratitude list includes plenty of entries about life at Cheskin and how fortunate we are. Everything we set out to do 11 months ago is taking shape and coming to fruition — larger projects, more complex, broader in scope, strategic in nature, and focusing on innovation. Our intentions around recruiting have also paid off: raise the bar and hire thoughtully and carefully.
As we assess our opportunities for the new year, we’ve created several openings for new Cheskinites. Read on…
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Brands are a vital part of teenage blog lore, used to flag up status, individuality and relative ‘coolness’.
Download this trend spotter report
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Understanding the science behind product claims seems the least desirable activity for marketers, but that is exactly what is required to create desirable brands.
Great brands own and define emotion – they inspire desire. And that’s not just luxury goods, every choice we make is driven by our emotional reaction. Let’s face it, we don’t stand in our grocery aisles weighing up the functional pros and cons of every choice, we just ‘pick what we want’. One could argue that habit is actually just ‘desire’ becoming everyday – a shortcut to our choices.
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This morning I received an email from the person who has been editing our upcoming book, Making Meaning. It read, “Speaking of meanings, we have a gong here at Peachpit (Steve, Nathan, and Darrel have seen it), that we bang when a book goes to press. Making Meaning actually left the building yesterday, but we held off gonging until today. It acknowledges the meaning of accomplishment, and we’d love to share it with as many of you as can participate. It only takes a minute, if that.”
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The Effective Executive has long been one of the first books I turned to when I’ve needed a refresher on management skills. It was, in fact, a book I picked up immediately when I first became CEO of Cheskin. I knew it would help to ground my thinking once again, at a time when I needed to be reminded of ways to touch move and inspire a team. What I have always appreciated about the thinking behind that book is that it isn’t about managing one’s team; it is about managing oneself…and clearly that is the best place to start. To lead well is to be a leader.
The thinking behind this, of course, is from Peter Drucker, author, teacher, consultant, self-proclaimed social ecologist. I was sad to read that Mr. Drucker died yesterday at the age of 95. He was the consummate leader himself, teaching many of us to be more effective through improved time management, better decision-making, setting priorities, listening, communicating. I really liked that he viewed employees as resources and not as a cost, which is a point of view not embraced often enough by corporate executives. I was always moved by his increasing focus in the nonprofit world, and he inspired me to start spending more time with colleagues to figure out how we can leverage our resources to serve humanity in ways that the for-profit sector can’t.
I like especially his thinking about innovation, and how important it is to “turn on the tap” so that the corporate imagination will flow. “The tap,” he wrote in The Effective Executive, “is…disciplined disagreement.” How cool is that? Almost any executive can be a visionary, but it takes an enlightened executive to collaborate with his team to open up the ideation to all players and then to build the systems (discipline) required to succeed in implementation.
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My, how the conversation has changed.
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