This past summer, I was allowed the privilege to join the Summer Institute at the Strategy Group LLC. As I joined mid-summer, the group of four other college students ranging from sophomores to seniors had already begun the interactive training focused on strategic marketing and branding. As with any new job or major life change, it was an adjustment to learn the processes and expectations of my new role. I quickly learned the most beneficial contribution an individual could make to the group was an idea.

Each individual’s thoughts and ideas brought greater collaboration to the group and allowed the five of us, called “The Summer Institute team,” to progress toward creatively and efficiently completing projects. Through the Summer Institute, I was able to grasp the full power of collaboration. Through my sophomore year in college, I was the quiet student in classroom discussions, either waiting for what I deemed the perfect moment to add my comment—which I rehearsed ad nauseam in my head—or simply sitting and soaking up the comments made by my peers.

During my first few meetings at the Institute, I took the approach of the “quiet student” while my four peers pitched ideas and vocalized their thoughts. I saw the group progress and move forward through one idea given by an individual that was built upon and used as the foundation for a complex idea. I found that vocalizing thoughts was the most efficient way to collaborate and progress towards a finished product.

Successful collaboration of a group hinges upon both active participation of individuals involved and an encouraging environment. At the Summer Institute, each individual brought a different skill set and personality to the group, which was appreciated by each member through encouragement and willingness to listen to each other’s ideas. Had we not encouraged each other to voice our own ideas and personality, I believe the unique perspectives and potential ideas would not have been expressed in the final draft of our projects.

The positive environment provided by the entire group allowed me to break the mold of the “quiet student.” I began to voice the ideas I had previously kept to myself and felt a catharsis as each of my peers added their own comments and we saw all of our thoughts take the shape of a complex and well-thought idea. Vocalized comments from each of us brought a new perspective on ideas and allowed the group to look at tasks from many different angles.

The challenge I give to myself moving forward is to continue collaborating in all aspects of my life, including this fall semester of school. Now that I have seen and participated in successful collaboration, I want to keep my profile as a quiet student in the past. I also know that, moving forward, the lessons and tasks we were exposed to over the summer will give me a deeper understanding for the real-world use of the skills I will learn in my remaining college courses.

I would like to add a “thank you” to all of the members of the group, including the Strategy Group employees and owners for letting me share in an experience that has certainly furthered my personal growth and helped me realize the potential of my own skill set.

—Kelly Gebert, junior, DePauw

The second value lesson came from Simon Cowell, who spoke directly to Lee Dewyze, a contestant with huge potential for commercial success who gave a banner performance. This young man apparently struggles with small confidence. Cowell called it (the confidence issue) out again, spoke to his difficulty making eye contact, suggested his lack of self assurance is perhaps due to something that happened in his past, and then affirmed him. He said Lee Dewyze would realize in watching back the tape that his world had just changed. Like Usher, he was an agent unafraid to challenge the barriers to potential and give a reason for hope (success).

So here’s the value lesson: those of us in positions of leadership have an opportunity to unleash the best in those around us. But we can’t do that effectively if we can’t get past or outside ourselves. How’s your confidence factor? Are you doing the right things to quell your own insecurities or bring down personal barriers so you can actively press yourself into the lives around you? Are you an Usher who’s over instead of all about yourself? Are you bold enough to mentor a friend, family member or client, calling out the barriers to potential and authentically investing in and cheering success? Are you ushering talent?

From the inception of The Strategy Group, we have said we would be teachable. We would display a servant’s heart toward our clients. We would go above and beyond through work ethic and creative stretch to move the needle for them. We would give our best work to every client, regardless of budget. Do those values show up outside the agency/client relationship?

High school students have a lot of highway to travel. Their career decisions aren’t imminent. Jo and Scott have a lot of work to do. We’re in the middle of a very busy first quarter. But they poured their hearts and time into giving their best thinking and sharing their best experiences with these students (pictured here/ Jo is on the left and Scott is far right). They didn’t marginalize the opportunity by making a quick decision to not cut into too much billable time. They didn’t decide they could easily wing it with a bunch of uniformed kids. These kids got two hours of solid content, full-out enthusiasm from Jo and Scott, a sign at the entry and take-home promotional items from a printer because Jo stopped and asked for them on her way in to work.

Watching two art directors and six kids, everyone here got a value lesson. Here’s what I’ve asked myself: How often do I wing it?

In a pep talk this morning Jeffrey reminded me to fight. Our clients are fighting hard for their businesses. We are required, as their partners, to fight hard—now harder—for them. Their trust in us mandates that we be 1) better students of the environment to bring them the best thinking, 2) quicker to cut through the clutter to distinguish them in the minds of their consumers and 3) smarter about what initiatives to keep, toss or place on hold.

I love a good fight, but I can’t fight for myself or anyone else without passion. Today, I had to stop to remember what I’m really passionate about. It’s potential. I love finding and championing the best in those I love and the clients I serve.

It’s funny, the track the mind takes when someone admonishes you. Mine went to a Keith Emerson (Emerson Lake & Palmer) piano solo. It came up on Jeffrey’s ipod several weeks ago as we headed to a K-State football game. It’s intense. When I asked Jeffrey about it he said that Emerson pushed his genius so hard that he ended up with severe nerve damage in his hands and wrists. He was passionate about playing the keyboards to a high standard.

Entry #1—passion. Do you remember yours?

The heavenly bed points to an important discipline for strategic marketers, brand managers and CEOs: calculating what can go wrong. It’s a marvelous thing to be a person of vision, even better to see the line to the finish. But after the first flush of a new vision passes, it’s time to start the homework—to count the costs, understand the risks, study the competitive environment, jog around the whole vision with a few experts to look for both opportunities and pitfalls, and then, most important, slow to walk a mile in the brand consumer’s shoes. What is the consumer experience? What will the consumer say is great about this new vision of product or service brilliance? What will diminish his experience or worse, cause his confidence in my company to falter?

Several weeks before our not-so-heavenly bed experience, I booked two more room nights at this same hotel for an end-October visit back to South Carolina. It really is a beautiful hotel, but now I’m torn: cancel the reservation or travel with a bottle of Febreeze.

Curiously enough, this particular “pea” in my sleep experience was hinted at as early as 1749. I found this on Wikipedia when I Googled “duvet”:

“In Westphalia, an English travel-writer observed with surprise in 1749,
“There is one thing very particular to them, that they do not cover themselves with bed-cloaths, but lay one feather-bed over, and another under. This is comfortable enough in winter, but how they can bear their feather-beds over them in summer, as is generally practised, I cannot conceive.” —Thomas Nugent, The Grand Tour 1749, vol II. p66 [1]

If business success was as simple as getting our personal leadership act together, we’d all be running powerhouses. But the truth is, our businesses get reckless too. Why? Because you and I don’t always lead from our organizational core. We take our eyes off what our business uniquely is, where we’re uniquely going and the best, right tactics for getting there. We read too much, talk too much, gather too much intelligence on some other company’s DNA and lose our strategic center.

Successful companies find and leverage their core. They understand that the building blocks of strategic, directed, effective leadership are core essentials:

• Core vision
• Core values
• Core politics
• Core decisionmaking body
• Core competencies
• Core strengths → core opportunities
• Core identity platform
• Core constituencies (primary/secondary/tertiary targets)
• Core messages
• Core (unique) selling points
• Core team
• Core partners
• Core collateral
• Core-directed planning and execution

There are lots of reasons we quit leading from our core. We grow tired. Economic pressure, the principal assassin of core energy, increases. Competitive pressures rail. The team we count on changes or becomes ineffective, moving us from gatekeeper role to the trenches. A new genre of industry thinking causes us to rethink how we do business.

The truth is, if we lead companies we will remain in constant flux. People and processes and trajectories change. A lot about our company’s core, however, is fixed. And when we lead from that core and make decisions from that core, we create core differentiation in the marketplace we serve. Core differentiation—or core separation—wins the attention of our publics. Core differentiation is the principle ingredient for success.

When I was young and in a new leadership position that was likely over my head at the time, another agency principal said this to me: the speed of the gang is the speed of the lead. Those sharp words were an admonition to get my act together and lead from a controlled core.

How are you leading?

We are immeasurably blessed to work with people who are geniuses within their industries. We serve clients who are stand-aparts in the world of banking, real estate development, the medical spa industry and hotel development. In the retail furniture segment, Jay is a significant threat to the national stores who play in our market because he has created a bleeding edge retail distribution model. On the platform of his industry knowledge, strategic thinking and commitment to excellence in infrastructure, creative gets to do what it’s supposed to do: create a tipping point. In the medical spa industry, Healing Waters has emerged once again as the #1 medical day spa in the industry. Why? Because the owner is powering her spas with a commitment to world-class talent—people who score “at talent” per the Talent Plus employee-scoring methodology (visit TalentPlus.com for the genius thinking that’s taken companies like Ritz Carlton to the highest level of performance). Truly superb talent has become Healing Waters’ unique brand story.

Sometimes genius within an industry is really just the cannon of confidence. You have to be different enough to get credit for it. When companies are gutsy enough to think strategically and employ resources to be well differentiated, they unleash brand power. And in today’s economy, brand power is the stuff that moves the sales needle—whether you’re a medical spa or builder or boutique hotel.

Sadly, there are companies—we’ve worked with some—who can’t quit playing it safe. They’re a lot more comfortable being all things to all people vs. something astonishingly great to a few target markets. Can you remember the last time you astonished a client or customer? Do you do it on a daily basis or occasionally by accident or never?

Creative is not a silver bullet. It’s not a magic elixir. It’s the next thing when you’ve done the right strategic things right, when you’ve edited your business to a fine point, when you’ve got a great brand and a compelling story to tell. No more tail wagging the dog. When you have a solid, strategic working platform creative becomes the lifeblood that pulses through your business and delivers your passion to the marketplace. And that dog will hunt.