SCRAMBLE: How agile strategy can build epic brands in record time
Marty Neumeier
Level C Media (October 2018)
Here’s a new approach to business: “the emotions, the obstacles , the setbacks, the human interaction, the relentless pressure”
As Marty Neumeier explains, his latest of eight books is “a fictional account of a young CEO in trouble. He and his team have five weeks to reimagine their company. If the board approves their plan, they’ll live to fight another day. If not, they’ll lose their jobs, their company, and everything they’ve been working for.”
It is noteworthy that, with rare exception, great leaders throughout history were master storytellers. They shared their compelling visions by anchoring ideas in human experience. How they did that varied. Jesus used parables. Abraham Lincoln used folktales. Whatever the form, the story format — in capable hands, of course — can be uniquely effective. That is certainly true of the works created by my own favorites among authors of business narratives, Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Patrick Lencione, and Mark Miller, to name but three. Add Neumeier to their list. As do they, he makes skillful use of the basics: background, setting, main characters, conflicts, plot developments, climax, and resolution.
Briefly, David Stone is CEO of BigSky. He is under severe pressure — in fact, only five weeks — to turn the hotel company around. The founder, Andy Vineyard, is his boss and mentor but almost all of the responsibility for the transformation is on Stone’s shoulders. I am reluctant to say more about what happens because Neumeier is a consummate raconteur and details are best revealed within the narrative, in context. That said, I do feel obliged to make two separate but related points: There is little (if anything) hokey or cute about the story. It flows sensibly, believably. I also want to commend Neumeier on his use of subordinate characters such as an Uber driver, Dmitri (“Sokrates”) Sokouris. True, he plays a limited role but it has major significance while adding what I characterize as “color” and “seasoning” to the lively narrative.
No brief commentary such as mine can do full justice to the scope and depth of business wisdom that Marty Neumeier provides but I hope that I have at least indicated why I think so highly of his latest, most valuable book.
In an email he sent to me last summer, he shared his thoughts about SCRAMBLE and I conclude with them now as a special “bonus” to those who read this review.
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As I think about the book, here’s what’s interesting to me:
o Brand strategy and business strategy are rapidly becoming synonymous as customers “join” brands instead of merely buying brands. There IS no business without dedicated customers, and smart leaders are strategizing accordingly.
o The best new leaders are those who can “design” the way forward, not merely “decide” the way forward. That’s why I made the main character an architect, someone who could have the inside track on the art of “building” a brand. Deciders are stuck with existing options and best practices. Designers can create new options and new practices.
o Design thinking “weaponizes” business/brand strategy by making it more agile, collaborative, and responsive. As I said in THE DESIGNFUL COMPANY, “If you wanna innovate, you gotta design.”
o Branding has long been considered a subset of marketing, but as the worlds of brand and business begin to merge, it’s increasingly the other way around. Brand dominance is the “what” of business success, while marketing, sales, operations, product design, and company culture are the “hows”—the inputs to brand dominance.
o The best way to teach something as performance-driven as agile strategy is to wrap it in a story. Business is more than a checklist. It’s an ability to orchestrate the various interdependencies that create an emergent, healthy whole. Like a jazz orchestra, it takes individual talent, teamwork, and a conductor who can tease out great performances on the fly. It’s important to know what that feels like, thus the choice of a story.
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Thank you, Marty, for all of your contributions — throughout the years — to thought leadership in all dimensions of an increasingly more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous business world. Your work serves as both a window and a mirror. Those of us who are challenged to create or increase demand for what we offer depend on you to be both an anchor and a sail…as well as our compass.