Peter Drucker, arguably the greatest management scholar of the past century, was certainly no imbecile, yet one of his most important insights gets ignored in the rush for facts. As he wrote in 1973’s Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices:

“Most books on decision-making tell the reader: First find the facts. But executives who make effective decisions know that one does not start with facts. One starts with opinions…The understanding that underlies the right decision grows out of the clash and conflict of divergent opinions and out of serious consideration of competing alternatives. To get the facts first is impossible. There are no facts unless one has a criterion of relevance.”

Drucker provides several theses supporting this broad assertion:

1. If we do not make opinions clear, we will simply find confirmatory facts. “No one has ever failed to find the facts they are looking for.”
2. An opinion provides an untested hypothesis. Once we have clarified the hypothesis, we can test it rather than argue it. “The effective person…insists that people who voice an opinion also take responsibility for defining what factual findings can be expected and should be looked for.”
3. Decisions are judgments, not a choice between right and wrong. Oftentimes they are “a choice between two courses of action neither of which is probably more right than the other.” So we must understand the alternatives fully.
4. Big decisions may require new criteria. “Whenever one analyzes the way a truly great, a truly right, decision has been reached, one finds that a great deal of work and thought went into finding the appropriate measurement. The effective decision-maker assumes that the traditional measurement is not the right measurement…The traditional measurement reflects yesterday’s decision. That there is a need for a new one normally indicates that the measure is no longer relevant.”
5. Ironically, opinions break executives free of pre-conceptions and poor imagination. Disagreement is a safeguard against being a prisoner of the organization and seeing an issue just as underlings want. Drucker quotes the famed General Motors boss Alfred P. Sloan, who after hearing executives unanimously support a decision reportedly said, “I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give us time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.”

Consider how Drucker’s view contrasts with the typical corporate process. Decision makers may have a general sense of stakeholders’ opinions, but in their eagerness to act and to avoid controversy they do not probe to understand these perspectives fully. Rather, they quickly make a decision and then marshal facts to support it. Indeed, one top consulting firm has boasted for decades of an approach that develops an early hypothesis and refines it over the course of an engagement — rather than testing many competing hypotheses in the search for the one that best represents the truth.

A company channeling Drucker would tackle matters quite differently. It would surface opinions very clearly, possibly through anonymous questionnaires or structured interviews of key staff by a neutral party.

The company would also push executives to state the measure of a good decision, pushing them to think about criteria for future success rather than historical metrics. It would insist that opinions be linked to fact-based tests that would validate or disprove the view. Then it would frame a decision as a true choice between well-elaborated and mutually exclusive alternatives. Rather than focus the process on getting the right answer, it would anchor on asking the right questions.

Clearly, this approach is more valuable in some situations than others. If a decision is an operational one much like judgments the company has made effectively many times before, and there is little change in the external environment, then there is no reason to tinker with a successful process. However if the company is encountering rapid industry change, poorly understood competitors, or new types of customers, Drucker’s view becomes invaluable. The right questions provide a clear compass heading, even if the right answers seem devilishly complex.

In a time of major shifts in our economy, when disruptive forces seem to lurk around every corner, Drucker’s insight of nearly 50 years ago is more pertinent than ever. By all means, find the facts and create agreement. But first know the opinions and seek dissent.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Steve Wunker. Learn more about the Jobs To Be Done strategy in JOBS TO BE DONE: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation

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This role goes beyond that of the CMO and usually falls upon the CEO or the founder. The key criteria for the brand champion is not the craftsmanship of the marketing strategy (which IS the role of the CMO) but the absolute, unwavering belief in the “why” of the brand and its sole purpose for existence. These leaders are so passionate about their brands that they can believe almost anything is possible. And by marshaling that force of will, together with solid brand strategy anchored on a clear articulation of goals, can and do achieve the impossible.

Let’s look at some of the champions who have set the standard.

In the early 60s, the NASA brand had such a champion in President Kennedy. He set the bar very high for the ultimate goal of “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” by the end of the decade. And it worked. But to put this audacious goal in correct context, you must remember that space travel at that time was akin to a daredevil stunt–hardly “routine.” After his assassination, presidents Johnson, then Nixon, carried on the moon mission until its conclusion in 1972. While there have been many achievements by NASA since, nothing and no one has yet replaced that original, jaw-dropping piece of goal setting.

In the late 1970’s and early 80’s, Chrysler had such a brand champion in Lee Iacocca, who believed so much in his beleaguered car brand that he pledged to buy back your Plymouth, Dodge or Chrysler car if you weren’t satisfied. His out front, no nonsense style and his introduction of the minivan to the US market (he had also fathered the Mustang while at Ford) saved Chrysler from certain oblivion. Iacocca was an author, a bit of a showman and a charismatic personality that did come perilously close to upstaging his brand. However, Iacocca did put it all on the line for his car company as its spokesman in a national ad campaign just when Chrysler needed it. And it worked.

Walmart, the largest retail chain and employer got its traction in the 1980s under its founder and champion, Sam Walton. His humble, yet visionary leadership with the primary mission of “driving down the cost of living” out of spartan offices in Bentonville, Arkansas (doors laid across file cabinets as desks, etc.) is business legend. Walmart went from rural to urban and achieved respectability in the 80s. Walton’s home-spun genius and shrewdness inspired the launch of another extraordinary retail brand, The Home Depot. Bernie Marcus and Sam Walton even became friends with Marcus adopting Walton’s EDOP (Every Day Low Pricing) model for the better part of Home Depot’s early history.

These are just a few examples of brand champions from the past. There are so many more we could discuss from the 90’s and 2000’s as senior leadership in this period became much more aware of its importance and impact on growth. Jobs, Branson, Musk, Bezos, Schultz … perhaps you could add yourself to this list or know someone who deserves to be, famous or not.

The point is simply this: Brands are human constructs. And while it can be argued that they exist in the mental and economic abstract, they do, in fact, function in the real, physical world. Brands represent the things very talented and inspired people create in order to accomplish a purpose that these people believe very passionately about. The linkage between the creator (often the brand champion) and the brand creation is inescapable. Their leadership in casting a vision for the brand will always play an invaluable role in its success.

The definition of a “champion” is a person who fights or argues for a cause or on behalf of someone else. “Brand Advocates” are what we marketers aspire to create among our customer base through our diligent and consistent efforts. “Brand Champions” have a stake in the game regardless of our marketing efforts, for their very reputation rests on the reputation and success of the brand itself.

Every brand needs one. Are you that champion?

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However, the opposite is often the case with the Chief Executive Officer. In today’s marketplace, it’s not uncommon to see the vision and convictions of the CEO on full display via advertising, public relations or social media that, in effect, shape the brand’s perceptions in ways that may or may not be scripted into the brand strategy.

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We can trace this phenomenon back to the beginnings of modern industrial brands with a national footprint. Henry Ford not only revolutionized American industry and created the first significant automobile brand that bore his name, but he was also an active social engineer and even established a “Social Department” within the company to police his standards of conduct among Ford Motor employees. Though he was responsible for much advancement in manufacturing (the modern assembly line) and worker compensation (the five-day work week), Ford’s combative, take-no-prisoners approach, whether dealing with his son Edsel or labor unions, or his anti-Semitic stance and pacifism about World War I, was well known at the time. His controversial personality, in spite of all that he and his company accomplished, became a brand liability, and helped enable competitors such as GM and Dodge to gain a foothold and grow their market shares.

Clearly the DNA of company founders and CEOs like Ford is fiercely potent (or else they wouldn’t be the CEO) and at times, can be over-shadowing to the brands that they are ultimately responsible for. And as in the Ford example, they can become synonymous with the brand in the consumer’s mind, either by design or through media coverage. An example here would be Steve Jobs for Apple, who, through a rocky and tumultuous ascendancy to lead the very company he founded, became the face of the world’s most innovative brand. Even his successor Tim Cook inherited the mantle of fierce Apple independence by staring-down the FBI over unlocking its iPhone encryption technology. Both Jobs and later Cook have, through the force of their personalities and commitments, guarded the Apple brand’s essence and maintained its anti-establishment status going back to the days it tangled with IBM.

Very often the brand story is shaped by the very beginnings of the idea for the brand and the likeability of the founder and CEO who will ultimately lead the brand to greatness. Such is the case of the world’s largest do-it-yourself retailer, The Home Depot. If you have ever read the book “Built from Scratch” you will understand why. Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank were both fired from Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers with what Marcus refers to as being “kicked with a golden horseshoe.” All throughout the impressive growth of the chain, Marcus, and later Blank, guided the brand by principles they learned early in their retail careers. Both men would pay surprise visits to stores and their folksy, down-to-earth demeanor fit the home improvement warehouse chain’s personality to a tee. While only Home Depot shareholders knew them during their tenures as CEO, they have retired to become well-known philanthropists and community leaders in their home of Atlanta … and thus further enhancing the brand’s legendary reputation.

Of course, no discussion of CEOs and brands would be complete without the acknowledgement of CEO as pitchman. Usually the criticism of this strategy is that the ad agency couldn’t come up with anything that the client would approve of, so they put the CEO in front of the camera. Ironically, for all of their usual bravado, most CEOs are reticent to take on the role as campaign spokesman. Often, they will cite that “the message is bigger than one person” or that “people will think I’m on an ego trip.” The smart ones will set those concerns aside if the strategy soundly supports the brand. And there are many memorable and effective examples where this was the case. Here are ten:

• Dave Thomas for Wendy’s
• Frank Perdue for Perdue Chicken
• James Dyson for Dyson Vacuums
• Neil Clark Warren for eHarmony
• Victor Kiam for Remington
• Lee Iacocca for Chrysler
• George Zimmer for Men’s Wearhouse
• Colonel Harland Sanders for Kentucky Fried Chicken
• Orville Redenbacher for Orville Redenbacher popcorn
• Michael Dubin, Dollar Shave Club

Chief Executive magazine quoted a Forbes study that claimed that TV spots scored higher in desire for the product, viewer relevance and being informative when the CEO is pitching the goods. After all, who should know more about it?

The risk, of course, is that in a high profile campaign, the CEO becomes the brand’s “celebrity spokesperson” and is subject to scrutiny of his or her personal lives or political views just as anyone else. That was true with Henry Ford in the 1920’s and is still true today.

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Management and leadership in marketing organizations are two separate things. Of course both are necessary to get things done, but understanding why the distinction between these two things has profound implications on brand building success, is equally essential.

There’s so much mindless chatter these days about marketing ROI. The metrics obsession is everywhere one turns in the business press and in the blogosphere. Opinions and points of view abound about “best practices” in marketing and brand management. All marketers are seeking the holy grail of ROI. It’s pretty hard to define the return when the investment is equally cloudy.

Truthfully, I don’t know what ROI really means any more. The majority of brands in the marketplace are just me-too slush–brand followship rather than leadership. Where’s the ROI in clawing your way to middle?

I have written many times that beating your established competition within categories is folly. For example, Blackberry (once a brand leader) attempting to out iPhone the iPhone–pure folly! Why waste precious resources trying to create and compete for the value created by another rather than create new value?

Why does the world need another smartphone, laundry detergent, fizzy sugar water, or department store brand? Pick your category and you will find a brand leader and a brand follower. The brand leader always brings new value to the user–delighting them with magic and surprise. The brand follower is heads down managing process and worried about marketing ROI.

To manage something means to bring about, to accomplish a task, to be responsible for a deliverable. On the other hand, leadership is about influence, guidance, innovation and following a unique path. This distinction is critical for brands. Here are a few more important differences between management and leadership for you to consider:

•  the manager administers, the leader innovates.

•  the manager is a copy, the leader is an original.

•  the manager is focused on structure and systems, the leader is focused on people.

•  the manger relies on command and control, the leader inspires trust.

•  the manager thinks near-term, the leader has long-term vision and perspective.

•  the manager has their eye on the bottom line, the leader has their eye on the horizon

•  the manager imitates, the leader originates.

•  the manager invests in the status quo, the leader challenges it.

I’m sure there may be some who will think this dichotomy may be overstated. True enough, woe to the marketing leader who ignores the bottom line, and woe to the brand manager who fails to inspire trust. Marketing organizations (and the brands they bring to the marketplace) must possess both talents to build enduring brand value and the financial equity that value represents.

For brands to achieve their highest and fullest expression in the marketplace, stewardship, integrity, authenticity and trust must suffuse the entire organization. These are qualities that brand leaders bake into the culture of the organization–not platitudes grafted onto its exterior.

By necessity these qualities begin with leadership.

This can only happen by leaders who can do more than count transactions; leaders whose highest priorities are about inspiring the shared values of their organizations to the people their enterprises are designed to serve. Managers too must be personally aligned and committed to these shared values their brands represent to customers. But leadership sets the tone and the tempo and without it even the best managers will be pushing water uphill.

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 “Netflix has decided to can Qwikster, the DVD-rental spin-off it announced to unlimited screaming last month.” –-Wall Street Journal, 10.10.11

“Barely a month into Meg Whitman’s tenure as chief, Hewlett-Packard announced on Thursday that it would not sell the company’s dominant personal computer business — closing off a strategic path offered by her predecessor.”–New York Times, 10.27.11 

These stories might be laughable if they weren’t such a tragic waste of shareholder value.

Most every company says it values its customers, and hates to ‘walk away’ from them. Leaders are called on to make tough decisions they believe are in the best interests of their companies. And sometimes, these decisions advantage some customers at the expense of others. That doesn’t make them bad decisions, just risky ones.

But leaders of some of our greatest brands act like they have forgotten (or never knew) what every junior brand manager surely knows — to test potentially risky messages and find ways to mitigate their negative impact. Instead, senior leaders are acting like bulls in a china shop, awkwardly and prematurely broadcasting their strategic decisions in ways that destroy their company’s (and their own) reputation and value.

HP’s announcement last August that it was considering selling its PC business could be read as either the hubris of a short-timer CEO or a strategically important move to free up resources for higher margin and/or growth opportunities. Either way, the already struggling stock lost nearly 1/3 of its value upon the announcement, dropping to $22.60 from $32.61/share in one day HP’s stock price has languished around $25 ever since.

Netflix shot itself in the foot multiple times last year – and its stock price has suffered the consequences. Shares have fallen from an all-time high of $298.73 on July 13 (just 4 short months ago) to close up 10% at $91.80 today. The mail order DVD model may in fact need to be phased out for Netflix to continue to reign pre-eminent in home entertainment or media or whatever business they see themselves in. Surely, they could have used their prior market capitalization better to help achieve their vision, rather than see precious capital and valuable customer relationships squandered by leadership ineptitude.

The latest episode of self-inflicted damage came last September from Bank of America who announced a monthly charge for checking account customers to use their debit cards. This controversial move follows years of encouraging and rewarding debit card usage (and reaping the cost savings over paper check processing) and is part of what is fueling the Occupy Wall Street anger. Already reeling from other challenges, it’s hard to attribute any Bank of America stock price change specifically to the announcement of the new $5/month charge on September 29 or its reversal on October 31. The point is, if it was the right business decision, it should have been handled differently.

What has happened to the instincts of corporate America? Have the leaders of these companies become so insular, so arrogant, or so detached from reality that they don’t bother developing a customer-focused plan to communicate their decisions effectively? Do they assume that, like diamonds, a customer is forever?

These days, there is no excuse for this type of leadership blunder. Testing messages with customers is faster, cheaper, and easier than ever. So is building a communications plan that manages risk and avoids patently value-destroying moves. Testing messages with customers is not just a “marketing ploy” or “spin doctoring”. Although it’s the fashion to malign them, simple focus groups and surveys are very effective at identifying truly bad ideas. They cost little and take next to no time. They should be considered the equivalent of spell checking for customer-facing decisions.

Being in touch with customers is the antidote to company hubris at all levels – and these days particularly for CEO’s as well as those who advise them.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Judy Hopelain of Brand Amplitude

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