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Top of Mind Thursday Memo Archive
Top of Mind Thursday, May 27, 2021: Shuffling the Deck
Last week, AT&T announced it was spinning off its Warner Media division into a company that will merge with Discovery. At about the same time, Amazon spent more than $8 billion to acquire MGM. Disney acquired Lucasfilms and Marvel for $4 billion a piece over 10 years ago and has reaped tremendous benefits from those deals.
AT&T fought a long antitrust battle to buy Time Warner–now, only 2 years later, they’re dumping Warner Media at a discount. Why do some mega deals work and some fizzle out?
Management consultant Peter Drucker said culture eats strategy for lunch. The best laid plans are sidetracked by cultures that are incompatible or create conflict in the workplace. The cultures of HBO, Time Warner, and AT&T were all very different. Putting them under one corporate banner didn’t build the expected synergy.
But you don’t need a big merger to create culture issues. Different functional groups have different cultures and often they don’t mesh well together. There are cultural differences among geographies as well.
Now, there’s another element to consider: how cultures have changed as a result of the pandemic. Some groups have been able to work from home and love it–some don’t. Some have not been able to work remotely and resent those who do. Some businesses, like Delta Airlines, are requiring employees to be vaccinated–some refuse to even ask the question.
Culture exists, whether we acknowledge it or not. The question is are you working to understand yours and to develop a culture that works effectively–or are you ignoring culture at your peril?
It may be the difference between playing a winning hand–or folding early.
Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.
Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday, May 20, 2021: Clear as Mud
This week, the CDC issued new guidelines for mask wearing, given that more people are vaccinated against COVID-19 and infection/hospitalization rates are down significantly.
This sounds like a good thing. Clarifying when masks are and are not needed should be helpful to all of us. Except in this case, many people are more confused than ever.
The CDC says masks are no longer required indoors and outdoors if you’re vaccinated. Except in some situations where an individual is high risk. And people who aren’t vaccinated must still wear masks.
How will businesses know whether or not someone is vaccinated? There is no “vaccine passport” available. In some places, public health officials are requiring businesses to check vaccinations. In other locations, government is forbidding anyone to ask about an individual’s personal vaccination status.
Some businesses are removing mask requirements totally. Others are relying on the public to be honest about their status and wear masks if they’re not vaccinated. Some organizations, like colleges are also requiring everyone on their campus to be vaccinated, while some stores are requiring everyone present to wear masks.
So are we all clear on what we should do? What if you have children too young to be vaccinated, but about to go back to in-person school? What if you interact with someone who is immunocompromised? What if….
I have no doubt the CDC intended this directive to be helpful. But, as often happens with government mandates, sometimes trying too hard to get to a solution just makes things more complicated.
How often does this happen in your business? The law of unintended consequences says solving one problem without considering the consequences can create or exacerbate another. What are you doing to think through potential solutions to ensure you’ve considered what unexpected results they might trigger?
Clearly, this is something we need to do more often.
Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.
Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday, May 13, 2021: Approaching Normalcy
The last several weeks have seen the tide turn in the battle against COVID-19.
Hospitalization and deaths are down dramatically due to aggressive vaccination efforts. Rules about mask wearing and restrictions on public gatherings, businesses, and schools are relaxing. Friends and families are gathering in larger and larger groups.
I write this sitting near a pool at a hotel in Palm Springs, CA. Except for the social distancing, extra sanitation, and some limits on amenities, things seem almost normal.
Except it’s not. It’s not just COVID that is different. Here’s what’s gone on in just the last couple of weeks:
- The hack of a major pipeline on the East Coast has caused major panic and created unnecessary gasoline shortages (and we thought hoarding toilet paper was bad!).
- Tensions in the Middle East are escalating to near-war with hundreds of bombs lobbed into Israel by Palestinians and retaliatory action by the Israelis in Gaza.
- The GOP ousted Liz Cheney, their House conference chair, because she refused to toe the party line and pledge allegiance to the former president– but instead continued to raise concerns the party didn’t want aired.
- There were at least 49 mass shootings in the US in the last 30 days. Racially motivated attacks on Asian Americans, African Americans and other people of color continue to grow unabated throughout the country.
The problem is it’s too easy for these things to become part of the ordinary fabric of our lives. The initial shock fades and we accept these happenings as part of the new normal–and that’s troubling.
There’s no question last year was anything but normal. We have the chance to build a new type of normal now. The question is whether we will use this opportunity to proactively build a better world–or let a new set of unacceptable circumstances become the norm instead.
The choice is up to us.
Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.
Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday, May 6, 2021: The Say Hey Kid is 90
Born in a small town in Alabama in 1931, Willie Howard Mays, Jr. started his baseball career in the Negro Leagues before breaking into the Major Leagues with the New York Giants in 1951.
That was only four years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, allowing African-American baseball players to play in the Majors. Willie was Rookie of the Year that year and MVP a few years later. He was a key part of the New York Giants World Series winning teams in the ’50s, and MVP again with the San Francisco Giants in the ’60s.
Willie may be best known for his famous basket catch in the 1954 World Series, but through the decades his quiet, determined manner has been an inspiration to baseball players of all races–from Little League to World Series champions. In 2000, the San Francisco Giants made the location of their new ballpark 24 Willie Mays Plaza.
Many of the great players of that generation are gone–including Mays’ star teammate Willie McCovey. But we still get to celebrate The Say Hey Kid.
Happy birthday, Willie Mays!
Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.
Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com