Generosity as a Strategy.
The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past. Edition 209.
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Generosity as an approach to Life.
A CEO shared a story about how a poor family of immigrants stopped to help someone who had a flat tire in bad weather. After the tire was changed, the individual offered money to the family. They turned it down saying “Today it was you. Tomorrow it might be us.”
Sooner or later, everybody finds themselves needing help and depending on acts of generosity. It might be some form of aid, guidance, a person to talk to who will listen, a leg-up or sometimes gently delivered difficult to hear advice.
By being there and helping when someone is in need ensures good “Karma.”
If what goes around comes around it may make sense to send good stuff people’s way.
Generosity makes for a better life for not just the recipient but also to the giver.
Generosity as a differentiator and moat.
If strategy is future competitive advantage, generosity is smart for individual or company strategies.
Generosity builds good will which is both an asset and a moat.
It is an asset in that it can be tapped in the future.
It is a moat because when an individual or a company has been generous in times of trouble their employee or customer are less likely to switch to a different firm for a lower price or higher pay.
Generosity is also a key differentiator in that usually when a person or firm needs help there are few people willing to help someone out of power or in trouble. Those individuals and brands who do help stand out and their showing up and helping when others are not burns into the emotional and mental memory of the recipient.
Emotional connections are harder to sever or replace than financial connections.
Generosity as an emotional connector to brand building.
A story:
“Long ago, must be 30 years ago or more, I went into Tiffany’s to purchase one cufflink.
The night before I had attended a black-tie event and one cufflink must have worked itself free (it was the solid type, and was difficult to get on and off), and I lost it off my sleeve. Just wasn't there when I got home.
I said to the counter person that I just wanted to buy one cufflink to match the other one.
She left.
She returned with the typical Tiffany's blue box with the white ribbon. "Here you go...no charge," she said.
I couldn't believe it.
You must be -- at least -- the 400th person I have told this story to.”
It is the interaction, the experience and the feeling that truly resonates and builds a Brand.
These are often these are driven by surprise offerings, an over the top experience, an amazing solution to a problem.
Underlying all of these is generosity.
Generosity as Talent and Culture Strategy.
Brands today cannot succeed unless their employees are happy. It is the employees who after all provide the service to customers and clients. It is the employees who generate the ideas and solve the problems. It is often the employees who are most believed and can be the greatest ambassadors and advocates of a brand. Often employees are far more authentic ambassadors than a celebrity that companies give tens of millions too. Why not be generous in care, money, and attention to employees?
Culture is not just a place or a history but a way of being and behaving. Great cultures always have some form of generosity whether it is compensation, benefits, forgiveness of mistakes that encourage risk taking and more.
Generosity is a key to brand experiences and brand employees, but it is also a corner stone of brands purpose driven marketing. Smart companies recognize that purpose ensures not just attraction and retention of talent but also that ESG, DEI and other initiatives truly help the company economically.
Generously helping community, environment and others helps the brand.
For these among other reasons it is important to practice generosity.
Rishad Tobaccowala is an author, speaker, educator and advisor.
This is great. Even a narcissist should be able to grasp that being kind, empathetic and generous will serve selfish motives. But, they rarely do. --- If I may, I would like to tie this to marketing and to the value of a strong brand. The benefit of generosity that you just described creates an "emotional end benefit" that is far more powerful than a more superficial benefit like "lower price" that can be commoditized. For example: In the years before light beer came to market, the marketing war between Miller and Budweiser was intense. Miller was known by the line "It's Miller Time" while Budweiser used a tag line that most copywriter's would gag on; "For all you do, this Bud's for you." Budweiser slowly gained share quarter by quarter because of the empathetic generosity implied in the line. My first lesson in "emotional end benefits" was taught to me by P&G with Crest toothpaste. The whole world thought that our end benefit was being the only toothpaste endorsed by dentists. But, a careful look at the advertising would show that we were focused on reducing the anxiety of a visit to the dentist's office and turning that experience into something positive because you had fewer cavities. That emotional end benefit was lost on our competitors and it made it almost impossible to take market share away from Crest. --- A very modern version of generosity is "thought leadership marketing" where a brand uses newsletters to generously share brilliant insights. Done right, the emotional end benefit comes back to the creator of the content in powerful ways. The best example of that technique is (obviously) "The Future Does Not Fit In The Containers Of The Past."
Thank you for generously sharing your valuable time and wisdom to encourage positive thinking, progress & good will 🙏