The more you engage with the ways the world has changed, the more you realise that the culture, spirit, ethos, behaviour, and drive of organisations and the groups of individuals within them are the only things that really matter. Whether you're talking about a hotel chain, an airlines, a search engine, or a political party, everything else flows from there.
The more you shift your sights from promotion and persuasion (old marketing) to innovation and improvement (new marketing), the more you realise that it is people who will make (or break) the difference every time.
And the more that you sit in meetings with clients who boast of the dysfunctionality of their organisations, as if they are proud of the limitations their culture places upon them, the more you realise that the biggest favour you could do them would be to fix their culture.
This piece on Manchester United from the Guardian, in the lead-up to the European Cup Final next week, sums up the spirit that great sporting teams so often manage to create, but which businesses and brands so often lack. If you want to pick out one quote that tells you everything that's right about Manchester United's culture, and that's probably wrong with yours, try this line from Patrice Evra, United's French left back, talking about the importance of the United story to him...
"It is always hard to put on that shirt because every day when you do you are putting the story on your back."
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