Who is your company - really?

The business world will soon have to handle a major shift. It will mean a lot more change than ever before - more than most of us can even imagine. In Sweden many still remember the 'FACIT fiasco' at the beginning of the 1970s. "An electronic calculator cannot ever replace the high quality mechanical calculating machines made by Facit." That is what Facit's R&D director claimed. And 1972 the disaster was inevitable and the company was sold out. An outstanding example of how you can shut your eyes to what is going on in your environment.

So what is this 'Dream Society' then? I'll get back to that. First let me say that futurologists see the Dream Society as the fifth (and last) stage of a societal development that has been going on for 10,000s of years. What will come next? Nobody knows for certain. What we do know is that each stage has been successively shorter. The agrarian society replaced a long era of hunters-collectors about 10,000 years ago. The industrial breakthrough occurred in England in the middle of the 1700s, and the information age - as we have seen - started seriously about 1970. We already can predict that the Dream Society will not last long.

The struggle is over
My educated guess (read: 'conviction') is that the millennial struggle for survival in the physical world will be replaced by a more stable state. We might call this the Creativity Society. Here the focus is to satisfy a need for human inner development. At last the human being will be able to contact and use inherent capabilities that we have only heard about until now - and maybe not even believed that they could exist. Of course this budding (not to say 'exploding') creativity will also come to physical expression. Even this is already rather clear.

However, let us go back a little in time. What is 'The Dream Society' about? In his book, futurist Rolf Jensen describes how we in the affluent countries are no longer satisfied to get a functional product when we buy something. We want an experience, a story, a feeling. We want to strengthen our own identity, and we want the company we are dealing with to care about us - or share our values. Moreover we want to get to know them - in order to have confidence in them. Who are they, what do they want, can you trust them?

As consumers we make our decisions emotionally. After all, every supplier can give us functional products. But with whom does it feel the safest, the most fun or the most exciting? Who is offering services that appeal to me? This is mainly what we're paying for. How do the companies tell their stories? What is the story about? How do they reach out with their tales?

A high degree of mutual trust
Many companies are already structuring their marketing in this way. The roots can be found further back. What is new is that it is not only a way of advertising. And - it is not only about consumer marketing either. The so called B2B marketing is also affected. With business-to-business there is certainly a higher focus on having a specific function fulfilled at a low cost. However, … you hear more and more about 'relationship marketing', and this is about building a long-term trust.

Quite recently I was interviewing an R&D director of a company in France. He told me that they carried out the development work in close cooperation with their clients. This demands a high degree of mutual trust, as both parties have access to information about each other, that they should keep to themselves. But they also become bound to each other. When, where, how and why does the client make a decision about entering such a relationship?

As we have seen, the Dream Society will include story-telling. Increasingly this is expressed in the form of articles in various media about the companies and their products. Of course the reader may learn about technical achievements and new products, but it may also be about the company having overcome certain problems or discovered new applications. We may read a story about how a customer solved their problems.

This kind of communication is something relatively new - and it is growing. Personally I have cooperated with a UK-based media company to compile and disseminate such information. The mere fact that it is published in the trade media gives it a high degree of credibility, but that is not the only factor. It is also very important to give an honest and open description in the article. Otherwise the company may be seriously damaged, and if the trust is reduced, it might be tremendously difficult to restore it.

Totally devoted to a common vision
If we want to achieve even more powerful communication, we should consider that there are both an inner and an outer aspect to work with. If the external communication is to be efficient and in touch with real life, of course there must also be an internal process. And this is not merely a question about 'briefing' the employees. They must be involved in a way to feel deeply committed. The story being told externally must match the reality that all employees are experiencing and sharing.

It is slowly becoming popular to write a whole book about a company. You have probably heard about "The Nordstrom Way"?[2] Nordstrom Inc started as a small shoe shop in Seattle. Then it expanded - mainly through its supreme customer service - into being a nationwide retail chain for apparel, shoes and cosmetics. Nordstrom Inc is now admired by the whole world for its outstanding customer service, and the book describes what it is all about.

What happens when all the employees in a business are totally devoted to a common vision and a common mission? In Sweden, former CEO Jan Carlsson put new life into the SAS airline. This story is now legendary. He was the first non-technician CEO in the company, coming from the travel bureau industry and being strongly focused on service. There was a book written about that too, but it told you more of the leadership style than of the company itself.

Up till now, however, it has been very uncommon for a company to initiate having a book published, describing "who" it is, its history, products, staff, intentions and strong sides. Isn't such a book predestined to be boring? No, not necessarily. You can make an exciting and interesting story out of it. It might even be written as a novel!

Doing it by the book - for the book
The interesting thing is that such a project might in itself incorporate the best sides of the Dream Society and the Creativity Society (as far as we have entered it). The reason is that producing the book will be a tangible goal for everyone in the company, and it is common knowledge that a clear goal serves to unite all members of a team. The most well known example would be NASA, having the assignment to put a man on the moon before the end of the 1960 decade. And on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong took his 'small step' onto the moon.

So the work with a book of this kind could very well be combined with an internal development process, and because the results will be shared externally, this process is apt to be taken more seriously and to have more far-reaching effects. Everyone realizes that they will have to live up to what the book says. And the preliminary, unpublished drafts will serve as fuel for the on-going growth.

As the final results - the published book - is there, it constitutes a symbol that brings all the individuals concerned together. It is a solid proof of what they have all been through, and it shows what they believe in, what they want, and what they are able to. People 'out there' will have confidence in the company, as they learn more about what it stands for and what it can do for them.

On a small scale I have worked as a consultant in similar ways for a few companies, but without documenting it in the form of a book. In one of those cases the outcome was so encouraging that the management inquired with me if I would like to do the same process with the affiliates in England and France. However, for various reasons this was not realized.

My conviction is that for those who are now prepared to meet the challenge of the new society, it will be an excellent investment to have a qualified management consultant - also being a team trainer and a writer - assist them in paving their way to the "Dream Society" as well as the "Creative Society".

Those who linger too long in the old world will experience their own 'FACIT crisis', meaning that the organization quickly and painfully must adapt at some point - or that it will be bought up, having to conform to someone else's more insightful leadership - or simply wither and cease to exist. The people will always be there, but they will have other roles.

Who is Curt Jonsson?

Curt Jonsson, MBA, is a Swedish writer and business consultant. After a career within international, industrial marketing in the 1960s and 1970s, he started consulting as a leadership trainer with corporations like Ericsson, Volvo and many others.

What sets him apart in this field has always been his visions about integrating dormant, yet inherent capabilities of human beings with down-to-earth management principles and sound economic rules.

Being a true pioneer, in 1975 he published an academic paper about Meditation and Organization Development, that got public attention in Sweden's leading newspapers. In the late 1970s Curt Jonsson taught Business Administration at Stockholm Univer­sity for a short time, and then focused more of his time on writing.

To date he has published thirteen books, and one of them, "The Art of Writing Selling Letters" (1986), made him known as 'Sweden's foremost authority on direct marketing letters'. He now also regularly writes editorials about multinational corporations for international trade media.

It may seem that Curt Jonsson's books fall into two distinct categories: business and philosophy. However, persistently he has worked to integrate these two; management with intuition, marketing with love.