Stepping out of your comfort zone - London Braver Conference 2018

Dr Caroline Casey was in middle of giving the presentation of her life – it was a TED talk alongside global celebs – when she froze. Her husband to be had messaged her just before going on stage to say “Be yourself”. She did; and that experience and others galvanised her into starting the inclusion revolution Valuable Global for which she is now world famous, supported by visionary leaders like Paul Polman of Unilever.

Caroline was the anchor speaker at The Marketing Society’s Annual Conference. The theme, as it has been for the last few years, was Braver. On first glance it’s a strange theme for the UK’s leading marketing conference. But as I sat and listened to speaker after speaker relating their own personal story of how they had to step out of the ordinary, step out from behind a job title (a lovely idea from Thomas Barta) and use courage to take the hard decisions, an idea began to form in my head. What else are conferences for but to step out of your every day and reflect and rescope what you do. By that measure the conference was fantastically stimulating.

None of us in marketing, in business, or even in leadership roles ever admit, certainly not enough, how fragile people are, how you have to be aware of success just as much as failure. That you have to care of yourself, as much as those around you. Modern tools like Taltrack certainly help. In the dance between success and failure we need to do the unexpected, we need to dream with our eyes wide open and appreciate that the skills we have are more than enough to make a contribution.

Thomas Barta’s point that job titles hobble people’s potential, struck a chord. When we started Omobono we wrote a manifesto. In it we said we would always hire people better than us. Now I would extend the sentence: At Omobono our purpose is to hire people better than us and make them the best they can be.

As a small company of 130 people I do not believe we can fight evil or clear the oceans of plastic. But we absolutely can help the great people we employ to be amazing and equip them to be so much more than their job title. One day, one of them might just clear the oceans of plastic. We have helped clients like Johnson & Johnson realise their employee vision. One Person Closer was an amazing initiative that connected each and every member of staff at one of the world’s biggest companies with their mission to cure the ills of the world. So thank you Thomas.

Prosaically what my personal mission at Omobono is to equip every single one of my 130 colleagues to be able to meet a client as an equal, to add value in the moment.

Senior Director of Lego Cecilia Weckstrom retold the widely known story of Lego’s wild decade of double digit growth after the CEO Jorgen Vig Knudstorp asked everyone he met the question: “What would you miss if we weren’t here?”.

Based on the answers he reinvented Lego around systematic creativity. Cecilia’s point was crisis moments can be very powerful. The Chinese character for crisis is two symbols: Danger and Opportunity. There is a danger that thinking bravery is a woolly term that’s not for me in my rational role. Emotion drives everything we do.

Harness emotion in ourselves and those around us and you become unstoppable.

Written by Ben Dansie, CEO & Founder at Omobono Ltd