Strategy by Agreements: Tackle your Organization’s “Book of Law” [INSIGHT]

By Bessie Ramirez, Managing Partner, About Marketing Solutions, Inc.

I recently found my copy of the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I remembered it being an insightful, easy read and ended up bring it along to re-read it over the holidays while on vacation. Little did I know that in doing so now, over 15 years since I first read it, I would find great applications for strategy and marketing—especially in the Multicultural space.  The Four Agreements are predicated on the premise that as humans we’ve been domesticated by our family, teachers and society on how to live and how to dream. Based on such domestication, we abide by a belief system or “Book of Law” that becomes our truth and rules our mind. Even if some things are not actually true or go against our own nature, Don Miguel says we grow to “agree” with the Book of Law and are typically bound to guide our actions within the sense of security it provides. He explains that anything that goes against the Book of Law leads to fear because we feel blame, guilt and shame if we go against these rules.

Sounds a bit dramatic, doesn’t it? Interestingly, the book goes on to suggest that drama ensues when something or someone is “breaking the rules.” Ever experience something like that in your organization?

As I read this I thought of my experience consulting for marketers tightly bound by their organization’s “Book of Law.” I remembered the senior director of a CPG company who, when asked about his distribution and trade programming within Hispanic independents, said “we’re not very good there, so let’s not worry about it.” I also thought of an EVP client who, presented with alternative scenarios of organizational structures to carry out incremental growth strategies, said after a deafening pause “I know that’s the right conversation to have, but I don’t know who to turn to in order to have it.” The path to success in those organizations was hindered by hesitation, lack of integration and piece meal efforts, making it more challenging to achieve meaningful results.

However, I also remembered witnessing when a board of directors realized that their greatest growth opportunity lay within the very segment they were ignoring.  After a dramatic exchange among board members, the greatest opportunity segment was pursued thereby achieving an earlier than expected return on investment. There was also the client that acknowledged the lack of cross-cultural IQ among its sales force and, upon engaging a reluctant sales group, expanded the marketing effort to include sales training and broker education that achieved an instantaneous sales lift. I also recall the client with suboptimal shopper marketing presence that promptly agreed to engage partners with established programs to get them going while we built their own; capturing low hanging fruit and building capabilities along the way.
How stiff is your organization’s “Book of Law?” Do you fall within the first group of companies or the second?  Are your teams driven by fear of going against existing beliefs (i.e., “agreements”) or are your leaders encouraged to pursue new fact-based opportunities and build new agreements? How quickly are ideas dismissed because they don’t fit the mold of “how we do things around here?”

While each organization’s belief system will have its own fingerprint, they often share a resistance to change. Inasmuch as most folks will speak of areas of opportunity, the machine is running on all cylinders in a direction that has kept them afloat for many years, so it requires energy and a concerted effort that conquers the fear of going against the pervasive “Book of Law.” To capture growth from unconventional markets (i.e., Hispanics, Millennials, fill-the-blank) requires looking outside the “Book of Law” for unconventional thinking and maybe some unconventional methods.  The path to unconventional growth requires new agreements. So, what are the four agreements and their relevance to business growth? We’ll have to get into that later, as the holidays are over and my plane is about to land. Stay tuned.

Bessie Ramírez is Managing Partner at About Marketing Solutions, Inc. a Burbank, California – based strategy consulting firm specializing in helping clients dramatically improve overall business performance by optimizing their strategies to succeed in high growth segments. For more information please visit www.about marketingsolutions.com or send an email to: Be***********@ab*********************.com.