Andy Raynor - Beyond the Brief
Andy Raynor's blog
My Hero
If you're an avid reader of Lucy Kellaway in the FT, you may like me take it in turns to smile and wince at the excrutiating corporate language of all businesses today. Big or small, their mission (there we go) in life includes making our toes curl. What the authors of this stuff do not seem to realise is that the more they do it, the less we believe them.
So I was driven by her column on Monday to find the Johnson and Johnson Credo, written so reasonably and well to bring out all the essential genetics of this business as it was in 1943 and still holds itself out to be. The whole text is a model of concise motivation and here it is:
http://www.jnj.com/connect/about-jnj/jnj-credo/
For professional services firms, there is a philsophy that is perhaps even better...shorter, pithier. The language has dated a little but the sentiments not at all. David Ogilvy, the founder of Ogilvy and Mather, has as much to teach professionals in a fast moving environment today as he did the advertising world of 60 years ago.
“We admire people who work hard, who are objective and thorough. We detest office politicians, toadies, bullies and pompous asses. We abhor ruthlessness. The way up our ladder is open to everybody. In promoting people to do jobs, we are influenced as much by their character as anything else.”
Contact me if you'd like to know more about David Ogilvy, but not unless you've got plenty of time to listen...
Tell me what you think at andy@andypraynor.com
And take a look at what's been said before by looking in the archive:
© Andy Raynor 2013