As originally published by Denise Lee Yohn on Forbes.

The combined trials of the Covid-19 pandemic and protests over the racial divide are testing leaders. These crises are revealing those leaders who manage to rise to the challenge and those who are falling short of their responsibilities. Now is the time to examine your leadership style and strategy and develop the new skills and approaches you need to provide the vision, direction, and inspiration your people need now. Great brands actually thrive amidst challenge and change, so they provide excellent models of leadership that you can adapt to hone your leadership style and strategy.

In difficult times, many leaders and companies tend to retreat, hunker down, and avoid taking on risk. Whether trying to navigate through crises while leading an enterprise, managing a team, or even finding a new job, people crave certainty and stability so they return to the familiar and proven, or take their cues from those around them and follow what everyone else is doing.

But great brands assume a more proactive, progressive posture. They look for ways to think and act differently, so that they move themselves and their world forward. You should look to great brands to learn how to differentiate yourself and stand apart as a leader.

Great brands ignore convention and innovate. In the throes of the 2008 financial crisis, Hyundai introduced an unprecedented program, Hyundai Assurance. Through the program, the car maker offered buyers the option of returning their vehicle if they lost their jobs within a year. It was a bold and risky idea, but it got to the heart of consumers’ fears and broke through all the noise and distractions that other car companies were fighting. Hyundai ended up benefitting from not only a spike in sales, but also the widespread news coverage and positive public sentiment generated by the program.

You need to take similarly bold and ingenious actions if you want to do more than simply survive the current crises.  For example, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern initiated a national goal of not just flattening the curve of coronavirus cases, as most other countries have, but eliminating the virus altogether.  This elimination strategy differed significantly from mitigation efforts, as it required an escalation of restrictions at time when other countries were looking to open up. Ardern has faced criticism and skepticism for the decision, but she has remained steadfast in her resolve to lead what she calls “our team of five million’s extraordinary commitment to beating Covid.”

As originally published by David Sable on Linkedin. Subscribe to the newsletter!

His name was Captain Charles Boycott and his last name infamously entered the English language in 1880, guaranteeing him infamy for perpetuity.

You see, the Captain enforced an equally infamous decree against poor Irish tenants of an absentee landlord. Rather than resort to violence, Charles’ subjects opted for a different route of rebellion—ostracization. Farmers refused to work the fields to bring in the harvest or took care of his house. Local businesses refused his custom. He received no mail. He became isolated.

To counter the consequences of the town’s ostracization of him, Charles brought in outsiders to harvest the crops, but the cost of protecting his new workers was more than the harvest was worth. He was, plain and simple, a persona non grata.

Soon his name was used everywhere in the global press to connote, “organized isolation,” and the notion of the modern-day Boycott was born.

As we all know, the meaning and far-reaching effects of the boycott has adopted a deeper and broader meaning since its nascency.

Wikipedia defines it as the following: “A boycott is an act of voluntary and intentional abstention from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country, as an expression of protest, usually for moral, social, political or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict economic loss on the target, or to indicate a moral outrage, to try to compel the target to alter an objectionable behavior.” 

As I write this, hundreds of companies around the world have temporarily suspended their advertising on Facebook, with many signing on, officially, to an organized Boycott platform called, “Stop Hate For Profit,” that was launched just a few weeks ago by a coalition of organizations including the ADL, NAACP, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Common Sense, Color of Change, LULC and Sleeping Giants.

According to a communique from ADL there has been, “A groundswell of support to address hate, racism and misinformation on Facebook. Over 240 companies ranging from Unilever to Verizon to Hershey’s have joined Stop Hate for Profit and over 700 companies have agreed to pause Facebook advertising until the company takes bold and concrete steps to remove a wide range of hateful content from its various platforms.”

Remember, “The purpose of a boycott is to inflict some economic loss on the target, or to indicate a moral outrage, to try to compel the target to alter an objectionable behavior.”

Facebook must be panicked. Zuckerberg must be in meltdown, worrying about the future of the platform, the bad PR, his shrinking fortune, his reputation…no?

According to MarketWatch and other sources, based on reports citing transcripts of employee meetings, Zuckerberg has been quoted as saying:

“My guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough.” And, “We’re not gonna change our policies or approach on anything because of a threat to a small percent of our revenue, or to any percent of our revenue.”

Wait!!!

“The purpose of a boycott is to inflict some economic loss on the target, or to indicate a moral outrage, to try to compel the target to alter an objectionable behavior”

Is he not worried about all that moral rage? What about the economic loss? Clearly, he is not feeling compelled.

And here is where the story starts to fall apart and where, no doubt, Captain Charles is looking down (or up) with deep envy.

Let me be clear, I have long been troubled and have written openly about the dark side of social media. The devil’s deal we all make with it to see our friends, renew old relationships, share our pictures and posts, and occasionally rave about what we love and rant about what we hate.

Needless to say, the inordinate amount of profit being made, for some, and the almost unconscionable power that has been created is also troubling, but frankly it’s a product of our times and the world we live in.

While I salute the ADL and their partners who have taken on this Sisyphean task, my fear is that neither they nor most of us really understand the inner workings of Facebook or the cynicism of some of the corporations that have signed onto this boycott.

To begin with, there are over 8 million companies/entities advertising on Facebook, and my bet is that while you don’t know their companies names, you see their advertising…mostly direct offers…way more than you do any of the big corporations who have signed on to the Stop The Hate For Profit boycott.

And, while most of us assume that the big names must represent the big bucks, nothing could be farther from the truth on Facebook. According to CNN, “Even if all 100 of Facebook’s biggest advertisers joined in, they would account for just 6% of the company’s annual ad revenue,” and most of the 100 have not joined or committed to the boycott.

More importantly, the small and medium sized advertisers, that depend on Facebook for their very lives are not joining—and they represent the bulk of Facebooks advertising revenue.

Bottom line? It would seem that Facebook’s economic ruin is not on the horizon—a particular and important pressure point for success, according to the Boycott Bible.

What about moral outrage—the other powerful pain point—surely that is clear to all, as various news sources track the latest participants, and report with glee about the downfall of the Facebook empire?

Jack Shafer, in Politico, has presented a cogent argument entitled, “How the Facebook Boycott Could Just Make Facebook Stronger.” In it, he wonders how it could be that these companies needed a clarion call, in the early summer of 2020 to wake up to the fact that, “Facebook teems with cruel and backward content and wants that nastiness to end.”

Shafer posits that of course they all knew but that #stophatredforprofit “affords CEOs a chance to claim a higher moral standing in the publics eyes at a very, very low price.”

He continues to assert, “No large company is going to suffer economically by eliminating Facebook advertising:

1.    During a historically slow sales month

2.    Which is also happening during a recession

3.    And also coincided with the low spending period of semi-quarantine

Asking a corporation to boycott Facebook in July 2020 is a little like asking a casual drinker to observe Lent by giving up alcohol in a dry county.”

And not to be too cynical (a task in itself these days), a number of the major advertisers who have joined the movement are, themselves, often targets of boycotts. It makes you wonder about glass houses and the old adage that the best defense is a strong offense.

That got me thinking…

Where are the people in all of this? Where are the people who are often themselves boycotting these very boycotters, and who should themselves be repudiating Facebook? Where are the real users of Facebook? Where are the enraged masses that gave Captain Charles Boycott immortality, of sorts, and who are what, in fact, gave most successful, historical boycotts success?

Look at them all: Gandhi, Dr. King, Nelson Mandela and others…it was never the act of holding back advertising that made a dent—it was the people!

And here is the truth: Most don’t seem to care. Some will raise a toast to the boycotters, post about it for a few days, and then forget all about it…even as the fake news and hatred and other vile content swirls around them. Worse still, others will never even notice it at all.

The real problem is that we let the genie out of the lamp a long time ago. Investor frenzy drove Facebook’s growth, and many of us find it to be a useful, even important, utility—a way to connect, to share, to remember, and, at its best, to uncover new ideas and learn.

We call Facebook and the other social engines like them, “Tech Giants,” and not media companies, so that they’re not subject to appropriate regulation. They are technically following the law, and even hiding behind it, on occasion, in terms of free speech.

Their algorithms for detecting and eliminating hate speech are mostly useless and the hordes of people they have hired to comb through the platform cannot possibly keep up—and they are already deleting almost as many fake accounts as there are people in the world.

The dilemma then is that this boycott is not a real boycott, despite the earnestness of its organizers, in spite of the corporations who have jumped on the bandwagon, simply and powerfully because only people can boycott. And people in this boycott are nowhere to be found.

So, what are we to do?

For nearly two years, I have been writing that we were entering the worst year in our history. Fake news, incitement, hatred, all being spread by social media, have and will continue to make our environment toxic. And, tragically, the worst is yet to come.

What can we do? Clearly, someone can delete all of their social media accounts. (In full transparency, I have no plans to.) We can pressure more advertisers to join in boycotting. We can advocate for serious legislation and regulation, with teeth, and we can use the platform to better ourselves, to educate friends and family, and choose to never share or engage with the bad.

We can do all of the above or none of it. Personally, I believe in regulation and the power of the user. Don’t look for salvation from Facebook. It wasn’t created to save the world, despite its lofty origin myth.

Let me end, as I do, with a quote that I think brings it all together…listen:

“It is incumbent on the media industry to discourage the glorification of media violence. It. Is also incumbent on consumers who love America to support this effort with selective patronage campaigns to encourage media that provides uplifting content and to boycott the worst offenders, if necessary.” –Bernice King

Those of us in the advertising industry pontificate a lot about purposeful companies…that people will pay more to buy from them and will actively avoid those that aren’t. We all buy from Amazon. We all rode Uber and flew United. All have had boycotts called against them…how’d that go?

So, maybe we add a new movement name to compliment the legacy of the original Boycott.

Boycotts are about users and customers pressuring companies to change policy. Now we have a Zuck—companies that just don’t care because their utility and price are more important to us than the principal.

Nelson Mandela said that boycotts are not principals, but simply tactics to achieve the bigger goal of changing the world. We have made the boycott the principle, while companies have made the Zuck the tactic. We are losing.

What do you think?

As originally published by David Sable on Linkedin. Subscribe to the newsletter!

To Think Outside the Box, Look Inwards

“Think out of the box!”

How many times have you heard that exhortation as a rallying cry to energize tired, old thinking? A phrase that, in my opinion, has become an overused synonym for innovation…like agile and modern. Not only is it hackneyed, I would argue that it is the wrong admonition to apply to the social ills of the world so roiling our society today.

Don’t get me wrong. I, too, have used it, but with a twist, and have written about the creativity and drive needed to think out of the box, out of sight of the box, and yes, sometimes even in the box, as oftentimes the biggest creative challenge and opportunity is to finish a half done canvas. (As we all know, creating on a blank white canvas can be easier than finishing a half-completed task).

Yet, as I ponder the past couple of months and look at who has flourished personally and professionally, I have been struck (as I noted in my previous newsletter) that the secret sauce for success and sanity has been, in my estimation, ingenuity. Ingenuity, from my perspective, is the solving of specific problems, the overcoming of particular barriers, and the creation of fresh, new energy with creativity, smarts, and the resources you have on hand.

I liken the terms innovation to spending millions on getting me pizza quicker and hotter (although, I will swear that the kid on the bicycle brought it as quick and fresher not just hotter), and ingenuity to being the parent who builds a dream castle out of discarded (and sanitized) Amazon boxes…the home industry of personal pandemic masks and, of course, the quick turnaround of cheap, serviceable respirators when there weren’t enough of the $50k model to go around.

And then I had a revelation…a revelation that linked the boxes in, out, and out of sight; the times we live in; personal motivation and ingenuity.

Think about this: What do we tell people who are faced with huge personal challenges? What do we say to help motivate those who have been hit hard by tragedy? What do ask folks to do when it seems all is lost? Where do we look for strength? For inspiration? For the will to go on…?

“Dig deep,” we say. Look within for the power. The strength is inside of you.

See where I’m going?

No one suggests that healing or redemption comes from the outside (religion looks to deity, but even then, it comes from an inward focus). No one suggests that healing or redemption comes out of sight of oneself…to the contrary, we mine our own inner power.

LeBron James talks about what it means to dig deep:

“Basketball isn’t easy. All my life I’ve been striving to make myself better. It’s a full-time commitment. To be the best, you have to work the hardest. You have to chase what seems impossible over and over and over again, because giving up is not an option, and when you feel like you’ve reached your limit, it’s only the beginning, that’s when the time to dig deep, to find the courage to push some more, because if you’ve got the drive, the discipline, and the resolve to do what it takes to make yourself great, then the rewards are endless.”

And that’s where it all came together for me.

Ingenuity is about digging deep. All bets are off—options seem to have disappeared, problems seem insurmountable, faces are long, and despair starts taking over.

And then we look inward. We think deeply inside the box. We take what we have, and we use it in ways we hadn’t thought about before. We apply all that we have to solve the problem and the outcome— it may not be as pretty as we’d like or as neat, tied up with a bow—as we’d wish it to be, but the outcome solves the problem—saves the day…and then who knows?

Racism. Hatred. Violence against others—none of it can be solved out of the box and clearly not out of sight of the box. Unless we address the issues head on, we will never change society…change the world. You see people tend to be serial haters. If I’m a racist, chances are I’m a homophobe. And if I’m Islamophobic, bets are that I’m also an Anti-Semite, and chances are all four and more.

I need to address the box. Each one. It’s so easy to say, “all lives matter.” It is way harder to action Black Lives Matter. One is out of the box and the other is inside it. When I’m outside of the box, and somehow conflate every ill of society together as one—including things like climate issues and shoddy political policy—I might sound “agile and modern”—maybe even woke to some. But I will not get to the problem at hand.

Bill Gates, one of those icons who has emerged, once again, as a true leader over the past few months understands the dynamic:

“When you are failing, you are forced to be creative, to dig deep and think, night and day.”

Let’s apply this dynamic, creative ingenuity that we are all capable of to create real change. Listen:

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama

And there you have it…

While I look forward to the innovation of faster, hotter, and hopefully fresher pizza delivery, my money for today is on ingenuity—creativity applied to problem solving with few resources.

Dig deep and don’t get caught in the trap, the false start of being forced to look elsewhere other than in. What do you think?