A few years ago, Jimmy Fallon included this joke in his Tonight Show monologue: “President Obama became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison yesterday. Obama said it was a good chance to talk about prison reform, and to catch up with so many former congressmen.”

At the risk of committing the sin of joke explanation, it is easy to see why this quip is funny. The understanding that Congress is full of crooked people is a pedestrian outlook on our state of affairs. And this joke works because it strokes us all for not being as evil as those politicians in Washington D.C.

However, it may come as no surprise to you to learn that trust in nearly all of our civil institutions is at an overall all-time low. According to a 2016 Gallup poll, public schools, banks and hospitals — organizations in which used to carry high regard in our communities — are not trusted. In light of this data, Fallon’s joke takes on a darker meaning. None of the three institutions he names, the presidency (16% trust), the criminal justice system (9% trust) nor Congress (3% trust), have the confidence of the American people.

The reasons for our falling confidence are usually captured in simple bromides: Don’t trust the man. Politicians are crooks. Power corrupts. Corporations are greedy.

Those conclusions are satisfactory if you hope to be a late-night comedian. However, if you hope to still accomplish something as a business leader in the context of this mounting animus, then I would offer a different conclusion: We lack confidence in institutions because our basis for trust has shifted.

Our systems for business, governance and education were made to increase our certainty. They have attempted to predict the future for us. The institutions did what they were designed to do. But the more we invested in them, the more they failed us. Because the future is not certain. It cannot be predicted. That means our systems are not flawed. It is our need for certainty — for predicting a singular future that does not exist — that has set them up to fail us.

Business leaders who hope to be effective must embrace this truth. Trust is built by embracing uncertainty and acting with confidence anyway. And the best way to achieve that mindset is to think like futurist.

Futurists describe the future as a possibility space — not unlike shining a light into a dark room. There are multiple things that become visible. Some of them you can barely see — the possible futures. Some are more visible — plausible futures. And some of them have much more statistical likelihood — probable futures. If you can outline your vision of the future with this understanding, you can better meet the uncertain road ahead. And you can win more confidence from your employees, vendors, customers and prospects.

Here’s a challenge: With your leadership team, create multiple visions of the future — at least ten of them set at least 20 years in the future. After you have gathered them, use some consensus to decide what the preferred futures would be. Once you have found at least one or two of them, assign them a category — probable, plausible, possible. If your futures you prefer are out in the possible space, you know then that you will have to invest in making more changes. You can create your strategic plan accordingly, and you can articulate with confidence why you have the vision and what you are asking of your team.

Your level of authenticity about the nature of your vision builds trust. Rather than money or power or brute force, increasing trust is the best way to market your brand. Your ability to be comfortable in the midst of uncertainty and to lead your brand like a futurist are critical to cementing trust within your network. And building a trust network increases your profitability.

The recording sessions included genius saxophonists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley. It is the best-selling jazz album of all time and regarded by most jazz critics as the greatest album ever.

At nearly the same time, Ornette Coleman, a far lesser-known artist and department store stock-boy headed into the studio with a plastic saxophone and a couple of like-minded musicians. They produced an album, “The Shape of Jazz to Come,” the sales of which were nothing remotely close to either of Davis’ albums released that year.

You may have never heard of Coleman. Because, for most people, listening can be tough. His approach to harmony and chord progression was far less rigid than any of his contemporaries. As opposed to following convention, he was interested in playing what he felt rather than predetermined chorus-structures or traditional harmonies.

You have heard him if you have ever listened to jazz fusion, funk from the 70’s or even The Grateful Dead. That’s because Coleman’s vision was bigger than an album. It was bigger than jazz. His vision began with his point-of-view on the world. He was frustrated with systems of expression (bebop or blues-based chord progressions) which were insufficient for the truth he could see. He responded to what he saw as a shortcoming of the culture.

Currently, you are a creator or composer. You are much like both Davis and Coleman. If you are leading a team of people, you are charged crafting a point-of-view and a subsequent vision.

In many cases, business leaders conflate a vision (how the world will be different) with a mission (what it is you do). And vision statements tend to become political in nature — making sure that each player’s interest is covered or not offended: “At Company X, we are fun people who do great things.” Word constructions like these are often the reason people have antipathy for vision statements because they inspire nothing and feel like entropy. They are headed nowhere.

If calibrating the strategy of your company is of importance to you, there is a way to craft a vision without filling in a form. You can start by focusing your energy on one question: What is my organization responding to in my culture or industry? The depth of your answer speaks volumes about how you see the world and your role in it. This is — in human terms — your point-of-view. And that shapes your purpose and vision.

At Bigwidesky, our point-of-view is that business is overrun with systems that have been helpful in achieving scale, but, at its core, business wants to be human. If a leader hopes to create a business that will have a successful future, then human business principles must animate its systems. So our vision is that one day “business is a vehicle for the awesomeness of humans.” This is not Pollyannaish. It is authentic to our reason for being. And armed with this, we can craft a strategic plan, company values and find those like-minded people who would join us.

Whatever vision-crafting path you choose will come with its set of cascading consequences. In shaping the vision for your business, I entreat you: start with a compelling point-of-view. If you know what you are responding to in the culture, you can find others — customers, vendors, partners — who will join you.

This is a courageous, legacy-creating way to approach an otherwise mechanical task.

Check out the full article in the February issue of Small Business Monthly.

By the time you read this, we are already at least a month into 2017. And by the time you read this, my assumption is that you have already fallen short of your resolutions. We do this to ourselves often. Not just in our personal lives, but in business as well. We create expectations and, in doing so, we create the recipe for shame.

I would propose to you that this is a function of the tools themselves. In theory, what we hope to achieve with goals is some form of calibration. We want something tangible toward which we can aspire. However, when this theory meets reality, humans make a mess. If I were one who was prone to conspiracies, I may even posit that shame is a design of the tool and not a flaw. Because there is nothing human about setting external, mechanical measures of your organization. Among the reasons why goals are a waste of time:

Dilbert creator Scott Adams is perhaps the most strident in his assessment of goals. In his book, “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big,” Adams claims “goals are for losers.” Instead of focusing on goals, Adams implores readers to instead create systems that improve your chances at success. This posture is compelling because it focuses less on the external and more so on what behaviors will change you, your team and thus the world around you.

As an example, growth of revenue is a common goal. What you did not account for, however, was the statically unlikely market dip for your largest customer or for illness striking your business development leader. These are elements outside your management. And, honestly, so is revenue.

With the same desire, you can set in motion a set of habits — ones most likely to generate the percentage of increase in revenue you desire. These can be as simple as calling on three former clients every week or, God forbid, reading some book every month to sharpen your leadership. These are achievable, simple and can be completed regardless of circumstances. If you can find the winning habits for your business, you can create agility and a language for your team that is compelling and keeps everyone challenged. That posture leads to increases in revenue.

The list of winning habits is ubiquitous. And it is so because it is the way that humans actually learn and achieve. But a great place to start would be Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” (Note that it is not titled the “Seven Plots and Schemes of Highly Manipulative People.”)

So put those resolutions down. Get out of the shame loop and create a daily list of wins you and your team can celebrate. You will create the kind of business results beyond what you can mechanically manufacture in a planning meeting.

Check out the full article in the February issue of Small Business Monthly.

This past year sucked. I know lots of my friends believe this. Even if you do not ask, they are happy to provide you with a rationale: domestic and overseas terror attacks, police shootings, Syria, the loss of friends and faith in humanity during and after our presidential election, Prince, David Bowie, Alan Thicke, Carrie Fisher.

Nearly everyone — including the most erudite and successful among us — has reason to believe that 2016 sucked.

This launching of complaints is not a phenomenon unique to the passing of another trip around the sun. In truth, complaints have been the currency of our communication. The best and most artful whiners are lauded in our culture. Everything from canonized literature, such as Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” to pop culture, like “The Daily Show,” is centered on sarcastic complaining.

As of late, it seems there is an effort afoot to be overly optimistic as leaders. We try to mask our feelings in an effort to get along. We don’t reveal the depth of our complaint for fear of being branded as whiners. Also, there is this general movement around happiness at work. And no one wants to be the killjoy who ruins everyone’s happy little workplace.

However, developmental psychologist and culture expert Robert Kegan would disagree. He believes that complaints are a cornerstone for real change. “People complain only about the things they care about, and they complain the loudest about the things they care about most.” With this understanding, whining about 2016 may be the fire you need to create real transformation in 2017.

The trouble we get into is that there is not yet a widespread understanding of how to convert a complaint into a conviction — something that can inspire action and create sustainable change. Here is how to convert your complaints about last year into design principles — ways to guide your planning for next year:

For the purposes of this exercise, it can be “What is our best strategy for growth in 2017?” Modify it as you need to, but the idea is to ask a question about which you have strong feelings.

These complaints are about your past attempts to solve the challenge, feelings revealed when you think about the challenge and attempts to solve the same challenge in other workplaces. Think of as many as you can.

When you complete the list, look for patterns in the complaints. Themes will emerge. Assign no more than four categories to the complaints. “We never have enough time to solve strategic challenges” is similar to “I cannot create systems that allow for change.” Both of them are in the category of “Challenges with business strategy.”

Convert the language you use to complain into what you must do — your new commitments. “We must have a clearly understood work flow for creating strategy.”

They may seem obvious, but remember, if they were, you would just start with convictions. Set priorities and be ruthless with your principles.

This may sound like a tall order, but it is nothing compared with the creative energy you are expending on complaining for the sake of complaint. Take that energy and channel it to create something new in the world.

Check out the full article in the January issue of Small Business Monthly.

Back in 2001, the cleaning products aisle of the supermarket was homogenous. Monolithic brands stacked in a hodgepodge of bright colors used the same features and benefits statements they had back in the 50s: “new,” “improved,” “fast-acting.” Enter Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry, the founders of Method, a cleaning products business with a focus on design and environmental sustainability, and that aisle was changed forever.

How they did this is a significant case study in the role of culture in establishing a brand. Something Ryan intuited early in the formation of the business was the commodity nature of what they were selling. Even though they had unique formulas and a different core message, he knew he would need something more than another set of features and benefits to make any market impact in an aisle of brand giants.

Ryan recently presented at the Inc. 5000 conference in San Antonio. And he was transparent about the fact that what they started with was culture — everything, he claims, grows out of culture. Inc. quoted Ryan: “You can copy our products, our fragrances … but the one thing you can’t copy is our culture. If you are going to create a brand that other people love, you have to love yourself first.”

That may seem touchy-feely and largely idealistic until you consider the results. Today the company has revenue above $100 million, and its product has changed the industry’s conversation with consumers. No longer can you just be effective; you have to care about your customer, your community and your environment.

At the same presentation, Ryan offered several of the culture tools Method created. The odd thing is that they are not that new in concept: Monday morning huddles with sharing of victories, new ways of interpreting company values and cross-training in not-so-obvious ways. It turns out that Method’s method is not innovative but its commitment, purpose and synthesis of the meaning of culture are indeed what have built its brand and its reputation.

“As entrepreneurs, our №1 job is to sell,” Inc. quoted Ryan as saying. “And so much of selling is nothing more than that transfer of emotion. It starts with building a culture that has immense passion and emotion for what it does.”

Contrast this posture with companies attempting to influence brand identity. If I were to say the words “safety” and “automobile,” what would you think of? Most businesspeople say Volvo. In the features and benefits dart game, Volvo settled on safety. And this method of differentiation worked for a period of time. But recent studies revealed that Volvos are, at best, marginally safer than comparable automobiles because automobiles are driven by humans.

Volvo’s approach to differentiation would work if brands lived in a marketplace that is a machine. If you pull the right levers or buy enough advertising, then you get results. But that is not the world we live in anymore. Brands are now members of a complex network. The strength of your brand is how well you are trusted in the network. If, like Volvo, you claim something that is not necessarily true, you will be disregarded. If you were to ask anyone under 30 years old to name that car company associated with safety, they might say any of a number of brands — because the machine strategy is not in alignment with the organic brand networks that exist.

If you want to create the kinds of results Method has experienced, the key to sustainable sales growth starts with your company culture. Developing culture is not cute. It is not touchy-feely. The humans who have agreed to join with you deserve a leader who will create vision, inspire values and stoke passion. The articulation of that culture, the company’s internal brand, is your greatest marketing asset.

I implore you to start today by asking your team for ideas regarding your company values. Write them down. Pore over them and make edits together. Go read Tony Hsieh’s book on Zappos, “Delivering Happiness” and search out wisdom on the construction of a culture. This work is hard. It is not for the faint of spirit — but neither is entrepreneurship.

Check out the full article in the November issue of Small Business Monthly.

A few years ago, I was invited to see a presentation from Merrill Lynch on customer data it had gathered for the purposes of aiding affiliated financial firms in marketing efforts. The company sent out surveys to thousands of clients and potential clients to gather what motivated their choice of wealth manager.

The results presented indicated that financial services customers cared little about portfolio diversity, years in business or firm size. Here’s what customers really wanted: a call within 24 hours of contact and clear communications. Customers ranked features-and-benefits sorts of messaging very low on their list of what matters. In fact, those qualities were seen as table stakes.

So after the tens of thousands of dollars spent on this survey, the results indicated customers wanted quick and clear communication. From the back of the conference room, I could see the sea of collective head nods. Legs crossed and uncrossed. Index fingers were placed on chins. The wealth managers were intrigued by this notion. Several in attendance indicated they planned to consider changing their messaging and talking points to better reflect what customers claimed was desired.

It follows logic. Customer data suggest that customers like X. So just say X, and they will “beat a path to your door.”

Unfortunately, this is an area in which mechanical logic has little relevance. Allow me to throw out the following examples: No one asked for the automobile. No one asked for an aesthetically seamless mobile device. No one asked for a way to connect instantly across geographies. Yet we humans have consumed these offerings with a fervor. This is because humans are more emotionally and cognitively complex than raw data results. If you want a brand and experience that lasts and greater opportunities for growth, you must do at least two things that animated Ford, Apple and Facebook: 1. Give a damn about the needs of humans. 2. Share an authentic vision of the future for them.

In situations that call for analysis of human behavior, I am reminded of an insight my good friend Judy Ryan, owner of Lifework Systems, reinforces. She makes reference to Alfred Adler’s theories regarding the four basic human needs. Every person wants to feel empowered, contributing, lovable and connected. Humans are social creatures who create networks based on trust.

In light of this, we can see that third-party data are useful to gather. You must listen to your clients and potential clients. Your industry likely has some nuances to which you must attend if you hope to be effective in your communication. However, what is even more compelling is what your audience members are not mentioning: their unmet human needs for feeling empowered, contributing, lovable and connected.

If leaders look at what lies beneath sentiments expressed in data, what is revealed is that those words have roots in some desire for the fulfillment of basic human needs — this is true in both business-to-consumer and business-to-business contexts.

This work runs deeper than just communications. In the case of wealth managers, they could all tout their ability to call people back — on their websites, in emails, through SEO and in sales contexts. Yet if clients are not called back, the communication claim is meaningless.

Instead of echoing back exactly what data suggest customers want, leaders ought to take a moment to seek out the human need: People want to feel connected. And the strongest trust-based connections are made by sharing deep, authentic purpose and unique vision.

So I entreat you: Get in touch with the deeper purpose and vision of your brand, and you can reach people on a level that obviates the necessity of data-driven hucksterism. Lead with this purpose, and you will fulfill human needs. As an added bonus, you will be an authentic voice in your industry.

Check out the full article in the September issue of Small Business Monthly.

Almost ten years ago, I was assigned to report on the wisdom of the Michael Gerber’s “The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It.” The book, published in 1995 had a revised addendum, and Gerber was on a nationwide promotional tour for his work regarded in many business circles as the gospel.

The book lays out Gerber’s vision of how management and entrepreneurship works. It articulated the notion that founders ought to move from working in the business to working on the business. It smashed the idea that every founder is, by default, an entrepreneur — an assertion that drew the wagons around the select few who “get it” when it comes to business.

I recall seeing Gerber speak while on this assignment at a conference. He was high energy, and he laid out myths of entrepreneurship with a kind of gravitas. It was empowering in an opening-scene-from-Full-Metal-Jacket kind of way. He said that an entrepreneur is a founder who has converted their business concept into a McDonald’s. I remember him specifically mocking a burger flipping, mindless automaton on the stage to prove how easy business processes should be. An entrepreneur’s worthiness, it seemed, could be quantified by their ability to replicate a model and people can be plugged in where needs be.

I remember feeling unsettled in the audience. And today I know why. That form of reductionism with humans ought to feel unsettling. While it has helped leaders achieve scale, it is not a wonder that people resent their managers and hate their work life. If your existence within an organization can be reduced so easily, then people who find any form of fulfillment do so in spite of the model, not because of it.

Any system that seeks to reduce a human to a task-only role within a replicable system often looks like good business strategy. But if you have ever managed any human in real life, you know that reducing them to a task feels wrong. And it should. It goes against how our design works. Humans are — first and foremost — creative beings — all of them. So putting them in situations where they can creatively solve problems or design a new solution is their highest and best use.

We all know this intuitively. Very few entrepreneurs or managers are actually tyrants. But all of them, in some way, have skin in the game. If something goes wrong, it is their ass on the line. And ideas like Gerber’s provide a kind of panacea because if you have enough process documents, reports and business briefs, then it feels like you are predicting a future. But almost all of us also know the future is not predictable.

Process and business systems are important to establish what your organization does. But if you want to sustain that, it must have purpose. And the greatest advocates for your purpose are your people — customers, employees, partners and vendors. And creating a culture wherein they feel they can contribute, be connected and do work that matters will create more growth and marketing opportunities than watching videos on creating your company’s Pinterest page.

Seek out ways to make the humans in your business matter. If you are going to create systems and get serious about growth in the final quarter, let this be the quarter that you become curious about the problem-solving awesome people around you.

Check out the full article in the September issue of Small Business Monthly.

The man in the foreground of the photo is Rodney. At 25 years old, he is a second-year high school agriculture teacher. On the weekends, he works for local ranchers to support his now growing family. They live in a mobile home behind a truck depot in rural Kansas. You don’t see Rodney’s face because he is looking at his infant son in the photo. His son is laughing while rocking in a child’s indoor swing. You can see Rodney is laughing as well because his grin is visible over his shoulder.

Artifacts from the past lift us out of the present moment. In much the same way, an artifact from the future can increase your imagination by releasing you from the contingencies of the present moment. Use them as an intervention to plan your business.

The infant son in the photo is me. And this photo, an artifact from the past, has a great deal of meaning for me. As a father now, I look at it and emotionally connect to what it means in the present moment. Over the years it has meant different things. Today, it is a reminder to be joyful with my children, and I see that in the midst of extreme financial and professional pressure, my father found some moments to share happiness.

This artifact does what artifacts are meant to do: They create an emotional meaning in the present moment, and they teach something.

However, I recall none of this information I told you in the first paragraph. At least, not of myself. I have been instructed overtly and otherwise about what this photo means. And it has become a part of my identity in the present moment.

If we think of artifacts in this way — as something that is designed to lift us out of the present moment, illicit emotion and teach us something — then we are free to construct also artifacts from the future.

There is an entire discipline of future studies — also referred to as strategic foresight — that uses artifacts from the future to teach us something about our vision in the present moment.

Why do this? Because the present moment (for most business owners) is mired in contingencies that do not allow for creative and productive thought. Each new idea needs a moment to breathe. And present-day challenges will starve it of oxygen. Setting your ideas in the future releases you from the present moment.

So, I entreat you: Create a thing in the future with a quick exercise. Illustrate with words/photos the way your company will look and feel in 2026. How do customers feel? What are the greatest accomplishments? What are the biggest challenges? What is a day like?

Create four separate scenarios and entreat stakeholders and leaders in your company to do the same. This is not an attempt to predict the future. Rather, these separate scenarios can be used as interventions to teach you something about the present moment. How did the scenarios make you feel? What new ideas were unlocked? What strategies can you begin to realize a preferred future?

Constructing futures in the form of artifacts creates catalyzing moments for your business. And you can make your organization more agile and creative in the process.

Check out the full article in the August issue of Small Business Monthly for simple steps to becoming mentally uncluttered.