Right Answers

Anyone who visits my office tends to notice a couple of things. The first is that I generally tend to have lots and lots and lots of books and articles lying around, or on shelves, all related to marketing or brand, but looking at it from as many different angles as there are opinions. I believe firmly that in order to truly understand brands you have to understand as many different ways as possible of looking at it.

Sometimes it drives my colleagues nuts that I am constantly handing them another article about how companies in totally divergent industries and fields go about developing and building their brands. In my mind they are all valid approaches, regardless of the industry, target audience or products they are selling. In this age of constant disruption, if you're not willing to look beyond your comfort zone, you're going to get killed by the other guy who did.

The other thing I often get comments about is my collection of 1:18 scale die-cast metal car models. I have about 20 of them and most people just assume that I am a car nut and leave it at that. Though I like cars, the reality is something completely different.

When I first went to college I fully intended to become an engineer, but after less than a year I became frustrated by what I was learning. Everything only had one right answer. No matter whether you could demonstrate that your idea had merit there was one right answer and everything else was wrong. Then I was introduced to the Industrial Design program and the view that just about every problem and design challenge has multiple right answers, some better than others. I have carried this philosophy ever since then and found that it helps make most things in life, and business, easier.

So how does this relate to the little car models? Well almost all of them are two seat convertible sports cars which were essentially designed and created from the same fundamental brief. All of them are beautiful, functional and I'll bet a lot of fun to drive. Yet there are 20 different "RIGHT" answers.

I use the little car models as a constant reminder that no matter what I'm working on, chances are there are many different beautiful, successful and rewarding "right" answers to every problem. If you learn to apply this philosophy to your business it can make you much more flexible and open your eyes to a myriad of options you might never have considered before.