by Eric Reiss - 8 January 2004

 

A fictional tale of modern business

 

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." We've all heard it. In fact, it's such a cliché, we cut it short - "You can lead a horse to water." The rest is implicit, which may be why I've never given the basic concept much thought.

Until this morning.

As consultants, horses ask us to lead them to water all the time. You'd think they were thirsty (after all, they asked us) but this isn't always the case. Let me explain.

Some very nice, very intelligent people got the notion to change their company slogan. Just to mix clichés a bit, the whole situation was kind of "chicken and egg." The current slogan isn't bad as these things go, but some bored sales rep got an idea for a new one and sent it up to HQ. Suddenly, there's a big branding project in the works and we're making fingerprints on a long, mahogany table.

First impressions rarely lie
Gut reaction? The proposed slogan was pretty lousy. It depended on a silly, made-up word, conjured up some unpleasant associations, and implied the company was changing its business focus. Three strikes.

But, hey, that's just a gut feeling. The CEO wants to throw some money into research. So we do.

Employees: "We don't like it. It makes us sound money-grubbing."

Customers: "We don't like it. It makes them sound money-grubbing."

Trade analyst: "I thought the company was doing very well in their clearly defined market position. Why are they taking this new direction?"

Professional sloganeer: "Cute, but basically a stupid concept. Give me 10,000 dollars and I'll come up with something better?"

My assistant: "Umm...how do you spell it?"

Unanimous conclusion: This is a bad slogan. There's no discernable up-side whatsoever.

We sent the report yesterday...
E-mail this morning from the VP of marketing: "Hi Eric, just heard that our Board approved the new slogan last Thursday, so we're going to go with it. Thanks for all your hard work."

Now, these are nice people to work with and they pay their bills promptly. But honestly...can it be that when a horse asks you to lead him to water, he just wants the exercise?

The controversial Dr. Voss*
The Danish physician and author, Tage Voss, once said that if you take 20 tests at a hospital, one of them is going to fall outside the norm. This usually triggers another battery of tests - and the cycle only ends when the patient's insurance runs out or he dies.

Dr. Voss knows how to break this unhealthy pattern: Before each test, ask yourself what you're going to do if the results are positive and what you're going to do if the results are negative. If the treatment is the same in both instances, don't do the test!

* Dr. Voss has many things to say on many different issues - from tobacco to the Holocost. I would like to emphasize that I am not always sympathetic to his arguments.

Don't waste your money
In the communications industry, billions of dollars could be saved each year if people would only ask themselves these same questions. Why work up advertising campaigns if you can't afford to run the ads? Why work up a cast of user persona for websites if your content-management system can't handle them? Why invest in market research if you insist on having your own way?

Sadly, it's this kind of waste that gives us consultants a bad name. And that leads to my next question: if I sell my stock in this company because I think they're about to screw things up, can it be considered insider trading?

Disclaimer: the above story has no basis in reality and is simply a work of fiction. Right?

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