Mike Harris's Blog

The more so since I'd been speaking at a lunch the day before the cartoon was published about iconic brands .

I'd said that iconic brands often started as a mission by a few people to dent the universe (in the words of management guru Warren Bennis.)

That is a mission to cause something new and different to happen in the world, something that simply wouldn't have happened without them.

Someone said that sounds more like politics than business. I responded that many of today's biggest and most successful businesses started out with exactly that sort of change the world mission, but a change the world mission very much focused on the worlds of business.

For example Bill Gates set out to redefine the world of computing away from mysterious and remote mainframes to being something personal, something in every office and in every home.

Steve Jobs continues to redefine people's experience of the world of technology and the Google guys set out to redefine people's experience of the digital world – from finding a needle in a haystack to all the world's information , organised at your fingertips.

In my own case Firstdirect started with a mission to redefine banking as something which happened at customers' convenience, Egg to redefine the world of of financial services so that people got a stunning individualised experience with all the help they needed . The Mercury brand was built around a redefinition of the world of telecoms to People, Information and Entertainment to the palm of your hand.

Anyway back to politics . In my experience the differences between businesses that set out to create a dent and politicians who set out to create a dent are as follows;

• Successful businesses mean what they say – there is no hot air
• Successful businesses carefully and thoughtfully design structures which mean they consistently deliver the brand experience they promise. In politics and public services too often the structures appropriate for what is being promised are not thoughtfully designed. Instead a series of one size fits all, politically correct rules are followed which usually dooms any significant initiative to failure.