Think employee.

It's not an exaggeration to say the Volkswagen emissions scandal is one of the most serious cases of corporate wrongdoing in recent times. But it's also easy to focus solely on the damage being wrought to Volkswagen's reputation and potential criminal action, and their public reaction to the crisis. Potentially more damaging to VW/s brand and business in the long-term is how it is managing its relationship with its employees.

Sure, the company has a lot to answer to its customers, suppliers, numerous governments and industry. But as it struggles to explain itself to external critics and respond to irate investors, it must take care not to alienate the very people who will be essential to its survival. Reports over the last few days centre on how Volkswagens leadership have been locked away in crisis talks, talks no doubt focusing on how to handle the negative PR that doesn't seem to end. The danger for VW is that it only speaks externally, managing the message to external stakeholders, and neglects its captive internal audience of employees.

Put yourself in a typical Volkswagen employee's shoes:

Until very recently, you're proud, motivated, a member of what was a potent symbol of Germany's economic prowess. When the news hit, you're most likely - unless you're part of the group responsible for the emissions testing software - shocked, in disbelief, potentially even in denial the situation occurred, let alone as bad as it’s turning out to be.

You're probably angry, both with the culprits as well as the reaction of the media and the public, and you definitely have a lot of questions: Why did this happen? Who is responsible? What's going to be done about it? Will you pay the price even if you're innocent?

You're probably very afraid of the consequences of this crisis, both individually ­ for your job ­and for your business, your career, your industry. As a global company, VW's crisis will have global implications beyond simply the German core of the business.

You're probably also feeling very embarrassed, as your company's dirty laundry is exposed to the world while your neighbours and friends give you a second glance.

And what about the colleagues you used to trust - were they in some way responsible for this mess?

It's easy to shout advice from afar but in this instance VW would do well to revisit its core values of innovation, value and responsibility, and recommit the last one. They've absolutely failed on their responsibility to the public and the environment but they still have a chance to salvage the relationship they have with their people. It's key for VW bosses to realise that the very people they're currently ignoring are going to be the same people they rely on to rebuild the business once the dust settles. VW needs to remember to follow the same rules of thumb for crisis management internally and externally:

Communicate: Often, clearly, and openly with your employees of all levels. Don't hide until you have the answer and don’t only focus on the senior leadership. Even the janitors need to know what's going on.

Transparency: As much as possible, reveal the plans for fixing the problem and be open about the downsides. Employees know this will severely affect the business for the foreseeable future; ignoring that fact will only make it worse.

Be honest about identifying the triggers in VW's corporate culture that allowed this type of duplicity to manifest itself, and share your plans for eliminating the rot.

Involve: Ask their advice. Ask for their ideas. Ask them why they think it happened. Ask for their forgiveness.

It's a safe bet that VW will survive - reputation in tatters but it will be rebuilt and renewed and the market will bounce back. It will have to work hard to regain the trust of the public but if it loses the trust of its staff, that recovery will be harder, longer, and potentially more precarious.

Illustration by James Kape. 

Danielle Zezulinksi is a Programme Director and Coach at Wolff Olins London. You can follow her @dazezuli

New year, new name.

Remember Mad Men? Remember how excited we all got about perfect period costumes from the 1960s, obsessive attention to detail and riveting plot twists doused with large quantities of whiskey? Remember how we all wanted to be Don Draper?

I had a love/hate relationship with that show because, like everyone else, I wanted to be Don Draper. I wanted to be the person who goes to the movies during a bout of brain overload and emerges with a soulful, nuanced concept that elevates a client's business challenge to a higher calling. I loved the idea of being the person who excels at creative problem solving and is central to helping shape a client's strategic outlook.

But in my real life, early in my career in brand agencies, I found myself in a role much closer to Pete Campbell's; as an Account Director, I had to make sure the client was happy and that we didn't spend too much money. I had to make sure the work we took into the room was spot on and didn't have any typos. I felt marginalised next to the creative directors and strategists, even though I respected and sought to collaborate with them as much as I could – just like Pete Campbell wanted to share in the excitement of creativity with Don.

It was a breath of fresh air when I came to Wolff Olins nearly four years ago and had the chance to really share the responsibility of mapping a client's future with the other disciplines in our agency. I've never felt typecast as a "suit" and have always been encouraged –no, required! – to collaborate, shape and drive the right solution to a client problem with my teams – while bringing my own experience and insight to how companies work and think. And in doing so, I felt less and less like an Account Director and found the title of Account Management less and less appropriate for the work we do as a community within WO. The rest of the community I coach shared that sentiment wholeheartedly.

So we've changed our name.

The discipline of Account Management (AM) at WO is now called Program(me) Management (PGM). 

Why?

Because increasingly, our clients ask us to help them with big transformations – visionary and seismic shifts to their organisations that touch far more than just their marketing materials. And because of these types of requests, we don't think of our work with them as 'accounts'; instead, we build long-term creative partnerships with our clients to design programmes that provide fundamental, systemic changes to all aspects of their businesses. 

It seemed right to have a community of experts who not only build and nurture relationships but also deliver big, measurable impact to all facets of a business. It also seemed imperative to give that community a name that highlights the connected nature of what we do, the central role we play in helping our clients map out their futures while collaborating with our teams to deliver real progress right now. 

We're all really excited about this new community name and focus for ourselves, but more for our clients. Just as I didn't really like thinking of myself as a Pete Campbell-esque suit, I never thought that my clients particularly wanted to be thought of as 'an account' – just a bunch of numbers and figures – rather than as people with hopes and fears for the futures for their businesses. I'm looking forward to helping our clients recognise that Programme Management is a fundamental way of enacting change on a such a deep level that it's essential for success – and that being "serviced" as an "account" is a hopelessly outmoded way of thinking about a collaborative relationship.

And really, when I think about it, that's the trouble with the Mad Men-esque agency model. Focusing all of our attention on persuading people to buy one idea from one brilliant person is old-fashioned and counter-productive Good ideas come from everywhere – and everyone – including, most importantly, our clients. Opening up a dialogue, facilitating collaboration, and delivering complex shifts in businesses is how creativity will flourish in the 21st century. We don't need Petes or Dons to do amazing, game changing work; we just need really open, generous teams driven by Program(me) Management. And the occasional Mad Men cocktail! 

I'm scared of tech (Back to the Future)

I've come to the conclusion that I know nothing about technology, and it's freaking me out.

I mean, I spend time on social media – too much on Facebook and occasional rants on Twitter about cars that nearly crash into my bike – use GPS apps to track my running and browse Wired every now and then. But I am otherwise utterly clueless about what's next and frankly slightly averse to it. Will I pick up wearables? I've worn contacts for nearly 20 years, so I can't imagine going back to glasses that make you look like a cyborg. Ditto to talking into my watch, Go-Go-Gadget style. The Internet of Things just makes me think it's one more thing to worry about breaking. Is there a repairman you can call to fix The Thing if it goes down? And what about Big Data? How much do companies really know about me just by monitoring what I buy?

Tech confuses me because I don't know what I am supposed to pay attention to and what's a fad. If I adopt a new device now, will it still be The Device next year? Everything changes so quickly that I feel like I'll never catch up – but I don't want to be left behind.

So I sympathise with the cabbies who went on strike a few weeks ago in London. They were protesting TFL's licensing of Uber as minicabs; Uber charges passengers a rate based on distance traveled, instead of a flat fee, and black cab drivers want Uber cabs to be licensed as they are and held to the same rates. They feel that Uber is beating them at their own game.

But really, the protest was against how something that was once a given (the black cab business model) is being disrupted by the world changing around it, and how cabbies aren't in control of their own livelihoods. You don't really need to do The Knowledge to drive a cab in London anymore, because there are satnavs. You don't really need to own your own cab, because there are tons of companies to drive for. And the cabs themselves are changing too, in design, colour, emissions technology. It's very possible that one day there won't be London black cabs on the streets at all – in New York, taxis will shortly go from being yellow to green.

So I've been thinking about what I (and London's cab drivers) can do to feel better about our quickly changing lives.

There are a few easy shifts we can make right now that will help us sleep better.

First, I think we should stop being afraid. So many amazing things have happened because of seemingly small technological advances, and there are so many more to come that shrinking in fear of tech will limit how far we can go as a society. The opposite of being afraid is being confident and brave, and I think we can all be brave and start to view the big expanse of 'technology' through the lens of what positive changes it can make. For instance, I am really inspired by how technology is making important things like education available to people who couldn't afford them before. I am really excited about 3-D printing of organs for transplants. I am really energised by the promulgation of free speech through new channels. I am really optimistic about how some of the world's biggest problems can be solved by innovations that couldn't have been dreamed of just a short time ago.

And in a related point, I also think that we can take comfort in going slow. It may seem that things are changing so quickly that we as human beings can't keep up, but relatively it's all moving fairly glacially. We just have to look back at movies made 30 years ago, like Back to the Future, to see how our imagination runs much faster than actual technological advancement. Marty McFly went to 2015 and found hover boards, mobile trash cans, power shoelaces and holographic movie theatres all in wide use; it's possible we will see these innovations emerge next year, but probably not to the extent that we saw on-screen. It's even more reassuring if you look at films made in 1965, thinking about 2015 – we're not wearing silver suits or populating the moon (yet). So whilst we can imagine a world that's radically different due to technology, in reality we're all, en masse, a lot slower on the uptake than we thought we would be. And that's okay.

Finally, lets all just be curious. So many studies point to ongoing learning and playing as a way to keep the brain and body young, but also as a way to stay relevant. So just trying new things, investigating new developments, and dabbling in tech is a start. My guru in this is my 86 year old grandmother: she recently added me on LinkedIn. Until recently, I had no idea why; at her age, I thought, she has no reason to join LinkedIn. And then I realised, she's just checking it out – and why not? She's not limited by an invisible boundary that this network might not be for her, or not relevant to who she is. Lets not think about technology as something for someone else, or potentially not relevant to your world because of your age, gender, job, or some other invisible restriction. The beauty of technology is that's democratic, open and available to all of us.

Of course there will be downsides, and real negatives that we will need to confront together as a society. Technology will change sectors, jobs, livelihoods, our homes, our health – everything. But ignoring it or resisting it won't make it disappear. Instead, we need to challenge it – together. Let's discuss why Facebook experimenting with our emotions doesn’t feel right. Let's discuss how we feel threatened by multiple screens and devices in our daily lives. Let's discuss why our kids spend more time online than off. And of course lets discuss what mobile technology means for the transportation industry as a whole, and cab drivers in particular. What we'll ultimately find is that technology will bring us together, rather than rip us apart – we'll find more ways to share, connect, learn and grow, online and off, through technology in the future.

Therefore, I'Ve decided to embrace technology holistically. I know I won't ever understand coding and the nuances of 3D printing, nor will I follow the latest software update releases with the excitement of some of my peers, but I won't ignore them either. I am trying to see how tech can positively influence growth, change, and the future for business and society. And I'm trying to empathise with those who haven't made the leap I have – some won't ever get here, and that's okay. But at the end of the day, technology is part of who we are as humans. Like it or not, we'll always keep innovating, making, thinking, creating, and expanding. Because if you can't beat em, join em.

And besides – I'll bet my lunch that London's cabbies organised their strike over email and texts.

Danielle Zezulinski is Account Management Coach and Account Director at Wolff Olins London. 

Running change

It’s that time of year: marathon training season is back. Fitness shop windows feature spandex and high-tech running shoes, there are sales on bulk purchases of energy gels and bars, and the streets are flooded with runners of every shape and size and level all readying themselves to go the distance.

The funny thing about a marathon is that it’s an arbitrary quest: why 26.2 miles? Why not stop at 15 miles, or round it off at 25? On the other hand, why stop there – why not keep going to 30 miles and beyond? Of course the distance is based on the story of Nike, but commemorating an ancient war victory isn’t really that relevant in the present day. Instead, the marathon has become a personal test of endurance, commitment and perseverance: just long enough to require significant training and preparation, but not so long as to be completely out of reach for mere mortals.

The experience of a marathon is so consuming that after finishing one it is tempting to try to equate the experience to other events or activities in life. The comparison always comes up short; ‘marathon’ as a term, and related metaphors like “staying the course” feel like empty clichés out of context. But three years on from my own successful 26.2 mile race, I recently started seeing the parallels between the process of distance running and another of life’s mammoth undertakings – making substantial organisational change.

Working with a diverse client set as we do here at Wolff Olins, the business challenges we encounter are never exactly alike. Boil them down, though, and they usually involve some sort of shift, or change: from one market to another, from one leader to another, from a fuzzy purpose to crystal clear intent. And each of these or myriad other changes involves a vast amount of commitment, not unlike that involved in long distance running.

The commitment needed to successfully complete a marathon is absolute. The physical endurance, and often physical fitness overhaul, required to get from start to finish is so intense that it can’t be approached as a whim. Nor can change in a business context. One of the overarching reasons that organisational change fails is a lack of true commitment from those responsible for making it happen. If they don’t believe and want it to happen, it won’t. They need to inspire others, but more importantly they need to wholeheartedly believe in the change they want to make.

Just as runners need to want to cross the finish line, change agents within a business need to have a tireless desire to see a change take place. They need to remember that there will be setbacks, there will be doubt and discouraging moments, and there will be times when the entire exercise will feel futile. But despite all of these potential (and almost guaranteed) pitfalls, there needs to be an indefatigable personal belief and understanding that end goal is absolutely worth it.

Watching a marathon as a spectator, in person or on TV, always makes me think of my own marathon experience. It was a surreal time in my life, when for six months everything I did, said, and thought was focused on running. I had aches, pains, bruises, injuries, and oftentimes asked myself why I was putting myself through what felt like torture. But at the end, when I had achieved a goal so tangibly, it made complete sense. This singleminded belief and determination of marathon runners is present in our clients who relish delivering change in their businesses. They are the ones with laser focus on their goal, who grit their teeth and power on no matter what obstacles they encounter.

As this season’s marathons take place, from London to Boston to Berlin, I’ll of course be thinking about the runners and their personal journeys through sweat and tears to achieve that amazing 26.2 mile moment. But I’ll also be thinking about the people we encounter every day who are in pursuit of very different goals, goals that have much farther reaching impact. It is the commitment and belief in positive change of these athletes that really inspires me, and the resilience and ambition of change agents in business that really energises me.

Danielle Zezulinski is Account Management Coach and Account Director at Wolff Olins London. 

Image via AthleticDisplays.com

It's the economies, stupid

I’ve been reading a lot about new economies recently. The New York Times just had an op-ed called The Edamame Economy, explaining how people are following the expected trajectory of eschewing standardized experiences for the unique and boutique, only to find those are increasingly homogenized and true authenticity remains elusive. The Economist is examining The Maker Economy, as championed by Etsy, looking to see if a small-scale, handmade revolution will upturn established manufacturing. And Harvard Business Review posits that The Peer Economy will change how we all think of work and rewards.

As I’ve been hearing about all of these new and exciting types of economies, I started to wonder about what the word economy actually means, and what an economy actually is.

One of the Oxford Dictionary’s meanings for economy is ‘offering good value for money: an economy pack of soap flakes.’ I was reminded of this meaning just a few days ago, as I slept sitting upright while squashed into an economy seat on an overnight flight on Virgin Atlantic. Whether or not I considered that experience to be a good value for the money I spent on it, it was cheaper than my other options.

Another meaning is ‘careful management of resources: fuel economy.’ We’re all used to hearing about the strains on household spending due to inflation and lack of pay increases, so I think we’re all economists in our own rights for continuing to work hard to make ends meet.

The main meaning for economy, though, is ‘the state of a country or region in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money: he favors tax cuts to stimulate the economy’. This type of economy is the one we seem to analyse, identify, and label.

As all of these variations on macro economies start to appear, it’s hard to stay on top of which one is actually taking root and starting to grow. How can we know whether to focus on maker economies, or whether creating the next type of edamame is the right investment?

Given the state of the world’s finances for the last 5+ years, it comes as no surprise that so many potentials are being investigated with the hopes that they will provide a solution to our global economic woes. Traditional modes of wealth-making across developed and emerging markets aren’t generating the opportunities they used to do, and formerly stable economic infrastructures look shaky. So critics, analysts, trendspotters are all seeking to find the next sure bet for innovation and production.

But for me, the key to unlocking this dilemma is people. People are the actual stimulus of the economy in a macro sense; they are the ones who act and whose confidence in their own individual and collective abilities drives progress and innovation. What links edamame, making, peer based economic trends is not the search for some sort of new fangled way to make money; it’s the people seeking to find alternatives to consumption and production over those that have failed them in the past. And really, that’s what we humans have been doing ever since we did things like inventing (and reinventing) the wheel.

This new year, lets focus on celebrating our insatiable curiosity and desire to create and build new ways of working. Let’s not worry about offering good value or careful management of resources, or even production and consumption of goods and supply of money. Lets give everyone a fighting chance to investigate alternatives to the status quo, and look back on 2014 not as the year of one but of many.

Danielle Zezulinski is an account director at Wolff Olins London, follow her @dazezuli. 

Specialists v. Generalists – or something in between?

By Danielle Zezulinski 

After a month that has seen several major UK retailers (Comet, Jessops, Blockbuster and HMV) slink off the high street and into administration, I’ve been mulling over some of the retail analyst commentary that accompanied these announcements. Several analysts were putting the demise of the stores down to a theory that consumers have outgrown generalist retailers in favor of specialist stores catering to specific, individual interests.

Once, being a generalist was seen as a plus: everything under one roof, something for everyone, infinite choice. It was also a prized quality in people; those with experience in a little bit of everything were seen as valuable, adaptable, able to transfer skills across categories and tasks – assets to any business.

But is the trend towards specialization impacting us as individuals as well as the stores we shop in? Countless career coaches and courses have been championing the idea that we need to specialize in specific industries, sub-sets of industries and niche areas of interest in order to stand out and get ahead. But is there a risk in specializing too much? Fast Company seems to think so, and if you look at the market, new startups who only do one thing, even if they do it extremely well, also seem to fizzle out after being superseded by those doing it even better. 

So I’m thinking that there’s got to be something in between – a general specialist? Or perhaps a special generalist? Whatever the term may be, I believe there is a need for people in the world – on boards, on staff, and as free agents – to collect expertise(s) across many subjects and weave them together to create a personal offering that is so much stronger than simply a “specialism”.

I was inspired by a man I met in Ireland who spent years as a forestry manager, developing an encyclopedic knowledge of tree species, as well as a fascination with world history and a deep appreciation of literature. He combined those three subject areas into a career in preservation and is living out his passion by restoring a medieval castle. Spending time with him was like opening a window into the past, only to receive a nuanced understanding of the future. 

I think in the past a man like him would have been called a Renaissance Man. There is a need for people like him in the world, though perhaps not with that backward-facing title. More importantly, there is a need for people to turn their penchant for customization inward on themselves and architect a future that isn’t polarized into either diving deep into one topic or skimming across the surface of many things.

The twenty-first century offers extreme opportunity for invention and innovation, and that applies to us as individuals even more so than the companies and brands we use. Old-fashioned binaries of “specialist” or “generalist” no longer adequately describe the multi-faceted talents we all develop and hone across new media platforms, creating self-styled roles no one could have ever dreamed of just ten years ago.

It’s time to consider ourselves on-going works-in-progress, and enjoy the journey of building up areas of ourselves as elements in an overall composition; only we know what the end result should be. Forget whether it’s specialized or general, and just go after the authentic.

Danielle Zezulinski is an account manager at Wolff Olins London.  

  Image via Banksy

Leaving it to chance

By Danielle Zezulinski

I caught snippets of musician Joe Walsh of The Eagles on a morning talk show in London last week, in and around my morning routine. He was talking about how the act of making music has changed in the last 30+ years.

Joe said two things that really stuck with me all day about the new reality of producing records. He first said something to the effect of  “… there used to be hundreds of knobs in front of me – now there is a mouse.” Then followed up with “there is a temptation to fix everything and make everything perfect and you lose the human part of the performance when you do that.”

I’m fascinated by this honest assessment of technology and how it is influencing creative output. No one would disagree that the evolution in arts production due to digital technology has been a good thing; it’s opened up all of the arts to such an extent that anyone, no matter what skill level, can find an avenue for creativity.

But perhaps through technology’s uber-rapid progress we are potentially eliminating the opportunity for chance. When the act of creation is pared back to the clicks of a mouse and tappings at a keyboard, do we reduce the inevitability of happy accidents – that serendipitous moment when two sounds collide because you hit the wrong knob, or when two sketches fall to the floor and overlap just so?

And with ever-increasing production quality available to us all, are we eliminating the need for practice makes perfect? For the act of refining raw talent through mastery of craft? Are we all getting used to making do with something pretty good that’s been manufactured to be better, instead of being blown away by something truly magnificent?

I’m not an artist, or a musician, or an actor, or a filmmaker, and I’m curious to hear from those of you who are: do you think technology has improved your creative output, and that of your peers? Are you inspired by the evolution in technology, or wary of it?

Danielle Zezulinski is an Account Manager at Wolff Olins London.

Illustration by Tessa Modi

When diffusion means dilution for retailers

By Danielle Zezulinski

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about designer collaborations. Not just strategizing how I can be front of the queue when Marni for H&M drops on Thursday, nor consoling myself for not being able to get a pair of J.W. Anderson for Aldo Rise shoes in my size.

Rather, I’ve been fascinated by the positive attention and energy that diffusion ranges generate for retailers. From Target’s groundbreaking Go! Collection to H&M delivering runway style to the masses, the designer collaboration has become the most widely anticipated fashion event a retailer can launch. With the right name, a previously ignored retailer can gain traction with even the most discerning of fashionistas.

Which leads me to think that designer collaborations have neatly separated retailers into two camps: those with strong, recognizable product propositions that customers seek out, and those who need to partner with independent talent to bolster their brands’ credentials.

And for those retailers in the second camp, I wonder whether any of the positive buzz generated by these collaborations ever penetrates their internal teams. Are these retailers missing a trick by continually looking outwards for the vision of vibrancy and relevance they know their customers want, rather than seeking an alliance that helps them make fundamental shifts in how they themselves go to market? Wouldn’t it be more sustainable to bring in talent that not only provides innovative products but also revolutionary ways of thinking and working?   

It seems to be a wasted opportunity for retailers, when they do invest in a brand partnership, not to insist that the relationship include an element of learning from the designer or innovator. Whether it’s about trends, customers, color, technical craft, or simply about how to think about products in a new way, designer collaborations could be a really powerful way for retailers to promote innovation internally and strengthen their offer overall – not just for a season.

As brand consultants, we should also use this as an object lesson for the engagements we enter with clients. Rather than bring them a solution pre-packaged, ready to go out to market, we need to think about how we can help clients embody the change we deliver so that they can help themselves moving forward. It’s not working ourselves out of work – it’s about an organic change process that benefits everyone.

Image: H&M via WWD

Why Intel’s Museum of Me isn’t mine at all

There’s an engaging little application sponsored by Intel making the rounds this week, inviting Facebook users to create The Museum of Me. My Wall is blowing up with links to various friends’ virtual galleries, each showing a selection of photographs, videos, and other content uploaded to their respective Facebook pages. The premise, I presume, is that if a user has voluntarily added content to his or her Facebook page, it must be significant and therefore worthy of inclusion in a retrospective of his or her life. The application aggregates all of the available media and displays the content as objects of significance in galleries, set to music, complete with visitors. The “significance” is gleaned from stats-data: who users message/poke the most, the words that appear most frequently on a user’s wall, etc. As an application, it’s a great piece of coding and use of technology; but is my Museum of Me, well, mine? I’m not sure.

  Collecting is one of humanity’s shared behaviours. We all collect stuff that means something to each of us, another man’s trash is another man’s treasure, etc. Social media has, for the past few years, allowed people to collect more and share it more readily. But despite frequent use, Facebook isn’t exactly the place where I store my most precious things; though I post some photos I want others to see, articles I find relevant, and many many updates about my life, I still keep the most personal and private and tangible aspects of my life off of my Wall.

  Therein lies the problem with the Museum of Me: museums tell stories through objects, aiming to give a complete picture while enlightening viewers through interpretation of those objects. The best museums bring disparate pieces of the puzzle together and make the connections not readily visible to the naked eye; showing me the “Likes” I liked that others also “Liked” isn’t interpretation, it’s just mapping correlations. Curation is the compelling undercurrent of the museum experience, leading the display, and without it an exhibit is just a jumble of unrelated stuff. So my Museum of Me failed me because it didn’t just tell my story, it didn’t tell any story at all.

  The interesting thing about Museum of Me, though, is how it’s presented Intel to me. By creating this nifty piece of software, it has reminded me of just how powerful their processing abilities truly are. But conversely, it’s also reminded me that processing information – just processing, no content curation – is all they do. If Intel is looking to change the way I think about them, they need to do a little bit more than remind me of my stuff.

(Danielle Zezulinski)