Soul Brands connect on a deeper level

By: Monika Evers

Truth has integrity. When we hear it, we know and respond to it on a deeper level of our being.

Brands, products and ideas such as Virgin, Apple, and Google are driven from a deeper truth captured within their business. This deeper integrity sets up a resonance with the marketplace that literally inspires people to connect to your product and brand. Marketing then becomes the means to accommodate a mass connection. We all aspire to have a brand that inspires business, but what does it really take?

When South Africa decided to abandon Apartheid, it wasn’t just a matter of calling all the people together or announcing a change in direction through an AGM and trusting all would be fine.

The fact that the country didn’t erupt into civil war was a testament to the special kind of transformational workshops that had been conducted with the leaders weeks prior to the public announcement.

Even today South Africa is undertaking more transformational workshops than any other country to support the change required in the perceptions of its people.

Africa has a history of racial hatred. There were enough warring tribes alone, that taking the black and white issues aside, could have escalated the move away from white imposed rule into civil war.

Instead a quiet peace predominated. All eyes turned to a common purpose. The twelve or so, traditional and political leaders were able to lift themselves above their own tribal interests to a common purpose and a common vision. The vision they all chose to uphold was “a united Africa in two generations”.

As one leader remarked with tears in his eyes. “I should have wanted to kill my enemy instead I now stand with him to choose a new vision for my tribe...my new bigger tribe, Africa.”

These leaders put aside their own agendas and called forth a commitment that surpassed their own lives and that of their children.

 

A Vision for business

Business is no different. People, in any organisation are here to support their family, their centres of influence and themselves getting ahead in life. Leaders concern themselves with getting the job done, meeting shareholders or investors expectations and growing the business.

Unfortunately, most business visions usually describe something around all of this and as a result, buy-in above work ethic, is minimal.

Many a time I have strolled into an organisation to see the vision of “meeting shareholder expectations” proudly displayed above the reception desk. That is not a vision, that is an objective. It’s like that other statement often seen lurking in visions “fulfiling or exceeding customer expectations”. That too can’t be a vision either, because without either of these two, you wont have a business. It’s just like a person saying my vision is to breathe and eat. These are just objectives that must be fulfiled in order to stay alive.

A vision is a declaration that calls a person into being beyond their everyday way of being. It is connected to a potentiality that has yet to realised. Aristotle knew about this.

 

The Potential for Business

Aristotle held that everything had two states of being, “actuality” and “potentiality”. Entelechy was the term he used for that inherent force that realises or makes actual what is otherwise merely potential.

Derived from the Greek word for having a goal, entelechy is a particular type of motivation, directing all growth to become all that it is capable of being. For example the entelechy within an acorn directs and makes actual its potentiality of being an oak tree.

We use the term “soul” for that type of internal direction. Whether we talk about the soul in ourselves or the soul in our businesses, Soul is that internal entelechy. It literally is the spirit that guides us into bringing into actuality of our full potentiality.

When a vision resonates with people on a deep level, when a vision connects to its soul, like “a united Africa in two generations”, it calls people to a potential way of being.

It also has inherent, a special kind of truth that connects others to it as well. It’s like we know that what they have chosen is truly in line with their higher purpose and potentiality. We “know” their vision to be true and are drawn to support it. That’s what happens when people hear truth and look at all the support this country is now generating.

Africa is a soul brand. It is a brand that is connecting its people to a higher purpose and greater potential than their current state of reality.

Soul brands are businesses that keep generating their way forward from their potentiality. It is all about orientation and the transformation supports, like visions, brands, myths, positioning words and characters that they use to keep it alive in their everyday reality.

Every business has the potential to be a soul brand. Our business is about connecting you to yours and inspiring business as a result.

 

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