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Artificial Harmony
One thing that I’ve experienced over the years is the notion of artificial harmony. And this is something I learned from Patrick Lencioni. We don’t like conflict. We don’t like to provoke a situation that will result in fighting or feeling judged or rejection. Artificial harmony is when you both know that something isn’t quite right, but neither one of you is willing to say anything. And so we’ll mutually pretend that everything is okay. Artificial harmony occurs when someone is unwilling to face that conflict because they don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings. And because they don’t want to go through the work of what that means.
When you’re presenting something to someone, presenting work, presenting a portfolio, there’s an expectation of an outcome. And artificial harmony is essentially misleading someone on where and what that expectation is. And we all have experienced it, a client saying something like, “Oh, okay, that looks good, that’s good. I’ll, I’ll give you more feedback when I’ve had more of a chance to, to assess and share with my colleagues.” And you kind of know that you’re probably gonna get an email later that says, “Well now that I’ve had a chance to sit with it…” and you know that nothing good ever comes from that. You never get an email that says, “You know, I love it even more than I thought I would.” It always is, “Now that I’ve had a chance to live with this, I don’t like it. I need you to redo it.”
It’s much easier to actually stop the artificial harmony and get in sync with someone by just acknowledging that that exists. So for example, if you are sensing that there is artificial harmony happening, a very simple way of acknowledging it is just saying, “I’m sensing that you’re not really connecting with this work or you’re not really liking what I’m showing you. Am I right?”
Now, if you’re wrong, they’ll just say, “Oh no, I think it’s great, carry on.” But if they don’t like it, it gives them permission to be honest with you in a way that they hadn’t felt safe enough to do, and you giving them that permission can transform the entire experience of that presentation. And once they’re allowed, you give them permission to tell you the truth, then you can actually create more of a mutuality. And it might just mean that you need to redirect and do something different. But knowing it in that moment is so much more powerful than hearing about it in an email and then having to backtrack and recreate that experience for the second time, which is much, much more difficult.
Clarifying Criteria for Success
One thing that I would caution you about when working on any identity or any product is to really understand what you’re being asked to do. I often find that common vocabulary does not always equate with common behavior. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been told by a CEO that they’re looking for revolutionary change in the marketplace, and they want to create something revolutionary with this redesign. And when we show a first phase redesign exploratory that we feel is revolutionary, it ends up being way too revolutionary. And what they meant by revolutionary was going from light blue to dark blue. Unless you’re IBM, I’m not sure that’s revolutionary. So understanding what people mean with the language that they use is extremely important. Really being able to define evolutionary, change, revolutionary. What are the results? The most important thing to be able to understand from any client in any brand initiative is the criteria for success. What are the markers that will allow your client to be able to understand what success in the marketplace looks like? Knowing that before you engage in any brand initiative will help guarantee success that much further.