Dreams are the birthright of every primate. What a different world it would be without them. So, let’s consider the importance of dreams in the context of putting strategic creativity to work in business (which is what I do). There is no better defender of this faith than Willie Loman from Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’ : “A salesman has got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.” The stepping off point of any marketing assignment has to be indelibly marked with a dream. In my own strategic process, I refer to this first stage as The Challenge – but it’s nothing if not a dream. “Eyes to the sky” is a visual metaphor I use that helps to stimulate the kind of thinking that’s required at this stage. Both in mental and physical terms, this phrase describes the attitude that must prevail. Chin up. A positive outlook on what is possible. Yes, we can!
This talk about dreams brings me to what I really want to write about, however, and that is gravity. When we turn our eyes to the sky and dream, it is gravity that brings us back to earth. In the context of a marketing assignment, gravity is… reality. A reality check called The Situation is the second stage of my process, including strategic intelligence, analysis and social science. It takes nothing away from the dream; it just informs it, so the team can strategize how to push back against gravity and, eventually, defy it.
Truth be told, I’m fascinated by gravity. Long, long ago, primates all, we stood up on two legs to show that – unlike some other animals – we were not going to accept the chains that bind us without a fight. Each of us spends a lifetime fighting gravity and, in the end, we lose, of course. However, in the meantime, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
Dreams and gravity are inextricably linked. There’s a dramatic tension between the two that provides the energy to take on challenges and find solutions. Dream on!