Posts Tagged ‘UCLA’

Stengel’s Storyboard Ban

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

Back in 2002, when he was still the CMO for Procter & Gamble, Jim Stengel was pictured on the cover of an Advertising Age reprint that I happened to pick up while in the office of a client in Atlanta.

Jim Stengel

Jim Stengel

Before there was a GameChangers LLC, before one word of the book had been written, I read in that Ad Age article how Stengel had made what we know today as a GameChanger move: He banned all storyboards from first meetings with ad agencies on new campaigns. What a gift!  Storyboards in a kickoff meeting, presume way too much. They hijack the process, and take it down a one-way, one-lane street. They imply a client/vendor relationship that prematurely assigns status and roles to the players and is therefore toxic to a truly organic process.

I give Jim Stengel a lot of credit for indicating that there is a need for improvisation in business. His storyboard ban created a vacuum that, by design I’m sure, required improvisation to fill.

In animation, where films are largely worked out on storyboards, presenting scenes that have been depicted on storyboards is called ‘getting the story on its feet.’ Stengel recognized that getting anything on its feet that was going to have legs needed to fall a time or two first.

Today, Stengel teaches at the Anderson School of Business at UCLA, and from his website it seems that he’s still got a unique perspective on the practices and processes of marketing brands.   I hope he’s telling the future captains of industry about his P & G storyboard rule.  It’s a good one.

The T. H. Culhane Game

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

John Culhane, a Rockford, Illinois-born journalist, author, and the model for the character of Mr. Snoops in the Disney animated film, The Rescuers, met his wife, Hind Rassam, a native of Baghdad, Iraq, when he reviewed her in a student performance of Antigone. John and Hind fell in love and had two sons, T. H. and Michael.

CulhaneBros1

It is no surprise that the Culhane boys are born performers, a couple of very animated characters.

CulhaneDance

Once, as part of a story John did for the New York Times Magazine, he and the boys enrolled at Ringling Bros. Clown College in Sarasota, Florida, and T. H. and Michael became the youngest clowns ever to perform with Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey big show. (more…)

The Coach

Friday, December 14th, 2007

Wooden1

Coaching is absolutely vital for a team to reach its potential. It’s true in athletics. True in improv theater. True in business. The objectives for each activity might be different, but the techniques by which good coaching elicits performance are strikingly similar in all three arenas.Wooden 2 John Wooden, who at age 97 (pictured above) is still as sharp as a backdoor bounce pass, is possibly the best basketball coach who ever lived. He’s also a GameChanger of the highest order. Wooden’s teams changed the very concept of the sport of basketball, from a polite Hoosiers-style half-court square dance, to a baseline-to-baseline rampage of disruptive defenses and extreme athleticism. And they have the championships to show for it.

There’s a lot to be learned from looking at what made Wooden’s teams successful. Wooden’s role was Coach; how he played it was as an educator who used the game of basketball as his classroom. His techniques set a high standard for coaching and teaching in any arena. Here are some parallels between Wooden’s Way and the GameChangers approach to business improvisation: (more…)