ACADEMIC ENGLISH (5) / MANAGING A PROJECT - Corporate Training

INTRODUCTION

CORPORATE IDENTITY

The 3 Elements Of a Strong Corporate Identity

If you asked your employees, “How do we create value for our customers?” would you get a clear answer? And would three different people have the same view?

The question about a company’s way to create value for customers is probably one of the most fundamental elements of strategy. Which makes it all the more surprising that few organizations are able to answer it with certainty and clarity. Companies’ purpose and mission statements often don’t help, being as vague as “we want to be the company of choice for our customers” or “we are committed to delivering the highest quality and widest selection to our customers.”

We know, however, that companies with a strong identity — the kind that is backed up by the ability to deliver their promise — tend to win. In a recent survey of 720 executives, companies that were seen as having a stronger identity outperformed others by 25% (in terms of average annual TSR between 2010 and 2013).

Here’s what we mean when we talk about a company’s identity. It is what drives your entire organization to perform, what makes hiring top talent easier, and what gives you the framework by which to operate the company. Powerful identities are coherent — they connect three elements: the value proposition you offer your customers, the capabilities system that allows you to create that value, and the set of products and services that leverages those capabilities and delivers against your value proposition.

For examples of clear and very specific identities, consider IKEA and its aim “to create a better everyday life” by offering “a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.” Or Apple, which is “committed to bringing the best user experience to its customers through its innovative hardware, software and services.” Both companies back up their identities with distinctive capabilities. IKEA, for example, uses its price-conscious and stylish product design capability and its efficient and scalable supply chain to provide consumers around the world with low-price home furnishing. Apple leverages its unique ability to design and develop its own operating systems, hardware, application software, and services to provide its customers new products and solutions with superior ease of use, seamless integration, and innovative design.

So why is it that so many companies struggle to develop strong identities and the capabilities that enable them? Because most organizations, instead of answering the fundamental questions about how they create value for customers and deriving their strategic imperatives from there, try to keep up with the market by pursuing a multitude of generally disconnected growth avenues and organizational changes. The problem is one of incoherence: In their run for growth, companies often wind up serving so many different customer segments and so many different needs with disconnected product groups, capabilities, and strategies that it’s impossible to define what the company is really about. And although such companies may be OK at many things or may have been great at a point in their growth, their lack of focus creates a struggle to be truly excellent at anything in the long run.

Take Research in Motion. It grew successfully by offering clear value propositions to customers, but it had many different value propositions which challenged its ability to sustain success. Was it a communications device company, an enterprise security service provider, or something else? This ambiguity did not cost RIM as long as its competition was not too intense; but over time, rivals with clearer purpose invested in the right set of capabilities that allowed them to build devices that appealed more to a specific set of customers. RIM tried many strategic paths, but customers and investors never saw enough investment in any one identity.

To create the type of identity that drives success, step away from the current constraints of your portfolio and industry and assess how you can leverage what your company is great at to create differentiated value for customers. Some companies start by identifying the main ways in which value will be created in their market five years out; then determine for which of these value propositions their company has a right to win given its distinctive capabilities. They then focus the bulk of their company’s resources on building that identity by strengthening the capabilities that matter most and aligning their portfolio more tightly around their value proposition.

Defining a clear purpose in the world has been an age-old challenge — for individuals and organizations. But if companies can find the courage to declare what value they are able to create and for whom, they can commit themselves to a path of building greatness in that area. This has proven not only to be a winning strategy for financial results, but also an incredible motivator for employees, who perform at their best when they know how they fit into a larger objective.

https://hbr.org/2014/12/the-3-elements-of-a-strong-corporate-identity

What Does Your Corporate Brand Stand For

It’s harder to create a strong identity for an entire company than for a product. This tool kit can help you get there.

Companies are extremely good at defining their product brands. Customers, employees, and other stakeholders know exactly what an iPhone is and means. But organizations are often less sure-footed when it comes to the corporate brand. What does the parent company’s name really stand for, and how is it perceived and leveraged in the marketplace and within the company itself?

A clear, unified corporate identity can be critical to competitive strategy, as firms like Apple, Philips, and Unilever understand. It serves as a north star, providing direction and purpose. It can also enhance the image of individual products, help firms recruit and retain employees, and provide protection against reputational damage in times of trouble. Many firms, however, struggle to articulate and communicate their brand.

Consider the €35 billion Volvo Group, which sells a broad portfolio of trucks, buses, construction equipment, and marine and industrial engines. After its new CEO decentralized the organization, turning its truck brands (Volvo Trucks, Mack Trucks, Renault Trucks, and UD Trucks) into separate units in 2016, questions about the parent company’s identity became pressing. Because that identity wasn’t well defined, people in the group were uncertain about how they should strategically support the “daughter” brands, and people in the new brand units had trouble understanding how the group’s mission, values, and capabilities extended to them—and even how to describe their brands’ relationships with the Volvo Group in marketing and investor communications.

But using a process we’ll detail in this article, Volvo was able to clarify its corporate identity and the roles and functions of its daughter brands. That alignment resulted in greater corporate commitment to the brands, sharper positioning in the marketplace, a stronger sense of belonging to the group, and more-coherent marketing and communications.

The approach we used to help Volvo achieve this turnaround is the product of 10 years of research and engagement with hundreds of senior executives in organizations around the world and across several sectors, including manufacturing, financial services, and nonprofits. At its core is a tool called the corporate brand identity matrix. As we’ll show, many companies have adapted this tool to their particular circumstances and used it to successfully define a corporate identity, align its elements, and harness its strengths.

Introducing the Matrix

The framework we’ve developed guides an executive team through a structured set of questions about the company. Each question focuses on one element of the organization’s identity. There are nine elements in total, and in our matrix we array them in three layers: internally oriented elements on the bottom; externally focused elements on top; and those that are both internal and external in the middle. Let’s look at each layer in turn.

Internal elements.

Forming the foundation of a corporate brand identity are the firm’s mission and vision (which engage and inspire its people), culture (which reveals their work ethic and attitudes), and competences (its distinctive capabilities). These things are rooted in the organization’s values and operational realities. Consider Johnson & Johnson’s credo, which is carved in stone at the entrance of the company’s headquarters and is a constant reminder of what J&J’s top priorities are (or should be). It describes J&J’s ethos of putting the needs of patients (and their caregivers) first; how it will serve them, by providing high quality at reasonable cost; and a work environment that will be based on dignity, safety, and fairness.

External elements.

At the top of the matrix you’ll find elements related to how the company wants to be perceived by customers and other external stakeholders: its value proposition, outside relationships, and positioning. Nike, for instance, wants to be known for helping customers achieve their personal best, a goal that shapes its product offerings and is captured in its marketing tagline, “Just Do It.”

Elements that bridge internal and external aspects.

These include the organization’s personality, its distinctive ways of communicating, and its “brand core”—what it stands for and the enduring values that underlie its promise to customers. The brand core, at the center of the matrix, is the essence of the company’s identity. Patagonia’s is summed up in its promise to provide the highest-quality products and to support and inspire environmental stewardship. Audi captures its brand core with the phrase “Vorsprung durch technik” (“Progress through technology”). 3M describes its core simply: “Science. Applied to life.”

When a corporate identity is coherent, each of the other elements will inform and echo the brand core, resonating with the company’s values and what the brand stands for. The brand core, in turn, will shape the other eight elements.

Mapping the Elements

The exercise that follows can reveal whether your corporate brand identity is well integrated and, if it isn’t, show where problems and opportunities lie and help you address them. While this process can be tackled by an individual, it’s most useful when undertaken by an executive team.

Starting with any one of the nine elements, formulate answers to the related questions in the matrix. For example, if you begin with mission and vision, you’ll answer the questions “What engages us?” and “What is our direction and inspiration?” Answer in short phrases, not paragraphs, as Starbucks does when describing its mission: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit—one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.” Answer the questions in every box, in any order, without thinking (yet) about how they relate.

In Theory: The Corporate Brand Identity Matrix

A corporation’s identity is made up of nine interrelated components. By examining each one and how it relates to the others, an organization can build a stronger brand.

EXTERNAL	VALUE PROPOSITION What are our key offerings, and how do we want them to appeal to customers and other stakeholders?	RELATIONSHIPS What should be the nature of our relationships with key customers and other stakeholders?	POSITION What is our intended position in the market and in the hearts and minds of key customers and other stakeholders?
EXTERNAL/ INTERNAL	EXPRESSION What is distinctive about the way we communicate and express ourselves and makes it possible to recognize us at a distance?	BRAND CORE What do we promise, and what are the core values that sum up what our brand stands for?	PERSONALITY What combination of human characteristics or qualities forms our corporate character?
INTERNAL	MISSION AND VISION What engages us (mission)? What is our direction and inspiration (vision)?	CULTURE What are our attitudes, and how do we work and behave?	COMPETENCES What are we particularly good at, and what makes us better than the competition?

When we conduct matrix workshops, we advise participants to follow these five guidelines:

1. Be concise.

Think of the short phrases you use in your answers as headings, under which you will later write more-detailed descriptions fleshing out the brand’s identity and story.

2. Be straightforward.

Avoid jargon and keep your responses uncomplicated. Less is more. IKEA describes its relationships as “Hello!”—reflecting in a single word a down-to-earth attitude in line with its core values.

3. Seek what is characteristic.

Capture words or concepts that resonate within your organization—that you’d agree signal “This is us.” A real estate company answered the personality question this way: “We are not sitting on a high horse.” A newly opened hotel in Oslo described its customer relationships like this: “We treat rock stars as guests; we treat guests as rock stars.”

4. Stay authentic.

Some elements of your identity may already be firmly rooted in your organization. Be careful to be honest in your expression of them. Some elements may be aspirational, calling for adaptation within the company if they are to ring true.

5. Seek what is timeless.

A corporate brand’s identity should be lasting—like this signature expression of one watchmaker: “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.” Forward looking but rooted in the past, it has stood the test of time.

Every company’s matrix will be different, but to get a sense of what a final one looks like, consider the matrix from field research we did with the Nobel organization. The prizewinners are chosen by four independent institutions: the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Swedish Academy. Each is responsible for a different award, and each has its own identity and strategy. But the Nobel Foundation manages the prize funds and has a principal responsibility for safeguarding the standing and reputation of the Nobel Prizes. Our research and analysis helped define the common ground among these entities: the goal of rewarding people who have conferred “the greatest benefit to mankind” (recently retranslated to “humankind”), a phrase from Alfred Nobel’s will. That eventually became the brand core and helped clarify the Nobel Prizes’ organizational identity.

In Practice: The Nobel Prize Matrix

Nobel Prizes are awarded by four independent institutions—each of which has its own identity—but are managed by the Nobel Foundation. These organizations have a common ground: a brand core of rewarding work that has conferred “the greatest benefit to humankind.”

EXTERNAL	VALUE PROPOSITION Celebration and propagation of scientific discovery and cultural achievements	RELATIONSHIPS Integrity, respect, and dialogue	POSITION The world’s most prestigious award
EXTERNAL/ INTERNAL	EXPRESSION Symbolic, according to traditions, with a modern, open approach	BRAND CORE “For the greatest benefit to humankind”: discovery, excellence, and engagement for higher ideals	PERSONALITY Impartial and cosmopolitan, with a passion for science and cultural enlightenment
INTERNAL	MISSION AND VISION As set forth by Alfred Nobel’s will, to award prizes to recognize the “worthiest” people	CULTURE Objectivity, independence, and collegiality	COMPETENCES Rigorous processes to evaluate and select laureates

Walk the Paths

After the team has tackled the questions for all nine elements, examine whether the answers fit logically together, reinforcing one another. You’ll want to gauge how clearly they align along the matrix’s diagonal, vertical, and horizontal axes, which all pass through the brand core at the center. Each axis illuminates a different kind of organizational capability: The diagonal one that begins in the bottom left corner highlights capabilities related to strategy; the diagonal one that begins in the top left corner, competition; the horizontal one, communications; and the vertical one, interaction. If your corporate brand identity is clear, the elements on each axis will harmonize. The stronger the connections along each axis are, the more “stable” the matrix is. One of your team’s goals should be to maximize stability.

One way to gauge the strength of connections is to use the answers to the questions in a short presentation describing your corporate brand identity. The notes you’ve jotted down are, in effect, a rough outline of a script. (For an exercise that helps you craft one, download the PDF.) Ask yourself, Does that outline hang together?

In rare cases a team emerges from the analysis with a perfectly aligned and stable matrix, integrated along and across all four axes. But more often it finds gaps and inconsistencies among the elements of identity. The next job, then, is to examine the weak links and explore how to strengthen them.

For example, if your competences don’t support your promise and value proposition on the competition axis, what capabilities do you need to develop? If on the interaction axis your organizational culture doesn’t mesh with your corporate values in ways that reinforce external relationships, can HR be helpful in understanding the source of the problem? Creating a fully stable matrix is an ongoing and iterative process. Ultimately, the leadership team needs to converge on a shared narrative about the corporate brand identity, so the stories the company tells will be unified and consistent throughout the organization and beyond.

Applying the Matrix

Companies have used the matrix to address a range of identity issues, such as clarifying “mother and daughter” brand relationships, retooling the corporate brand to support new businesses, and improving the company’s overall image.

Strengthening the parent brand’s identity.

The Finnish industrial group Cargotec, which is in the cargo-handling business, has three well-known international daughter brands: Hiab (the market leader in on-road solutions), Kalmar (the leader in port and terminal products and services), and MacGregor (the leader in the marine segment). A decade ago the mother brand was eclipsed by these high-profile daughters. To address this, management decided to pursue a “one company” approach, centered on the corporate brand, integrating its service networks and bundling the daughters’ logistics solutions for individual customers.

Cargotec’s CEO led the initiative to bolster and elevate the corporate brand and align it with its daughters’ cultures, values, and promises. First, the firm held 11 workshops in which a team of 110 managers used the matrix to articulate the individual elements of the three daughter brands’ identities. Then everyone gathered in a plenary session to develop an aggregated framework for the corporate brand identity.

To confirm the legitimacy of the new identity and get buy-in, Cargotec involved employees, sending out an internal survey (completed by more than 3,000 workers) that tested the validity of the proposed elements of the redefined corporate brand. Did they fit with the vision of aligned corporate and daughter brand identities? The new frameworks from the workshops were shared with everyone on the corporate intranet, soliciting input. An external survey of customers and other stakeholders provided additional input and led to further adjustments to the proposed Cargotec identity.

At the end of the process, Cargotec and its daughter brands had agreed on a shared brand core: the stated promise “Smarter cargo flow for a better everyday” and the values “global presence—local service”, “working together” and “sustainable performance“. One result of the strategic and rebranding initiatives is that major international customers, such as Maersk Line, are now offered Cargotec-branded solutions integrated with products from the daughters. The company has also strengthened its focus on the corporate brand in its marketing and communications—for instance, by developing a new logo and visual language.

Supporting business development.

Bona is a century-old company that has long specialized in products and services for installing and maintaining wood floors. Based in Sweden, it operates in more than 90 countries.

In recent years Bona expanded its offerings to include stone- and tile-cleaning products and developed a new system for renovating vinyl-type floors. These moves opened significant growth markets for the company but also raised a question about its positioning: How should a corporate brand that was known worldwide for wood-floor expertise change to accommodate the new businesses? On the surface the answer seemed simple: In its messaging Bona could just shift from its historical emphasis on wood floors to include other kinds of floors. But the executive team saw an opportunity to formally clarify the corporate brand identity, recommitting to its heritage while embracing a new positioning—inside and out.

Led by marketing executives from headquarters and America, the company conducted a series of workshops in both Europe and the United States that brought together managers from across functions and around the globe. The first task was to reach a common understanding of the company’s current identity. Extensive discussion revealed a surprisingly broad variety of perspectives and answers to key questions in the matrix. But through further talks, consensus on those questions was eventually achieved, capturing Bona’s corporate brand identity as it stood then.

Next these managers set out to develop an aspirational corporate brand identity, considering the firm’s new products, technologies, and market opportunities—and in particular, new kinds of customers. The group modified the brand promise to “Bringing out the beauty in floors,” aligning it with the newly articulated mission: “Creating beautiful floors to bring happiness to people’s lives.”

To bring the revamped identity to life inside the company, Bona held dialogues about it with employees, encouraging discussion, and created a welcome program for new staffers that emphasized the values in the revised matrix. For its outside stakeholders it created new communication programs about lifestyle trends relevant to floor decoration and design, directed at consumers and at Bona’s certified craftsmen partners; launched a website redesign; and set up a marketing program introducing its vinyl-floor renovation system. Translating a revised brand narrative into internal and external initiatives takes time, however; at Bona the process began 21 months ago and is still under way, with progress being benchmarked against the new aspirational matrix.

Changing the brand’s image.

The European company Intrum provides debt collection services to businesses and helps them with invoicing, receivables and debt management, and credit monitoring. By 2014 the company had grown rapidly through acquisitions, and management considered it essential to have a common view across the organization about what Intrum stood for. Its leadership was also concerned that the company had a negative image—and self-image—as a collection agency and wanted to give it a more positive identity as a provider of financial services. So over three years Intrum invited management teams from 24 countries to take part in a program, held at the Stockholm School of Economics, that used our matrix to work out a new, improved identity that would enhance the group’s performance. That initiative was led by the senior HR executive Jean-Luc Ferraton.

With input from 200 managers, Intrum’s vague tagline (“Boosting Europe”) was revised to “Leading the way to a sound economy,” which underscored the company’s brand promise. A core value challenged by managers as “fluff” was dropped. Intrum’s mission was reformulated to be more positive. What does the company aspire to now? “To be trusted and respected by everyone who provides or receives credit. With solutions that generate growth while helping people become debt-free, we build value for individuals, companies and society.” The managers’ discussion of the new mission inspired Ferraton to comment, “I’m sure that none of us dreamt as kids of working in our line of business. But when I hear how you describe your job, our company, and what we actually do, I am proud to work here.”

Intrum tracks the implementation of the new brand identity by measuring employee and customer satisfaction, employee engagement, attitudes about leadership, and the adoption of the corporate brand’s core values. Its internal and external surveys reveal an overall improvement of 15% on these measures over the past three years.

The Cargotec, Bona, and Intrum cases illustrate three ways the corporate brand identity matrix can be used. But these are by no means its only applications. The chairman of a private equity firm has used it to gauge the strategic value of candidates for acquisition and investment. The matrix helped the CEO of Falu Rödfärg, a traditional paint company founded in 1764, clarify his firm’s brand identity and competitive position by highlighting its distinctive heritage and hard-to-copy craftsmanship. And Trelleborg, a polymer-technology maker, used the matrix to enhance its corporate identity so that acquired firms, which had initially rejected the parent brand name, actively embraced it.

CONCLUSION

Sometimes a sketch of a parent firm’s identity can be done quickly—and even be helpful. But developing a comprehensive understanding of a corporate brand identity usually takes much longer, involving many sessions and leadership and teams throughout a global organization. The process can happen faster, though, if the company already has strong core values and other essential elements of identity.

Examining and refining your corporate brand is a true leadership task that requires far-reaching input and commitment, passion, and grit. The outcome—a sharpened brand, stronger relationships, and a unified organization—can provide a clear competitive edge.

https://hbr.org/2019/01/what-does-your-corporate-brand-stand-for

Express Yourself (The Expression of a Brand)

The Surprising Power Of Nostalgia At Work

Identity: Strong Individuals and Meaningful Connections

Many people assume that nostalgia is purely entertainment, a feeling individuals enjoy because it takes them back to the more carefree days of their youth. Some view it as maladaptive fixation on the past, perhaps indicating a fear of change. I’ve heard business analysts and leaders argue that, although nostalgia may help some companies sell consumers a range of products, it’s ultimately bad for business and the economy. They imagine that by keeping people focused on the past, nostalgia undermines innovation, creativity, and ultimately progress.

From that perspective, there’s little reason for managers to view nostalgia as having value within their organizations. However, a growing body of research reveals that it’s an important psychological resource that helps individuals cope with life’s stressors, build strong relationships, find and maintain meaning in life, and become more creative and inspired. I’ve been conducting research on the psychology of nostalgia for almost 20 years. Based on what I’ve learned, I believe managers can use the power of nostalgia to help their organizations thrive.

Nostalgia Is a Psychological Resource

First, managers need to understand how nostalgia actually works. When people engage in nostalgia, they’re accessing personally meaningful autobiographical events typically shared with family, friends, and other close connections. It isn’t just a happy trip down memory lane — in fact, nostalgic reflection often involves both negative and positive emotional states. Critically, it tends to follow a redemptive sequence in which negative feelings such as longing and loss give way to positive feelings such as happiness, social connectedness, gratitude, and hope. In other words, nostalgia is bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter.

Nostalgia can be triggered by explicit reminders of the past, such as running into an old friend or hearing music from one’s youth, but people also often become nostalgic when they’re feeling down or distressed in some way. Common psychological triggers of nostalgia include feelings of sadness, loneliness, meaninglessness, uncertainty, and boredom.

These negative psychological states increase nostalgia because nostalgia is restorative. After conducting dozens of studies using diverse methods ranging from qualitative text analysis, self-report surveys, and behavioral and neuroscientific experiments, my colleagues and I have concluded that nostalgia is best described as a self-regulatory existential resource that people naturally and frequently use to navigate stress and uncertainty and find the motivation needed to move forward with purpose and focus. The impact of nostalgia on meaning is particularly important because meaning in life has great motivational power. Research finds that nostalgia motivates the pursuit of important life goals by increasing that sense of meaning.

Humans are an existential species. To flourish, we need to make meaningful social connections and feel like we’re contributing to the world in a way that matters. Nostalgia serves these existential endeavors. Here are three reasons for managers to bring this adaptive feature of human psychology into their organizations — and ways to do it.

1. Nostalgia can help build strong relationships and teams

Social bonds are a central feature of nostalgia. Most nostalgic memories involve other people, and when individuals reflect on these memories, they feel more socially connected and supported. Managers can take advantage of nostalgia’s social nature to promote strong relationships and teams. Encouraging employees to share nostalgic stories with team members may help them build deeper connections because nostalgia orients people toward social goals. For example, in one set of studies my colleagues and I conducted, we found that having research participants spend a few minutes reflecting on a nostalgic memory (compared to an ordinary autobiographical memory, like grocery shopping or driving to work) increased their desire to pursue social goals such as forming deep relationships and made them more confident that they could successfully achieve those goals. They also became more confident that they could overcome social conflicts.

We also observed that when people are experiencing higher levels of nostalgia, they’re more interested in working on tasks with others, and nostalgia has been shown to increase empathy for others and prosocial behavior in the forms of volunteering and charitable donations. Research also finds that, when people are part of a group, nostalgia for an event shared within it makes people more committed to the group.

Nostalgia brings the social self online. It increases social agency and directs that agency toward helping others and strengthening social and group bonds. Given the importance of positive relationships and effective teams for both the health of individual employees and the organization, managers should explore ways to incorporate nostalgia into team-building activities, as well as social events like workplace celebrations and retreats. For example, create a retro music playlist by asking employees to submit nostalgia-themed song requests. This will give employees of different ages and with different experiences the opportunity to revisit their own nostalgic memories, which energizes the desire to connect with others. It will also inspire them to share these memories with others, which helps build deeper connections and increase nostalgia in others. Indeed, research finds that exposure to other people’s nostalgic memories increases one’s own nostalgia and all the associated psychological benefits — in other words, nostalgia is contagious.

2. Nostalgia can help make work feel meaningful and reduce turnover

As an existential resource, nostalgia helps people maintain and enhance meaning in the present — when they reflect on past meaningful experiences, they become motivated to prioritize meaning in the present. Managers can tap into this existential resource to help employees find meaning at work. This may be particularly useful for those experiencing burnout. A series of studies found that when workers were prompted to reflect on experiences within their organization that made them nostalgic (organizational nostalgia), they subsequently reported a greater sense of meaning at work and lower turnover intentions. These effects were most pronounced among employees reporting high levels of burnout.

By encouraging employees to revisit meaningful memories created within the organization, managers can help the ones experiencing stress and burnout reconnect with what made their jobs meaningful in the past, which can provide guidance for how to restore meaning at work in the present. Developing organizational social rituals and traditions can help create organizational nostalgia in the first place — it’s an investment in the future. For example, organizations could hold monthly game nights, potluck dinners, movie screenings, book clubs, or other events that provide employees the opportunity to form meaningful social memories shared with other members of the organization. When an organization is undergoing major changes that cause anxiety, interpersonal conflict, or other negative experiences, organizational nostalgia may prove to be a vital resource.

3. Nostalgia can help organizations be more creative and inspired

Managers looking to cultivate outside-the-box thinking can also take advantage of nostalgia. A workplace that encourages employees to both share nostalgic memories and make new ones with their coworkers primes the pump of creativity. People are more likely to feel comfortable taking risks and exploring new ideas when they feel socially supported, energized, and confident. Nostalgia generates these states and can thus offer a way to orient employees toward creative thinking and problem-solving.

Across three studies, researchers found that having individuals spend several minutes writing about a nostalgic memory made them feel more open-minded and creative, and critically, made them produce more creative content (as judged by independent evaluators). In addition, our research shows that nostalgia makes people feel more inspired.

While on the subject of creativity, it’s worth noting that there is no single right way of inducing nostalgia. Our studies as well as those conducted by other research teams have utilized diverse nostalgia prompts, such as having people write about a nostalgic memory, read accounts of other people’s nostalgic memories, read song lyrics that make them nostalgic, listen to nostalgic music, watch nostalgic music videos, look at old photographs, visit nostalgia-themed websites, create scrapbooks, and engage in activities using augmented reality technology.

Managers should look for opportunities to introduce nostalgia in ways they believe will best fit their organizational environment and culture. What’s most important is that managers appreciate that meaningfully connecting the present to the past via nostalgia can help them and their employees have the mindset and motivation needed to productively work toward future-oriented individual and organizational goals.

https://hbr.org/2021/04/the-surprising-power-of-nostalgia-at-work

INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY

Memory

Memories: Learning, Remembering, (not) Forgetting

For 30 years, I have talked to people about their memories and, as a neuropsychologist interested in amnesia, I am very interested in brain areas that mediate learning and forgetting.

How memories work

A core brain structure for memory is the hippocampus. The hippocampus (the Greek word for seahorse) is shaped like its namesake. It plays a key role in the consolidation of new memories and in associating a new event with its context (e.g., where it took place, when it happened). For example, you might hear the name Princess Diana. The hippocampus may activate verbal associations (e.g., she was part of the Royal Family), as well as memories of particular images or experiences. When I hear the name Princess Diana, I recall my brother telling me of her death as I descended the stairs of his home on Cape Cod. I can picture that moment in my “mind’s eye.” Despite my age, my (relatively) intact hippocampus allows me to retrieve a complex set of images and ideas that remind me where I was and who I was with when I heard the sad news of Princess Di’s death.

Memories that last

Some memories seem to age well. Recall of specific “flashbulb” events, such as the death of John F. Kennedy, or where you were on September 11th, 2001, seems unblemished and unchanged over time. However, in reality all memories, even flashbulb events, are malleable; they change as a result of the passage of time. They shift each time you call a memory to mind, as they are affected by other memories that have overlapping elements. As a student of memory, I am just as interested in long-term forgetting as I am in remembering. I am particularly intrigued by changes that take place with regard to autobiographical memory. Autobiographical memory is the foundation on which we derive a sense of who we are, what we find rewarding, and how we define our world. It is integral to how we construct meaning and purpose in our lives.

Autobiographical memory as we grow older

As we age our personal memories become fragile. They become less accurate and lose context. People with neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease are particularly vulnerable to the loss of personal memories, due to the combined effects of their neurological condition and the aging process. They no longer have the same access to important milestones that helped define them. The importance of autobiographical memory is often overlooked. People come to me to ask for assistance with memory skills. I teach them all I know about mnemonic techniques to enhance face–name associations. I review cognitive strategies for new learning. I rarely talk about old memories… their first day of school, their first kiss, music from teenage years.

Tending to autobiographical memory

More recently I shifted my focus in conversations with people who want to talk about memory. Together with a therapist colleague, I started the “memoir project.” Why? I want to help highlight the important role of personal memories in maintaining a strong sense of self. People, even those with mild dementia, are encouraged to review important life events by using personal timelines to identify, for example, key events, food, music, and people who contributed to their sense of self. They may contact childhood friends, college roommates, and family members to remind them of shared experiences and to augment past memories. They often receive memory “gifts” as a result of these conversations — filling in the gaps in a memory that was beginning to fade. And of course, documentation and journaling are critical strategies. The stories people have shared with me have been fascinating. More important is the joy of reminiscence they experience.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/learning-remembering-not-forgetting-2018051013811

Tips to Retrieve Old Memories

Details of significant experiences from decades ago may still be available if you can coax them out of your memory.

Sometimes memories of certain experiences remain crystal clear for life, like the moment you said „I do,“ or the first time you held your baby in your arms. Other significant memories from long ago can be harder to recall. But they may still be with you; it just takes effort to retrieve them.

Which memories stay with us?

Of the many memories you accumulate every day, only those marked as meaningful are recorded in your brain’s long-term files. „We have a system in our brains that tags memories that are important in some way so we’ll remember them in the future,“ explains Dr. Andrew Budson, a neurologist and chief of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology at VA Boston Healthcare System.

Two things tag a memory as special:

Emotion. „Getting married is an example of a highly emotional event. In that circumstance, a whole host of brain chemicals become active as these memories are being recorded,“ Dr. Budson says.

Personal significance. „You probably remember what you had for breakfast this morning and what clothes you wore yesterday. But if I were to ask you about those in a few days or a month, you’d have no memories for them because they’re just not that important to you,“ Dr. Budson explains.

Aging affects retrieval

Sometimes even special or important memories are harder to remember. Several age-related factors contribute to this loss of recall:

Memory goes downhill after age 30. „There’s good evidence that our ability to retrieve information peaks between ages 20 and 30. By the time we’re in our 50s, the frontal lobes, which are in charge of searching for memories, don’t work as well as they used to,“ Dr. Budson says.

Memories fade with time. If you haven’t thought about a memory in years, it won’t be as vivid or strong as it used to be. „By not revisiting the memory, you’re telling your brain it’s not important, and other memories might be laid on top of it,“ Dr. Budson says.

We need help to jog our memory. „When we’re younger, an internal cue — just thinking of something — can help retrieve a memory,“ Dr. Budson says. „But when we’re older, we rely more on external cues to retrieve memories, like a sound or an image.“

Cue the memory

To reactivate an old memory, you must think about the senses that were engaged as the memory was being recorded. That’s because as you experienced something special or important, your perceptions — images, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, thoughts, or feelings — were being stored in one part of the brain (the cortex) and then bound together as a memory by another part of the brain (the hippocampus) and tagged so the frontal lobes could retrieve the pattern of information later.

A cue from your environment (such as hearing a song) or a cue that you generate (such as thinking about your high school graduation) can help you retrieve a memory. „The more specific the cues are for the episodes of life you’re trying to remember, the more likely it is you’ll have a pattern match and pull up an old memory,“ Dr. Budson says.

Ideas for cues

Because you may not spontaneously recall cues related to a long-forgotten memory, you’ll have to generate some. Dr. Budson recommends that you try these strategies:

Look at old photographs of your home, family, or friends.
Read a poem you wrote or liked to read when you were younger.
Hold an old article of clothing you saved.
Read an old letter, personal journal, or newspaper article.
Listen to an old song that you or someone in your family loved.
Cook a meal your mom or dad used to make for you.
Smell something that may jog your memory, like a book, pillow, perfume, or food.
Visit a place from your younger days.
Watch an old movie or TV show.

Additional suggestions

Be still as you try to summon old memories; close your eyes at times and focus on the sights, sounds, smells, thoughts, and feelings associated with each one.

And when you do recall memories, write them down (before you forget them) and reinforce them by visiting them often in your mind if they’re pleasing or helpful. „You really can travel back in time to a particular experience in your life“, Dr. Budson says. „And cuing one memory will often lead to another.“

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/tips-to-retrieve-old-memories

IDENTITY: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

What the Nose Knows

Experts discuss the science of smell and how scent, emotion, and memory are intertwined — and exploited

“… I carried to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had let soften a bit of madeleine. But at the very instant when the mouthful of tea mixed with cake crumbs touched my palate, I quivered, attentive to the extraordinary thing that was happening inside me.”

It’s a seminal passage in literature, so famous in fact, that it has its own name: the Proustian moment — a sensory experience that triggers a rush of memories often long past, or even seemingly forgotten. For French author Marcel Proust, who penned the legendary lines in his 1913 novel, “À la recherche du temps perdu,” it was the soupçon of cake in tea that sent his mind reeling.

But according to a biologist and an olfactory branding specialist Wednesday, it was the nose that was really at work.

This should not be surprising, as neuroscience makes clear. Smell and memory seem to be so closely linked because of the brain’s anatomy, said Harvard’s Venkatesh Murthy, Raymond Leo Erikson Life Sciences Professor and chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. Murthy walked the audience through the science early in the panel discussion “Olfaction in Science and Society,” sponsored by the Harvard Museum of Natural History in collaboration with the Harvard Brain Science Initiative.

Smells are handled by the olfactory bulb, the structure in the front of the brain that sends information to the other areas of the body’s central command for further processing. Odors take a direct route to the limbic system, including the amygdala and the hippocampus, the regions related to emotion and memory. “The olfactory signals very quickly get to the limbic system,” Murthy said.

But, as with Proust, taste plays a role, too, said Murthy, whose lab explores the neural and algorithmic basis of odor-guided behaviors in terrestrial animals.

“When you are walking down the street, consciously indicate what you are smelling … the more you use [your nose], the stronger it gets.”

— Dawn Goldworm

When you chew, molecules in the food, he said, “make their way back retro-nasally to your nasal epithelium,” meaning that essentially, “all of what you consider flavor is smell. When you are eating all the beautiful, complicated flavors … they are all smell.” Murthy said you can test that theory by pinching your nose when eating something such as vanilla or chocolate ice cream. Instead of tasting the flavor, he said, “all you can taste is sweet.”

For decades individuals and businesses have explored ways to harness the evocative power of smell. Think of the cologne or perfume worn by a former flame. And then there was AromaRama or Smell-O-Vision, brainchildren of the film industry of the 1950s that infused movie theaters with appropriate odors in an attempt pull viewers deeper into a story — and the most recent update, the decade-old 4DX system, which incorporates special effects into movie theaters, such as shaking seats, wind, rain, as well as smells. Several years ago, Harvard scientist David Edwards worked on a new technology that would allow iPhones to share scents as well as photos and texts.

Today, the aroma of a home or office is big business. Scent branding is in vogue across a range of industries, including hotels that often pump their signature scents into rooms and lobbies, noted the authors of 2018 Harvard Business Review article.

“In an age where it’s becoming more and more difficult to stand out in a crowded market, you must differentiate your brand emotionally and memorably”, they wrote. “Think about your brand in a new way by considering how scent can play a role in making a more powerful impression on your customers.”

Someone who knows that lesson well is Dawn Goldworm, co-founder and nose, or scent, director of what she calls her “olfactive branding company,” 12.29, which uses the “visceral language of scent to transform brand-building” in the actual buildings where clients reside (mostly through ventilation systems or standalone units).

Among Goldworm’s high-profile customers is the sportswear giant Nike. Its signature scent, she explains in a video on her company’s website, was inspired by, among other things, the smell of a rubber basketball sneaker as it scrapes across the court and a soccer cleat in grass and dirt. Her goal, she said, is to create “immediate and memorable connections between brands and consumers.”

Goldworm, who designed signature fragrances for celebrities for more than a decade before starting her own company, knows the science, too. She spent five years in perfumery school followed by a master’s degree at New York University where her thesis focused on olfactory branding.

During the talk she explained that smell is the only fully developed sense a fetus has in the womb, and it’s the one that is the most developed in a child through the age of around 10 when sight takes over. And because “smell and emotion are stored as one memory”, said Goldworm, childhood tends to be the period in which you create “the basis for smells you will like and hate for the rest of your life.”

She also explained that people tend to smell in color, demonstrating the connection with pieces of paper dipped in scents that she handed to the audience. Like most people, her listeners associated citrus-flavored mandarin with the colors orange, yellow, and green. When smelling vetiver, a grassy scent, audience members envisioned green and brown.

Be careful of your snout, both speakers cautioned the audience. The bony plate in the nose that connects to the olfactory bulb, which in turn sends signals to the brain, is particularly sensitive to injury, meaning head trauma can “shear that plate off” and cause people to lose their sense of smell entirely, making them anosmic, said Murthy. (Feb. 27 is anosmic awareness day.)

“Wear a helmet if you ride a bike or are doing extreme sports,” said Goldworm.

People do tend to lose their sense of smell as they age, she added. But not to worry. Your nose is like a muscle in the body that can be strengthened, she said, by giving it a daily workout, not with weights, but with sniffs.

“Just pay attention,” with your nose, said Goldworm. “When you are walking down the street, consciously indicate what you are smelling … the more you use [your nose], the stronger it gets.”

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/how-scent-emotion-and-memory-are-intertwined-and-exploited/

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