Tag Archive for 'church'

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Why Target Doesn’t Feel Corporate

Published on November 8, 2008 in business, commercials and design. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I cringe when I enter some places.  Certain homes, businesses, and community establishments have this hard-to-describe, but easy-to-perceive corporate quality to them that makes me want to leave as quickly as possible. Target isn’t one of those places.

I go to Target sometimes even when I am not planning to buy anything. Unlike other stores, no one tries to pressure me into buying something as soon as I walk into the door.  As long as I don’t linger after closing time, I can stay as long as I want without getting the stink eye from one.  When I do have to make big purchases, I think of Target.

So why exactly do I go to Target when I’m not making a purchase?  Well, the delightful variations of good design on display inspire me. Seriously.  I love how Target makes design a priority without being snobbish about it.  They hire top notch designers like Sami Hayek to create fun and fashionable stuff, but the prices make practical-minded people smile.  (I would say practical-minded people like myself, but then I am only practical-minded about fifty percent of the time.  Maybe less.  Still it’s a good thing to practice.)

The corporate thing to do these days in the worlds of fashion and design is to posture like a rock star and mark up the prices accordingly. Fortunately for us, Target doesn’t do the corporate thing … at least not here.

Target’s dedication to design is evident in almost every one of their commercials.  Here’s one of my favorites:

The commercial shows us a playful and deliberately designed world that includes samples of the gadgets you can buy at Target.  As we watch, we’re reminded that Target cares about accessible design. Plus the Target logo is incorporated into the beginning and the end of the commercial, which helps us remember what the commercial is about. Most of the time, it takes only one viewing for me to remember a Target commercial.  There are so many other ads that I’ve seen 7-8 times, and I still can’t remember what product is being advertised.  And I study advertisements, people, so someone out there isn’t doing his job very well.

But enough of a digression.  One reason Target’s ads work so well is because of  the company’s clearly defined reason for existence. If you go to their site about themselves (found here), you’ll note that they have an entire heading dedicated to design.  Even more impressive to me was their 64 page PDF on Corporate Responsibility.  It’s a document that’s easy to look at and one full of beautiful pictures and informative text.  Among other things, the PDF explains how Target gives back 5 percent of profit to the local communities where they operate, how they promote safety in and around their stores, and what they’re doing to protect the environment and promote sustainability.

Does that mean they’re a perfect company?  Of course not.  Like any organization, I’m sure there’s room for improvement.  But, when you spend the time and money to put together a polished, 64-page document about how your company tries to make the world better, it shows that you care about more than just making money.

What can you learn from Target? Make your reason for being more important than your pursuit of profit or measurable results, and create environments where people enjoy lingering by meeting their needs and being hesitant about the hard sell. I need to be inspired, and I’ll reward places that inspire me with my time, money, and participation.  Other people need to be informed, to have internet access, to feel comfortable, secure, or appreciated.  Serve the need and you’ll get your reward eventually, whether it’s a financial, social, or spiritual reward that you seek.

Of course, this doesn’t apply just to places selling things. When I first started working for Canon, I would leave the office as soon as I could.  But that’s changed now that I’ve developed good relationships with my coworkers and my supervisors.   When I’m off the clock, I can get other stuff done in the office, so I linger sometimes, and I avoid rush-hour traffic in the process.   That adds values to my life, and so I’m more likely to stay with Canon as an employer.

My church has an artistic, friendly sensibility so I sometimes go a few minutes early and linger for a few minutes after the service ends.  But, you can bet an entire collection of in-your-face Jesus stickers that I’d get the hell out of a corporate church as fast as possible,  and I do mean hell in the most literal of ways.

Whatever you do, don’t do everything just to gain money or popularity or measurable results.  That’s corporate thinking and that kind of thinking isn’t welcome here.

Organized Lovelessness

Published on October 12, 2008 in being corporate defined. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

In The Perennial Philosophy Aldous Huxley describes contemporary institutions as “organized lovelessness.”  What a poignant phrase, and it’s a much better definition of being corporate than anything I could articulate even with hundreds of words.   (In fact, maybe you would be better off reading his book instead of this post.  If that’s what you’re thinking and if you have the time to read more than 200 pages of metaphysical commentary, then you can find the book here, provided online by Google Books.)

When I protest against being corporate,  I’m not talking about the ever-growing complexity of  specialization or organization that have developed to accommodate our modern society.   After all, highly specialized, organized people have made it possible for me to write this blog post at no cost, within the comfort of my home, on a computer I can take anywhere.   What’s not to like about that?  No when I’m making a case for being less corporate, I’m talking about the organized lovelessness that can show its ugly head in our business, political, and religious interactions if we’re not vigilant.

"Child in a Harsh World" (a sketch I did)

"Child in a Harsh World" (a sketch I did)

How awful it is to be treated like a thing and not like a beloved person. But, that’s what happens when a mission statement becomes more important than the people whom the mission statement is supposed to serve. It’s why company policies meant to help serve customers can become bureaucratic nightmares and why a noble political system dedicated to preserving individual freedom can devolve into pressured conformity.

Even churches or other religious institutions are not immune from this plague of organized lovelessness.  This is indeed a disheartening thing, since places of worship, at their best, are built on the belief that God loves his creatures enough to care about their development.  From this foundation,  dignity for human life and decency within a civilization can develop.   And yet, perhaps you’ve been to a loveless, dogmatic-driven church that left you feeling so cold and unconnected to others that you were driven faster into the seductive (but still loveless) arms of vice.  I know I have.   Not every place of worship is like that, but unfortunately, too many of them are.

To help me illustrate these ideas, let’s try a little thought experiment.  Suppose, for a moment, that I am not a lowly writer, but a powerful bestower of wishes.  (Tragically this is untrue, but let us suspend disbelief together for the sake of this example.)  Close your eyes and imagine that I will present you with a package that contains your heart’s desire.   Now open it.

There are many things you might have imagined, but I am willing to bet that you did not imagine a corporate poster featuring bar graphs, pie charts, or banal graphics.   ( Perhaps some day I will find the man who affectionately decorates his home with productivity graphs, and then I’ll have to eat my words, but for now I’m safe, I think.)  And yet, businesses continue to decorate their workplaces with these ugly things.  Why?  Probably because these companies are more committed to their mission statements then to caring enough about their employees to wonder what they would enjoy seeing.

Nothing wrong with reminding the people who work for you about your organizational goals.  There is something enriching in holding someone up to high standards. And besides, you don’t really love people unless you want them to become and remain the very best versions of themselves. But don’t good families have admirable goals as well?  Of course, but you don’t see these families decorating their walls with awful corporate-looking stuff, just to remind each other about those goals.    Why not?  They care about each other too much.

So take another look at even the small things you do in your business, organization, or even your personal life.   Do the posters you put up, the jokes you tell, the ways you interact with people increase someone’s sense of organized lovelessness?  Or do you fight organized lovelessness by putting more importance on caring about people than on achieving goals, looking cool, and growing profit? The second choice is hard to do, I know, but it’s still worth fighting for, don’t you think?