In a recent New York Times “Corner Office” column, Merck CEO Ken Frazier replied to a question about handling the pressure to cut his pharmaceutical company’s research and development budget in order to satisfy shareholders by saying…
“…we value R&D as a company. It’s who we are. It’s the core of what we do. I made the decision that I wasn’t going to cut our R&D budget, and that had some short-term negative consequences in terms of share price. But by taking those actions I think we were able to show that we really did care about what we said we were about as a company… There are lots of examples of companies that have lost their way because they’ve sort of lost their soul, which is a funny word to use, but companies do have souls.”
Frazier’s statement resonated with me. Can a company have a soul? I think it’s a requirement for a successful business. A company’s soul comes not from what it does, but from the passion that fuels it to do what it does. Furthermore, the degree to which a business can share its soul with its customers is a foundation of that business’s success.
And thats’ where I come in. I can’t think of a better medium for sharing your company’s soul… its passion for serving its customers… than video. Sharing your passion is one of the most effective ways of moving people on a human level. And when you move people, you can move business forward.
To see some great examples of companies who have shared their souls via video, have a look at my Business Video page.
