Coherence by Richard H. Bailey
Last Updated on Friday, 12 November 2010 03:53 Written by Steve Friday, 12 November 2010 03:53
I just read Rick Bailey’s book on nonprofit marketing, Coherence. Rick’s son Nick is a friend of mine and another Salesforce.com coder-for-good We’ve had a number of conversations about nonprofits and leadership, and when we met up at Web Of Change this year, Nick passed on his dad’s book.
Coherence is Rick’s name for telling the truth. For aligning “what we deliver with what we say we deliver.” It’s hard to argue with telling the truth, but it’s amazing how many people and organizations spend energy hiding their true selves. Coherence is about looking at who you are, and then projecting that to the world so that people who see a match can find you. It’s about creating an experience that is authentic and unique to you and your strengths and weaknesses.
This resonates deeply for me. The best leadership experiences I have ever had were when I was most honest about the reality of the situation. Where I stopped trying to control things and land them in a specific place, but was open to them going where they would go. I yearn for control, and it takes effort to release that yearning.
Organizations will better serve their constituents if they are honest about what they’ve got. So many groups try to be something they are not, only because they think that’s the way it has to be. Rick tells a great story about Goshen College and how he helped them change how they told their own story. Goshen is a Mennonite college with a tradition of service–they turn out amazing people who really take service seriously. I have been lucky enough to know two Goshen College graduates and they are both brilliant, dedicated change-makers.
Rick’s story of Goshen really struck me because the way he recommended they talk about themselves was directly in line with my experience. He called out Goshen’s quirky, joyful dedication to service–exactly how I would describe my Goshen alum friends. And that’s the point–people know what they see, and if you’re telling an untrue story it just doesn’t work. If Goshen tried to tell a story that they were like a midwestern Yale University, I’d see right through it. My friends are as smart as the most brilliant Yale students, but they aren’t the kind of people Yale attracts. It all either hangs together, or it doesn’t. Coherence is critical to it all hanging together.
Social change organizations, and for that matter individuals, could stand to be more authentic with themselves and what they tell others. Amazing organizations are doing this and delivering experiences to their supporters that are really powerful. Rick lays out how he consults with groups to get there–be honest in looking at who you are, look at how you are currently talking about yourself, and find out what people really think about you. By doing this you can best connect with your authentic value proposition, and share that unique story with the world. Once you do that, the people with whom that story resonates will be drawn to you, and it will be a good fit.
Rick works a lot with colleges, and so his deepest case studies are in that arena. But the message is much broader and great for any social change organization to hear. I recommend the book and the approach. We could all stand to be a little more coherent!
It’s all about the soulful authenticity. People can smell the spin, the posturing and the empty hype. Now even more than ever.
One of the “benefits” of growing up in an advertising culture!
Right on Steve. I couldn’t agree more. This may be one of your most insightful posts ever. Thanks for sharing.
Glad you liked it Sean! I think Rick nailed it with his book and the structure of his practice.
Glad you enjoyed the book, Steve. And though we focused on colleges and universities in this book, your insight that the lessons of Coherence are applicable to most organizations—particularly the array of NFPs—is right on and one of our initial intentions. I’m happy to hear that notion is coming through. NIce connection to the Goshen story. I love that you and your colleagues are finding new and powerful ways to leverage technology in support of coherent communication and relationships. Kudos to you and the Foundation for helping great causes succeed.
Yes Rick, you did a great job in the book laying out you main points in ways that were easily extrapolatable. Thanks again for the book, and the nice drone for talking about telling the truth ad the benefits of that.
An obvious outcome of this approach is you need to change your organization ahead of your marketing of your organization. Groundwire went through some significant changes over the past few years but our “marketing” or how our clients perceived us had not caught up with the reality of working with us. For organizations who are working on repositioning and realignment it is critical to adjust who you are and how you serve first before you start trumpeting.
This really strikes a chord with me, Steve. Been thinking a lot about soulfulness in companies and organizations – and just now starting to write about it. This notion of coherence is an important part of that. I like the term. A year or so ago, when we were working on rebranding and renaming ONE/Northwest to Groundwire, this was a central notion that we really tried to honor. I think we got it, which is part of why the transition to the new name seemed to flow fairly effortlessly – almost like we were pulled into it.
Thanks for highlighting Rick’s book. I’ll have to check that out.
I think Groundwire was always really good at authenticity, from back in the early days. I loved Art of Leadership and took away the idea of leading from authenticity and having things come from that place. It’s one of those powerfully simple concepts that people have a hard time leaning into when whey try to implement it.
It’s tied into the conversations around failing fast and sharing failures in our community. That’s a wonderful place to be and lots of my peers don’t feel safe doing that. because that authenticity isn’t valued where they work or in their networks.
Thanks for sharing this, Steve. I’m really interested in this topic in general (authenticity, integrity, etc.) Having worked in advertising for a bunch of years, I found it an entirely inauthentic (one could say incoherent) industry. The whole point of advertising is fluffing up a claim that one could reasonably argue to be true. The game was about making claims that one could say were coherent with the brand’s promise. That is, imo, totally different than authentic expression, or BEING the truth that is coherently expressed.
I think “coherence” is an interesting word – I looked it up: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cohere meaning “to cleave together or to be consistent” I also think there’s a difference between coherence (logically consistent) and authenticity or integrity, which to my mind implies alignment of one’s true self and one’s expression of self. It might be a semantic splitting of hairs, but I can see how someone could be inauthentic and coherent (notwithstanding Rick’s definition) at the same time.
I think Jon is spot on with the heightened sensitivities we have as a result of hyper-mediated life at detecting BS from truth. The sheer volume of information makes it hard to distinguish sometimes and leaves a lot of pathways for exploitation, though. What amazes, me though, is how quickly the networked hivemind can deconstruct a piece of media to determine its authenticity (Dan Rather’s downfall, eg).
You’re right, Ian, that consistency isn’t the goal. The way I read Rick’s usage of the term coherence is that what you say about yourself needs to be in direct alignment of how people experience you. If there is a disconnect there, people will see right through it.
You only get to sell a person once. That’s a key. If you sell them wrong and you lose them as a customer because you aren’t coherent, or consistent, then there is a good chance that customer is gone for life. Most problems along these lines are related to an organization not having a clear picture of itself rather then any individual attempting to mislead public perception.