Leadership lessons from the greatest marketers in history

I do not go to church, do not believe in the god of the Bible, Koran, or any other narrative that offers a solution to the failures of our humanity.

I have however, been in awe of their collective and individual capacity for marketing.

Let’s just take the three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Islam, and Jew. They are old, old, have persisted, evolved, and successfully transitioned through the ages to remain a major point of faith for hundreds of millions of loyalists.

Great marketing, tapping into the emotional drivers of our behaviour.

In all three, the 10 commandments are central.

The Islamic form is a little different to the Christian and Jewish, but the sentiments about what constitutes a ‘good’ life line up almost exactly.

If god was all powerful, all consuming, why would he/she (to be politically correct) restrict the delivery of rules to just those 10? Why not go further, and ensure we did not stuff up the environment, or congregate in dirty cities, or give us the rules for building a house, and a million other things?

Instead, we got a framework within which to make our own decisions, a set of guidelines about what constituted acceptable behaviour in a civilised community. Within the boundaries of the guidelines, we could behave as we wished to deliver the outcome of a ‘good life’, one that contributed to those around us, as well as to ourselves.

Sounds a bit like a successful strategic framework, does it not?

Less is more.

Lead.