Having a goal is not enough.

I recently attended a Bucks AdSoc talk by David Wethey, Chairman of AAI who advises clients on choosing the right agency to work with on their advertising campaigns. He spoke about the importance of being able to make decisions, and make them well. Seems a bit of an odd topic, at least I thought so. However I left the talk having learned something I think I've  always known, it's not enough to have a goal, you have to have a dream. 

We have all been educated to look forward rather than back, but childhood is where your determination comes from. Perhaps that stems from all the times you said, "When I grow up I want to be..." regardless of how many times you changed you mind, or maybe it simply comes from wanting better for yourself. Whatever the reason, when you're a child there are no limits and it's a shame that so many of us stray from what excited us when we were little. 

When my sister, Hannah, and I were younger, we made sure everyone knew what we were going to do when we got older. She was going to travel the world and cure AIDs and I was going to own my own business and have a big office. OK she hasn't cured any diseases and I'm many, many promotions away from a corner office, but she left for New Zealand three years ago and never came back and I'm about to graduate university and enter the corporate world. The basic drive is there and luckily for us it didn't completely disappear.

Hannah with her patient and me with my box of stationery. 



This isn't turning into a blog about my childhood, I promise. There is a point. David said that all the people he interviewed were exceptionally successful and exceptionally good at making decisions. Furthermore, they all had dreams, not just goals. The correlation between making good decisions and having dreams  is a result of the fact that the way we make decisions is naturally emotive, not logical. We've trained ourselves to think logically, likely because we have to consider those things that limit us, like money and time.

According to David, decision making is the number one life skill and most of us aren't any good at it. He once went into a bookshop and counted 83 titles on leadership and 3 on decision making, which highlights that it's a skill that is often forgotten about, hence why I thought it was an odd topic. It turns out it wasn't.

The thing that I think confuses people when making decisions, particularly in business as your reputation and someone else's money are often on the line, is that you feel you have to think it through rationally, applying logic and getting as much advice as you can. This just complicates things, normally, your gut feeling is often right and you end up a lot happier with your decision. I'm not saying you should abandon your sense of rationality, just ease up on it a bit. 

It's the same in advertising. Having a goal is not enough. Having a dream is what drives us as people, our emotions, motivations and aspirations are what drive us as consumers. You'll never achieve your personal goals if you don't respect your instincts and you'll never get through to a consumer if you don't respect their motives. 

As David said, "Decision making is like advertising, it comes from inspiration and intuition, but it does work better within a disciplined process."

Advertisers and consumers... I guess they're not so different.

Well done to Ian for running his first AdSoc event since he took over as President!