Nine years of learning (and counting)
Entrepreneur Charlie Brown shares the top lessons he’s learned in building and growing Context Partners
By Charlie Brown, CEO
April 12, 2019 marked Context Partners’ ninth anniversary. Nine years! Over that time we’ve had the privilege to work with inspiring talent, clients and leaders around the world. We’ve researched and designed everything from retail employee engagement strategies to prizes for mapping Indonesia’s peatlands. It’s safe to say the breadth and uniqueness of our work has far exceeded anything I could have imagined nine years ago.
While each project inspires vivid memories, it’s our collective learning that truly defines how we’ve grown as a company. We’re indebted to those who’ve taught us key lessons or shared experiences that have helped us grow as practitioners, partners and people.
With this ninth anniversary upon us, I wanted to step back and share nine essential lessons I’ve learned.
1. Be cautious of the “presenting problem.”
As a consultant, you quickly learn that the initial problem a client presents is rarely the problem that needs to be solved. And, it can be easy to overlook the difference. Being able to identify the underlying opportunity and guide the client to a solution is a true art that we’re constantly striving to master. Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting nails this idea.
2. Design with (not for).
One of our first projects was with social impact entrepreneur Trabian Shorters and the community that ultimately became BMe — which aims to change the narrative about Black men in America. That work taught us that design is as much about working with a community as it is about offering them a solution. In fact, the community often has the best ideas and just needs the expertise to shape them into action. Our work with BMe led us to expand our work in collaborative ethnography under the influence of Luke Eric Lassiter (my fellow West Virginian).
3. People need to belong.
Time and time again, we’ve explored the motivations that bring people together to solve problems. And the common theme is that people want to be heard and recognized. They want a sense of belonging in their lives, and increasingly they look for it in their relationship to a brand, or by finding like-minded people online or in communities built around a shared identity. Yet too often the design process completely overlooks this core human need. We’ve learned that enabling ”belongingness” starts with recognizing people’s unique value. One of our favorite writers, David Brooks, is a great reference point for this idea.
4. It’s contributions that count.
Measuring audience engagement can be difficult. The regular default is to count transactions — emails in a database or log-ins to an app. We’ve learned that the more revealing metrics of an engaged audience are the volume and quality of audience contributions — the act of an employee, customer or user providing something of value back to their community. That act could be a product review, a shared idea, or recruiting a new user. Contributions signal a commitment to the relationship with the brand and the brand community. David Spinks of CMX captured this in a recent blog post.
5. Focus on your top 10%.
Along those lines of contribution, leaders often want 100% participation — ”success” is about getting every last person to participate. But whether you reference The Tipping Point, the Pareto principle or any other framework, the reality is that the percentage of actively engaged participants in a given community is more like 10% — yet they have the power to influence participation by the other 90%. Find your 10%, nurture them well, and you’ll see the results begin to scale.
6. People want a role to play.
When it comes to community building we’ve learned to let people do what they do best. Let them be themselves. It led my former teammates Jensie Miksich and Mela Drakatos to segment people by the roles they play in a community. Are you a connector, storyteller, innovator, sharer, curator or builder? We operate in these “Aspirational Roles” when we are doing what we love to do, whether we are with friends at a party or finding fulfillment at work. Effective engagement acknowledges these roles so people can contribute as their best selves.
7. Don’t base a long-term decision on a short-term situation.
As business leaders we can easily get caught in the day-to-day, the weeds of a situation. But a longtime mentor of mine, David Pollock, imparted this piece of advice to me and it stuck: If we keep responding to the immediate, we are reacting. And when we perceive a short-term situation as a long-term cycle, we are delusional. We have to step back and get a broader view of what is happening so we can invest in the long term.
8. Accountability as culture.
This was one of the hardest lessons for me to learn — not because I don’t believe in accountability but because I didn’t see it as “culture.” I thought culture was about our values, the people, the place. And while I often asked three things of my staff — get it done on time, do your best, support your colleagues — accountability was something I didn’t yet fully appreciate. Over time I’ve realized that accountability is the underpinning of a culture’s real foundation: Trust.
9. Be inspired.
Life is too short to overlook the inspiration in the everyday. Being an entrepreneur is loaded with highs and lows. One day you’re exploring the future of capitalism with some of the most influential B Corp leaders. The next day you’re sweating payroll. But in the midst of all of this, amazing things are happening all around us. Things like experiencing the brilliance of a colleague’s solution, reading the note of appreciation from a client, or that clear day you got to go skiing with the CEO of Ben and Jerry’s … and counted it as work.
At Context Partners we always say, “It’s all about the people.” After nine years, it is truly the people we’ve been lucky enough to encounter who have taught us the most. And that’s what it’s really about — surrounding yourself with accomplished, incredible people who constantly keep you learning.
CHARLIE BROWN is the founder and CEO of Context Partners. After years of observing how social entrepreneurs harness the power of communities to scale positive results, Charlie launched Context Partners to meet a growing, critical need among brands and causes worldwide. His work and approach with Fortune 500 brands and global foundations have been featured in Rotman Management Magazine, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, FastCoExist.com and Stanford Social Innovation Review.
