Monk and Abbot in conversation 5/M&A talks 5:What organised religion can teach corporates

Abbot: A guest here had a query on how he can reconcile his quest for corporate glory with his deep religious moorings?
Monk: Master is the two related?
A: Child how many years have the major religions you know of thriving?
M: Master most of them for 1000 years or more!
A: How many firms you know of that are even 200 years old?
M: *thinking*
M: Not any master though there are some - a bank here, a shop there that might be 300-400 years old, but maybe only 1 or 2 I might have read about.
A: Assuming that there are even 100s of these they obviously are not thriving too much since we would otherwise know of them?
M: True master but can we really equate the 2?
A: Patience child.
Now do you think that the organized religions have a large base of followers and the base keeps increasing?
M: Yes master
A: And that is probably the purpose of the religionists- to increase their ranks?
M: Yes master
A: Also look at one of the most potent org. rel. concepts. You are usually born into faith if your parents were in it. Thought most have some ceremony to confirm your initiations. See the power?
M: Master can you shed more light?
A: The idea for corporate is that form such a bond that the children of consumers are born into the brand. Kids use it automatically because parents use it too. Hence a brand should follow similar concept. If it’s a product that can be used only say after a certain age, try being in segment where kids form an emotional bond with it seeing their parents use it. If selling shaving cream make it an aspiration to have the kid look forward to using the same cream as the father. Better still don’t just do shaving cream, do toothpaste.
A: So in short organized religions have very good marketing?
M: Now that you point me in the direction yes
A: Can you have mere evangelist succeeding if they have no backing? Without the means and souls/bodies?
M: Yes master, being an evangelist converting heather requires money, lots of money, free schools, hospitals, buildings, people
A: And we get others to contribute?
M: Yes master but we often have own resources too - villages attached to old monasteries, fees and so on. Some of the monasteries are very wealthy master.
A: So let’s look at corporate - they want people to know the brand and spend premium to buy the brand? Can we say that premium for a brand is similar to charity money in religion? Same idea of pay for satisfaction? It works even better for service industries.
M: Yes, yes and yes
A: So we already agree that the mode of operations of corporate and religions are same even if the intentions may differ.
M: Master but is mode of operation reason enough to count them similar?
A: Child that is not what I mean though I am not saying if they are similar or not. But organized religion is an example of very powerful organization practices that corporate can follow.
M: Enlighten me master.
A: Religion succeeds because they possess the target as well as employee segment. Which is more important to them is another question but by and large both segments need to be fired up for them to succeed. Which corporate will not give an arm and a leg to do that? That’s lesson number 1, both are important in order to move up the food chain- the consumer and the producer.
A: Now religions can be of two types - those that have an incontestable vision. It makes it easy for employees to adhere to it and u can force out non believers. One an organization makes it a policy to either fire or kill those who question the top management's vision it makes for very little employee turnover.
M: Master how will those who merely fire have high retention?
A: Child humans like their snug cocoon, given a threat most will prefer to like the directions than to be out in the rains naked? And what if most of what you learnt is being done by only your ex-organization which denounces you? Your chances of another job are low. So we see such org. rel. already lowers its training costs.
On a deeper psychology level once people start believing the vision they see it everywhere so we can now make them work overtime.
A: Other religions are those who do not believe in vision but prefer to think of new products depending on needs or same product customized. These are often better at engineering skills but suffer from a rather fickle employee base. Advantage that they get is that great innovators may want to become a part, but ordinary employees do not have the same level of commitment base.
M: So master what lessons are there for corporate? Vision is all powerful?
A: It seems yes vision makes things easier but do not underestimate the versatility of the other. If you are playing the innovation game or are in a market of people willing to try new things - it pays not to get wedded to a single vision. However the mass market is in vision thing. So most organizations should go in for 1st kind of approach.
M: Yes master.
A: So we looked at the supply side, lets see what the demand side offers. Organized religion plays on emotions or they play to spiritual. Similarly corporate marketing need to play on emotions or serve basic needs.
M: Is not spiritual and basic opposites
A: Not really child. Spiritual quest for humans is the basic quest. its about the what and whys of life- stuff that becomes 'necessary' once the basic needs are filled.
So corporate need to project their goods in such a way that an emotional bond develops. If your child does not use this toothpaste, his/her social life will be hellish and (s)he’ll end up in asylum/ if you don't buy our TV not only will u not know the latest happenings but you are forcing my workers to starve and their children to beg. No other brand of medicine can keep your loved one alive, in fact others will kill them and ours will make them do salsa within a week. That is the kind of image marketing need to convey.
M: Master apart from marketing?
A: Marketing is the mantra. Look at how most organized religions try to control life for consumers. Corporate can use similar techniques. Make products (this works very well for technology) that work with only your own products. Tie them in to your platform and make migration prohibitive. Once your emotive/spiritual marketing does its initial job just take over their life.
M: Master what once all our consumers have all our products, how do we earn more?
A: that is why organized religions have festivals, period meetings that are supposed to be mandatory. And mandatory charity- force people to keep paying you more.
Corporate should aim for subscription services. Consumers are tied to their products and they pay a period fee to you to keep them alive.
M: Master I never saw such possibilities
A: Corporate are new kids on the block, organized religions have perfected techniques over years. it helps that organized religions were also started and led by some of the sharpest minds of their time and beyond.
There are more learning
M: I'm all ears Master.
A: Most of organized religions aimed to convert the nobility to their cause. Corporate similarly should target the mind share leaders or those in power. it was not always easy to convert kings because they fight back. So org rel shed plenty of their blood too. Once the nobility was converted they either forced the serfs to convert or made it attractive to wannabes to convert. Who doesn't want to be on king's side? It’s the same for corporate. Get the mind readers. Make government/military your clients. The big business houses. Then they in turn force suppliers to use same products. Remember it pays to keep products incompatible to others. Sometimes corporate have to bleed in order to get the leaders (or even masses). The idea is that the enemy bleeds more. So if corporate is the one with most staying power, let there be blood bath all around.

M: Master why then has corporate not taken these lessons to heart?
A: Child they often lack courage. Org. rel. has often been cruel to extreme in order to win market share and then they turn benign. Corporate if they start ruthless can become big enough where the need to be ruthless vanishes.
M: Master but ultimately the aim of all religions is to find God?
A: No child, the aim of all religions is to find 'truth' but even then most espouse the vision as truth in the beginning! So that means that most org. rel. basically is aiming to be a monopoly. There is a lesson even here. Most corporate should aim to be monopoly.
M: Master what is the single biggest thing that org. rel. should teach corporate?
A: That I is the only 'true' one. Once you believe in that it makes it very easy to practice all other.