#8
The Company We Keep
I've had a few of you ask why a brand guy is spending so much time talking about personality types. Let me explain.
I think branding, for a lot of people, appears to be mostly what we might describe as the creation of artifacts. Logos, taglines, colour palettes, websites, signage. Yes, it's true that all these help a brand engage, but before we touch any of it, we spend a significant amount of time helping organizations figure out who they actually are. Without that foundation, the development of artifacts is just aesthetics.
When we deep dive into helping organizations define themselves, we have discovered that it's all about relationships. The different types of "company" we've been exploring in this series are far from theoretical, and in fact surface in almost every engagement. Champions, Allies, Skeptics, Critics show up the moment an organization starts getting clear about what it stands for.
Which brings us to Critics.
If Champions are drawn to your values — people who recognize themselves in what you stand for — then Critics are the opposite. They're the folks that understand your values and just don't see the world the same way.
That's the simple part. It gets a bit messy after that.
A Word About Disagreement
First, something important to understand is that I don't think disagreement is criticism. At least not in the way I'm using the word here.
People disagree all the time. About strategy, priorities, timing, execution. Healthy organizations are full of disagreement. Two people who share the same values can argue passionately about the best way to live them out. That's collaboration. That's the dance I wrote about a few weeks ago.
In order to be called a Critic, in my definition, the conflict is about where you're going, not about how you get there, if that makes sense.
The person in a meeting who thinks your timeline is too aggressive is disagreeing with you. The person who thinks your entire direction is wrong is a Critic.
This distinction matters. If you label every conflict as criticism, you'll stop listening to the people who are actually trying to help you get where you're going.
Where It Gets Complicated
We identify Critics by a misalignment around values. Clear enough, but what that misalignment looks like depends entirely on the state of your values. Three very different conditions exist.
When Values Are Clear
Sometimes new people enter an organization and after a short period of time, they, and everyone else can see, it’s just not the place for them. Same goes for a customer purchasing a particular product or service or even a partner engaging in a collaboration. When your values are clear and authentically lived, Critics are pretty obvious.
This is actually the healthiest version of our three scenarios. Your magnet is working. It is attracting what belongs, repelling what doesn't. A Critic's departure isn't a failure. It's evidence that your values are specific enough to mean something.
When Values Are Aspirational
This is the most complicated scenario. The organization has stated its values, everyone approved them, but you start to realize that agreement to name them is not the same as commitment to actually making decisions that follow.
Every single decision a company makes either erodes or supports the values. There are no neutral choices and the gap starts to reveal itself through an accumulation of hundreds of small betrayals.
In this scenario, the Critic actually becomes the most important voice in the room as they're not opposing your values, they're demanding you live them.
When Values Are Absent
When your values are undefined, true Critics can't exist. There's nothing clear enough to oppose. What you get instead is friction that looks like criticism but has no focal point. It shows up as personality conflict or communication breakdown or team tension that nobody can explain.
You might look for process solutions to what is actually a values problem. We have seen all kinds of system-change here. Maybe a facilitator gets hired or a team gets restructured or leadership attends conflict resolution workshops.
Should we invest in this or that? Hire for experience or potential? Prioritize speed or quality? Every person in the room defaults to their own priorities. Meetings become exhausting. Momentum dies. The best people leave because they can't find anything to believe in.
Give them clear values and most of them would sort themselves out, some into alignment and others into departure. Both outcomes are better than the slow erosion of working somewhere that stands for nothing specific.
This is the scenario we encounter most often in our work, an organization that struggles to make decisions while not really having any Critics at all. They simply don't stand for anything clear enough to oppose.
The Diagnostic
The type of Critic you have is a mirror.
Clear values produce visible Critics whose departure confirms clarity. Aspirational values produce Critics who look like troublemakers but might be the most committed people you have. Absent values produce no real Critics at all, just undirected friction that never resolves because there's nothing to resolve it against.
Next week we move from individual relationships to something bigger. When Champions, Allies, Skeptics and Critics stop being your audience and become a Community. You'll know it's happening when they start talking to each other without your involvement. That's when the brand stops being yours alone.
—Steven