Author: Andrew Embry

If you mixed diet mountain dew, funk music, dragons, hip hop, superheroes, and lightning in a blender you’d end up with Andrew Embry. He is part wordsmith and part alchemist, able to use his Batman utility belt to turn anything and everything into a story worth telling that is equal parts insightful, memorable, inspiring, humorous, and entertaining. Andrew is comfortably creative in almost any setting, but especially when he is performing spoken word poetry. His enthusiasm for words comes from the way he loves people and the little nuances of life that make it worth living.

Market Research, Velvet Ropes, and Decision Criteria (2-7-18)

Last week was about market research and mitigating risk.  This week we will think about market research as it relates to decision criteria, security guards, and setting up a velvet rope.  Somewhere in our life we have all probably ran into a situation with a security guard and a velvet rope.  Security uses a velvet rope or some kind of tape to set up some parameters and borders.  The security guard then works the entrance.  They are given criteria to examine, such as a valid driver’s license.  If the person meets the criteria they are admitted.  If they do not meet the criteria they are turned away.  It’s that simple.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with market research and work for that matter.  Market research isn’t about asking questions for the sake of asking questions.  Market research is about trying to help the business make better decisions.  Over time I’ve learned that if you want to make quick, efficient, and quality decisions, you need to establish clear decision criteria.  Essentially, you need to become a security guard.  You need to set up your velvet rope and only let things through that meet that criteria.  (That’s right. I consider myself a market research bouncer.  The picture to the right is me if I lost some of my muscles.)

Embry failure and learning example.  Last month the brand team tested some new data with customers.  We had to make a decision on whether or not to share the data with customers in the market.  In the beginning of the project I didn’t set up clear decision making criteria, so we swirled a bit whenever we talked about how the research was going (#Embryfailure).  The swirling was a waste of time and didn’t get us closer to making any decisions.  Then, I finally realized that I needed to set up some decision criteria to help us decide whether this data “worked” with customers or not.  With that in mind we decided that in order for the data to “work” it would need to meet three requirements. 

  1. Accept– Customers would have to accept the data as something that could be true. 
  2. Resonate– The data had to cause customers to think more positively about Trulicity. 
  3. Implement– We had to feel confident that we could implement around any customer concerns. 

We even took it a step further to establish the criteria that would have to be met for each of those three components.  For example, for Accept customers had to accept the data could be true over all, was representative of their practice, and was high enough quality that they would accept the data as being factually accurate.  What I soon noticed was that as soon as we had clear decision criteria, it became easier to decide if something worked or not.  The decision criteria gave us a framework for making the decision and for talking about the decision.  Overall, it became a lot easier to decide whether or not we should let the data past our velvet rope and into our club (#Embrylearning).

The challenge- Think about your role.  Are you setting up clear decision criteria to help drive quick, efficient, and quality decisions? 

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Problem Definition and Asking the Right Questions (1-24-18)

Throughout my time in market research I’ve picked up on a few fundamental lessons and skills that are transferable to other situations and life in general, so this week we’ll kick off a series inspired by lessons I’ve learned while working in market research.  We’ll start this series by exploring problem definition and the idea that that you are only as good as the questions you ask.  

My car is currently making a ticking noise.  What should I do?  Should I fix it?  It depends on my understanding of the problem and its implications.  These seemingly straight forward and simple questions are actually not that simple or straight forward.  The assumption is that if something is broken I should fix it.  However, if I pause for a second and ask some questions I may not come to that conclusion.  What do I think is wrong with the car?  How big of a deal is the problem?   Why would I want to fix it?  What is the car worth?  How much would I be willing to spend on a repair before it wasn’t valuable?  In my case the car is a 10 year old Pontiac Sunfire with over 200,000 miles.  The ticking isn’t a serious problem, and instead it’s just an annoying sound.  Even if it was a serious problem, I’m running the car into the ground anyway, so it’s not worth spending the money for me.  Bottom line, I’m not going to pay to have it fixed.  However, if the car was newer and the sound was serious I might come to a different conclusion and decide to fix it.

How does this connect to work?  Over my career I’ve realized that everyone (myself included) makes a lot of assumptions about things and we often rush to fix the wrong problem or problems that don’t really matter.  It’s really easy to see some bit of data or to see a problem and instantly decide we need to do something about it.  Do you ever fall into this trap? 

In my market research role, a big chunk of my job is working with my partners to define what problems we are trying to solve and I’ve learned that I’m only as good as the questions I ask.  As a result I’ve tried to get better at pausing and thinking through things.  Instead of running in and trying to solve the problem, I’m trying to evolve to be more like, “Yes, that’s a potential problem.  How big is that problem?  Is it a problem we need to solve?  Why or why not?  Is it even a problem we think we could solve?  Do we need to solve that problem at the expense of these other problems we think we need to solve?  Are we confident we are even solving the right problem?  If I got you an answer, how would you use it to solve your problem?” 

Once we get through those questions, if we still need to solve it, then we can start trying to figure out potential solutions.  However, you’d be amazed at how often I’ve worked through those questions and I’ve come to realize I was trying to solve the wrong problem, trying to solve a problem that our customers don’t really care about, or trying to solve a problem the wrong way.

The challenge: If you are only as good as your questions, are you taking the time to ask questions to better understand and define the problem? 

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Super Bowl Commercials and Building Culture (1-17-18)

This will be the last in the series about message evolution and improving the relationships with the people we work with.  We started by thinking about being intentional with the desired feelings we want people who work with us to have.  Then, we talked about our reasons to believe, consistently executing these, and ensuring they ladder up to the beliefs we are trying to drive.  We’ll end this series by thinking about improving relationships and culture with consistent touchpoints.

I want you to imagine for a moment that you run a huge brand like Coke.  Now, I want you to imagine that you have identified what you want your audience to believe and you have figured out your reasons to believe.  You have pulled all of this together into a campaign to share the message and drive those beliefs.  Now you have to make a decision.  Would you rather have 1 big commercial for the Super Bowl with no other marketing support OR would you rather not have a presence at the Super Bowl and instead have a series of consistent touchpoints across channels throughout the year? 

For me, I’d choose the latter option.  While the Super Bowl commercial would be cool, I know that is just one touchpoint.  Also, I believe that while the commercial might boost some awareness, I’d assume my likelihood to move the audience with one commercial would be low.  Instead, I’d rather invest in multiple touchpoints throughout various channels, because I believe a story told consistently has a better chance of moving an audience than delivering the message once.

So what does this have to do with work?  I feel that we often treat culture change and relationship building like airing a commercial during a Super Bowl.  We treat it like a one-time event.  Often when we talk about culture, we talk about having some kind of offsite or some kind of meeting dedicated specifically to culture.  Then, we end up having 1 or maybe 2 of these sessions per year.  During these sessions we talk about the culture, get to know each other as a team, etc.  While we make progress during these sessions, how often do we follow-up and build off this progress?  I don’t know about you, but I’ve went through these kinds of meetings before and then asked myself, “Will anyone actually do anything with this?”  Imagine showing a Super Bowl commercial, and never doing any more marketing for the rest of the year.  It wouldn’t make any sense to do this, because it’s hard to move people with just one touchpoint.

In the Coke analogy, I made you choose one or the other.  In our work, we can have both.  I’d challenge us to think of culture evolution like a true campaign with various channels.  Some channels will be larger, like off sites and team meetings.  Some channels will be smaller, like in-person communication, emails, handwritten notes, small talk, and lunch with colleagues (I’m convinced there is something magical about eating with someone.  It’s a great way to get to know each other).  All of these channels are important, and all of these channels can accomplish different things.  The key is that all of the channels are consistently driving the feelings we want to drive.

The challenge: Are you treating building culture and relationships as one-time events or as things that require continual attention?  How are you leveraging the different channels available to you in order to drive the desired beliefs you want people to have?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Reasons to Believe and Pizza (1-10-18)

Last week we kicked off a series about marketing and being intentional to improve our relationships.  We started by identifying what desired beliefs we want to drive with each other.  This week I want us to focus more on the reasons to believe and executing those. 

After a brand chooses the desired belief they want a person to have they need to identify the reasons to believethat can drive that person to the desired belief.  These reasons to believe are the supporting points (data, images, written messaging) AND customer experiences that you could share to drive people to have that belief. 

Let’s pretend you own a pizza place and you want people to believe that your pizza is the most delicious pizza.  What would cause them to believe this?  The reasons to believe could include things like having a wide variety of pizza toppings, fresh ingredients, expert chefs, and handmade dough.  You would take these reasons to believe and turn them into a campaign that told some story like, “Our pizza has the freshest ingredients sourced from local farms.  We have the largest array of veggies, meats, artisan cheeses, and toppings to craft a pizza to your tastes.  All of our pizzas are made each morning by our chefs who studied in Italian kitchens and have brought with them their grandma’s pizza dough recipe.”  If you communicated this story well enough and the experience matched this, then people would probably believe your pizza was delicious.

You might be wondering what this has to do with work.  Last week was about being intentional about WHAT you want people to believe, and reasons to believe are the things that can help you figure out HOW you can get someone to believe something.   Essentially, what would you have to do to drive the desired feelings with your co-workers? 

Embry example.  As I mentioned last week, my desired feeling is that I want them to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I care about them and the work we do together.Over time, I’ve found that in order for people to believe I care for them I need to show them I care for them (I know your mind is now mind blown, right?).  I show people I care for them by actively listening, seeking to understand people and their stories, recognizing them for their contributions, and giving people usable and constructive feedback.  The way in which I go about doing those things can include face to face conversations, hand written notes, sending memes, sharing articles I think they’d be interested in, etc.  Throughout my career I’ve found that if I am INTENTIONAL and CONSISTENTLY do those things, then most people will eventually come to realize that I care about them and the work we do together. 

The challenge: What are things you need to do to drive your desired belief with people?  Are you CONSISTENTLY doing the things that will drive a person to feel how you would like them to feel?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Being Intentional and Driving Desired Beliefs with each other (1-3-18)

Happy New Year!  I hope you had a relaxing and enjoyable holiday season.  As we begin 2018 I’m sure we have various goals that we would like to accomplish.  I’d like to kick-off the year with a blog series focused on goals that involve the people side of things.  In particular I want us to think about setting goals to improve the relationships we have with the people around us.  I’d like us to do this by looking at how intentional we are about the marketing process and applying that to how we interact with each other.

Marketing is all about understanding and influencing people’s beliefs to help them find solutions to their problems.  Recently, I did some message evolution work with my wonderful brand, market research, and creative agency partners.  Message evolution work is about deciding what are the DESIRED beliefs you want a specific group of customers to have and then deciding what REASONS TO BELIEVE (think of supporting points like data, science, images, written messaging, etc.) you could share to drive people to have that belief.  You then test these concepts and use what you learn to create campaigns and stories that drive those desired beliefs.  All of this requires discipline and the team being intentional about choosing which desired beliefs they want to drive. 

Let’s think about a real world example.  Think of Ford Mustangs.  What do they want you to believe about Ford Mustangs?  Look at the image I pulled from Google about the Mustang and the message it conveys.  To me this suggests that they want you to believe something like, “Mustangs show the world that you are successful, tough, and driven.”  Think of Subaru.  What do they want you to believe?  Look at the image.  Subaru wants you to believe that Subarus are safe and reliable.  These campaigns both started with the brands identifying what desired beliefs they wanted to drive, and then they could try to drive those desired beliefs with images, text, etc.

What does this have to do with anything?  Instead of thinking about brands, let’s go in a slightly different direction.  Much like a brand, when we interact with people we cause them to feel a certain way.  What desired feeling are you trying to drive with the people you work with?  Seriously, pause for a moment and give the answer to that question a thought.  Do you have an answer?  How intentional are you about trying to make people feel that way? 

In case you’re wondering, here is the primary feeling I’m trying to create with people.  I want them to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I care about them and the work we do together.I want them to know I care about them and our work, because I believe if they know I care about them we will have a better working relationship and we will be able to do amazing work, which will help more patients.

The challenge: If we want our relationships to evolve, we need to be intentional about the feelings we are trying to create with the people we work with.  What feeling are you trying to drive?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Market Research, being a Stunt Person, and Assessing Risk (1-31-18)

Last week we kicked off a series on lessons learned from market research by reflecting on problem definition and the questions we ask.  This week I want us to think about market research, being a stunt person, and taking risks.

Let’s pretend that you are a well-trained stunt person for action movies (I know this is my real life, but might be a stretch for some of you).  You know in this upcoming movie you’ll be doing a lot of jumping and falls and things.  Do you need a parachute?  The answer is, “It depends.” (See what I did there, tying it back to the first blog in the series).  If you’re jumping out of a plane for a scene, then yes you need a parachute.  If you are jumping off of a balcony or something, the parachute wouldn’t be necessary, but maybe you’d want some kind of foam padding to land on.  If you were doing some chase scene on foot where you were just jumping over stationary objects, you probably wouldn’t need anything.  In this example, the equipment you would need to keep you safe is dependent on the risk you are incurring.  The bigger the risk, the more likely you need something to help you mitigate that risk. 

You’re probably wondering how being a stunt person ties back to work.  Mitigating risk is what we do in market research.  What I’ve found over time is that the impulse is to try and eliminate ALL risk.  The impulse is to always do more and more market research to justify and support every situation.  The impulse is to wait until you know every small little thing before ever taking action.  If you think of the example above, the impulse is to give everyone parachutes, even though this doesn’t always make sense.  While I understand and have given in to this impulse from time to time, I also know that no matter what we do we CAN’T eliminate ALL risk.  Do you ever feel this way?  Do you ever feel like you have to do so much additional stuff to eliminate ALL risk before you can take action?

Here’s the difficult part, and the thing I’m still working on.  The difficult part is being able to look at the situation and gauge an accurate estimate of what the risk is, so I can respond accordingly.  Sometimes we are jumping off into the great unknown, so a parachute is needed.  Most of the time though, we know more than we realize and it’s a matter of pulling those thoughts together to guide us or having the faith that we know enough to act.  After all, we’re all well trained stunt people, and I’m pretty sure we are tough enough to take on a few bumps and bruises along the way.

The challenge:  Are you honestly assessing the risks you faced or are you always trying to get a parachute for a street chase?  Are you focused on mitigating OR eliminate risk?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Island of Misfit Toys and not Fitting the Mold (12-6-17)

Last week we looked at Prep and Landing and the importance of everyone doing their part.  This week I want us to reflect on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  More specifically, I want us to think about the Island of Misfit Toys.

In case you’re not familiar with the story of Rudolph let me give you a synopsis.  Essentially, it’s a story of misfits.  Rudolph is a misfit because his nose glows red.  Hermey is a misfit, because he is an elf who wants to be a dentist instead of a toy maker.  Rudolph and Hermey run away and end up on the Island of Misfit Toys.  The island is home to toys who don’t exactly work in the typical way and/or toys that look different from the norm.  For example, there is a train with square wheels, a polka dotted elephant, and a Charlie-in-the-Box (instead of a Jack-in-the-box).  Eventually, everyone realizes that even though Rudolph and his friends are “misfits” they are still good people.  Even though the toys might be different, they can still bring joy to children.  By the end of the show, people finally begin to accept them for who they are.

You might already be making some connections between this story and life.  The way I think about it, we are all humans, which means to some degree we are all misfits or at least we have all felt like we didn’t fit in at some point in our lives.  If you connect this idea to work, it means we aren’t all going to fit the mold and that’s okay.  Even if you don’t fit “the mold” you can still be great at whatever you do.  I work in market research and am amazed at how talented everyone is and how different we all are.  While we are all different from each other, we are all able to help the business define problems, understand customers, and make decisions.  In my case, I might be a polka dotted elephant, but my polka dotted elephantness works for me.  In the same token, I know all kind of people in sales, operations, HR, legal, medical, regulatory, etc. who are great for different reasons.  We all have our own idiosyncrasies, strengths, and styles that shape us and enable us to be successful.

Another connection can be made if you look at life in a broader sense.  Just because we are misfits doesn’t mean we are undeserving of love.  The thing that has always bothered me the most about Rudolph is that a lot of people treated him like garbage, because his nose glowed.  It’s not because Rudolph was a jerk.  It’s not because Rudolph was an uncaring animal.  It’s because his nose glowed.  We are all misfits.  We all deserve love and we all should give love to everyone else.

The challenge: Are you embracing your inner misfit?  Are you giving love to the people around you?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Prep and Landing and Playing our Roles (11-29-17)

We are entering the home stretch.  Many of us just have a few weeks of work left in the year.  For these last few weeks I’d like to share some thoughts inspired by various Christmas specials that I watch with my family every year.  This week we will look at Prep and Landing and the importance of everyone doing their part.  Spoiler alert.  This blog will reveal plot details of the show.  By the way, this week’s blog is inspired by Anshu who suggested last year we do something on Prep and Landing.

Prep and Landing focuses on an elite group of elves that prepare every house for Santa’s arrival, so he can get in and out as effectively as possible.  After all, Santa can’t do everything on his own.  Instead, this group of elves preps the roof so Santa can land with his sleigh and ensures the children are sleeping, the dogs are friendly, the cookies are ready to eat, there is room for the presents, and stuff like that.  The story centers around Wayne, one of the prep and landing elves who has been doing that job for hundreds of years.  Over time he becomes disenfranchised with the work and begins to feel that the work he does isn’t valued and he’s not valued. 

As a result of not feeling valued, Wayne doesn’t take the job seriously on Christmas Eve.  There is a crazy snowstorm, and since Wayne hasn’t prepped the landing site it doesn’t look like Santa will be able to stop at Timmy’s house to give him a present.  The situation looks dire, but luckily Wayne and his partner find a way to pull through and save the day.  On Christmas morning Timmy is seen saying, “Thanks Wayne” as he opens his gift.  Wayne sees this through the magic snow globe and finally realizes how important his work is.

How does this connect with work?  I don’t know about you, but I’ve felt like Wayne before.  It’s easy to get lost when you are working in a place that’s so large.  It’s easy to wonder if what you do matters.  It’s easy to wonder if what you do has an impact.  If you ever feel like this I’d challenge you to take a step back to see what you are a part of.  Think about our business for a minute.  In order to turn an idea for a therapy into a drug and then to get that medicine to patients requires thousands of people, steps, and hand-offs along the way.  If any of those things don’t go well we aren’t able to help the people we serve.  For this to work we need everyone using their strengths and doing their thing.  The fact is, whatever piece you are in all of this, you are an important piece.

The challenge: Are you helping other people see how valuable they are and how important the role they play is?  By the way, In case someone hasn’t told you lately, thanks for what you do.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Short-term Sacrifices and Long-term Gain (11-22-17)

This will be the final entry in our series on time.  I know this was quick, but as they say, “Time flies when you are having fun.”  There’s a time for everything, and that includes bad jokes 😉  Anyway, we started by challenging ourselves to think about how we CHOOSE to invest our time.  Last week we thought about investing time in people.  This week I want us to think about saving money as it relates to saving time. 

Most of us have learned about saving money since we were little kids.  If you were anything like me, I had a piggy bank where I saved my allowance.  From there, I moved up to my first savings account.  Now, I have other savings vehicles like a 401k.  One of the things I’ve learned over time is that saving money is hard and there aren’t any shortcuts.  Saving money is not complicated, but it’s difficult.  It’s difficult because saving money requires you to have discipline to consistently put money away.  It also requires you to make a short-term sacrifice for long-term gains.  I know that if I don’t save now, I’ll be in trouble as I get older. 

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with work.  As I mentioned, saving money requires discipline and the willingness to sacrifice short-term for long-term gain.  I don’t know about you, but I’m not always great at having the discipline and investing the time to do things right the first time.  How often have you taken a shortcut at work that then caused more problems later on?  Maybe you didn’t set aside the time so you could really think through something, so when it was time to make a decision you weren’t prepared.  Maybe you didn’t take the time to create a clear communication plan, and instead just sent off a quick email that created more swirl.  Whatever the situation is, these issues occur because we don’t always have the discipline to invest our time appropriately.  We don’t always have the discipline to make a short-term sacrifice, which results in long-term problems that we can’t afford to have.

The challenge: Are you being disciplined enough to invest time now to save yourself from problems in the future?  How can you do a better job of creating short-term sacrifices for long-term gains?

By the way, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I hope you take the time to unplug and be with friends and family.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Investing Time in People (11-15-17)

Last week we kicked off a series on time and focused on spending time vs. spending money.  This week I’d like to challenge us to think about how we are choosing to invest our time in people.

Let’s pretend for a minute that you walked into the office and you saw a nickel on the ground.  You picked it up and put it in your pocket.  Later on when you see me, for grins and giggles you say, “I found this nickel.  It’s yours!”  Then you flip it in my direction.  I catch the nickel and say thanks.  Then, I say, “This is yours,” and I flip a dime over to you.  I walk away before you can ask me why I flipped you a dime.  A few days later you find a dime on the ground, you go through the same thing, and after you toss me the dime I toss you back a quarter.  You decide to keep experimenting and very quickly, you realize that if you give me money I’ll give you MORE money back than you give me.  It’s doesn’t matter if you give me a penny or $100 bill.  If you give me money, I’ll give you more back.  Besides trying to figure out why this is happening, what are you bound to do next?  I’m sure you would become very intentional about handing me money on a regular basis, so you could reap the reward from that “investment”.

What does this have to do with work?  The above situation is a winning situation for you, because you get MORE than what you give.  What if you could have the same situation at work?  I think you can.  Instead of giving someone coins you found on the floor, what if you spent a few minutes intentionally investing in them?  Your investments could be different things.  Maybe the investment is recognition, and your investment is a few seconds to send a nice email/text/note to someone to let them know you appreciate them.  Maybe the investment is giving some feedback to help them get better.  Maybe you take time out of your day to coach/mentor someone.  Whatever this looks like, you are taking your time and investing it in another person, and that investment is bound to turn into something.

How have you felt when someone invested time in you?  How did that change your relationship with that person?  How did that impact the work you did?  From my experience, the best leaders and people I’ve worked with have been the ones who have invested time in me in one way, shape, or form.  Sometimes the time they invested in me was a short few seconds and sometimes it was longer.  When people invested in me I did my best to give them back more and more.  As our relationship continued the time they invested in me became like a savings account that kept accruing interest.  If I feel like you are investing and invested in me I’ll give you hours of my life.  I’ll give you my energy.  I’ll give you my magic.  I’d hope that those things are worth more than the original investment of time that people placed in me. 

The challenge: Are you investing your time in people?  If I asked the people around you if you consistently invested in them, what would they say?

Take action: Invest time in someone today.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry