To Make Common

As our partner and colleague Mariam Haddad (The Performance Communication Company) often reminds us – communicare is the Latin verb for “to make common”.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in King Chapel at Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa, on Oct. 15, 1962. In a speech he said,

As a marketer I spend my life drawing out the differences in brands and what I’ve found time and time again was an ah-ha moment as I was writing this post. When getting down to the essence of any brand, the values of the company are its bedrock. I know this is cliche, but it is true. Great companies not only understand this but importantly, are great because of this. It’s not that they took a look at what values make a great brand and then decided “oh, let’s be that”. Rather, it is that they took a look at what makes them great and found it was their values.

Here’s the irony I found this morning. It’s the similarities I’ve discovered not the differences between these great brands. In so many cases it is the value of their people; their employees, their suppliers, their clients – the humans that these brands interact with every day – that they value the most. They care about opinions and diversity of thought. They make others feel heard and part of the family. They share and translate the goals and mission of the company. They are good communicators because they ‘make common”.

One parting thought. As I was driving home from a client meeting in Austin last week, I heard an old, but familiar song on the radio that gave me pause to really listen to the lyrics. I’ve replayed it over and over since then. I’ll share it with you now.

Everything Is Beautiful

Ray Stevens

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Red and yellow, black and white
They are precious in his sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world

Everything is beautiful in it’s own way
Like a starry summer night
On a snow covered winter’s day
And everybody’s beautiful in their own way
Under God’s Heaven
The world’s gonna find the way

There is none so blind
As He who will not see
We must not close up minds
We must let our thoughts be free

For every hour that passes by
You know the world gets a little bit older
It’s time to realize that people lies
In the eyes of the beholder

And everything is beautiful in its own way
Like a starry summer night
On a snow covered winter’s day, ah, sing it children
Everybody’s beautiful in their own way
Under God’s Heaven
The world’s gonna find a way

We shouldn’t care about the length of His hair
Of the color of His skin
Don’t worry about what shows from without
But the love that lives within

And we’re gonna get old again now
Everything is gonna work out fine
Just take a little time to the look on the good side my friend
And spittle in out in your mind

And everything is beautiful in it’s own way
Like a starry summer night
On a snow covered winter’s day, ah, sing it children
Everybody’s beautiful in their own way
Under God’s Heaven
The world’s gonna find a way, one more time

Everything is beautiful in its own way
Like a starry summer night
On a snow covered winter’s day

How wonderful would this world be if we sought out our commonalities instead of our differences?