OK, so it’s a little difficult to extract this week’s obvious marketing lesson out of Mad Men. But I think I was able to take something away from it.
Episode 403, “The Good News,” starts giving us a little bit more on each of the characters. Joan wants kids, but her husband’s probably headed for Vietnam. Don’s en route to Acapulco, but just U-turns to New York after finding out Anna has cancer. And Lane is separated from his wife.
And I think it’s Lane that’s going to give us our lesson this week. At least the first half of it.
How Dropping Your Guard Works
Lane begins the episode claiming to Joan that he is the “incorruptible exception” in regards to her voluptuous ways. He nears the end of the episode all alone in the office for New Year’s. Then Don surprisingly shows up. Given the situation, Lane almost refreshingly drops his guard a bit.
He offers Don a drink.
He confesses that it’s been a magnificent year.
He joins Don for dinner, confessing that his wife has left him.
He accepts, after second thought, Don’s invitation to have a couple prostitutes join them for the night. You can fill in the blanks after that.
We’re given no reason by the end of the episode to think Lane has regretted this decision, but I’m willing to bet it’s coming. And it’s going to work against him in a terrible way.
Denying Your Principles
We all have opportunities to let our guard down with our colleagues. And I’m not talking about sinking to prostitution (Lord help us!). I’m talking about the little ways we can let our guards down. A loose tongue. A gripe session. An exaggerated ego. An inappropriate dealing with a subordinate in a way that could undermine your authority.
Being human, we like to be liked. And that can get us into some trouble at points. Our principles will always be challenged. And the thing with keeping principles is that it doesn’t matter if they’re considered right or wrong; it’s the simple act of keeping them that matters. When you fall short of your own principles, especially in the presence of colleagues, it shows a chink in your armor.
We all have flaws. Obvious ones. So it’s silly to think we can hide them all. But it’s also silly to put ourselves in situations where the odds of exposing those flaws is increased.
Lane, in a moment of both weakness and wanting to be liked, denied his principles and took on Don’s (if you want to call them that). And it will come back to bite him.
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Being a former corporate HR escapee, I can tell you a lot of the office drama was resulted from communications that were misinterpreted or taken out of context. We’re always responsible for our words and actions. Being self-aware helps us to think about what we’re going to say before we say it. This is where I see Twitter and Facebook can get some people into trouble.
Janette
Ooh, didn’t even think about the Twitter/Facebook implications of dropping your guard. A lot easier to do and a lot more common. I’m guilty, myself.
Yes I have been guilty of this too. Fortunately or unfortunately, the corporate environment is unforgiving and your words usually come back to bite you in the butt. That’s a good thing if you learn from your mistake and learn to be more cautious. Of course it’s a bad thing if the lesson has to be repeated again and again.
I can’t tell you how many people I have had to ‘unfollow’ on Twitter because ‘words got in the way’. Just today, I unfollowed a lady with otherwise very good information but kinda got carried away with inappropriate references to body parts! (Yikes). It’ll be interesting to see how the conversations on Twitter evolve – there’s definitely a lack of caution there.
With Facebook, the conversation is easier to control and words not so misused because you have your brand to think about – and it’s the reason you have a fan page in the first place.
Interesting article Brett. Always love to read you!
Yeah, Twitter can really expose “foot in mouth disease” pretty easily. I’ve had similar things happen: you otherwise like the stuff the person you’re following has done (either professionally or in person), but you can’t stand they’re tweeting. Guy Kawasaki comes to mind for me. Love his genius and passion for marketing, but can’t stand following him (so I dropped him over a year ago). He’s obviously not hurting because of it, but I just couldn’t take any more.