Following the tracks to Brand Integrity

A year ago, I didn’t know exactly where I was going. I only knew I needed to start following the tracks.

That turned out to be enough.

This week is nearly the anniversary of a workshop I took in Santa Fe with Richard Leider called Unlocking the Power of Purpose.

The workshop was about finding your own purpose, and I went into it carrying an idea I had been playing with for years. I had even given the idea a name — Upstream on Purpose — around the notion of working with companies on theirs.

I’d been circling that idea for probably eight years while continuing to consult and work in branding. I kept coming back to it, but I never really had the time or energy to focus on it.

It was a little like having a lump of clay sitting on the side of the table. Every once in a while I’d pick it up, turn it around, press on it a little, and wonder what it might become.

But it wasn’t really taking shape.

One of the things the workshop helped me see was that I didn’t need to have the whole thing figured out before I started. I didn’t need the final model, the language, or even a clear route.

I needed to pay attention to what kept pulling me back.

This past year gave me the freedom and space to do that in a way I hadn’t before — to think seriously about my own purpose, what kind of work I want to do, and what I seem unable to stop thinking about.

I’ll admit that I often felt as if I were falling behind. I wanted to jump in, launch something, and get moving. But almost every time I talked with someone new, tested an assumption, or explored a new tool — including AI — I realized there was still something I needed to understand before rushing ahead.

And somewhere along the way, the idea started to get more specific.

What I had been calling “purpose” turned out not to be quite the thing.

Purpose still matters. But as a business concept, it can be so broad that it becomes hard to get hold of.

What I kept coming back to was something more concrete: brand integrity.

Whether what a company says it stands for, what it actually does, and what people experience still line up as the company grows and changes.

That feels much closer to the work I’ve been trying to find.

At the Santa Fe workshop, Richard talked about leading safaris and used lion tracking as a metaphor. He recommended The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life, and one phrase from veteran trackers has stayed with me:

“I don’t know where we are going, but I know exactly how to get there.”

The lion tracker knows what he’s looking for. He just doesn’t know the route in advance. He follows the tracks in front of him and lets those determine where he goes next.

That is probably the best description I have for this past year.

It has felt slow at times and incredibly fast at others. I’ve done a lot of work, changed my mind more than once, followed ideas that went nowhere, and had other conversations that suddenly clarified something I’d been struggling to articulate.

A lot of people have helped me along the way, too — by asking hard questions, offering encouragement, making introductions, challenging assumptions, and simply being willing to talk something through with me. I’m very grateful for that.

I’m getting ready now to start sharing more of the thinking that has come out of this work — around brand integrity, brand drift, leadership alignment, and what happens to a company’s promise as it grows and changes.

I still don’t know exactly where all of this will lead.

But I think I know how to get there.