February 14th, 2008

I just finished reading the wonderful book The Velveteen Principles: A Guide to Becoming Real, by Toni Raiten-D’Antonio. It’s not a long book, easy to read on a long plane ride, that does not (as I had first feared when picking it up off a bookstore shelf) devolve into psychobabble - even though the author is a psychotherapist. While it could’ve used some grounding in theology to go along with its plucky psychology, the book does a great job of drawing out, as its second sub-title attests, “Hidden Wisdom from the Children’s Classic”. It is in many ways a less contemplative but more applicable companion to William Ian Miller’s terrific Faking It.

You probably know of The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, even if you haven’t read it. It is the tale of a rabbit (sorry, I couldn’t resist. . . .) - a stuffed bunny covered in soft, cheap velveteen - that feels most inadequate compared with all the shiny, seemingly important, and often quite expensive toys in a little boy’s nursery. Guided by a wise, old Skin Horse, the Velveteen Rabbit perseveres through various trials, eventually becoming quite loved by the boy - to the point of its faux fur being rubbed almost bare - until it becomes what its mentor had guided it toward all along: becoming Real.

I read The Velveteen Principles in the hope that it would provide some guidance for businesses in their own quest to become Real, and I was not disappointed. First, we can add this psychological book to all of the philosophical works that Jim and I read in the writing of Authenticity from which we can discern the 3M Model we discuss in Chapter 5.

This framework simply says that authenticity, negatively defined, is that which is Not of Man, Not of Machine, and Not of Money.

It’s all right there from the very first chapter on. After all, the villains of Williams’ story are the mechanical [of Machine] toys that, as Raiten-D’Antonio notes, “value only mechanical perfection and the most modern ideas” (p. 43). She relates these to people who “always do what is expected of them” (p. 17), following the dictums of society [of Man] because “our culture values those who conform” (ibid). Indeed (p. 43 again), “Society’s one-size-fits-all recipe for success disconnects us from what is Real. It forces us into roles that ignore our individuality and require us to reject what is Real in other people.”

And the villain in Raiten-D’Antonio’s story is what she calls the United States of Generica (shades of Richard Florida!), or U.S. of G. Or, more exactly, its “media mouthpieces. . . . promising you that certain Objects (clothes, bear, breath mints) will make you happy” (p. 19). Her other word for such an Object: “a purchase” [of Money]. These Objects are the very “opposite of Real”, and people like that have gone through a process of “self-objectification” (p. 15), or what in regards to economic offerings we would call commodification. But as the Skin Horse explains (p. 5, quoting from Williams’ original book):

   “Real isn’t how you’re made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to
   you. When a child loves you for a long, long time not just to play with, but
   REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

So it is with economic offerings. They become real. We as consumers make them real, make them real for us, at least, when we identify them as conforming to our own identity. [As an aside, we could even say that the Velveteen Rabbit took the Fake-real route to authenticity via the strategy of Create Belief. As Raiten-D’Antonio points out, “Eventually the Velveteen Rabbit came to believe he was Real, and this belief spurred his transformation” (p. 29).]

Until I came across the part about Objects and objectification (p. 21), I was worried that the author would surely abhor how I was taking her book, aimed at people in need (primarily those who treat themselves as Objects), and applying the Velveteen Principles to businesses and their economic offerings. But then in this section I came across the same sort of diatribe against modern marketing and especially advertising that Jim and I wrote in Chapter 8, going so far there as to call advertising a “phoniness-generating machine”.

And here’s exactly where the greatest learning happened for me. We define authenticity in business as “conformance to self-image” - that what consumers choose to buy must reflect who they are and who they aspire to be in relation to how they perceive the world. Well, the opposite of real, then, is self-conformance to brand image - getting people to change who they are to match what a company wants to promote as its own brand attributes. That’s what advertising tries to do, relentlessly, pervasively, mercilessly.

If you want your economic offerings to be perceived as real, then stop trying to get them to conform to your advertised images, and start creating places where people can discover how your offerings conform to their own self-image. That is the way to take your Objects and make them Real to your customers.