Mark Miller - Legacy in the Making: Building a Long-Term Brand to Stand Out in a Short-Term World

Howard Schultz, executive chairman and former CEO of Starbucks Coffee Co., often is quoted as saying, When youre surrounded by people who share a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible. The necessity of surrounding yourself with others who believe the way you do in the pursuit of bringing something meaningful to life was brought to the fore for us, as authors, in writing Legacy in the Making. This book would not have been possible without the dedicated team of contributors and supporters, all those believers and coauthors who gave so much of themselves in the spirit of helping to move our work forward.

For those who love a good origin story, the concept for this book was born in early June 2016, when some of the founding members of The Legacy Lab gathered around a conference room table to organize key themes and ideas from research that was already years in the making: Adrian Barrow, Chris Graves, Heather Hogan, and Lauren Mabuni. Our siren call was to honor the stories and lessons shared with us by leaders and to spark future stories and lessons by passing our accumulated knowledge forward. For the next 18 monthsover many long days, nights, and weekendsAdrian, Chris, Heather, and Lauren each contributed countless hours researching, thinking, and ideating on the book to help shape the way the business leaders of today and tomorrow would look at the subject of legacy anew.

Over the course of researching and writing, a critical core of extended team members contributed boundless energy, creativity, and smarts in support of Legacy in the Making. Ami Barber, Alison Beck, Emily Chidester, Rachel Crain, Chris DRozario, Meredith Gruen, Jamie Kerr, Melanie Lee, Nathan Manchester, Howard Moggs, Tera Morris, David Peake, Steve Sapka, Robert Sedlack, Meg Seiler, Nick Vianna, and Helen Zuliani. Each brought unique skills to the team, but it was their selfless approach and above-and-beyond input across many stages of creating this book that made their contributions not only helpful but essential. This team of core supporters treated Legacy in the Making as a calling beyond a job, and we couldnt have been more fortunate to have them working at our side.

Although the words in this book tell a lot of the story, the visualization of those words helps reveal even more. The design thinking in Legacy in the Making was contributed by Sophia Arriola-Gibson, Brian Doyle, Adrienne Ford, Matt Hartz, Tim Meraz, and the group at Sawdust. More than lending artistry and illustration, all the designers who worked on the book brought conceptual thinking to their submissions, at times motivating the writing to help amplify their concepts rather than the other way around. As the notion of looking at legacy as something that is perpetually unfolding is a newer idea, it took a group of designers with the imagination to see the future and the talent to communicate it clearly for us to succeed.

Significantly, neither The Legacy Labs body of work nor the Legacy in the Making book would be here if not for the continued support of key members of the leadership team at Publicis Groupes Team One: Julie Michael, Kurt Ritter, and Michael Webb. At a time when many conventional advertising agencies emphasize offering similar services to keep up with the times, Julie, Kurt, and Michael have made a sustained investment in thought leadership, including the study and practice of modern legacy making, to lead the industry forward. For these agency leaders, modern legacy making is more than a new marketing idea; it is also a lifelong commitment to working with brands that seek to make an enduring difference through their work.

From the moment they accepted our proposal, all the way through, to editing and publishing, the team at McGraw-Hill Education championed the premise of Legacy in the Making. Donya Dickerson and Cheryl Ringer were the first to review and approve andalong with Pattie Amoroso, Maureen Harper and everyone at McGraw-Hill Educationalways treated our subject matter and writing as something with importance. They didnt just buy our book, they bought into our way of looking at legacy as something forever in the making. In turn, we are proud to say that they arent just our publishing partner but are also part of our team of believers.

Fundamentally, this book is a celebration of leadersfounders, cofounders, and refoundersbuilding brands that are making a long-term impact in a short-term world. The leadership stories weve gathered over many years have made a lasting impression on us as authors, gifts that we aim to pass forward to you, our readers. For all their contributions to our research and writing, we wanted to acknowledge the leaders celebrated in this book who have shared their stories with us: Brent Bushnell, Yvon Chouinard, Deb Dugan, Christopher Gavigan, Craig Hatkoff, Herv Humler, Chris Kay, Toni Ko, Amy Kurland, Alwyn Hight Kushner, Richard Lewis, Kurt Listug, Ted Molter, Erika Wollam Nichols, Reshma Saujani, Dan Savage, Brendan Shanahan, Mark Templin, Franois Thibault, Mikaila Ulmer, and Alan Webber. Thank you for building the kinds of brands whose legacies are perpetually inspiring and in the making.

Thank you also to all those key supporters at each of the brands represented in Legacy in the Making for providing open access to their organizations and leaders: Arjorie Arong, Jerry Brown, Huw Davies, Marla del Rosario, Maria Diaz, Mike Dunn, Elaine Fintel, Lori Hoffman, Rita Hoffman, Lisa Holladay, Nancy Hubbell, Steve Keogh, Hilary Kinney, Jim Kirlin, Rachel Mandel, Grace Martinez, Monica Michel, Alexandra Miller, Tim OBrien, Kelly Parisi, Laura Patterson, Johnny Perkins, Brian Pines, Natalie Raabe, Emily Schienvar, Joanne Simons, Christina Simmons, Allison Sitch, Nick Teare, Michael Tripp, DAndra Ulmer, Theo Ulmer, Mauricio Vergara, Jonathan Yepez, and Annabelle Withers. To bring so many stories to life all in one book took the dedicated support of so many other people who, on top of their daily responsibilities, gave to this book as if it were one of their core responsibilities. These supporters have been with us on each step of the journey from interviewing and writing to fact checking, always helping to make the impossible possible.

Going back to when The Legacy Lab began as a pure academic exploration, before it was called The Legacy Lab or before there was an idea to write a book, there was an entrepreneurial team of bright thinkers and makers who invested in this subject with a real passion: Laura Albers, Rudi Anthony, Leandro Arroyo, Rachel Bensimon, Jennie DuMonde, Ashleigh Edwards, Elaine Evangelista, Lisamarie Gaulin, Jen Grant, Kevin Helms, Shane Herr, Angela Jones, Nikole Knak, Susanna Leighton, Karen Link, Kari Niessink-Takai, Sophie Ozoux, Scholastica Park, Matt Reamer, Rosheila Robles, Alex Sharkey, Kevin Shuster, Julie Smith, Angela Stowers, Mary Toves, Davide Vismara, Mena Xiong, Jacky Yang, Joanna Young, and Yisha Zhang. We would be remiss in recounting the origins of Legacy in the Making if we did not acknowledge those who contributed to its foundations. Had it not been for their investment of time and energy, this work would have persisted as an unexamined thesisa dream and not a reality. There was also an important senior-level leadership team that saw the potential in our research, that invested in our work to help grow it from a pilot into a proper lab: Bill Cochrane, Paul Mareski, and Kevin Roberts. Legacy in the Making has roots that go all the way back to those leaders who had the vision to understand the contemporary meaning of legacy in a modern context.

In addition to those who affected this book directly, there was a team that supported and motivated us at various stages in the writing process, among them academic minds, business visionaries, and thought leaders such as Caley Cantrell, Mick Ebeling, Alex Gordon, Lisa Hughes, Adi Ignatius, Joseph Michelli, Adam Morgan, Tiffany Pham, B. Joseph Pine II, Bob Safian, Eric Schurenberg, Brian Sheehan, Simon Sinek, Jim Stengel and Brian Sweeney. Each, in their own way, was able to add a layer of wisdom that inspired us along in pursuit of our ambition to share all that we were learning.