Grant McCracken‘s book, Chief Culture Officer, makes a bold declaration: corporations must institutionalize the study of culture in order to make things that resonate better with consumers. He proposes doing this by creating a new C-level executive: the CCO. The CCO is responsible for keeping the corporation in touch with culture, and to find ways to align the corporation with the culture of the moment. In that way, the corporation can affectively integrate with larger cultural moments, connect in an authentic way, and increase its own profits.
This framework sounds wondrous: the public gets a corporation more attuned to what they want. The corporation gets a larger customer base. And the CCO gets to sit on top of the pile.
But, you know what they say about things that seem too good to be true, right? The sad reality is that the type of role that McCracken defines would surely be doomed to failure. Continue reading “Chief Culture Officer: Nice Work If You Can Get It”