Micah Harris Jones is a brand strategist and creative director building strategies that engender belonging and invite co-creation. His work focuses on brand positioning, visual identity systems and user experience design.

How I lead

1. 01

   Culture is the first thing I make.

   Teams learn how to behave by watching the people who lead them. So before the first brief, I work on the basics: how we give feedback, how we handle a miss, who gets heard in a meeting. Healthy teams are more capable of delivering on a brand promise.

2. 02

   Care personally, challenge directly.

   Kim Scott’s Radical Candor was a game-changer for me. I take the time to know the people I work with, and that trust lets me be direct with them. Feedback comes early, with a clear reason behind it, and I ask for the same in return.

3. 03

   Build systems people can use without me.

   A brand shows up in thousands of places I’ll never see or have a hand in creating. Clear guidelines, templates and tools let every team get it right without constant oversight.

4. 04

   Invite co-creation early.

   People care about what they help make. That’s true for audiences, and it’s true for the product, retail and partner teams who do the hard work of brand building. I bring them in while the work is still rough enough to change.