Bob Lutz, former vice chairman of General Motors, has just released his book "Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business".  I'm not reading it.

The title says it all - an internally focused, internally embattled company that just cannot get beyond their own corporate walls.  If there is a battle for the soul of American business - and I think there is definitely a battle - it's about shareholders.  The battle that I'm concerned about is the one that pits serving customers against serving shareholders against serving employees. 

It seems that the group that is best organized seems to win in this battle.  Shareholders are very well organized.  Sometimes employees are well organized - at least certain groups of them.  Rarely are customers organized, but they still have concrete ways of making themselves heard in loyalty and defection rates.

I still hold fast to the notion that the best way to serve shareholders is to serve customers and employees well.  Balancing what's valued by customers with what's valued by employees creates a virtuous structure that creates organic growth possibilities. 

Sadly, organic growth can't hold a candle to an attractive merger, acquisition, or divestiture.  Nothing like a big transaction to get the organized shareholders and their financial advisors all happy with themselves.  Nevermind the well documented poor track record of these transactions just a short time later.

I think it would be cool if we could figure out a way to create a balance of power in business that achieves something like the balance of power in US government.  Not that I'm asking the government to figure it out, but that somehow we could breathe life into the loftier notions of what it means to run a sustainable enterprise.

I'd read a book about that topic.

Have you noticed the devolution happening in advertising to men?  It's been mildly annoying to see so many brands embrace the idea of their customers as lowbrow - cretins who drink copious amounts of beer, are single-mindedly focused on sports, are physically unattractive, are poorly dressed - and kind of stupid.  The trend to elevate this dismal portrayal of men as not only real, but worthy, is just as hard to swallow as the days of June and Ward Cleaver.

The latest ad from Klondike offers a prize to the husband who endures 5 seconds of listening to his wife.  I read a couple of reviews that found this deeply misogynist, but I found it deeply the opposite.  (Actually there's a word to describe hating men, but misandrist just doesn't seem to fit.)  What kind of brand - what kind of ice cream lover - are we observing here?

There was a period of time when the word aspirational found its way into most brand positioning and creative meetings.  Then the word authentic began to emerge.  I just don't see the authenticity in the Klondike ad, and in many of the portrayals in TV advertising.  It's like "The Hangover" - it's just a big joke, isn't it?  But I'm not laughing.

Contrast that "humor" with the wildly popular ABC sitcom "Modern Family".

"Just when we were thinking it couldn't be done, ABC's "Modern Family" has single-handedly brought the family comedy back from the dead.

All the performances are terrific, but what makes "Modern Family" work is its relentless portrayal of recognizable family life. Creators Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd...have given us a comedy that is sharp but not cruel, amused but not judgmental. It's hard not to see yourself, or your mother, or your kids, or your sibling, reflected clearly in one scene at least, and to laugh out loud anyway." - Mary McNamara, LA Times

Marketers and agencies may be focused on what gets noticed, and what sells, but "Modern Family" gives us all reason to aim higher.  It's not only terrific work, it's commercially successful.  Let's not settle for less.