You've booked a romantic table for two at Nando’s, picked up some flowers from the petrol station and even presented a mouthwatering box of Milk Tray - congratulations on your very efficient and optimised Valentine’s Day. 

Unfortunately, life (and love) won't always appreciate your optimised efficiency and has messy, unpredictable and sometimes unfathomable tendencies. 

I’m going to echo the words of the great Peter Drucker and say I don't feel much love for the the obsession with efficiency and optimisation. Why? Because businesses tend to pick a proxy target - usually something that is measurable and quantifiable - and pursue it with feverish lust, like a dog on heat. 

In marketing terms, this is like saying that if you optimise your performance marketing, you will magically optimise your brand marketing. Everyone in their right mind knows this isn’t true. If you really want to optimise the whole, you have to optimise the sub parts - and that means the bits that are tricky to quantify too. 

BOOK YOUR PLACE ON MAD//MASTERS THIS APRIL

HOW MAD//MASTERS BY RORY SUTHERLAND CAN HELP

Now I'm no love doctor but we’ve signed up some incredible brands, agencies and b2b marketers for the next intake of MAD//Masters By Rory Sutherland this April. I’m determined to help people on the course free themselves from the extremely narrative paradigm of justifying their existence through whatever half baked metric  happens to be in place.

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I want people to do the course and feel empowered to take a completely different viewpoint, which may lead to a better solution or indeed asking an entirely different question.  

So if you’re open-minded, willing to question the orthodox thinking and see challenges in a new light, I’m sure you’ll love MAD//Masters By Rory Sutherland. 

REGISTER HERE for just £1295 + VAT and get a FREE MAD//Fest London ticket worth £650, where you get to join me on 4 July for a Lunch + Learn session. You’ll also get a full year of access to monthly MAD//Masters drop-in sessions where you can ask me live online anything you like throughout the year!