In a culture that insists work can save us, perhaps the most subversive lesson is this: It doesn’t have to.

The end of the year approaches, so I’m writing this as a way of finding out what I now know. After a whirlwind year of motion, decisions, change, and consequence, I needed to pause and reflect what actually changed in my work, my thinking, and my sense of self - and what the year taught me about doing it on purpose.

Like what do you do when your brand has become a prisoner of executional formula and wants accelerate growth with a real long-term brand platform?

That was the challenge facing Corona.

Brand problems? I’ve seen a few…

Like what do you do when being a single malt whisky with a deeply authentic, hundred-plus-year-old story of craft and tradition isn’t enough of a reason to buy in an ocean of whisky with deeply authentic, hundred-plus-year-old stories of craft and tradition?

Like how do you bid farewell to your most successful and arguably most valuable driver in a way that sets the team and its fans up for the next chapter once he leaves?

That was the challenge facing the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team.

Like what do you do when your business and brand has become so addicted to chasing short-term innovation uplifts that it’s allowed its core business to be eroded?

Like what do you do when a group of refugee ballet dancers in Amsterdam form a dance company and want to use their platform to highlight the horrors unfolding back home, while still selling tickets? Oh, and when it’s not an agency assignment, and the budget is virtually zero?

Like what do you do when you have a fractured global brand, communications, and marketing organisation, and are needing to support premium pricing while you aggressively expand distribution?

Like what do you do when you are disproportionately reliant on paid search and find that your customers are booking accomodation but have no memory that it was through you?

Observation, curiosity, empathy - these are vital. Dieter Rams said "Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design”. His words apply to the development of brands and advertising too. But the idea that ‘insight’ is and must always be the starting point and first hurdle to overcome is deeply flawed. The strategist’s real job isn’t to find truth - it’s to create traction, and create change. Insight may be helpful in that endeavour. But it is not holy.