Behind Closed Doors

'I don't want to ask my people what they think at all!'

Column by Kim Cramer (published 22/1/2013 at SWOCC)

Who builds a brand? Is it the brand manager, the advertising agency, customers who recommend the brand? All of them, you might say. But then we forget the most important group of brand builders: the rich population of employees who represent the brand every single day. It doesn't matter what advertising campaigns proclaim about the brand — it's the people inside the organisation who make or break it. They are the brand. So why are they so rarely, if ever, involved in the brand development process?

'Our people are our most important asset.' 'Our people are crucial.' 'They make the difference.' We all seem to agree that 'our people' make the best brand experience possible.

And yet visions, missions, brand positionings, house styles and rebranding trajectories in most organisations are conceived and developed by a select group of senior management, without any input from the shop floor.

'Our people' are then expected to enthusiastically embrace the new strategy and do everything they can to implement the desired changes. If they even fully understand what's intended.

The result: the new strategy feels imposed by management and nothing changes. Except maybe the house style. Or the new tagline.

A missed opportunity. Because it is precisely these symbolic signals of change that can have an enormously positive impact — as long as they've come about in a democratic way.

We can vote on talent shows, chat with politicians, start a movement via Facebook and turn any topic into a trending hashtag on Twitter.

But collectively influencing the strategy of the organisation where we work every day? That's highly unusual. And often unwanted.

I recently heard a managing director say: 'I don't want to ask my people what they think at all. Then I have to listen to them and I'm obliged to do something with their input!'

And yet this is exactly what's needed if companies want to survive in this age of transparency, social media, the search for meaning and a future generation of employees who are not impressed by traditional, hierarchical structures.

Needed — and possible. Social technology enables us to engage in dialogue with all employees simultaneously (whether there are a hundred or a hundred thousand of them) and discover the shared meaning that forms the brand and drives behaviour.

It starts with wanting to know who 'our people' actually are. What drives them, why they come to work every day, what they love about it and how it could be even better.

Inspiration for the shared vision and mission, for the emotional core of the brand.

Decisions on this by the leadership team should not be 'set in stone', but should leave room for feedback from the collective: questions, criticism, adjustments.

A new strategy thus becomes not a top-down directive, but a bottom-up process that everyone is part of: invented here.

One that you can even involve partners, suppliers, customers and the general public in. Because, let's be realistic, that public debate about your brand was already happening in the outside world anyway.

The brand development process needs to come out from behind closed doors, where positioning models are filled in secretly. That requires not only courage from leaders, but also the development of new, democratic tools and methods.

Let the dialogue begin!

Kim Cramer is a member of the Advisory Board of SWOCC and co-owner of BR-ND.