ThinkingSparks

Passion

 

What happens if a partnership network doesn't share values

The other day I wrote about how to deal with a corporate brand in a partnership network. My view on it is that shared goals are not sufficient. You also have to share values among the partners. Be it a traditional supply chain, a network, a lateral partnership or a multilevel marketing organization.

Share goals and values increase congruent and thus consistent behavior in the network. Consistent behavior is needed to build a consistent brand during all moments of truth.

I came across an intersting article in USA Today. It talks about Amway and organizations like it. The whole question of them being MLM organizations or pyramid schemes isn't my point here. The relevance of the story is that Amway claims to have a code of conduct and apparently some of their distributors do not behave according to this code. It is similar to having laws and people breaking these laws.

Codes of conduct are nice but if people do not subscribe to the values that are the foundation of this code of conduct, they will have trouble living by these rules. It shows that sharing values as well as sharing goals is important.

Read the story for yourself. It is a good illustration of what happens when you do not share values within a partnership network.

Why everyone in corporate branding should read Schein

Yesterday I wrote about the strategic character of organizational culture. Just now - by chance - I came across the following quote. As I consider myself to be a follower of Edgar Schein's thought leadership, I could kick myself for not knowing this wonderful quote.

“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture.”

-Edgar Schein, Award Winning Author and Professor MIT Sloan School of Management

 

Schein is a real guru who has been attributed with coining the term "organizational culture". I had the honor of taking a week of classes with him in the summer of 2004 and not only is he briliant, he is also inspiring.

I can recommend all his work, but this one is especially interesting with the strategic aspect of organizational culture and a leader's responsibility for it.

I believe and know from my head to my toes that succesful organizations and thus corporate brands are rooted in a healthy organizational culture. Branding for too long has focussed solely on external communication. Promissing the moon, but not being able to deliver that said moon.

Everyone in corporate branding should familiarize itself with the insights Edgar Schein has to offer.He is the expert on organizational culture. After the week of classes I took with Edgar Schein I had the chance to talk with him briefly and tested my view on the relation between corporate brands and his theory on organizational culture, with him. He said: "That is absolutely right.", and continued to elaborate on it. I still feel like a balloon about to pop when I think about it.

So if you are in corporate branding read his work. As a matter of fact, anyone who works in organizational change or development should be familiar with Schein's views. But I'll settle for the branding folks today.

Let me know if you think of Edgar Schein's views on organizational culture.

 

Why organizational culture is not solely the domain of HR & Communication

The other day I was reading this book on the process of positioning. A very useful book from two renowned authors. There were a couple of thing in the book that I see differently though. I polled one of them via Twitter.

The authors state that "business orientation", "core competences", "vision" and, "mission" are aspects of strategic management and are usually formulated by the board of an organization. "Organizational culture", "organizational values" and, "customer values" are the domain of HR and (Internal) Communication.

The poll was on the second sentence about culture and values being the domain of HR and Communication. I didn't receive hundreds of responses, even less than ten, but they were all unanimous in disagreeing with the second sentence.

I believe that organizational culture and organizatonal and customer values are strategic too. If you want a succesful positioning and a strong brand you need consistent organizational behavior at every moment of truth. Organizational culture influences organizational behavior and vice versa.That makes it a strategic issue. One that the leader of an organization certainly holds responsibililty for.That doesn't mean that HR and Communication can contribute their expertise, but they are not solely responsible.

To me this is a clear and shut case. But that may be because I believe in culture based brands.

Do you believe in culture based brands?

How to deal with the corporate brand in a partnership network

About 15 years ago my mom got a new micorowave and I got her old Sharp Microwave. After a couple of years of using it, it broke down for the first time in 20 years. So I called Sharp and asked them how to go about having this wonderful (the best microwave ever made) aparatus repaired. Turned out they had outsourced reparations of their electronics to another company. However, this "service" company was not about delivering service. Having them pick up the microwave was a challenge in itself. They didn't pick up defect electronics during the evening. They answered my question on that with: "Well little lady, we cannot start doing that, because that is what everyone then wants". Fulfilling a need that apparently everyone has, seemed pretty straightforward to me, but to them it was an alien concept.

Ever since that experience I have been wondering and thinking how you protect your brand in your supply chain of network of partner organizations you work with. As this microwave was so utterly wonderful (did I mention it was the best one ever made?) I held Sharp in high regard. Their outsourced repair partners however, totally frustrated that. Maybe it was an area that received little attention as these microwaves hardly ever broke down.

This crossed my mind when Marion de Vries posted an interesting question (Dutch) on Twitter yesterday.

How do you guard a #corporatebrand in a network marketing organization?

No employees but a collection of #personalbrands.

My answer was: shared values and a strong culture within that network. And the selection of personal brands becoming would become very important. Marion's answer was that in a network marketing organization the selection is often not on the person but on that person's ambition. And that it is the mix of people that makes it interesting. I responded by saying that other selection criteria are needed for a supply chain brand like that. Based on share values instead of shared goals.I was intrigued by this question and promissed to think and blog about it.

My first thought was about the different types of rationality of actions that Max Weber wrote about a century ago. He described actions based on values and actions based on goals. Actions based on goals, through time, lead to inconsistent behavior as goals change over time. They goals can basically change anytime a new CEO or manager arrives on the scene. Actions based on values lead to consistent behavior according to Weber. And as a corporate brand you definitely want to be consistent.

Selecting network partners on ambition, is selecting them on shared goals or dreams. This selection criterion could result in inconsistent behavior between corporate brand and partner brands. For instance, an ambition can be to become the market leader. But there are many ways to reach that goal. You can be all Dallas like JR about obtaining succes or you can be the exact opposite. Resulting in all kinds of incongruent behavior within the network. Inconsistency is the outcome and thus bad for the corporate brand.

It would be totally different if shared ambitions (goals) are fed by shared values. If the corporate brand and its partners are all JR-type entrepreneurs, you may not like them, but they are consistent. Just think about Al Qaida and all its cells. They share values. They share goals. And as a result you could say that they have a consistent corporate brand.

I am sure that there are nuances on this that are determined by criteria such as "intended duration of the partnership" and "needed expertise within the partnership". I can imagine that if the expertise you seek as a corporate brand is very unique you will compromise on values as long as the ambition is the same. This would always be an incidental short term partnership. If the expertise you seek is widely available than you do not compromise on shared values and shared ambitions. Not even if it is a short term partnership. For a long term partnership with a unique expert, you may have to position this partner as an excentric but authentic brand alongside your corporate brand. I tried to put this in a matrix:

These were my thoughts on this topic. What do you think?

 

TNT's can do attitude towards social media

When working with TNT Post in 2008 en 2009 on employer branding we often talked on how to work social media. Frank van Os's tweet announced that TNT has formulated excellent guidelines for the employees. I am impressed.

What impressed me is that the guidelines are based on the values on which not only the corporate culture is based, but also the TNT brand. This organization is in so much turmoil and has so many employees that there are many moments of truth and a lot of things to say that may not be positive for the company. There is no way you can or should want to control it.

Any other good examples of such guidelines out there?

Employee led

An interesting Tweet by YoxaTweet about research done in The Netherlands by the Hay Group (in Dutch). The outcome of this research is that companies start rewarding their employees according to the Anglo Saxon model. At Hay Group they aren't surprised. According to them it is a logical consequence of:

1. the trend of individualisation,
2. the fact that the reward system is more and more determined by HQ's in other countries, and
3. The Netherlands is turning into a services economy in which the individual makes the difference.

I must say I was surprised by these results. I follow the logic, but I was under the impression that with the financial crisis this whole short term stimulating behavior was not acceptable anymore. I cannot speak for other countries, but I sense that in The Netherlands the public speaks out against (high) individual bonuses and the culture that goes along with it. I also felt that the Anglo Saxon model has received a lot of criticism lately and seen as the root of all evil of the financial crisis. Read this, this, and check out the criticism in the Google search result.

Even greater my surprise when reading an interview with knowledge management expert Mathieu Weggeman yesterday in Management Scope (Dutch only) who states that the new generation of knowledge workers has an attitude that is more congruent with the Rhineland model. He even goes as far as to say that he believes that this new generation will not blossom in organizations with an Anglo Saxon business model.

I find this contradiction between the outcome of the research of the Hay Group and the statements of Mathieu Weggeman very interesting. Intuitively I side with Weggeman and wonder if this whole Anglo Saxon based rewarding model is a question of organizations failing to connect with a new generations of employees. In other words are these organizations not enough "employee led" and implementing a reward system that will not jive with a new generation? It is similar to organizations failing to be customer led. I also wonder what the employer branding strategies of the organizations that participated the Hay Group research are.

Please let me know what you think.

Culture based brand or Brand based culture?

The other day I was reading an article in which the Dutch consultancy Business Openers was quoted. They call themselves the pioneers of Internal Branding in the Netherlands. I am not sure if they really are pioneers, but apparently they like to position themselves as such.

If I interpret them correctly, they use the brand as a basis for culture change. They call that ‘internal branding’. I agree with them that behavior has to match the promise, but I am not sure if I agree with their views on causality. I am also not sure if this is what internal branding is.

On their site (in Dutch) the working through this process with Albert Heijn (grocery retailer that is part of Ahold) is described. What struck me is that in the whole process the starting point is the external brand. From the external brand the brand values are inferred. These then are the basis for behavior. Hopefully resulting in a brand based culture.

I always wonder if that works. Everyone involved in change of (organizational) cultures knows that it may take some time to replace one set of values by another. An organizational culture already had a set of values driving behavior before the brand values where conceived. So unless an organization has a (soon to be) dysfunctional culture, why not do it the other way around: a culture based brand? Build on the good behavior that is already there. It has the same results of living up to the promise, it is authentic and you avoid the long period of the culture change process. And the pain and resistance that comes with change. Don't get me wrong. I am not against change. But if it ain’t broke why fix it?

I fear the incessant and continued internal branding process being fueled by external advertising or brand agencies, the changes in those, the changes in marketing or brand directors that each want to do it better, different than their predecessors. It is something that comes natural. And with every such change, the organization has to change along with it. It might keep ‘internal branding’ consultants busy but I am not convinced that it is the right way to align organizational behavior and brand promise.

Any insights anyone?

The term Internal Branding

Internal Branding, when I first heard it, sounded like a great term to wrap around all the stuff related to the internal and organizational side of the brand. The more I think about it, the more I think it is not an adequate term and actually a bit of strange term.

When talking about the history of branding the story of cattle literally being branded with the owners’ sign always comes up. A lot of the approaches to internal branding I find very instrumental and not very insightful into what drives human behavior or change. Some authors introduce with their views on internal branding a new brand of feudalism and employees in this scheme revert to the status of serfs. These approaches always invoke the image of a human replacing the cow or bull and being branded with a hot iron on his backside. The employee is asked to lower part of his or her pants, to bend over and gets the organizational logo burned on his or her right buttock. Ouch!!! Probably the same amount of pain and hurt that instrumental or feudalistic internal branding programs can cause.

When using “brand” it is not clear what it is we mean exactly. Do we mean “brand identity” or “brand image” or do we mean something else entirely? Which aspect of “brand” are we talking about? “Brand” as a term is applied to so many things, organization, product, services, organizational culture etc. etc. that it is starting to lose its meaning. I believe that what is going on is some kind of “definition contamination”. We are all using the same word to describe different things and it makes conversation on a whole lot of topics (being covered by the word brand) unclear. It may seem easy to call everything a brand, but in the end it is confusing and also somewhat annoying.

Definitions of “brand” state that the brand exists in the mind of the consumer or any other member of the target group for that matter. That is a long way from seeing a brand as a visual sign of ownership. If the brand exists in the mind of the consumer then what is the basis for an internal branding program? It seems to me that when looking at it from a perspective of causality the term internal branding is inadequate. If the brand exists outside of the organization, can the organization use it internally? How would the organization deal with all these different consumers having a different brand existing in their minds? It wouldn’t do that by using them as a basis to manage internal behavior, would it now? What an organization is trying to achieve is that the brand that exists within these consumers’ minds align with each other and with what the organization intended. But the intention is different from the brand existing within the minds. Just like identity and image are two different things. Some authors distinguish between brand identity and brand image. So would internal brand identifying be a correct term? Maybe, but it is a bit of a mouthful.

Why don’t we just call it quality management, managing organizational behavior, or managing organizational culture? Don’t they all have the same goal? Any naming suggestions, anyone?

Why do we need brand values?

When I read about internal branding it is often described as a way to stimulate on brand behavior among employees. The brand and its values being a moral compass to guide behavior and decisions.

What I don’t understand is this. So many branding professionals write about the importance of organizational culture in branding. If the brand is truly based on or grounded in the organizational culture and its values (assuming that the culture is a good one) then why is internal branding needed? Cultural values already guide behavior. So why do we need brand values?