Essential
characteristics of effective brand-building leaders include: strong beliefs
around the brand, an ability to communicate those beliefs as part of a
compelling vision for success, and the courage and energy to manage a culture
transformation.
How can we forget the memorable scene in The Wizard of Oz when the Cowardly
Lion is talking to the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodsman doing his best to muster
up any available courage:
Cowardly Lion: All right,
I'll go in there for Dorothy. Wicked Witch or no Wicked Witch, guards or no
guards, I'll tear them apart. I may not come out alive, but I'm going in there.
There's only one thing I want you fellows to do.
Tin Woodsman, Scarecrow: What's that?
Cowardly Lion: Talk me
out of it!
If as a leader you're running low on or
never really had any courage, you may be in need of a trip to the Brand Wizard
(wouldn't it be nice if there was such a magical being?).
If you’re interested in making your brand THE business versus PART of
the business then you’ll need a heck of a lot of courage to get it done.
Leadership courage is absolutely critical to achieve any brand success!
Leadership needs courage to:
- Confront
all levels of the organization with the business reality in order to help
others understand the need for change.
- Reallocate
resources to fuel the implementation of the brand strategy.
- Make
difficult decisions to keep the brand-building momentum alive. In many
cases, these are people-related decisions that are in the best interest of
the company. It takes courage to make them.
Like
the (not-so) Cowardly Lion, now you've got courage. You'll also need another
powerful ingredient to drive sustainable brand-building:
energy. So, take a long sip of the proverbial Red Bull and start sharing it with others.
Leadership needs energy to:
- Raise the
expectations for performance and accountability. Leaders will need to
demonstrate consistent focus on aligning the brand strategy and associated
behaviors with individual job category behaviors. This energy starts at
the top and permeates throughout the organization, infusing accountability
in carrying out necessary performance evaluations and assessments. Keep in
mind that people respect what you inspect. Have the courage, energy, and
focus to consistently inspect.
- Recognize
and reward employees who model the required behaviors and deliver the
desired brand experiences. Again, leaders must keep the energy level up
and stay focused on the art of finding success in others and sharing them
throughout the company.
The best
brand-driven leaders in the world are rarely the smartest people in their
company or have the most dominating personality, they just know how to muster
the courage and tap into the energy
necessary to build and sustain the brand.
 
In our recent Red Folder eZine, we asked the following question: Do your employees understand, commit to, and know how to take action on your brand? (In other words, do employees buy-in to the company brand?) Here are the results: 
Nearly half of respondents mentioned that they would like to find out if employees in their company are effectively living the brand. The best way to find out if employees think, speak, and behave your company's brand is to evaluate/assess their performance of key behaviors that are directly tied to the brand and company goals/objectives. So how do you do that? First, set clear expectations for all employees on what beliefs are required to represent your company’s brand/values. Then establish a set of basic, nonnegotiable behaviors for all employees to demonstrate that are tied to those beliefs. Integrate the brand into performance systems such as behavior-based interviewing to select the best-fit employees; job-level behavioral expectations for onboarding, training, and providing feedback; and a proprietary recognition system for proactively capturing successes and acknowledging peers who demonstrate behaviors that enhance the work culture and improve the customer experience. Then conduct regular behavior-based assessments to track employee engagement, productivity, and brand alignment across teams and departments in order to pinpoint strengths and areas of weaknesses. At Brand Integrity, we use our Achieving Brand Integrity Assessment to measure how consistently a company's employees perform across what are called the Five Dimensions of Brand Integrity. Click here to read a post about the assessment. Click here to take a complimentary Achieving Brand Integrity Assessment to uncover how well employees in your company understand, commit to, and take action on your brand.
I am quite familiar with the many Best Places to Work lists that exist today. Primarily because 56% my clients who are implementing with Brand Integrity, for at least a year, are on or have been on one of the lists before. We've learned as much from our clients as they have from us - it truly is a partnership. One specific thing I have learned is how truly committed our clients are to building an employer brand. They recognize the importance a strong employer brand plays in the success of their company. Their focus on branding for employees is driving millions of dollars to their bottom-line each year. Take Wegmans Food Markets, who has been a consistent top 10 Fortune Best Places to Work company since the list's inception. Wonder if an employer brand matters - think about the bottom-line impact when you have 50-60% less turnover than the industry average. If your not imagining lots of dollar signs, go get a glass of water, splash it on your face and wake-up. Building an employer brand enhances the power of the positive. Said another way, it increases the upbeat energy in your company and propels employees, work teams, and leaders to accomplish remarkable results. Having a company brand strategy and subsequent brand that employees find to be meaningful and relevant leads to: Passion and sponsorship: The right employees, motivated by the same desirable outcomes, willingly head in the same direction as the company and as one another.
A positive work culture: Internal excitement is focused on embracing change, not fighting it.
Employee commitment: Employees understand how they fit into and have an impact on the company. Customer loyalty: Because experiences are meaningful and stimulate incredible loyalty. This happens only when employees understand the benefits customers are looking for and the uniqueness with which your company can deliver those benefits. This allows employees to connect emotionally with the brand, optimizing their ability to delight customers.
A study conducted over a period of three years by SHL (a psychometric testing company) has concluded that employee engagement is more important than job satisfaction. This indicates that employees want more out of a career than to just like their job. Ilke Inceoglu, one of the researchers involved in the study noted, "Job satisfaction has been superseded by engagement because that shows links to performance." How are you managing the engagement of employees in your organization? I know of some leaders who think that due to the economy, no one is leaving even if they are unhappy. This simply is not true. Whereas times are tough and many companies have put a freeze on or limited hiring, good employees —A-players —will be able to find a job elsewhere no matter what the economy (it may just take a little longer). Is your organization at risk of losing it's A-players? Are your employees engaged? You may be asking yourself: What does that mean? How can I tell the level of engagement? Below are some features of an organization with high employee engagement. Read through and ask yourself how well your company is performing. - Employees understand the organization's goals and objectives.
- Employees understand how their work impacts the organization's ability to achieve results.
- Employees are committed to delivering consistently good experiences that drive a positive work culture and strong customer relationships.
- Employees take action to live the organization's brand every day by demonstrating on-brand behaviors and experiences.
- Employees communicate effectively and are receptive to others.
- Employees recognize each other for a job well done.
- Employees hold themselves and each other accountable for delivering the behaviors and experiences necessary for driving a great work culture and profitable results.
How engaged are your employees? Where does your organization struggle? Knowing the current reality regarding employee engagement in your organization is the first step to rectifying areas of weakness and building an engaged workforce. 
I just got back home to Rochester after a few speaking events in Maryland and Georgia. Facilitating these events with business leaders who are so pumped up to get started defining their brand and the customer experience they deliver reinforces my passion for helping others Achieve Brand Integrity. So this week, I wanted to highlight one of the key points to Achieving Brand Integrity: If you're not managing behaviors you're not managing your brand! I recently read a great interview on NewYorkTimes.com about Tony Hsieh. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know I've posted about Zappos and Tony Hsieh before. This latest interview highlights why Mr. Hseih started Zappos and how he has built and sustained such an amazing work culture that delivers on desired customer experiences. Zappos is definitely a company that understands the key point above. I highly recommend you head over and read the interview today.
The dreaded mission statement. It seems as if every company has one and yet nobody knows what it is or what it really means. Usually created in a corporate vacuum at an annual company retreat, mission statements are the philosophical smokescreen most companies place in front of employees and customers. Got a company mission statement? Of course you do! If you walked through the office and asked most employees to recite two words of it, would they be able to? Of course not! Why should they be able to, it's meaningless to them. I actually worked with a CEO who would stop employees impromptu in the hall and ask them to recite the mission. If they did it successfully, he would give them $20. This became old after a while. Some took time to memorize the mission, but most didn't even bother. Those who did take the time to memorize it still found it meaningless. Mission accomplished? I think not. I memorized some of the Periodic Table of Elements to make it through high school chemistry class, but lord knows, i can barely even spell chemistry. Mission statements are often meaningless because they are not operationalized. Therefore very few, if any, employees actually know how to do the mission. Nice to know what it is. Much better to be able to do it. Coming up with the mission statement is simple. There is a book by Jeffrey Abrahams called The Mission Statement Book: 301 Corporate Mission Statements from America's Top Companies. This book will cover all you need to know about mission statements. It has 400-plus pages of examples and insights. Reading it and drafting your company's mission statement will be easy. Getting your employees to buy into it and actually do it will be quite challenging. 
The five dimensions are the foundation for building a powerful brand for your company;
a brand that can be operationalized by employees through behaviors that lead to
consistently good customer experiences. The five dimensions, once defined, will
contain a clear picture of who your company wants to be and how it will deliver
upon promises to employees, customers, and key stakeholders which will lead to more
strategic decision-making and a foundation for performance management.
Culture and Team
Culture and Team is dedicated to a company's internal environment; how employees
interact with each other, how management communicates, recognizes, and holds employees
accountable; and the influence of the company's mission/values on the employee experience.
Lead by Example
This dimension addresses the responsibilities of all employees in modeling ideal
behavior. Lead by Example means stepping up when needed, taking ownership of individual
responsibilities and performance, and demonstrating integrity and trust.
Operational Strength
This dimension is driven by processes and behaviors that are focused on achieving
optimal quality with minimal resources. Operational Strength includes leveraging
technology and systems, effectively prioritizing work, and focusing on continuous
improvement.
Customer Service
This dimension focuses on understanding and meeting---or exceeding---the needs of
customers. Customer service addresses internal behaviors, skills, and processes
that define a company's customers experience, as well as how employees interact
directly with customers.
Products, Knowledge and Expertise
Products, Knowledge, and Expertise is dedicated to the end products or services
a company delivers to customers. This dimension is comprised of fostering learning,
sharing information, demonstrating creativity and innovation, and promoting products
and services to increase sales.
Get ready, here comes a no-risk, value-add, complimentary
offer from me to you:
All you need to do to take advantage of this offer is invest five minutes to
take a complimentary Achieving Brand Integrity Assessment. This unique
behavior assessment is based on the five dimensions and will help you investigate
your work culture and its impact on employee productivity, customer experiences
and your overall profitability. Within seconds of completing the assessment you
will receive an actionable individual report to help you address highlighted challenges
and leverage noted strengths to make positive change happen immediately in your
business.
Click here to take assessment:
http://abia.brandintegrity.com/Default.aspx?gid=89&tabid=82
If after you review your report there is interest, I would
be happy to administer the assessment for a group of up to 10 leaders in your organization
and provide you a report with an overview of your team's impressions and alignment
of your organization's Brand Integrity.
Continued luck and good wishes for a wonderful 2010. I look forward to being a part
of your journey to achieve brand integrity. Happy New Year!
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