Culture and Brand are Unsung Drivers of Business

BRAND + CULTURE POWERS

The role of culture and brand in organisations is or has to be top priority. Research indicates that the importance of intangibles on balance sheets have grown significantly over the past few decades. Adequately and continuously integrating a company’s brand and culture will enable organizations to thrive and grow. But, to nurture a culture that reflects the brand and the purpose, all stakeholders have to be positively engaged by the firm.

Stakeholders, especially employees and customers, crave social meaning and want to feel part of a larger community with a shared sense of purpose. Building this collective identity and commitment calls for binding together stakeholders by way of fostering mindsets, decisions, behaviours and actions. Communications has a pivotal role to play.?

However, organisations generally turn to culture- and brand-building only after they experience a crisis or suffer a reputation setback or while tackling some sort of trust erosion or reputation deficit. Moreover, leaders don’t talk about brand-culture fusion enough or explicitly; they don’t adequately communicate either.

BRAND FUSION

In reality, the brand-culture integration has to be an ongoing effort and is a never-ending—it is a leadership responsibility and a management function.?

Brand strategist Denise Lee in #fusion outlines the grammar and insight for understanding what brand-culture fusion is and how to obtain it. FUSION is a playbook for brand-culture fusion based on key takeaways from several organisations who do this successfully. Denise emphasizes first and foremost on Purpose and core Values i.e. the “why” and the “how” in an organisation. Purpose and Values help iron out various subcultures or counter cultures that may exist in an organsiation. Once this is satisfactorily established, it has to be followed by a creative communication campaign that takes Brand Fusion deeper into the organisation – especially with employees but also externally to other groups and communities.

LEAD YOUR FUSION

COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE

Once the organisation is clear on its purpose and values, the leader/s must consistently communicate why they’re important, and use tactics that reiterate their distinct attributes. Brands also need rituals and artifacts to bring alive the stories they want to tell, Denise explains. Organizational rituals are nothing but ceremonies, rites, and other regularly occurring events and activities that employees do and celebrate together.??On the other hand, objects that the organization creates, keeps, and distributes, such as awards, pictures, and devices, are the artifacts that symbolize what is important in its culture.

CAREFULLY CRAFT COMMUNICATIONS CAMPAIGNS

Denise explains that "all employee brand communications should conform to the basics of good external communication: creative yet clear and simple and convey the information all employees can grasp." Communication has to be designed to inform, inspire as well as educate. Quoting Eduardo Braun, author of People First Leadership, Denise adds that communicating ideas, emotions and behaviours are three distinct levels of communication that leaders need to embrace. And the keys to a successful communication campaign, especially as you try to cultivate a culture that aligns and integrates with the brand identity, are storytelling, simplicity, consistency and relevance.?

• Storytelling: illustrate the message with engaging stories. Giving examples and telling stories helps everyone relate to abstract ideas of culture and values.
• Simplicity: strives to make communications simple and accessible. Some leaders get caught up in conveying a message that is full of jargon or complex terms instead of one that has substance and can be easily understood by everyone.
• Consistency: consistently and relentlessly communicate the company’s overarching purpose and core values and why they’re important. Regularly weave messages about purpose and values into presentations, memos, and conversations with employees and other stakeholders.

Denise Lee Yohn’s point is that independently, brand and culture are powerful, "unsung business drivers"?but, when fused together, it acts as force multiplier. Denise also emphasizes the critical importance of organisational as well as leadership communications to ensure the Brand + Culture Fusion is deeply and consistently ingrained with an organisation.?

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