Team Branding - why it matters

Chapter 3, Part 5 - Corporate Brand Personality

CLOSING THE BRAND GAP

Have you ever considered that there might be a very wide gap between the corporate intention of the values, mission statement and vision, and the actual interpretation and internalization of these messages by the people who you need to project them everyday? All that great work you carried out as an executive team, together with the expensive brand agency you used to create these innovative and meaningful messages, may not be getting through in the way you thought they would and you need them to. This is simply because the intense affinity you’ve had with the values, for so long in their creation at top level, is not replicated at the same intensity lower down the organization.? The energy around them is diluted as it filters down.

Bringing the brand to a team level can be an effective way of localizing the messaging to make it more meaningful across your employee base.

Cascading the corporate values down to team level, and allowing department managers & leaders to create with their teams, a set of values, a vision and a brand for their specific team, is a highly effective way to ensure that messaging is robust, relevant and sustainable throughout the organization.

When we roll out our personality of the brand programmes within organizations, our approach is to work with team groups wherever possible. This has the double benefit of gaining clarity of your values at a much more local level and also giving a much-needed brand to a team. Managers tell us that:

·?????? There is a lack of clarity on what their team actually does in other parts of the organization;

·?????? ?The team is not as appreciated as it should be;

·?????? We have a lack of engagement within the team;

·?????? Team members don’t really know what each other does;

·?????? We want to be better positioned as a team and really known for what we do. ?????

By addressing the team brand challenge individuals can feel more involved in the specific goals and vision of the team (which of course will contribute to the overall corporate objective), and clearly see how their work has real impact. In Chapter 5, we look at how to establish what you really do – this process can have an incredibly positive effect on individuals in a team, as they come to fully appreciate how their personal contribution matters and understand the change that happens as a result.

In Chapter 1, I mentioned Handelsbanken and their highly successful business model of localization. At Handelsbanken they believe that if you give the power to the local branch then the best decisions for the customer are made. The staff there have a deep appreciation for what the branch is trying to achieve as a team, as well as the customer’s specific needs.? We could apply this same philosophy to the teams within your organization – if every team member were to understand the vision and values of the team, and be directly involved in creating them, they can more easily make sense of them in their every roles and interactions and reinforce them everyday. They will become proud to live the values. The team brand messaging should reflect the overall ethos of the corporate brand, and become an offshoot, taking on its own personality and relevance for the team objectives.

?'Team brands become off-shoots of the corporate brand'

?INVOLVE THE TEAM

At commercial property real estate company, JLL Australia, they work hard on creating an extraordinary customer experience. Head of customer experience (former), Peter Merrett told me that they involved a huge amount of people across the business when it came to coming up with what the values should be. So they got a high degree of buy-in as all departments contributed. He said, ‘They shared the pride and the passion because they were part of the process.’ It sounds simple really doesn’t it, but it’s not common practice in my experience to involve people across the business.

In fact, they use a large amount of innovation at JLL Australia to create consistent positive touch-points to improve the customer experience. A common thread I can see is that they value, respect and involve people as much as possible. For example, because of the nature of their business they outsource in several areas, so they recognize they could have a challenge with lack of consistency of values expression via contractors. Therefore, they fully involve their contractors, including plumbers, cleaners and engineers in their customer service training and monthly social get-togethers. They then feel part of the team, and they share and reinforce the value set.

Earlier in this chapter, I described the programme delivered for The Grosvenor House Hotel. Even several years later, the doormen, front of house associates and restaurant staff still talk about the principles we covered in their training and tell me about every day occurrences where they’ve been able to use them. They felt as important as the management team when going through the training programme and are now able to appreciate their pivotal role in the general manager’s overall objectives. This was due to the localization relevance we were able to bring to them in the programme, using specific examples that they could relate to. ?It helped also that the revered Stuart Bowery , general manager, personally introduced every training session we had. As a result, the principles have become deeply embedded in their daily lives.

THE EFFECT OF NOT INVOLVING THE TEAM

I recently experienced how things can go badly wrong when you embark on a major project or initiative that requires total buy-in across the organization for it to receive the support it needs to be successful. In this particular example, excitement was building at the annual convention of an association I was a member of. Nobody really knew what the announcement was, although of course the usual rumours were circulating as with anything of this ilk. There was a huge build-up to the announcement on stage and when the ‘big thing’ turned out to be a re-brand and name change, there was a weak ripple of applause for the new name that quickly died away. What followed in the days and weeks to come was a significant rejection and rebuke by members that resulted in a reversal back to the old name within a matter of weeks.? The clear lesson learned was that when you need to effect a change that you expect all your employees to embrace and reinforce, involve them (or representatives at team level) at every step of the way. When you need your team to reinforce the messages that are at the core of your team’s brand, you need their buy-in and active contribution. Team branding can achieve this.

?PART OF THE BIG PICTURE

The story goes that during a visit to the NASA Space Center in 1962, President John F. Kennedy noticed a janitor sweeping the floor. He interrupted the tour and walking over to the man and said, ‘Hi, I’m Jack Kennedy. What is your role here?’ The janitor answered, ‘I’m helping to put a man on the moon’.

Whether the story is actually true or not, or if it’s evolved over time, it’s easy to see how we can more effectively engage every person in the overall objectives for the business if they are clear about the specific role they play and their part in the overall company objective. They also need to be valued for their contribution and the most junior member of your team needs to understand the vision in order for it to be successful. The 2003 England Rugby Team coach, Sir Clive Woodward was famous for inspiring every member of the team, whether the fly-half or the team coach driver, to be the very best in the world at the job they did. When your entire team embraces this type of attitude, amazing things will happen for employee engagement.

THE PROCESS OF TEAM BRANDING

I would suggest a good starting point might be to take a look at your executive team. How coherent are you? How are you perceived as a team internally?

I was asked by a head of learning and development in the technology sector, to work with the executive team on clarifying the brand of the team, and then to help them to project a consistent and coherent message to the company. When I worked with them it was clear that they each had differing views of what the leadership team stood for and how it should be projected. They even had inconsistent views between them of what the corporate brand was. All six of them were geographically dispersed, were from different cultures and therefore seemingly had quite diverse views of how this team should be perceived. This was having a detrimental effect on how effective the team was seen as by the rest of the company and in particular their direct reports and the management teams below them. It was affecting the confidence the company had in the leadership team too.

There was an unspoken resistance to address this imbalance or to recognise its existence even, with the exception of the managing director. In addition, there was a lack of clarity on who officially reported to who and where, and as a result they were all battling for their personality to shine through and for their position to be visible and heard. I had a real challenge on my hands.

I first of all worked on the executive team brand messaging. Because of the cultural and personality-type differences in the team, I had lots of ‘enthusiastic’ discussion about what various words actually mean.

I then moved to looking at their personal brands and how they individually reinforce and reflect the team brand and most importantly, the corporate brand. This is when the connection truly started to take shape and we all began to get somewhere. They had never really thought about their personal brands before and now they were starting to understand and appreciate the huge effect their brands have on the corporate brand as a whole. This added a level of clarity not only of their own brand, but of each other’s brands also, and what they each brought to the table. This had the effect of diluting the previous distracting challenges of ‘muscling’ for the top voice.

Eight months on, we had an executive leadership team that were really clear about the brand of the team (under the overall messaging of the company), and individually had a new-found confidence and clarity in their own personal brand that enables them to lead and present in a way that truly engages their teams and wider employee base.? Quite simply, they have started to be real and ‘human’ in the eyes of their people. This has played out in the way they interact with people generally, how they value the managers that report direct to them and the way in which they present publicly at corporate conferences.

WHAT CAN YOU ACHIEVE WITH TEAM BRANDING?

Start with working out what is most important to you to achieve with this process:

·?????? To build a clear and compelling team brand, with your vision and mission, created with the input of all the team members, or at least a diverse selection of individuals if the team is large. You can consider splitting into sub-sections of the team if this is appropriate.

·?????? To improve the perception of your team internally and externally.

·?????? To create a series of sound bites that each team member is comfortable with and that convey the core values and purpose of the team. The purpose should relate to and perhaps be a sub-set of the overall corporate mission.

·?????? To create a team brand statement that encompasses your values and unique purpose as a team.

·?????? To create better internal and possibly external promotion for the team, online and face-to-face.

·?????? To create better understanding of individuals’ skills and personalities within the team.

·?????? To enhance the congruence between the team messages and individual behaviours.

·?????? To build our credibility and effectiveness.

SO HOW DO WE DO IT?

Remember, much the same as your personal brand, your team has a brand whether you have worked on it already or not. You need to gain some input into what the current perceptions are before you start. The current brand you have is portrayed by how your team collectively behaves and how others experience it. Ask yourselves the following questions:

1.??? What are the current perceptions of us as a team, internally and externally?

Gather feedback from various parts of the business, from people at different management levels and diverse levels of interactions with your team. Highlight where the biggest areas of confusion and weakness are that need to be addressed.

2.??? What does our team consistently do?

What are the common behaviours that you project that may be subconscious? Look at the positives and negatives.

3.??? What do we do really well, and not so well? What do we need to be better at and what do less of?

Make sure you spend time separately on the positives and the negatives. We can’t be addressing the negatives and be creative at the same time as we use different parts of the brain for each.

4.??? Who are our clients?

Which audiences do you serve?? What do each of them need from us?

5.??? What are the key values we stand for?

What is most important to us as a team? What do we always strive for in terms of excellence at what we do?

6.??? How do we each interpret those values?

How do each of you see those values manifesting themselves in your everyday communications and work? ?

7.??? What collective impression do we leave on our clients?

Ask your clients this – what do you get when you work with us? What are we known for most of all?

8.??? What do we want to be known for most of all?

This may equate to your vision statement. You need to be crystal clear about this.

9.??? What are we brilliant at?

It’s easier to be great at the things you are passionate about. What does the team exist for and why did you join it in the first place?

Have each member of the team do some thinking and reflection on these questions on their own, coming up with their own views first, and then bring all the input together for discussion.

You will need to achieve a defined set of behaviours that the team have come up with and are consistent with, that are filtered from and encompass the ideas you collect. If the team have been involved in creating these behaviours, they are much more likely to demonstrate them consistently, and provide feedback to others if things start to lapse. They all have a personal buy-in to what had been created.

WHAT DOES A TEAM BRAND STATEMENT LOOK LIKE?

As a result of the above exercise, you will need to create a team brand statement so that everybody is clear about what you stand for and provide to the business.

There are no real rules for a team brand statement? - it’s what you feel as a team clearly depicts who you are and how you want to be perceived. Here’s an example framework that may help you get started:

Example team brand statement for a corporate communications team:

?We’re very proud to be known as the central glue that holds all lines of communications in the business together. Because of our ability to understand all the principle brand messages for the company, and the key players who can deliver those messages to the media effectively, we are the team to go to in times of crisis or celebration, or in seeking an opportunity for extra exposure for an individual or the business as a whole.

We are creative and collaborative in our approach, and we are able to see the helicopter view of the business, enabling us to clearly get to the pertinent opportunities to express our brand to the outside world.

We have fun, we have endless energy and we love to connect people. We do this with the utmost professionalism and integrity and strive to always provide the very best global exposure there is for our people and the business.

Don’t leave your team brand to chance – you will miss a huge opportunity to step up and shine in the organization personally and as a team as a result. Empower your line managers to engage in this process and remember a team brand is not just for show and image, it’s about being more effective, productive and credible. Now build a plan to get started.

In summary, whatever way we look at brand – corporate brand, employer brand, employee brand, team brand - it all comes down to people behaviours and consistency, and all are interlinked and drive each other.

The way you treat your people will show up somewhere, so never has there been a more crucial time to activate plans to provide your most valuable asset, your people, with the tools to be the best they can be for themselves and your brand.

To attract the talent you need, you have to have an employer brand and reputation that is trustworthy, unique, authentic and consistent. This begins with having a disciplined approach with clear objectives and strategy and above all clear ownership throughout the company.

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