Culture Clash

Recently, I read a shocking piece of business news in the Boston Globe.

An article reported 81% of executives surveyed believe their people work in isolation from the rest of the company because of negative manager attitudes that cause friction between departments.

Why is this a surprise? Anyone who has worked in a large cross-functional organization knows this is the way it is today.

The American Management Association, who sponsored the study, went on to report that:

• 59% blamed their corporate culture for preventing departments from working together
• 50% said some units place their own priorities ahead of employees goals, resulting in friction
• When asked what the most pressing problems they have faced because of isolations; 74% mentioned wars between managers 72% pointed to lack of cooperation, 60% said power struggles; 51% said putting unit goals ahead of company goals.

I believe this cultural clash, a direct result of senior management mistakes, causes the loss of productivity, reduces employee retention, contributes to loss of profits and efficiency, and ultimately produces poor customer experiences.

Why does this occur? Because management takes employee commitment for granted. They expect employees to act and behave in accordance with the interests of the company, but it does not work that way. In fact, according to recent Gallup survey, 80% of employees are minimally committed to their company’s goals.

So what should companies do about this epidemic problem? Here are our specific actionable solutions.

• The senior management team must articulate the culture and behavior that is expected within the company through a process called Visioneering. It starts with personal vision that grows into a team vision and blossoms into a corporate vision, with defined action steps and deliverables. (Take a look at our site for details or give us a call)
• Management must reinforce the behavior with personal, team and corporate accountability for their actions. Deviant behavior and lack of collaboration should never be tolerated. The credibility of the company is at risk and is more important than individuals.
• Inward Marketing is necessary to communicate the change experientially so that employees see the message as relevant to their jobs. They need to understand what the consequences of effective cultures can achieve.
• Recognition and Reward programs that celebrate successes. Celebrate actions that focus on customer interaction, positive experiences and wins. Do not focus on internal strife and negative cross-functional behavior.
• Measure behavior and actions through employee research with the help of Inward’s ChangeFX. It will illustrate success and failures by different employee groupings and offer prescriptive diagnostics for improvement.
• Segment your employee populations just like you would an external marketing campaign. Do not allow the message and the medium to be the same for everyone. People react differently and comprehend messages in their own way.
• Plan, execute and reinforce the program in thirds. Spend a third of your time and budget on planning the strategy for your culture; a third on rolling out the communications so people understand what it means and the final third reinforcing the message for several years so that it takes hold. All too often, this final reinforcement if overlooked and results in lost spending.

What would you rather have: a company that is focused as a unified team on the customer and trying to displace the competition or dysfunctional silos of people working against each other and fighting turf wars where little ever gets done?

If your company is dealing with a culture clash, please call us. Or forward this email to others in your company who may find this information beneficial (CEO’s, HR Directors, VP’s of Strategy, VP’s of Marketing, VP’s of Communications or Branding). Help us spread the gospel. At the very least, visit our web site to view our white papers and case histories on these topics.

As always, we would appreciate any referrals. If you know of other organizations or associations who could benefit from our approach in marketing/branding, change management, HR communications, team alignment and market research please pass our name to them. We promise to provide the very best service and support.

Spring is in the air!

-Allan

New Innovations in Marketing Leadership Councils

Introduction: What Is a Global Leadership Council?

A Global Leadership Council consists of successful, principle-oriented company CMOs. These leaders, visionaries, and marketing-change proponents demonstrate a powerful commitment to the betterment of marketing across their organization. The Council’s purpose is twofold: to enroll, inspire, and align programs and services for marketing units, and to share best practices to increase efficiencies.

Creating a More Strategic Role for Marketing: The Greatest Challenge

One of the greatest challenges today is to transition marketing from a purely tactical to a more strategic role. With respect to new product development in particular, the need is acute. Marketing must do a better job of identifying unmet needs in the marketplace, offering competitive intelligence, and then assuring that new products are relevant and solve real customer problems. This last objective, identifying the “voice of the customer,” is particularly important and often lacking.

When marketing is only involved at the tail end of the process, with a rather limited charter to make products seem desirable to the target audience, chances are that there won’t be a desirable product to market.

There are several areas of great interest to global corporations for CMOs to explore in frequent Council meetings, including the major themes and trends outlined below.

Setting Mission and Vision

One of the Global Leadership Council’s first activities must be to draft and achieve agreement on the group’s mission and vision as well as establish guidelines for participation and responsibilities. Clearly defining who is responsible and empowered for what types of actions or decisions is critical. Inward Strategic Consulting recommends a Visioneering™ Session, a facilitated workshop to create team-wide mission and vision.

A key topic these days for any marketing organization is accountability in all of its facets: brand value, advertising effectiveness, promotional payout, etc. Equally important is quickly building an apparatus that measures marketing and advertising impact with speed and efficiency, and has credibility with the entire senior leadership team.

Reviewing Marketing Operations

Another timely topic for the Council is to address its own marketing operations. How does the Council compare to peers and best practices, and how can its effectiveness be increased? An industry benchmark study would shed light on this topic.

Going From Selling-In to Selling-Out…Internal Branding is Important!

A major leadership challenge today has to do with employees. Many executives are asking a single over-arching question:

“How do we get the most out of our people so that we achieve the company’s profit and long-term growth objectives?”

We’re not just considering marketing people here but all employees—from the executive councils to mailroom operations and security desks.

The concerns and worries from marketing executives with regards to the employee challenge generally fall under five categories:

1. Inspiring and Influencing: This point relates to the executive’s leadership skill itself, the ability to command attention and respect, to draw and inspire followers, and to motivate them towards a vision and a goal.

• How do we instill in our people the same degree of enthusiasm and commitment that we have for the company’s vision and mission?

• How do we encourage employees to commit to “stretch” goals, and how do we help them achieve these goals?

• How do we inspire our people to come to the office filled with energy and enthusiasm, ready to take on all the possibilities and opportunities that the day presents? How do we turn our company into a humming, thriving hive of human activity where great ideas pour forth in endless succession amid the din of competing voices and laughter?

2. Teamwork: Executives are faced with the challenge of bringing together people with different backgrounds—academic, technical, cultural and ethnic, political and religious—and getting them to work as a team. This challenge takes on gargantuan proportions in multi-category global settings where executives must lead international teams from several disciplines towards a common goal.

• How do we channel all the intellect and energy coming from so many sources into a single focused beam?

• It’s hard enough to get consensus from a few talented and outspoken people sitting around a conference table. So how do we do this with a hundred people from a dozen countries? How can we get them all to talk as one?

• And then how do we get these people to act as one? How do we do it without over-centralization, without slowing down speed-to-market, without dampening individual and local initiative?

• How can we improve our use of technology for this purpose? And can we do it without losing the human element?

3. Innovation: Competitive pressure—not just from players within the same industry but from other wholly unexpected sources—has made innovation an imperative to corporate survival. The challenge many marketing managers face is promoting innovation, especially in those large and successful organizations whose key executives indulge, paradoxically, in feelings of complacency and false invulnerability.

• How do we drive our people to think out of the box? We need scientists who can tweak molecules into breakthrough product formulations. We need production personnel who can consistently make on-standard products at the least cost possible; marketers who can magically differentiate our brands from the competition’s. Advertising, PR, and promotions agencies must be able to thrust our brands in the face of consumers and communicate our message in provocative and memorable ways. Salespeople must place our brands wherever our consumers shop, merchandising them in ways that cannot fail to grab attention.

• How can we train our people to think more like entrepreneurs? How can we get them to ask the question: “If this were my own business, what would I do if I was faced with this situation?”

• How do you encourage risk-taking? How do you push people to the edge and give them the courage to jump and find out if they can fly? What if they have a fear of flying?

4. Customer Service: With most competing products offering comparable performance, often the differentiating advantage belongs to the company that gives the best customer service.

• How do we motivate our front-line people to give the best customer service? To provide the most memorable and delightful experience possible, so that customers cannot help but rave and refer us to their friends?

• Likewise, how do we motivate back-office and support teams to help the front-liners in this goal of turning customers into raving fans?

5. People Retention: Many marketing managers are very concerned about the painstaking process and huge cost of screening, hiring, and training people.

• How do we attract the best people in the industry? How do we create a reputation among top university graduates and practicing professionals that our company is the industry Mecca for job challenge and empowerment, compensation and benefits, and skills development?

• How do we retain people once they’re in? What environment—cultural and physical—should we create that will encourage them to stay? What is the optimum pay and perks package that will satisfy and keep them from considering a move to another company?

• How do we help our people keep a proper work-life balance, prevent them from burning out, and ensure that they receive support for what they do at our company from the people who matter to them most—their families?

Focusing on Customer Service/Experience (Through the Brand)

CMOs have similar concerns about the teams they manage:

• How well is the team integrating product solutions that will provide a seamless experience for the customer, not just our customers?

• Does the team have a collective view of who the customer is?

• How much do team members know about the health of a well-known brand in each of their markets? Often there is confusion between brand salience and brand comprehension. This could be a particularly important distinction if customers have been affected by the recent mortgage meltdown.

• How well does the team understand the online channel for customer acquisition and customer management? How about strategies for developing alternative business practices, such as collecting payments in developing countries?

Sharing Success Stories

Sharing success stories and pinpointing strategies that can be leveraged in other geographies have major benefits, helping break down two common syndromes:

• "Not invented here."

• "They didn't come up with it/pay for it, so why should I share what I did? Will I get the credit?"

Identifying Internal Experts

Identifying the internal experts and best-practice centers for various skills and topics creates a framework for networking internally.

Assessing Competitive Intelligence

A fairly accepted practice is anticipating the next moves your global competitors are likely to make against you and run an exercise where you actually try to beat yourself. In other words, think like your competitors and create products, strategies, programs, and processes to out-compete yourself. This excellent exercise forces you to leave your own comfortable thinking and assumptions and look at your organization and offerings from your competitors' point of view.

Using Analytics, Measurement, and Web 2.0

Here are three issues for the Council to consider:

• Use marketing analytics to improve marketing ROI and reallocate resources to reflect this mission. Marketing automation should also be explored.

• How do you collectively measure success? Measurement is important! While it has always been on the agenda, it has definitely risen in significance over the last few years. And, if nothing else, measurement can extend a CMO's tenure in these days of "24-months-and-out" thinking on the part of CEOs.

• There is a lot to share and learn in of all the Web 2.0 activities. Many interesting topics for discussion and analysis can be generated by looking at trend forecasts, such as demographic/firmagraphic and World Future Society.

Playing War Games and Simulations

Take time out and think of your company as the competition to yourself:

Examine your strategy. Conduct an exhaustive analysis the same way you do when you plan a new marketing program against your traditional competitive set.

• Reexamine your key unique differentiation, personality traits, leverage points, and messaging platform.

You’ll come up with some fresh ideas that can be implemented as brand extensions and product innovations.

Conclusion: What’s next for the Global Leadership Council?

In summary, Global Leadership Councils are a wonderful way to incorporate best practices, communicate with peers and your marketing groups, leverage existing talents inside the organization and instill a sense of openness and communications within marketing departments. When they are done right and led from the top, they have the potential to instill change and inspire leadership from all employees.

We hope you have found this thought leadership piece insightful and helpful to your marketing challenges that may lie ahead. If you would like to chat with us about your specific marketing/communications issues or would like Inward to help you build a Global Leadership Council, give us a call or email us at any time. We’d be happy to brainstorm unique solutions for your specific situation. If you have any suggestions for future thought leadership topics you would like to see addressed, please let us know and we will do our best to provide you with information that best focuses your challenges.

Regards,

-Allan

Shaking Off Change Fatigue

A large financial services company once called us in to discuss a pressing change communications challenge. What could they do to shake off Change Fatigue and get their organization inspired and motivated again? What a great question--many companies are facing the same challenge right now.

From the late 90's through early 2000, this company had benefited from growing revenues, and expanded their staff and facilities, benefits and outside resources. But going into 2004, they have worked through poor financial performance, massive layoffs, cutbacks of 401k contributions, facility closings, and outsourcing-even offshoring-of IT jobs. As a result, the morale of the remaining staff was terrible.

Now, every time the company announces a new initiative, the reaction is less than enthusiastic. Once, the mood of the company was positive, spirited, committed and enthusiastic. But now, the organization is tired after so much bad news, cynical about the future, distrustful of management, and wary of changing their habits. In a nutshell, the employees are taking a wait and see attitude, everyone still wondering if they will be the next to go. And, as the economy improves and more jobs become available, the risk grows that disillusioned employees will take off with the company's intellectual capital and know how, and create even more problems.

Is your organization also suffering from Change Fatigue? Is your company depressed? Are there pockets of unhappiness? Is a culture of skepticism taking hold and spreading? What can management do? How can you stop this from spiraling and paralyzing performance?

Obviously, economic recovery and improved financial performance will help. But apart from improving the bottom line, what else can management do? The first step is for senior management to seriously demonstrate commitment to their employees. They must show them that their morale is strategically important to the company's future, and that they are committed to improving the situation.

Some additional suggestions for effective change management communications and shaking off Change Fatigue:

- Be proactive. Develop a clear plan to communicate the status of the key issues that affect employee morale. Make it clear how positive behavior in support of the business objectives will improve the situation. Let employees know that they can help and enroll staff to contribute to the solution.

- Keep the lines of communications open, between the CEO and every employee, and between middle management and their staff. You need to convey a feeling that managers are really accessible, and that they care about their employees' feelings.

- Focus on issues that matter most. Explain the facts contributing to each problem, what options you had for resolving them, and how you reached your decisions. Most important, your communications should emphasize what actions and decisions mean to the employee, in a relevant and honest fashion. If you don't have an answer, say so. Never lie, never duck answering.

- Establish a regular, scheduled communications calendar that people can rely upon: for instance, an email from the CEO the first Tuesday of every month at 4:00, or a weekly Monday voice mail message. Name these events to lend them importance, so that people look forward to them and seek them out. The Ford Motor Company calls an important news announcement a "Blue Letter," while the President of the United States talks to the people every Saturday in radio "Fireside Chats."

- Use your regular communications sessions to provide updates and progress reports on each of the core topics that matter most. Remember to stay on point.

- Make sure the message and communications are meaningful and relevant, and conveyed them in a way that resonates with employees. Avoid premiums like t-shirts and hats, and don't go over the top with gimmicks like sky writers or parachutes dropping down with banners. Your medium should reflect your serious message: it's OK to have some fun, but you need to strike the right balance.

- If possible, encourage small CEO interactions and meetings. Employees should hear first hand what the company is doing, and learn why decisions are being made and how they will impact people as individuals. Prepare and rehearse key talking points and reinforce these points frequently during the sessions.

- Create a place on your intranet where people can retrieve factual information, and see what management has to say on the issues and what they are doing about them. Update it regularly. If you withhold honest, factual information the rumor mill will work overtime to fill in the gaps and create a new problem.

- Avoid unscheduled and untimely news jolts that scare the organization or can be taken out of context and misinterpreted. Manage the implications of the news, just as you would an external PR campaign.

- Conduct research and seek out employee feedback on the major issues that affect them, their attitudes and their behavior. The research should be hands on, conducted by senior people to demonstrate that they care about the situation and are committed to improving it.

If you would like to explore your specific Change Fatigue situation and how to address it, let me know. I personally will assist you. And if you know a company that would benefit from our help, please pass the link to this blog on to them and ask them to visit our web site at www.inwardconsulting.com

While I have your attention, do you have issues you would like me to address in the next blog posting? If so, please drop me a line and I'll be happy to share my ideas with you.

Meanwhile, here's to a productive 2008!

Best Regards,

Allan