Is your Brand Promise important to you? (Huh?) Is it important to preserve a stellar customer experience during change?
As you make changes throughout your organization do you mindfully consider the impact on Brand Promise? On the culture that supports it? Many organizations take this for granted.
Do you tolerate or build (gasp!) changes that compromise the Brand Promise?
Ally gets – have a look at “The Egg Management Fee” commercial. They understand that many organizations knowingly BREAK the promise. Really? Yes, spend 20 minutes with Seth Godin here if you doubt this.
Remember, your customers are not dumb – “they” are “us”!
Most “systems” when they are first imagined are “whole”― most business cases envision maintaining the “whole”.
Implementation often compromises this ― most change jeopardizes brand promise.
Change is often structured as Projects and Programs. They have a tendency to gain momentum, like freight trains, and to become myopic (delivering in terms of time, cost and scope) – sometimes compromising original vision (both Project / Program and Organization) to get to an end.
Honour original intent (vision, mission, values).
Build security into your Change Management Strategy – articulate a clearer vision, detail the compromises you will and will not tolerate, engage your people’s hearts and minds in the real solution.
Inspired by “Peace Train” by Cat Stevens (beautiful, live 1976 Earth Tour performance here).
Gail, query insightful observation. I think brand recognition and preservation should be at the heart of change management around any change initiative. It is easy to get bogged down into the weeds of project plan management. The PM should exercise the “art” in project management and keep the vision in focus and keep reminding folks of this vision. I especially like your reference to “maintaining the whole”. I refer to it as systems in equilibrium. As dysfunctional as they may be, people prefer systems in equilibrium to systems in imbalance which is inevitable in any change initiative. This is the inertia that must be overcome and this is where a strong business case really helps.
Thanks for following and I look forward to reading more from you
Thanks Sonny! Readers: Sonny has a fantastic post on personal branding (here https://buzzfreezone.wordpress.com/) entitled “Excuse Me… your brand is showing” that got us ‘talking’ today.