BRAND CULTURE: A POWERFUL TOOL FOR REVIVING AND REINVENTING COMPANIES POST-CORONAVIRUS Kim Vaughan and Mark Thomson

“How do we keep the company performing together when we’re no longer all working together?” 

Crises Accelerate Change Already Underway 

Changes in the world around us, especially dramatic ones, require us to rethink our goals and the tools we use to reach them. Businesses large and small are doing this right now as we face the unprecedented challenges presented by coronavirus. For some businesses the question is existential: Will we survive this economic disruption? But for all companies, even those with the scale and strength to endure, there’s another question that is inescapable: What will business look like on the other side of this? 

It will take months and even years to fully grasp the transformations at hand. But, a basic picture is starting to emerge. The businesses we work for are likely to be more: 

Distributed – not centralized, but happening at many different places and times 

Safety-conscious – ranging from physical and mental health to cyber-security 

Technology-mediated – virtual interactions and digital methods replacing in-person connection and manual process 

Life-integrated – lines between home and work becoming increasingly fuzzy 

To some degree, this list could have been written a year ago, even five years ago. The trends and enabling technologies prompting these shifts have been taking root for some time. What’s changed is the difference between “nice to have” and necessary. What was elective is now essential. Up until this year, digitally-enabled, virtual and remote ways of working were additive – they enhanced business process. Today, necessity has pushed them to the very core of business. Quite suddenly, virtual has become a primary mode for many businesses. And even for businesses that remain location based, the nature of shared spaces and how work happens there is being rethought in real time. For all businesses, the safety, security and well-being of employees is front and center in newly urgent ways. And, uncertainty promises to be the prevailing sentiment for some time to come. 

In this period of transformation, how will managers effectively engage their people to deliver on business strategy, and what tools will they use? Some will have to be invented. But, as the trends above show, some that already exist will become even more essential. One approach that promises to become critically important is Brand Culture. 

Brand Culture Is How Companies and Employees Connect and Achieve Together 

Brand Culture is the connection employees feel with each other and with a company’s mission. It is the inside face to the brand itself, the sense of identity and shared purpose that unites employees to deliver on the business strategy. And, this will become ever more essential in a world where purely physical and location-based connections are diminished and distanced, where what we do and how we do it are changing, and where business strategy is being reshaped in response to unprecedented circumstances. In operational terms, Brand Culture is the melding of brand management with people management. It means establishing a shared purpose and business strategy, and then equipping employees to meet it. In short, the “company” as we know it is fracturing and Brand Culture is the glue that will bind the fragments together. 

How do you make people feel a part of “something” when that something no longer has a day-to-day physical address? Or, how do you ensure that employees feel a part of a shared mission when some must still work on site, and others are able to work remotely? Or, even more fundamentally, how do you keep everyone aware and aligned when business strategy is being rethought, sometimes from day to day? 

Brand Culture provides a way for managers to answer in both principle and practice. It enables connection and constancy among employees functioning on-site, off-site or both. It touches upon elements of HR, corporate communications, operations, marketing and other functions that shape what employees hear and know, what they do, and how they do it. Brand Culture is a mechanism for consolidating and coordinating people and processes across the enterprise. In short, Brand Culture defines what a company is, regardless of where its people work or how. 

In the “old days” – up through earlier this year – brand culture emerged largely from the physical places where employees worked and the face-to-face interactions they had there – in the office, the shop, the job site, etc. Of course, virtual ways of working contributed, too. But, it was easy to think of Brand Culture – or simply work culture – as a by-product of the daily interactions and interrelationships of employees. Now, Brand Culture must be seen not as a side-effect of connection, but as effecting connection: It’s what shapes, sustains and enriches interactions among employees, and between employees and management. Many progressive companies were already using Brand Culture as a catalyst for more focused, consistent and effective ways of working. Now, it is becoming an essential part of any manager’s toolkit. The risk of not using this tool is the loss of support for brand and business strategy among the only people who can actually make it happen – employees. 

Brand Culture unites important tangible and intangible elements of a well-functioning business – it addresses both the sense of connection and the systems of connection within a company. It is the source of what we might call “company spirit” – the experience of group-ness that turns a bunch of individuals with their own objectives into a team with shared goals. It also consists of the systems that underpin this sense of shared affiliation – the methods of communication and collaboration that lead to joint accomplishment. At a time of disruption and dispersal, Brand Culture gives us something coherent and consistent to identify with, and gives us ways to act on that. 

Putting Brand Culture in Practice 

When some people come back to the office and others remain remote…or when on-site operations have to be radically restructured…or when what the business actually does changes in the course of weeks – disruptions like these don’t just endanger the bottom line, they can uproot what people understand the business to be and how they see their place in it. The challenge has raised new questions for company leaders as well. How do I let my people know what’s happening when circumstances are changing, sometimes by the hour? What do I say about where we’re headed when all our planning has been up-ended? How do I share a positive message while recognizing hardship? These are some of the very real questions we’ve heard from clients in the past weeks and months. Over this time, we have begun to help clients reassert their “company-ness” in the face of massive disruption. We’ve helped them ensure the survival of the Brand Culture that defines companies from the inside out, by reorienting existing tools and processes, and building new ones, to manage changed circumstances effectively. 

In the early weeks of the shutdown, these kinds of activities were conceived of as a bridge – a way to cast a life-line forward to the point of “back to normal.” But, we’ve started to realize that what we’re actually doing is crafting a new normal in real time, and one that is likely to endure even as operations resume more fully. In a silver-lining way, the response to coronavirus is actually strengthening connection by enhancing the expectations around what is communicated and how, and what employees are being asked to do in turn. Brand Culture is providing people something to identify with, to point to and say, I’m part of that – even when traditional and tangible reference-points have been swept away. 

 Three key areas help to demonstrate how Brand Culture ensures continuity and connection: 

 Status – Let people know what’s up, and learn from them at the same time 

Do I have a job, or will I? What’s happening with the company right now, and what’s likely to happen next? Will this business still be here in six months, and what will it look like? During times of rapid change, people have an extra keen need for information and context – at the very time when those can be hard to provide. The first reaction is often to say less, but just because you don’t have all the answers doesn’t mean you have nothing to communicate. After all communication isn’t just about information, it’s about connection. Simply hearing from leadership at this time, can be a powerful source of comfort and motivation for employees. 

In turn, management needs to hear from employees throughout the enterprise to understand what they are experiencing, and what they need in order to work effectively. Setting up systems for input and feedback allows you to gauge what employees are actually experiencing, so you know what they need from you, and they know what you need from them. Continuity of communication – whether in-person or virtual – is the basis of a strong Brand Culture. Engaging with employees and giving them opportunities to engage with others helps to establish common bonds and enlist active support for business strategy. 

Systems – Build the infrastructure to sustain the new reality 

 In order to sustain a sense of connection throughout the company, Brand Culture establishes and reinforces the systems that keep everyone aware and aligned. In many ways, the coronavirus crisis has brought us back to basics while simultaneously transforming how those basics are achieved. For example, we’ve noted how important it is for leaders to “be present” for employees. In past times, this might have meant walking the hallways to make a personal connection with staff. Today, it is more likely to mean hosting a company-wide GoToMeeting. Or, to take another example, when it comes to workplace safety, the prior expectation might have been that employees suited up in protective gear on the job and complied with posted notices. Now, it might be necessary to don safety equipment before hitting the job site, and have access to changing protocols via an employee digital portal, well before getting to work. 

 Whatever the specific issues you face, it's important to develop a comprehensive and coordinated approach to how, what and when you communicate. When the surrounding “noise” is high, but certainty about the way forward is low, it’s vital to be thoughtful and disciplined about your whole communications system. Employees need to know when information is coming, where to get it, how to prioritize and make sense of it, and what to do with it. In the current circumstances internal communications – the foundation of Brand Culture –  is at least as important as external marketing. The good news is that many of the tactical tools we need are already at our disposal. That coronavirus is happening in 2020 means that Zoom, Slack, Jabber, intranets, Sharepoints, and cloud-based networks are all available to substitute for or reinforce traditional face-to-face, group and manual systems. But, to be most effective, they need to work in service of a deliberate and coordinated internal communications strategy. 

Story – Give people something to be a part of…even when they are apart 

Ultimately, people need to make sense of their circumstances and the part they play in them. That means understanding what’s happening not just as a set of random facts, but as a storyline with an inherent rational. It’s a common human practice – even a need – to organize information into narrative. When the stories we hold to be true are disrupted, this can be just as disorienting as tangible shifts like working from home or distancing within the workplace. Who we are, what we do, and how we do it…as the answers to these questions change, we need corresponding new narratives. Today, the reality is shifting underfoot for nearly every company. In turn, the storylines of those companies must address and adapt to them. 

 Shared storylines are at the heart of Brand Culture, providing answers to the most fundamental questions: Who are we as a company? What do we do, how, and why? How does each of us  contribute to the whole? Today’s circumstances demand that we answer at two levels – how we approach business in the time of Covid, and what is our longer term, post-pandemic vision. While timelines will continue to be uncertain, the way we answer will help employees connect what we’re doing now with what we hope and plan to do next. This is a crucial part of keeping the idea of a company “whole.” A set of products or service offerings, a profit or loss, offices, equipment, assets – these are all elements of an enterprise. But what holds it all together and carries the business forward is the idea of the company, the story of the company, which employees carry with them in their hearts and heads. Brand Culture restores – or re-stories – the company and ensures that it survives, by ensuring that its people continue believing and delivering on it. 

Paving the Path Forward with Brand Culture 

In the midst of change, it can feel like we are splitting away from the past. But, what even the biggest transformations usually yield is synthesis – a mix of old and new elements. It is likely that five years from now, even the most “virtual” companies will still have “headquarters” and physical locations of some kind. But, it is also likely that much, if not the majority of their work, will be done in more distributed ways across both space and time. It is also likely that “on-site” will feel very different, even at location-based businesses like manufacturing plants, hotels, or high-touch services like salons. What is a near certainty is that few companies will still look like they do now, or like they did just a few weeks ago. What they become, and how their employees make that happen will depend in large part on how well companies continue to  provide those employees with a sense of purpose and a sense of participation in delivering the business strategy. As the world continues to change, employees and employers will need shared reference points, the fixed points of the compass that enable us to maintain forward movement. Brand Culture is one of the primary guiding forces that will keep us connected and achieving together.