From brand culture to brand delivery community

Reading Time: 5 minutesToday, as people work together in a range of configurations, the implications for culture are complicating. We’ve been thinking about this in terms of how these evolving arrangements affect brand culture. Increasingly, we believe organisations with devolved and distributed workforces are going to need to function less as a singular brand culture and more as […]

Motivation: Step 4 in activating a purposeful culture

Reading Time: 6 minutesThere’s a temptation to believe that the sheer logic of a good decision will sway the crowd; that if you make a good case and present it in an inspiring way, you’ve done everything you need to for that idea to gain instant uptake in an organisational culture. We’ve yet to see that happen successfully. […]

Exploration: Step 3 in building purposeful culture

Reading Time: 6 minutesHaving clearly outlined why change is needed and the opportunity that change could generate, too many culture change programmes then leave people to make the changes themselves without very much more explanation. This is the right time for exploration: for people to talk things through, in terms of the broad and personal implications of building […]

Inspiration. Step 2 in activating purposeful culture change

Reading Time: 6 minutesAn amazing thing happens when you ask people to imagine their current workplace working to its potential. First, they smile. Then they hesitate. Then they want to talk about everything that’s wrong and why a better workplace is not real or practical or feasible. Purposeful culture change takes time. If you’re patient though and you […]

How to develop, lock in and apply powerful brand values

Reading Time: 3 minutesValues are one of the great ironies of brand. Everyone professes their importance, and some brands invest considerable time finalising them. Then they systematically ignore them, often because they don’t know how to practically apply them. In doing so, they underplay the importance and guidance that powerful brand values can provide. Not all brand values […]

8 questions to test your brand culture principles

Reading Time: 3 minutesUltimately, the evolution of brand culture revolves around consequences – good and bad. Every reaction to every behaviour is a signal to those involved and others that an action or attitude is unacceptable, tolerated or desirable. It’s also a powerful and simple way to test your brand culture principles. In an article in HBR some […]

Aligning your strategy and your principled culture

Reading Time: 4 minutesEvery strategy needs the right culture to deliver it. Through our Principled Culture approach, we look to close the gap between what the culture needs to be in order to succeed and what people need in order to thrive. We do that by aligning your strategy and your Principled Culture. A key driver for us […]

How do you measure effectiveness in a principled culture?

Reading Time: 4 minutesMuch of the prevailing discourse suggests a brand’s culture happens as the sum result of how people choose to collectively behave. That sounds somewhat haphazard. A principled culture is about grounding those dynamics so they are much more intentional. While everyone agrees that key indicators act as measures of cultural change and the means to […]

Stepping up to a Principled Culture

Reading Time: 4 minutesCulture change models, in our view, are best achieved by the right mix of emotions, intent and order. Emotions, because they are such powerful motivators for change. Intent, because everyone wants to know where they’re going. And order, because structure brings surety. Stepping up to a Principled Culture is no exception. Fit is the f […]

Why linking strategy, culture and stories matters

Reading Time: 5 minutesIt’s tempting to ignore linking strategy, culture and stories. After all they seem like different things, and address different aspects of bringing a brand to life. At first glance, strategy focuses on where the business needs to get to. Culture talks to how you bring out the best in people. Stories are how audiences receive […]