Are Company Culture and Branding Related?

A CEO of an organisation recently told me: “Thanks to your brand strategy work with us we’ve had our eyes opened to the importance of branding and the constant input required to make sure we are reaching our maximum potential.”

As a solopreneur, you can correct a few inconsistencies or hiccups in your business quickly. 

Or you can even turn a blind eye to some without suffering any major setbacks. 

You can do that by calibrating your actions to your internal principles and long-term mission. i.e. Will this action help move me towards where I need to go?

When your business expands beyond just you, that level of control becomes almost unattainable. 

The culture of micro-managing company owners

We’d all known or worked for a micro-managing business owner at some point. It’s not pretty.

You suffer because you can’t get on with your work with the constant check-ins. And your boss can’t scale their business because they can’t get out of their way.

Of course, the dream version of this situation is where you are empowered by your manager’s confidence in you. 

The confidence that you will find a way to solve a problem without hand-holding. And in a way that will have a direct impact on achieving the overall goals of the business. All at the same time.

The resulted-in ideal outcome – your boss can use the newfound freedom of time to scale the business, its impact and its innovations.

What is the cost of sticking to the less-than-ideal scenario? 

Here are three short stories from my own experiences to help paint a picture.

1. Hiring the wrong person

A company I worked at once hired a seemingly experienced manager that we were all excited to work with. 

We’ve had two Zoom calls with him as a candidate. He said all the right things, was friendly, and demonstrated (or perhaps more accurately, dazzled us with) his apparent experience.

Two weeks in, after he arrived, it became painfully clear. He did not fit in culturally. His ambitions, goals, and managerial style were massively different to everyone else on the team. 

He struggled to navigate our team’s culture and often ended up doing tasks that he should have delegated himself. 

All because we failed to communicate what was expected from him. And his lack of clarity on how best to contribute to the overall objectives of our business.

2. Unable to grow individually, or as a company

Shortly after graduating from design college, I started as the first employee of a new business. After a few years of slow growth, we started seeing improvements. 

I asked for a salary increase. 

My manager’s response? “I’d love to, but I just can’t justify it. I don’t believe in increasing someone’s pay for doing the same role. And besides, nobody else at the company is earning what you’re asking for.”

Mind you, at this point, I had more responsibilities than originally hired for, more experience, and a new team I managed. Plus, I committed to doing even more to get the increase.

But alas, we were not aligned on a singular vision for the business, and needless to say, I did not stay, despite enjoying the work and my then team.

3. Suffering from high turnover & toxic mindsets

The CEO I mentioned at the top of this article was experiencing needless staff burnout. 

There was also a ‘me vs. them’ mentality at the team level. 

Culturally, team leaders tended to ‘hog’ their responsibilities, or micro-managed those tasks they did reluctantly agree to delegate to others.

Needless to say, the team was not to blame. The cause was a lack of a clearly defined ‘playbook’. Something that documented the ‘rules of the game’ in an actionable and easy-to-understand way for team members to implement.

And an aligned vision for everyone to aspire to, knowing how their behaviours and actions contribute.

With a few strategic workshops and team training engagements, we are now turning this around together.

The secret to avoiding these setbacks

Did you recognise an element of yourself in any of those stories?

I am lucky enough to have had a front-row seat to seeing, and learning (and in each of those cases, influencing) how that conflict can get resolved.

The ‘secret’ is embedding a strong brand culture into your business.

“With great brands, the culture and the values don’t play supporting roles in business operations—culture and values are the brand, and they’re used to inform business decisions and employee actions.” 

― Denise Lee Yohn, Brand Strategist & Author

Like your personal principles and purpose that guide you, clearly defined and actionable brand values and vision will lead your brand to success.

1. Hiring the ‘wrong’ manager did teach us to take culture fit and alignment on brand values seriously, that led us to work with better folks who drove the company forward.
2. Getting clear on what was important to me and what kind of an organisation I wanted to work for as an employee made it easier to seek out a workplace that valued my unique contributions AND enabled me to x3 my then salary.
3. With my guidance, brand workshops, and training, the organisation with the questionable culture has turned their luck around. With a compelling vision and clearly defined brand values that focus on employee interactions, we are improving team’s engagement and company’s Net Promoter Score as the result

How do you implement a strong company culture that succeeds?

Brand culture isn’t a set-and-forget kind of deal. 

There are a few critical components that you’ll need to consider if you want your business to continue making an impact:

1. “People don’t quit jobs, they quit their bosses” – If you, as a leader, create an environment where your team has the freedom to make decisions and can have fun at the same time, you’re increasing the capacity for creative thinking and improved results. Idea: Create a climate where everyone’s allowed to make mistakes, as long as they have measurable strategies to learn from those learnings.
2. Brand strategy isn’t purely the domain of the marketing department. And it isn’t something that just informs your visual and verbal identity either. If you think that handing off a Brand Strategy document to your Marketing Manager is job done, think again. You need to integrate it into your customer & employee experiences. Idea: You or your HR Manager can use your brand strategy to formulate employee OKRs and metrics, and use them for performance reviews, appraisals, and evaluations. 
3. Your brand values and purpose aren’t something you just print off in a boardroom to look good in front of clients. Your entire team needs to be clear on what’s expected of them. On a day-to-day basis, and how their actions are expected to lead to those bigger outcomes. Idea: Organise quarterly brand presentations to inspire the team (and any new members), sharing success stories of how an employee’s action led to an improved outcome.
4. Being equipped with a compelling brand culture and clear documentation on how to bring those elements to life, reinforces your ability to attract quality candidates that share your vision when hiring. Idea: Just like you’ve defined OKRs for current team members, you can formulate interview questions to ensure you can spot someone who would be a great fit vs. someone who won’t, even if the latter has ‘better’ work experience on paper.
5. Your brand culture is like farming or tending a plant. If you don’t provide tender loving care to it consistently, it won’t survive for long. Idea: Set up quarterly leadership workshops to review your strategic anchors (how you will succeed), the overall strategic objectives (what’s important right now), and the customer journey (are we delivering on our promise to customers). These ongoing reviews will help you tweak and adjust your strategy as needed.

Final thoughts on company culture

Your brand’s success depends on embedding a healthy and compelling company culture into your business.

It’s an ongoing commitment. And so is the work to maintain, review, and adjust it, if needed.

For best results, implement regular internal reviews and workshops or work with someone like me to help guide the process. 

And enjoy the fruits of an all-singing, all-dancing brand and business.

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