An organization's brand and culture are arguably the two biggest contributing factors to its bottom-line success, and they are indisputably intertwined--so much so that
differentiating them can be a daunting exercise. Despite the intangibility of these organizational attributes, they must be nurtured and conveyed to all stakeholders.
This, of course, is the communicator's cross to bear. The process often starts internally with the creation of a corporate culture that resonates with employees and, in turn,
emanates externally to personify the brand. With the increasing integration of the communications and HR functions, executives in the communications silo now find themselves charged
with, among other things, translating the intangibles of an internal culture into something that employees can engage with.
To wrap their minds around this brand/culture conundrum, executives should, in the words of Bonfire Communications CEO Gordon Rudow, cut through the clutter. "[As communicators],
our role is best actualized when we are leading and facilitating rather than taking a backseat role. It's all in the spirit of living in the nuances," he says. "All of us [as
communicators] deal with an enormous amount of complexity. It's about how you get through all the complexity to arrive at the simplicity at the other side."
If this still sounds too esoteric to translate into action, Rudow--along with Genentech's associate director of corporate relations, David Arrington--frames the concept in the
context of their collaboration to launch gLife, an internal branding initiative that aimed to align Genentech's HR and communications functions to ultimately create a cohesive
corporate culture. First, though, they had to understand the big picture.
"[A company's culture] is what it affirms through its leaders, messaging and behaviors. Every pocket [of the company] has a unique culture, and then there is the collective
conversation when you put all that together," Rudow says. "Brand is about differentiation. A lot of people talk about brand as the soul of the organization. So, if culture is the
collective conversation and the brand is the soul, then both should be in service of the organization's overall purpose."
This idea of how brand identity and corporate culture work together toward the company's overall purpose was the overarching philosophy behind gLife, which, in essence, was an
internal brand with very specific goals:
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Generate intrigue and curiosity, and open the channel of attention among employees;
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Create a unique and differentiated experience; and,
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Inspire and motivate people toward a particular performance or behavior.
These goals were to be actualized by creating a tangible internal brand--consistent fonts, colors, logos and language--across all employee communications materials, as the
company had 200 separate programs pertaining to employee benefits.
"The brand we are talking about started with a realignment of thinking from the HR function," Arrington says. "It required HR to start thinking different about their role across
their function, keeping the employees in mind."
While the gLife campaign was specific to Genentech, the necessary process of creating a viable internal brand and culture is relevant to all organizations. Genentech's experience
is particularly salient, as it represents a fairly young (founded in 1976) start-up whose growth spurt landed it among the top biotech companies, employing approximately 11,000
people today. Thus, its employee relations-related struggles center on connecting employees in different regions; fostering an internal culture that complements that of the overall
brand; managing gaps across generations; building awareness, conversation and brand champions; and attracting and retaining top talent.
Given the ubiquity of these challenges, communications executives in all industries can learn from Genentech's internal branding initiative. The following are best practices
straight from the trenches:
*Think in terms of strategy, then execute through tactics. Arrington and Rudow's team spent a great deal of time honing the overarching theme of the branding initiative,
eventually developing a strategy wheel that served as a guide for the execution of all components.
"The strategy wheel has always been our compass," Rudow says, citing their mantra of "growing utilization, communication, participation and appreciation" among employees. To this
day, the strategy wheel is the backbone of Genentech's internal branding; having established it on the front-end was essential, Rudow says, because it was a constant to which the
team could always refer back.
*Don't separate--integrate. Given the size of the company, the internal branding team had to bring together disparate groups of people, both in terms of geographic distribution
and departmental divisions. Problems initially arose that execs in most organizations can relate to:
"The way companies communicate programs to employees is often based on the way [employees] are functionally organized," Rudow says. "One of the biggest takeaways for us is that
you need to get people [in different functions and departments] who don't really talk to each other and synergize their work in ways that they aren't used to. There is a change
management piece."
Rudow and Arrington facilitated this change management element through focus groups "to build affinity structures around the way employees think," Rudow says, describing sessions
in which the 200 or so employee programs were written on sticky pads and stuck to a blank wall. Employees were then asked to organize the programs into "buckets" based on
similarities that made sense to them.
At the end of the exercise, the team was able to separate the dozens of programs into categories such as benefits, compensation, career/learning and community/convenience. This
reorganization, in turn, brought together executives who had never collaborated with each other to integrate their various programs. Genentech gLife organization and action
committees were established accordingly, thanks to "changing that cowboy mentality to one where people think collaboratively," Arrington says.
*Develop instant messaging. Once the themes are clear and an organizational strategy has been established, it's time to develop the messaging around the internal brand. This
corresponds to everything from the language in pamphlets and on the intranet to the colors and fonts used throughout brand materials.
"You want consistency," Rudow says, "Brands are about consistency. They should become peer-managed and peer-sustained initiatives."
This proved to be very true in Genentech's case: After identifying organizing and action committees, Rudow and Arrington gave each leader a proverbial long leash to manage their
own endeavors. This was possible thanks to the pre-determined top-line messaging that was arrived at after 17 drafts and iterations.
"We thought a lot about that language, because it's the language that executives would use and that would appear on our Web site," Arrington says. "GLife mirrors the culture of
what Genentech was and what we want it to be."
*Prepare for liftoff. Developing an internal brand isn't a one-off process; rather, it takes time to gestate before it is "birthed," so to speak. But, once that birth is set to
take place, it's important to tie it to a relevant event so it doesn't go unnoticed. In gLife's case, that event was the launch of the upgraded company intranet.
*Fight the war, not the battles. As is always the case, there were mavericks who resisted the new internal brand.
"Some people thought we were becoming too corporate, so there was some backlash against that," Arrington says. "You always have to choose your fights. Allow the counterculture to
thrive, but continue to push forward toward your vision."
Rudow also underscores the importance of remaining focused on the big picture once the tactical elements of the campaign have been executed.
"Be careful about not infusing your own agenda into your brand. You just want enough champions to create a tipping point," he says. "One of the problems [with communicators] is
that they think they don't get a seat at the table. Well, if we are [focusing] on fonts and colors instead of strategies, then that struggle will continue." PRN
CONTACTS:
Gordon Rudow, [email protected]; David Arrington, [email protected]