Leaders of great organizations have tremendous clarity about the brand identity they aspire to embody and about how to cultivate an organizational culture that enables them to achieve it. Jeff Bezos has made the Amazon brand synonymous with innovations that delight customers by cultivating a culture that doggedly pursues those innovations. Richard Branson has created […]
When Viad Corp.‘s Travel and Recreation Group undertook a re-branding in 2016, there were several objectives for the transformation including identifying a new name. Instead of delegating the undertaking to the marketing department, as most organizational leaders would, President David Barry believed the most fundamental element of the transformation was employee engagement with the brand. […]
While the importance of workplace culture is well-understood, how to build a great culture is less established. In the research and work I did leading to my upcoming book, FUSION: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies (published by Nicholas Brealey, an imprint of Hachette Book Group on March 13, 2018), I […]
A culture crisis threatens to disrupt Corporate America today as much as the financial crisis did a decade ago. Whether it’s claims of sexual harassment, the lack of diversity and equality at many organizations, or the nearly 70% of American workers who are not engaged at work, business leaders must devote more attention to their […]
Now that according to Gartner more than 90% of businesses compete primarily on the basis of customer experience (CX), it’s no longer enough to make CX a corporate priority. The next competitive frontier is employee experience (EX) and the signs indicate so strongly that EX will become the next priority for organizations that I’m calling […]
Call me old school, but I really enjoy the written word. I prefer reading a long-form blog post or article than a pithy tweet or fleeting Facebook post. That’s not to say that I want a writer to blather on — rather, I like reading the work of people who have mastered the written word […]
(This is the second in a two-part series on Corporate Reputation. The first post, Why Your Corporate Reputation Matters, explained the definition of corporate reputation, the method Reputation Institute uses to measure corporate reputation, and the benefits of having a strong corporate reputation among different stakeholder groups. In today’s post, you’ll learn how to improve […]
This month I’m speaking to an organization about corporate reputation and trust. The CEO has designated trust as one of their key priorities and they’ve asked me to help their top leaders understand why corporate reputation matters and what role they play in building it. Given how frequently corporate crises arise these days, I can […]
“When I grow up, I want to be a follower,” said no one. No kid aspires to follow others. No employee says his best quality is being a follower. No MBA student signs up for followership classes (and not just because business schools don’t offer them.) Being a leader is what counts these days. Leadership […]
Customer experience futurist, author, and speaker Blake Morgan and I recently bonded over common views on women and customer experience. (Our conversation is a part of Blake’s terrific Modern Customer podcast – check it out here.) We ended up concluding that women are uniquely positioned to lead customer experience. […]