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French On Brand

~ by GroPartners Consulting CEO Greg French

French On Brand

Tag Archives: corporate vision

How to Get Everything You Want at Work This Year

13 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by French On Brand in Alignment, Measurement

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Tags

B2B branding, brand, corporate vision, Employee collaboration, Employee engagement, Employee recognition, Engagement strategies, operationalization, Peer-to-peer, strategic alignment

 One word. RAPPORT.

What are the ingredients of powerful RAPPORT? How can you harness the force that projects charisma, persuasion, negotiating power, and credibility to all the stakeholders who affect your work life? Not only your boss. Not just your team. But people within every function of your organization and all your brands’ stakeholders, including customers.

To take it even further, RAPPORT can be scaled to unite brands and their customers, employees and employers; all to achieve real business results.

Believe it or not, this kind of power can be acquired by following only seven down-to-earth steps called The RAPPORT Process™.

Print(R) Research — Know your stakeholders

(A) Analysis — Determine not just what they want, but what they need to do to get what they want (your strategy). Pick your battles by focusing on needs that your solutions can best facilitate, and the segments that value them most.

(P) Positioning — Develop a way to deliver your strategy that addresses your stakeholders’ perceived wants. Begin with their objective and work backwards to your own. Focus on the single facet of your stakeholders’ want that you can “own.” Let them discover all the other great benefits later. Be big somewhere, rather than small everywhere.

(P) Planning — Once you know what your stakeholders want and what they need to do to get it, you need a detailed approach. Formalize the events, costs, benefits, and sequence in a plan.

(O) Operation — Execute your plan…roll it out…take action

(R) Results — Measure your outcomes and progress toward your goals

(T) Translation — How can you do this better next time?

Imagine everyone in your organization—from the stockroom to the boardroom—using this process to deal with every kind of issue from improving shipping efficiencies to launching new brands. Minds aligned. Conflicts averted. Cultures united. Commerce accelerated. Efficiencies unlocked. Common process means common language and focus. And that means a better rapport, which opens a whole new universe of benefits—all from operational alignment through The RAPPORT Process.

Much like the Quality movement in decades past, the RAPPORT revolution can help businesses achieve greater customer satisfaction, increase revenues and margins, and improve operational efficiencies. GroPartners is launching a multi-year trial of our trademarked RAPPORT Process for organizations that believe alignment sets into motion a chain of heightened customer and employee satisfaction, which leads to enhanced revenues and margins. Our aim is to build a case of solid metrics on actual organizational implementation.

Contact us if you’d like to participate in our trial. This process might be a way for you (and your fellow employees and your customers) to get everything you want at work this year, and beyond.

You can read more about the RAPPORT Process in my new book, “Getting There From Here: Bridging Strategy and Execution” available on Amazon http://amzn.to/1yK9DTG or digital version on Apple iBooks.

GroPartners Consulting

The Sad State of Corporate Vision Statements

13 Monday May 2013

Posted by French On Brand in Branding

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

brand, brand brand focus, brand vision, corporate vision, vision

shutterstock_94813702In their book, “Built to Last, Successful Habits of Visionary Companies,” Collins and Porras found “companies that enjoy enduring success have core values and a core purpose that remain fixed while their business strategies and practices endlessly adapt to the changing world. The dynamics of preserving the core while stimulating progress is the reason that companies such as Hewlett-Packard, 3M, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Merck, Sony, Motorola, and Nordstrom became elite institutions able to renew themselves and achieve superior long-term performance.” Collins and Porras found that these companies, and those like them, have outperformed the general stock market by a factor of 12 since 1925.

How Corporate Vision fits with Corporate Objectives

Corporate vision is what provides a long view; a plumb line to reference in all decision making. If the vision is aimed at the greater good, all business objectives will be guided by those tenets and act as guidelines within which the business must operate. Consequently, business objectives should always be subject to the boundaries of the vision. That means the vision should be carefully thought through at the highest levels of the organization and articulated with crystal clarity. Often a facilitator skilled in this area is needed to offer perspective.

What makes for a terrific (or horrific) corporate vision?

Vision statements should not be long or complicated. Too many times I’ve walked into company lobbies to see a plaque on the wall with three paragraphs of “mice-type” under a bold headline “Our Vision.”

What makes for a great corporate vision? I decided to reach out to a few leading brands to provide examples of solid vision statements that bridged the gap between business and customer objectives. Instead of clear vision, what I found (for the most part) were horrifyingly ham-fisted collections of words thrown together into heaps of nonsense.  Few of them were well written. And the meaning of them was often even worse.

Let’s Grade Some Vision Statements

Keep in mind that a good vision statement is one that balances the health of the business, the customer relationship, and the greater good of society.

HP: A++

“Human Progress”
(http://hpbrandcenter.com/strategy_overview.html)

This one blows my mind. I don’t believe I have heard two words together that have resonated more deeply. Like chest-rumbling summer thunder in the distance, these words communicate on a visceral level. The HP Brand Strategy website continues, “Brand strategy is the connection between our business goals, our marketing tactics and our company’s soul — turning theories and ideas into tangible actions that build the brand we want customers and other audiences to experience when they think of HP.” Wow. These guys get it.

Virgin Atlantic: B

“Our vision is to contribute to creating happy and fulfilling lives which are also sustainable.”
(source:
http://www.virgin.com/people-and-planet/our-vision)

This vision statement is directionally valid because it speaks to improving the quality of life of people, and not the company. In order for a corporate vision statement to endure just about any external force, it should speak to what it’s endeavoring to do for the world, not just for itself. With this sustaining energy, the brand can transform to adapt to anything in the future because it’s not product based, market based, or even industry based. It’s about making people’s lives better, no matter what business they’re on. Virgin started as a record store. Now it has more than 50 branded companies in businesses as diverse as space travel, wine, and charities. To founder Richard Branson, it’s all about the experience – making people happy with sustainable living. I must admit, though, it could be a little more focused, and better written.

Pearson Education: F-

“To fulfil the educational needs across a spectrum of individuals with reliable experience and technology.”
(source: http://www.pearsoneducationservices.com/visionmission.php)

Even if you could forgive the spelling error (it was published on their website), the syntax indicates that Pearson’s target is a segment of people with reliable experience and technology. I don’t think that’s what they really meant. It’s one thing to get the purpose and focus of the vision statement wrong – it’s a whole different level of brand neglect to post something this important on a corporate website with incorrect spelling and syntax errors. And OMG, from an education company? Seriously?

Microsoft C+

“Create experiences that combine the magic of software with the power of Internet services across a world of devices.”
(source: Seattle Times, blog by Benjamin J. Romano, September 8, 2008)

(delivered by COO Kevin Turner at a buzz event, circa 2008)
Updated from the former original Bill Gates and Paul Allen vision of, “A computer on every desk,” neither of these statements are very altruistic in their service to mankind. But then again, I guess Gates was pretty good at separating his philanthropy from his juggernauts, waiting until after the corporate rat race was behind him to get all humane and everything.

B-  Walmart:

To promote ownership of Walmart’s ethical culture to all stakeholders globally.‘
(source: http://www.ask.com/question/wal-mart-s-vision-statement)

This is less of a vision statement than an internal cultural objective. At any rate, I didn’t downgrade this one too much because it speaks to ethical treatment of stakeholders and not to its own capitalistic interests and because it’s supported by values of being fair, having integrity, respecting others and embracing diversity.

Get the picture?

The vision should be in the service of people first while balanced with the corporate health. That’s what makes brands sustainable. And that’s why you’ve got to start with a really grounded vision before you can focus your corporate goals, objectives, and strategies. Take a look at your vision, does it pass the “vision test?”

  • Speaks to how the brand will make life better for people
  • Implies how the brand will sustain its business continuity and economics
  • Is short enough for every employee and customer to internalize and evangelize

What’s your idea of a great corporate vision? I’ll grade it for you 😉

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