I was talking with a CEO during one of the stock market’s recent wild fluctuations.  As he reflected on what is happening in the broader economy and what it will take for any business to succeed over the next 10 years, he noted two things:

1. The overall capacity in his industry has shrunk.  If demand rises quickly back to previous levels, the industry won’t be able to react quickly enough.
2. Since the “pie” itself is smaller, it’s critical that businesses figure out how to get a bigger piece of it.  In order to do that, he focused on the need to position your company well, finding agreement within your organization about how you are different — or should be different — than your competition.

Some businesses may wait for a “rising tide to lift all boats” — those broader economic conditions that will improve conditions for everyone.  On the other hand, is it wise to bet that conditions will improve substantially soon?  You may want to follow the advice of this CEO and truly distinguish your organization in some way.

What is unique about your organization?  If there is nothing truly unique, what are you the best at?  And does this characteristic generate loyalty from your clients and customers?

Why should a company invest time and money in clarifying and articulating its identity?

Companies invest in developing products, services, and in new product launches.  There are metrics that attempt to correlate the relationship between marketing investment and return on that investment.  But what about your identity – what you stand for as a company? Can we measure the value of understanding who you are as an organization?

This week, I read an article by Dan Pink on this very subject.  He focuses on purpose (only one element of a company’s identity), and he sheds light on the research of Adam Grant at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.  It’s a small study and it might not be convincing to everyone, but it demonstrates the effectiveness of employees connecting to a purpose. Studies like this begin to quantify the importance of organizational identity.  It’s a great article and worth the time.

I had a great conversation with Mark Sylvester yesterday during a webinar on promoting organizational sync.  Mark has a company called introNetworks that helps connect people via smart social networks.

I first used introNetworks software when I attended the TED Conference (Technology, Entertainment and Design).  The software allowed me to choose attributes that best describe me and then view the attributes of more than 1,000 people at the conference. Being part of this smart network allowed me to quickly recognize people, gave me ideas for conversation starters, and help me find people with common interests.

I hope that if you participated in the webinar today you found the conversation helpful.  If you missed it, you can listen to it here.  I think there is great potential to promote organizational sync with a resource like introNetworks.  Anything leaders can do to facilitate different ways to connect like minded people is helpful in promoting sync.

I was meeting with a CEO earlier this week, and he emphasized several times during our conversation that when CEOs consider getting outside help to promote sync they ask, “What’s the ROI?”

This raises an important question:  How does one measure the ROI of getting in sync?  It’s intuitively obvious that being in sync is helpful. Having an organization in which everyone is working to move you in the same direction is more cost effective than the alternative.  And having a customer promise that is in sync with the value you actually deliver will certainly get you better financial results.  But where’s the quantitative data? (more…)

As many of you know Dialect is focused on promoting sync.  We’ve published a book, Uncommon Sense, that illustrates principles of sync through a fictional story of a CEO and his leadership team.

But what is sync?  Simply put, in organizational terms, it is departments and people using their strengths and understanding their roles, effectively working toward shared goals.

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