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 was reading another post by Michael Hyatt this morning, and it struck a cord with what we do at Dialect and why I wanted to start the company.  Michael was asked a simple question in an interview: “Which is most important – mission, core values, or vision?”

Michael answered that they are all equally important and interconnected.  They are distinguishable but inseparable.  You can read the post here.

Then the comments came rolling in.  One comment on Michael’s post says that he has heard that values are defined first.  Another person was more animated about the need for values to come first.

In my experience, leaders start from many places.  We’ve done work with companies were the leader sees purpose as being the glue for everything else.  In other situations, we’ve had leaders emphasize shared values and the strategy.  In other situations we’ve seen leaders who start with strategy and return later to what it will look like when they get there (vision) and what beliefs and behaviors will be necessary to accomplish it (values).

What do you start with at your company?

We wrote an article for Frost & Sullivan’s GIL eBulletin that was
published this week.  Frost & Sullivan found that most companies used
their research in order to create growth strategies and they started a
Grown Innovation and Leadership symposium that I frequently attend.
Our article this month was titled Four Ways to Manage A Diverse Workforce
for Innovation and Growth.

You can read it here.

One of the things that I find most interesting about strength based
thinking is that it seems as though we (as people and as companies)
seem to take our strengths for granted.  We expect others to be able
to do what we find so easy.  And many times, we wish we could do what
we see others do so well.  I see the same things happening with
companies.  The article talks about different ways to look at
innovation in light of the strengths that your company possesses.

I’d like to hear how you define the strengths of your organization.

I read  a great blog post this morning by Rosabeth Moss Kanter.  You can read it here (Five Tips for Leading Campaigns for Change).

In many ways, her post relates to two important concepts we try to emphasize in our work:  sync and cognitive filters.  She points to the need for a memorable message, the need for stories, action tools, partners, and “point of action” nudges.  Together, these five elements relate to creating a direction, building a culture that supports the change, giving process to the effort and connecting the ideas in concrete ways to stakeholders.

Typically, we find that most of us can’t do all these things well because they are very different strengths (i.e. filters).  By making sure that each of Rosabeth’s elements work well together (i.e. they’re in sync), you have a better chance of enabling change.

When you think about the change efforts you’ve been a part of, did leaders recognize our cognitive diversity and use that knowledge to their advantage?

In his book, Start with Why, Simon Sinek challenges us to ask Why?  Sinek has a background in marketing, and proposes that most people know what they do and how they do it.  But if you ask them why they do it, they often don’t have an answer.  Sinek wants to “inspire people to be inspired” by finding their why.

His thinking is simple, straightforward, and powerful.  It resonates with my experience and from a personal perspective, it can be hard to keep the why in mind when dealing with the challenges of business and life.

We recently talked to a large company that has merged two divisions.  The company leaders are asking the question, How are we better together?  I believe their how is Simon’s why.

When is the last time you’ve really looked at your why?

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.