Volume 2, Issue 5
Changing the Conversation
It starts simply with refreshing your language and eliminating corporate speak - communicating in clear terms. Focusing on the future in terms of your brand’s evolution, new technologies being developed; new products being commercialized to paint a complete picture are among the elements necessary to change or shift conversation and move people forward. The bottom line: changing the conversation is the result of new management decisions, practices, and behavior vs. crafting hollow messages or narrative that lacks substance. The combination of decisions and actions with a strategic communications approach is a powerful recipe to shift attitudes, perceptions and jumpstart organizational and brand renewal. Read More...
Volume 2, Issue 4
Are people knocking on or running out your door? Nine insights on employer branding to drive talent sustainability
By sunset tonight, another 1,300 job applicants will have inundated Google with resumes. Roughly 50 people vie for every opening at Southwest Airlines. Starbucks boasts a turnover rate less than half the average for quick-service restaurants. Read More...
Volume 2, Issue 3
Of Pictures and Puzzles: Why you need paint brushes, not puzzle pieces to allow people to experience your organization or brand
But is the “puzzle” metaphor the right one for stakeholders today? Today’s employees, consumers and other stakeholders want to be involved, not directed. They want to make their own interpretations and come to their own conclusions. They want to discover critical information rather than have it sold to them. Read More...
Volume 2, Issue 2
Questions That Answered The Future
Every once in a while a great leader transforms a business, and often an entire industry, by asking the right question. Take for example, Fred Smith, who asked, “how can delivery systems be transformed to match the speed of business?” Today, we take for granted that we can “FedEx” a package and be guaranteed overnight delivery almost anywhere in the world. Fred Smith transformed the delivery business with a deceptively simple question by probing and asking: What if we try something that no one has tried before? What can we do differently? What do we really need to focus on? How can we make it faster, better, smarter? Simple, but powerful questions like these can answer the future before it even takes shape. Before you read on, take a moment and think when was the last time you or your management team asked a question that answered the future? Read More...
Volume 2, Issue 1
“Two Thumbs Up” - Are People Following Your Story? The increasing importance of a corporate narrative
Did you ever stop to think about why certain companies always make you take notice? While others hardly register on our radar screens, these select organizations make us almost involuntarily drawn to their messages and meaning. We keep the information we gather from them close at hand, as though the messages literally speak to us. Read More...
Volume 1, Issue 5
Is Your Company Being Marginalized?
It doesn’t happen quickly. Or does it? In some companies, marginalization happens virtually overnight. In others, marginalization is a slow, “stealth-like” process that becomes visible on the corporate radar screen too late to be prevented. Read More...
Volume 1, Issue 4
Getting People To Hear You Again
In the song “The Sound of Silence” Paul Simon writes about “people talking without speaking and people hearing without listening.” While Simon’s words were written in a different context, they underscore the trap that many mega-brands fall into – subtlety losing connection with, and relevance to, their consumers. Read More...
Volume 1, Issue 3
Triggers: Knowing what really drives your business
In a business context, getting your finger on the trigger is essential to focusing on what’s best for your organization and its customers. The ability to do that is commensurate with the instincts and level of understanding an organization’s leaders apply to their customers and the organization as a whole. This requires a sense of self that can be difficult for individuals, let alone entire companies, to acquire. Read More...
Volume 1, Issue 2
When Brands Become Companies: How to avoid replacing a distinct personality with a cold face
Strong Brands have a special relationship with employees and consumers; one that transcends the very product or service being offered. Study after study reports that consumers are willing to pay more and stick with Brands over time while job seekers are more apt to migrate to Brand name organizations as a career choice. However, if relationships are seriously damaged or worse – marginalized – when organizations fail to fully understand or appreciate the very essence of the bond between audience and Brand, then Brands are transformed into mere companies. Read More...
Volume 1, Issue 1
Generating Momentum: A Precursor to Growth
For today’s leading corporations – and every would-be leader – generating momentum should be an organizational imperative. Why? Because done right, momentum is a means to a very important end: growth. The opportunity has never been greater for business leaders and communications professionals to link corporate decision making to internal and external strategic communications as part of a company’s growth plan. Read More...
Copyright ©2009 Edelman Change and Employee Engagement. All rights reserved. |
