Cultural compatibility can make or break the ultimate success of a merger or acquisition. If you’re contemplating (or in the midst of) such a transaction, then you know how daunting a process it is. There’s so much on the line. The financial investment and commitments. Your company’s reputation. Management changes. Customer and supplier reactions. Employee implications. As you sift through the analyses and recommendations of the accountants, attorneys, and possibly independent business brokers, you also need to pay attention to the compatibility quotient. There’s financial due diligence, and then there’s “cultural due diligence”.
There are very real costs associated with mergers between businesses that are not a good cultural fit. The combined business can fail as a result of decision-making based on false assumptions, contradictory practices or policies, or the build up of internal defensive walls that block the cooperation and free flow of information vital to success. You need to stay on top of your game during the transitional period, which can extend over a couple of years for larger organizations. Know that your competition will use the situation as an opportunity to woo away existing clients and spook your prospects. It’s a strategy from an old playbook. Propose that another company’s reorganization will be a distraction and therefore that company won’t deliver attentive, quality service. Customer defection is a real possible consequence if you can’t demonstrate a truly unified front, cohesiveness in market behaviors and consistency in operations. With a low cultural quotient, you run the risk of spending too much time, energy and resources on fitting a square peg into a round hole and not enough time on retaining existing customers and getting new ones. Great differences in business culture will demoralize and sap motivation from your best employees, spread negativity and self-defeating beliefs throughout the organization, and ultimately leave the resulting business without sound financial footing and without a strong brand identity.
Even when companies have similar business cultures, there are still some differences that you will need to address. The keys here are mutual respect for each other’s culture and identification of common ground.
Companies that want to avoid such pitfalls need to enlist an independent party to conduct a cultural assessment, and then create and implement a plan for incorporating the assessment’s findings into a well-orchestrated integration plan (or a decision not to proceed).
A cultural assessment and integration plan should take into account, at a minimum, the following organizational culture variables:
Behaviors - the degree of informality/formality, decision-making maps, processes and hierarchies, and the definition (and requirements) of work (job descriptions, employee qualifications).
Communication - style (formal/informal), degree of openness, language, frequency and vehicles for information sharing.
Beliefs - common vision and goals, beliefs about what success is, and standards of ethical and acceptable behavior.
Business structure - the organization of work through teams and individual contributors, department/division responsibilities, accountabilities and interactions;
Business performance - performance criteria and measures, employee performance management programs, and compensation (including incentives and bonus plans).
If you’ve already inked the deal and find your business is exhibiting signs of ‘culture clash’, there are steps you can take to minimize these, keep the organization focused on the business plan, and lay the foundation for the 3 C’s to merger and acquisition success – communication, collaboration, and community.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Friday, April 17, 2009
Branding Success From the Inside Out
Why does a company need to be concerned about branding inside the organization? After all, isn’t branding supposed to be about how prospects and customers view your business?
Consider this. Won’t your customers have a better experience with your brand (aka your business) if your employees treat the customers exactly how you want, accurately answer all customer questions and quickly resolve problems, and communicate how important each and every customer is to you? Of course they will!
So, what is internal branding? It is a strategy that establishes and strengthens your competitive positioning from within. Your internal branding objectives are to connect employees, board members (and volunteers if you are a nonprofit) to your brand; cultivate a passionate, highly engaged workforce; create a seamless, differentiated experience for your target audiences; and maintain your edge in the market (at a minimum) or surpass your competition (if you can).
Internal branding can yield dramatic results. When employees respond in ways that your target audiences expect, they reward you with business. Also, consistent, professional behavior is perceived as competence, particularly when there’s an expectation about a level of technical expertise. Haven’t you ever had an interaction with a business (electronics store, a bank, a billing department, health insurance company, navigating and completing an on-line transaction through a web-only business), and found yourself thinking “They obviously don’t know what they’re doing?” If you want repeat business, you better be sure that you can deliver on consistency. That's what's known as delivering on the brand promise.
Last, and certainly not least, information remains one of a company’s most valuable assets (after its employees) for achieving a competitive edge. Information comes from many sources and in many forms -- formalized market research, comments from customers, and feedback from employees (what’s working, what’s not, how you can do it better). Once you have the information, then you have to evaluate it and decide what it means (identification of trends, problems, and opportunities). The more you inform your employees, the more your employees know how they can help your customers, prospects, and business partners. That’s how you generate repeat business and great referrals. It’s your direct line from the inside out.
So, work to make your brand have a vibrant life inside your organization on a daily basis. There’s a developing body of evidence that delivering engaged internal brand communications can impact your bottom line in a dramatic, positive way. According to that same Watson Wyatt study mentioned in the earlier posting, significant improvement in communication effectiveness is associated with a 29.5% increase in a company’s market value.
Start today by tapping into your business culture for successful internal branding:
· Synchronize brand personality, value and organizational culture.
· Get employees behind the brand through actions that demonstrate “one company, one vision, one brand.”
· Reinforce and repeatedly explain the brand values and behaviors you want and need for business resilience and sustainability.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Consider this. Won’t your customers have a better experience with your brand (aka your business) if your employees treat the customers exactly how you want, accurately answer all customer questions and quickly resolve problems, and communicate how important each and every customer is to you? Of course they will!
So, what is internal branding? It is a strategy that establishes and strengthens your competitive positioning from within. Your internal branding objectives are to connect employees, board members (and volunteers if you are a nonprofit) to your brand; cultivate a passionate, highly engaged workforce; create a seamless, differentiated experience for your target audiences; and maintain your edge in the market (at a minimum) or surpass your competition (if you can).
Internal branding can yield dramatic results. When employees respond in ways that your target audiences expect, they reward you with business. Also, consistent, professional behavior is perceived as competence, particularly when there’s an expectation about a level of technical expertise. Haven’t you ever had an interaction with a business (electronics store, a bank, a billing department, health insurance company, navigating and completing an on-line transaction through a web-only business), and found yourself thinking “They obviously don’t know what they’re doing?” If you want repeat business, you better be sure that you can deliver on consistency. That's what's known as delivering on the brand promise.
Last, and certainly not least, information remains one of a company’s most valuable assets (after its employees) for achieving a competitive edge. Information comes from many sources and in many forms -- formalized market research, comments from customers, and feedback from employees (what’s working, what’s not, how you can do it better). Once you have the information, then you have to evaluate it and decide what it means (identification of trends, problems, and opportunities). The more you inform your employees, the more your employees know how they can help your customers, prospects, and business partners. That’s how you generate repeat business and great referrals. It’s your direct line from the inside out.
So, work to make your brand have a vibrant life inside your organization on a daily basis. There’s a developing body of evidence that delivering engaged internal brand communications can impact your bottom line in a dramatic, positive way. According to that same Watson Wyatt study mentioned in the earlier posting, significant improvement in communication effectiveness is associated with a 29.5% increase in a company’s market value.
Start today by tapping into your business culture for successful internal branding:
· Synchronize brand personality, value and organizational culture.
· Get employees behind the brand through actions that demonstrate “one company, one vision, one brand.”
· Reinforce and repeatedly explain the brand values and behaviors you want and need for business resilience and sustainability.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Brand Identity and Culture: Who Are You To The World?
If you ask most people what is a brand, they will point to a logo or tagline. But brand identity is far more than a visual or a phrase. A brand is shorthand for what your company represents in terms of its services / products (such as innovation, quality, variety, lower cost), the organization’s values (donates to nonprofits), how it conducts business (strict ethical codes, how it treats its employees), and how it treats its customers (friendly, rapid response, problem resolution). In other words, your brand identity reflects your company’s culture – attitudes, beliefs, behaviors – what people can expect to experience. When customers experience what they expect from your business, that’s what we mean by ‘delivering on the brand promise.”
What do you want your brand to convey about your business? Just as importantly, do you know what prospects, customers, colleagues, industry/trade organizations think about your brand (images, words, beliefs, feelings)? Companies with successful brands ask these questions again and again; then they act consistently to reinforce the brand identity they have created. What are you doing to communicate and reinforce your brand?
Brand identity is about the ‘total experience’. When your brand is evident in every aspect of your business and touch point – service/operations, physical facilities (if you have one), employee behaviors, transactions / purchasing, collateral, presentations and proposals, contract deliverables, telephone (etiquette and on-hold/closing messages), web content and interactivity, electronic communication (e-blasts, e-newsletter, e-mail) – you show that your actions have intent, and good intent at that (and by inference are not accidental). Your goal should be branding that seamlessly extends from within your organization to your prospects, customers, referral sources, and strategic partners. That’s how you build and maintain awareness, credibility and a reputation that others emulate; it’s how you set the foundation for long-term brand value.
Stephanie Leibowitz, Anthropologist At Work
What do you want your brand to convey about your business? Just as importantly, do you know what prospects, customers, colleagues, industry/trade organizations think about your brand (images, words, beliefs, feelings)? Companies with successful brands ask these questions again and again; then they act consistently to reinforce the brand identity they have created. What are you doing to communicate and reinforce your brand?
Brand identity is about the ‘total experience’. When your brand is evident in every aspect of your business and touch point – service/operations, physical facilities (if you have one), employee behaviors, transactions / purchasing, collateral, presentations and proposals, contract deliverables, telephone (etiquette and on-hold/closing messages), web content and interactivity, electronic communication (e-blasts, e-newsletter, e-mail) – you show that your actions have intent, and good intent at that (and by inference are not accidental). Your goal should be branding that seamlessly extends from within your organization to your prospects, customers, referral sources, and strategic partners. That’s how you build and maintain awareness, credibility and a reputation that others emulate; it’s how you set the foundation for long-term brand value.
Stephanie Leibowitz, Anthropologist At Work
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Company Culture is Your Key to Business Resilience
If you are a human resource or other operations manager, your goal is to maximize opportunities for achieving appropriate matches between your company's business needs and job candidate qualifications (as well as those of current employees). A company that takes active steps to identify, assess, articulate, cultivate and communicate a culture that supports its business performance goals has tremendous power to build resilience for long-term success. Communication of your culture (and its critical role in your ultimate success) in all aspects of employee engagement - recruitment, hiring, orientation/training, job responsibilities and accountabilities, and performance management - helps to reinforce positive behaviors and create a collective mindset for collaborative work around common goals and objectives.
As an anthropologist, I view companies as individual ‘societies’, each with a distinct culture, an ‘organizational glue’ that binds its members through shared vision, knowledge and experiences. The culture defines how a business sees itself and others, its relationship to others (customers, prospects, strategic partners), and how a company conducts its activities on a day-to-day basis. If someone asked you to describe your company’s culture, what would you say? What images come to mind? What does it feel like to work there? What words would you use? These are not questions for idle contemplation. The answers have serious implications for employee recruitment and retention, brand identity and marketing, and daily operations.
A company identifies and communicates what it expects – financial and operational results, as well as the employee behaviors and attitudes necessary to achieve those results - within the context of its unique business culture. The same behaviors in different companies may yield different results. Employee recruitment is a huge upfront investment of time and resources. High turnover drains productivity, diverts resources, and can be a distraction from a company’s business plan.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
As an anthropologist, I view companies as individual ‘societies’, each with a distinct culture, an ‘organizational glue’ that binds its members through shared vision, knowledge and experiences. The culture defines how a business sees itself and others, its relationship to others (customers, prospects, strategic partners), and how a company conducts its activities on a day-to-day basis. If someone asked you to describe your company’s culture, what would you say? What images come to mind? What does it feel like to work there? What words would you use? These are not questions for idle contemplation. The answers have serious implications for employee recruitment and retention, brand identity and marketing, and daily operations.
A company identifies and communicates what it expects – financial and operational results, as well as the employee behaviors and attitudes necessary to achieve those results - within the context of its unique business culture. The same behaviors in different companies may yield different results. Employee recruitment is a huge upfront investment of time and resources. High turnover drains productivity, diverts resources, and can be a distraction from a company’s business plan.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
The Value of the Long View
It’s tempting to focus on the here and now because things change so quickly. However, one should not lose sight of the need to strike a balance between a timely response to events and the need to plan and be ready for the future. Consider this. When driving, you look at the road immediately in front of you to check for obstacles and the surface’s condition (such as mud, rocks, ice, potholes), and you look ahead, so you can know how close you are to your destination, if there are alternate routes that would be better, and what other drivers are doing. If you were to check only the road for the immediate 25 to 50 feet, you’d probably get into trouble. Same if you only focused on the view down the block. Navigating the twists and turns of business requires the same ability to simultaneously take the short and long views.
With so much on the line today, there is an expectation that management lead with actions that will get a company through an immediate challenge or crisis and lay a strong foundation for business agility that will result in long-term profitability. It’s not enough to get through today, this week, or this month, because you’re not sure what may be around the corner. Financial predictability may be elusive, but one thing is certain. Temporary measures will give you temporary results at best. Long-term measures and plans will yield long-term success.
A well-developed, strategically executed communication plan (distinct from sporadic and uncoordinated communication) can go a long way to helping you successfully achieve your operational and financial objectives. When there’s a seamless, branded and culturally-relevant experience for employees and customers, the benefits extend to the entire business enterprise (and your customers).
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
With so much on the line today, there is an expectation that management lead with actions that will get a company through an immediate challenge or crisis and lay a strong foundation for business agility that will result in long-term profitability. It’s not enough to get through today, this week, or this month, because you’re not sure what may be around the corner. Financial predictability may be elusive, but one thing is certain. Temporary measures will give you temporary results at best. Long-term measures and plans will yield long-term success.
A well-developed, strategically executed communication plan (distinct from sporadic and uncoordinated communication) can go a long way to helping you successfully achieve your operational and financial objectives. When there’s a seamless, branded and culturally-relevant experience for employees and customers, the benefits extend to the entire business enterprise (and your customers).
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
Boost Company Performance With Effective Communication
Stories abound about the challenges businesses face in this current economic downturn. The talk in newsrooms and board rooms is about urgency, the need to make changes by pulling together to create long-term stability and success. And yet, on a daily basis, many companies have adopted behaviors that send the opposite message. When faced with news that is negative, companies tend to hit the ‘mute’ button, while management runs for cover in the bunkers, with the hope that things will blow over soon and get back to ‘normal’. Of course, communicating information about declining profitability, potential (or planned) layoffs and other austerity measures, is difficult. But at a time like this, communicating with your employees is even more critical. In fact, your business depends on it.
How do companies know if their customers are receiving the messages they intend? How do employees know if they are performing in ways that result in success for their companies? How do different functions (departments) within a company know if they are working toward the same goals and objectives and not duplicating effort? The answer of course is communication and it is essential to long-term profitability and sustainability.
In its long-term study of the relationship between internal communication and company performance, Watson Wyatt concluded that companies with highly effective employee communications outperform companies that don’t*.
So, what can you do to keep your employees informed, engaged, and focused on your business, so that you’re ready to leap forward on the economic upswing? Plenty.
Here are some best practice tips for keeping the information flowing at your business:
Information is power. And when you share information, it’s even more powerful (contrary to the old idea of hording information). Your employees are a terrific source for ideas on how to better serve customers, become more efficient, and stay ahead of your competition. The more your employees know about the business challenges and their role in overcoming these, the better positioned they are to help you work toward solutions.
Communicate often. There’s nothing worse that an employee finding out about a company’s changes (such as reorganizations, mergers, other) from an external party, such as a customer. When this happens, your company appears sloppy, leaves customers wondering what’s really happening, and results in your employees with a feeling that they are shut out and not worthy of your trust. Barring regulatory requirements, share as much as you can. People will fill in the blanks with their own stories if you do not put your story out there, and you don’t want employees acting on false information.
Be consistent in your communications. Whatever you do communicate, be sure that you are consistent in language and messages. When you contradict yourself, the information is less credible. Companies get why they have to communicate in a consistent way with customers (marketing), yet forget that the same principle applies to their operations. When employees receive clear, consistent information and messages, they better perform their responsibilities and better represent you to your customers and everyone else.
Communicate through multiple vehicles. Some forms of communication are active, others passive. Holding ‘town hall’ meetings and other discussion forums, conference calls and staff meetings are active communications. E-mails, memos, intranet postings are passive communication. The type and complexity of information affects which vehicles are most appropriate. Last, people have different learning and information processing styles. When you use multiple communication vehicles, you reach more people and increase retention of information. More importantly,when you use active communication, you foster engagement and interest.
Tell the truth. This sounds simple enough, yet can be difficult to practice. Again, not all information about a company must be shared with every employee. If you share what you can in a way that demonstrates integrity and respects your employees’ intelligence, you will be rewarded with your employees’ trust and energy to move the business forward.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
*Secrets of Top Performers: How Companies with Highly Effective Employee Communications Differentiate Themselves. The Methodology Behind the 2007-2008 Communication ROI Study™, by Richard Luss and Steven Nyce, January 11, 2008.
How do companies know if their customers are receiving the messages they intend? How do employees know if they are performing in ways that result in success for their companies? How do different functions (departments) within a company know if they are working toward the same goals and objectives and not duplicating effort? The answer of course is communication and it is essential to long-term profitability and sustainability.
In its long-term study of the relationship between internal communication and company performance, Watson Wyatt concluded that companies with highly effective employee communications outperform companies that don’t*.
So, what can you do to keep your employees informed, engaged, and focused on your business, so that you’re ready to leap forward on the economic upswing? Plenty.
Here are some best practice tips for keeping the information flowing at your business:
Information is power. And when you share information, it’s even more powerful (contrary to the old idea of hording information). Your employees are a terrific source for ideas on how to better serve customers, become more efficient, and stay ahead of your competition. The more your employees know about the business challenges and their role in overcoming these, the better positioned they are to help you work toward solutions.
Communicate often. There’s nothing worse that an employee finding out about a company’s changes (such as reorganizations, mergers, other) from an external party, such as a customer. When this happens, your company appears sloppy, leaves customers wondering what’s really happening, and results in your employees with a feeling that they are shut out and not worthy of your trust. Barring regulatory requirements, share as much as you can. People will fill in the blanks with their own stories if you do not put your story out there, and you don’t want employees acting on false information.
Be consistent in your communications. Whatever you do communicate, be sure that you are consistent in language and messages. When you contradict yourself, the information is less credible. Companies get why they have to communicate in a consistent way with customers (marketing), yet forget that the same principle applies to their operations. When employees receive clear, consistent information and messages, they better perform their responsibilities and better represent you to your customers and everyone else.
Communicate through multiple vehicles. Some forms of communication are active, others passive. Holding ‘town hall’ meetings and other discussion forums, conference calls and staff meetings are active communications. E-mails, memos, intranet postings are passive communication. The type and complexity of information affects which vehicles are most appropriate. Last, people have different learning and information processing styles. When you use multiple communication vehicles, you reach more people and increase retention of information. More importantly,when you use active communication, you foster engagement and interest.
Tell the truth. This sounds simple enough, yet can be difficult to practice. Again, not all information about a company must be shared with every employee. If you share what you can in a way that demonstrates integrity and respects your employees’ intelligence, you will be rewarded with your employees’ trust and energy to move the business forward.
Stephanie Leibowitz, MA, Anthropologist At Work
*Secrets of Top Performers: How Companies with Highly Effective Employee Communications Differentiate Themselves. The Methodology Behind the 2007-2008 Communication ROI Study™, by Richard Luss and Steven Nyce, January 11, 2008.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Welcome to My Blog
I started this blog as a forum for discussing the application of communication best practices for achieving desired business results, both quantitative and qualitative. As a business anthropologist, I am particularly interested in the relationship between business culture, communication, and the resulting business performance.
I look forward to sharing ideas in this learning community.
I look forward to sharing ideas in this learning community.
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