“The best-run and most successful companies convey one clear, understandable story through every action they take, not solely through their marketing.”
— True Story: How to Combine Story and Action to Transform Your Business
The ability to deliver “one clear, understandable story” is essential as companies battle to secure and retain not only customers, but the best possible talent.
How can you ensure your organization embraces and activates a clear, compelling and consistent story?
Montague says … “Make understanding and telling your company’s story both a shared responsibility across the whole organization and a core value of the company. If you do this, you — and your shareholders — will reap the rewards.”
Many executive teams are acting on his advice, investing in organizational change and internal communication programs that align their story on the inside (i.e., vision, mission, values) with the story customers experience on the outside (i.e., messaging, positioning and promise). They are creating a unified story and breaking down the barriers that have prevented that story from being shared consistently inside and outside of the organization.
One of those barriers is isolated ownership, as Montague mentioned. Most of the companies that we work with have separate stakeholder groups managing each of these stories. There are no formal processes in place to ensure the stories are aligned. What we find is that the executive team, in partnership with human resources, owns the vision, mission and values … while marketing typically owns the corporate positioning, promise and messaging. This creates confusion in both the employee and customer experience, negatively impacting business results as well as recruitment, retention and loyalty.
The opposite is also true. When employees fully embrace the corporate vision, mission, values and corporate story … it positively influences business performance. Employee productivity and loyalty increases because they feel that they are contributing to something larger than just their job. Their decisions and actions align with the company’s higher purpose and promise to customers, which dramatically improves the customer experience.
So, if you want employees and customers to buy into your story — it must be aligned. And it must be brought to life consistently inside and outside of your organization. The stronger the connection and consistency between these stories, the stronger your employee and customer experience will be.
What story are you sharing with employees? What about your customers? Are they aligned? If not, you are limiting your company’s success.
Learn how we can help you crystallize, align and activate your corporate vision, mission, values and story. Request a briefing with our experts today.
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