That comment was made in a project meeting, by one of the client team, after a discussion we’d prompted with the question “When has this company been at its best?” Eight people around the table had not had to think for more than two minutes to come up with at least one example of how their part of the business had done something to make everyone proud.
And there was the problem: it was all understood as their part of the business, and retained by their part of the business. Nobody had thought to create a shared history, a living database of product and service innovation that might add value to other parts of the business, or indeed to the organisation as a whole.
A perfect example of how fragmentation can undermine performance. It’s surprisingly easy to miss when different teams are pulling in different directions, working to their own agenda, satisfying their own KPIs. Leaders often know their business is falling short: they use words like “misfiring”, “not realising potential”, “missing opportunities”, “too slow”. But sometimes the reason why is too simple, and too close to home, to spot.
In what used to be called “joined-up thinking”, the more aligned and coherent a company is, the more likely it is to perform well. Fragmented businesses manage at the same time to create friction and to leave gaps: both lead to inefficiency, low morale and poor delivery.
Our client, at the time of engaging us, was by any definition an under-performing business. Where to go from here?
When I say our client was an “underperforming business”, I mean one that had fallen to No. 4 in its field of four competitors, had just announced plans for the first enforced redundancies in its history, and was embarking on a debt-restructuring programme.
The CEO told us “I’ve cut every other budget: you’re our last chance.” Which of course made us realise how important this engagement was for him and the business. But he was also showing extraordinary insight and vision for what we call “brand”. And that level of personal commitment meant a huge amount to the team he put together to deliver that turn-around.
Cultural weaknesses in this business had led to a three serious problems: (1) a loss of personal ownership or commitment (2) a value-destroying obliviousness to a real commercial advantage, and (3) a counter-productive silo mentality.
Which is where our brand strategy plugged in. Every brand is built from the inside-out, and with this client it started a virtuous circle. The cultural shift drove employees at all levels and in all locations to recognise the value of being one team, dismantling the old silos and celebrating shared capabilities. “If only we knew what we know” became a stimulus for success, rather than an admission of regret.
Encouraged to be bold, and to “act like owners”, the client established an Innovation Centre into which cross-business ideas were fed and developed. A new customer service strategy was written, with the ambition of becoming “indispensable” as a business partner. And a new product development strategy was adopted, focused entirely on the commercial advantage that had been hidden in plain sight.
Fourteen months after exploring the debt-restructuring programme, the client launched a successful IPO on its home stock exchange. In his first meeting with the bankers after the launch, the CEO placed a model of the business’s brand symbol on the table, and said, “Gentlemen, I thank you for your work. But this is the real reason for our success.”
I’ve often thought about that moment. Not because a logo transformed a business – it obviously didn’t.
What transformed the business was a shared belief in what the organisation could become, and a determination to act like one business rather than many. It meant that ideas and people were connected: performance improved because the culture changed, and the company’s reputation improved with both.
An organisation in which people, priorities and behaviours reinforce each other, rather than compete, has a special quality: not just ‘agreement’ and certainly not ‘uniformity’, but ‘coherence’.
Coherent organisations outperform fragmented ones, and they certainly make sure that they know what they know,