Business leaders often talk about changing their organization’s culture… but what does that really mean? For most leaders, changing their organization’s culture is about changing how their employees make decisions and perform work. These leaders recognize that the organization’s underlying beliefs and values systems must be altered in order to change these behaviors.
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Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.
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The people who spend more for quality, influence their friends and networks and remain fiercely brand-loyal.
Every category is being affected by a new wave of interest in living longer, eating better, and demanding more. The pursuit of an active healthy lifestyle is changing the loyalty equation for millions of customers worldwide, and if your company is not speaking to these values and thinking that Active Explorers aren’t relevant to your brand, we urge you to take a second look. Brands don’t have to be active healthy lifestyle companies or have a consumer product. There’s a reason why McDonald’s is retooling menus to include healthy options, why Costco is the number one seller of organic goods in the world, and why GE puts the human experience forward and advertises on TV. Each of them is making a big push into this demographic – and reaping the rewards.
There’s a few ways you can be better at communicating with this mindset in mind.
HAVE PURPOSE. It matters where your company started, what it believes in, and where it’s going. Embrace your place in your ecosystem and celebrate where you are and why you do what you do.
LESS IS MORE. Active explorers aren’t looking for bargains so much as they are looking to make investments in their bodies, their lives, and their values that matter most. They’ll wait for the right thing rather than be motivated by a sale on the next-best.
YOU’RE NOT FOR EVERYONE. Your brand is a club, and clubs are by definition exclusive. You can’t appeal to everyone, so don’t even try. Increasingly, active explorers are attracted to brands who plant a flag and have a point?of view that aligns with their own.
INSTANT FEEDBACK. One of the fueling factors behind our increased fitness awareness is the rise of the quantified self. From smartphones to FitBits to Apple Watches, we’re able?to count our movement by the calorie?and track our progress as we get stronger, faster, and lighter. It’s one thing to go?for a ten-mile bike ride. It’s another to bask in the accomplishment of a new personal record.
BE ASPIRATIONAL. People will buy your brand for the life they want, not the life they have. Let your customers imagine their lives with your product, and then make them wonder how they could ever live without it.
INNOVATION NEEDS A STORY. Too many products innovate because they can, not because they should. In the Active Explorer mindset, every new product comes out of a need – or a drive to be better, stronger, or faster. Find that story, and tell it well.
QUALITY IS JOB ONE. Even if you’re purely functional or parity, your brand has badge value. Make sure your product is one people are proud to use and talk about.
LET YOUR FREAK FLAG FLY. Tribes aren’t formed around brands trying to be everything to everyone. Find your rallying cry and dare others to follow. You’ll be shocked by who shows up.
That’s just a few of the way brands can become better connected with their customers, employees and stakeholders. There is an opportunity, right here, today. But it won’t last. An opportunity for you to craft a message that appeals to the healthy, curious, inspired Active Explorer in all of us, a message that separates you from the pack.
Marc Williams is a second generation owner of Williams Helde Marketing Communications in Seattle. Founded in 1969, Williams Helde is a marketing communications agency focused on inspiring, connecting and awakening the active healthy lifestyle inherent in every great brand. You can learn more about this audience and download the latest report focused on travel at http://williams-helde.com/pdf/TravelBlogchure.pdf
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Recently I listened while a coaching client pitched his solution precisely when he could have facilitated his prospect through the contingent issues she had to handle before she could buy anything.
SDM: Why did you pitch when you pitched?
CL: It gave me control over the conversation, and gave her the data she needed to understand why she should buy.
SDM: So what sort of control did you achieve?
CL: Now she knows how our solution will meet her needs.
SDM: Do you know if she heard you? Did your pitch convince her? How do you know she knows she needs your solution? Has she assembled the appropriate folks to begin discussing problems or change? Have they already tried a workaround that proved impractical and now must consider a purchase? Have they resolved any implementation/user issues that a new solution would cause? Have they reached consensus? Or if they’re individual buyers, have they addressed their own internal change issues?
You’re assuming a need before the buyer gets her ducks in a row: she can’t understand her needs until she’s handled her contingent change issues; she can’t hear about possible solutions – your pitch – until she knows what to listen for. Just because she fits your buyer profile doesn’t mean she’s a prospect.
A prospect is someone who will buy, not someone who should buy. You spend too much time chasing folks who fit a profile but will never buy; you can’t recognize a real buyer because you’re only listening for ‘need’ and forgetting the work they must do to prepare for, decide upon, and get consensus for, a purchase. And that stops you from finding/creating those who can buy but may have not completed their buying decision process. This prospect can’t do anything with your information – unless you got lucky, and found one of the few who have completed their groundwork at the moment you connect with them.
CL: I know what they need.
SDM: That’s not possible. She doesn’t know what she needs yet. You don’t know her buyer readiness or if she’s representing everyone else involved or where/if the team is stuck somewhere along the Buying Decision Path. You don’t live with them; only they can amalgamate all of the voices, givens, change issues, or future considerations and come up with the full fact pattern of a ‘need.’ People merely want to resolve a problem, not make a purchase. Buying anything is the very last thing they’ll do, regardless of the need or the efficacy of your solution.
CL: But our solution is a perfect match for her needs.
SDM: Having needs is different from being ready, willing, or able to buy. She’s got a lot of work to do before she’s ready. Instead of first focusing on selling, start as an unbiased coach. Facilitate her route through consensus and change so you’re there at the right time with real prospects and never waste time on those who can’t buy. You could even speed up the decision path and enable/facilitate those who would have bought later.
CL: I have no idea where she is along her Decision Path. Isn’t that just price, vendor or solution type?
SDM: Buying is the last thing she’ll do. She must first assemble everyone to design a solution that fits everyone’s needs and avoids major disruption. Folks would much rather maintain their status quo if the price of change is too high – and you can make it easy for her to manage her change so she’s ready to buy if possible. If it’s not possible for her to get consensus, you’ll know in about 10 minutes she’s not a buyer, so long as you stay away from discussing your solution. She has to do this stuff anyway.
Giving her data too early doesn’t help: no matter how good or relevant your data is it’s useless until they’ve carefully determined they can’t fix their problem without some outside help. This is the length of the sales cycle. Be involved early as a Buying Facilitator and have real control. Or keep closing the same 5% that show up as the low hanging fruit.
What Control Do You Have?
As sellers or influencers, here’s what we’ve got control over: pitch, solution data, content, questions, listening biases, assumptions. Focusing on understanding and biasing material toward Marketing Mary’s ‘needs’ is specious: we’re outsiders and can never understand the unique composition of anyone else’s culture that has created, and maintains, the ‘need’ and would have to change to bring in something new.
Here’s what we can’t control: The prospect’s internal ill-defined decision-making process; the assembly of the people, problems, vendor issues, interdepartmental politics, relationships, balance sheets, corporate/team rules; their history; what criteria a solution must meet; consensus and change issues. Until buyers make sense of this they can’t responsibly buy. Even individuals of small items go through this process in a simple way.
No matter how good our content, presentation, pitch, or marketing is, it will only be heard by those ready for it and then you’re playing a numbers game. By trying to control the elements YOU think should be involved, or offering information/content where YOU believe it’s needed, you’re restricting successful outcomes to your bias of what you want to achieve, and will sell to only those who match your restricted criteria.
You can only have an outsider’s superficial understanding. Folks who need your solution but haven’t completed their change work will be turned off, not hear you, not understand how you can help, regardless of whether they need you or not. Even offering a price reduction will only attract those who have done their Pre-Sales change work first. The cost of change is higher than your price reduction.
You have no control over others; mentioning your solution details doesn’t give you control over the Buying Decision Path.
You can, however, have real control by facilitating prospects down their Decision Path to design their own change process that includes you as the natural provider – or eliminate them quickly if it becomes obvious they can’t ever buy. You can either wait for those who’ve completed their Decision Path to show up, call/chase enough people to find those who are ready, or become a Facilitator and help the real buyers through their path quickly and shorten the sales cycle.
They must do this with you or without you. Use your need for control to facilitate them in discovering their own best solution, not manipulate them into using yours. Where they are the same, you’ll make an easy sale.
About the Author
Sharon Drew Morgen is a visionary, original thinker, and thought leader in change management and decision facilitation. She works as a coach, trainer, speaker, and consultant, and has authored 9 books including the New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity. Morgen developed the Buying Facilitation® method (www.sharondrewmorgen.com) in 1985 to facilitate change decisions, notably to help buyers buy and help leaders and coaches affect permanent change. Her newest book What? www.didihearyou.com explains how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She can be reached at [email protected]
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In identifying organizationally shared values and beliefs, there are several common misperceptions that result in an invalid understanding of the actual corporate culture. These misinterpretations should be guarded against as cultural understanding serves as a foundation for many of management’s decisions.
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Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.
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Although work-life balance policies are meant to acknowledge the realities faced by dual earner families, existing workplace norms often stigmatize the use of such policies. While employers have started to offer several policies that facilitate better work-life balance, there is scant evidence that they are helping organisations foster a healthier work-life culture. There is also low utilization of such policies despite the widespread demand for such flexibility. The pressure to work long hours along with the career penalties associated with the use of work-life policies are creating workplace cultures where employees have limited choices in terms of managing their work and non-work demands.
Transforming the culture of an organisation to one that encourages a better work-life balance is often very challenging. Although it is debatable whether organisations have a responsibility for work-life balance, evidence suggests that providing support for work-life issues has significant payoffs for the employment relationship. Frequently organisations may offer a range of work-life policies but if not properly implemented these policies may fail to facilitate better work-life reconciliation.
Often effective policy implementation requires a transformation of the workplace culture and underlying assumptions about how work should be organised and how employee performance should be evaluated. Cultures that emphasize long working hours as a symbol of commitment frequently hinder employees from making use of work-life policies. In several organisations, managers focus on rewarding “face-time” rather than actual performance. When managers have subordinates who face work-life conflicts, the best approach is to direct their efforts toward evaluating actual performance rather than presenteeism or “face-time”. Effective role-modeling by leaders who are aware of the importance of work-life balance may also help in building a culture that champions reconciliation of work and nonwork lives while reducing feelings of inadequacies among workers who utilize work-life practices. Likewise, employees should also be encouraged to raise nonwork issues with their managers and should be assured that their employer does not expect them to subordinate their personal or family roles while prioritizing their work roles. Such a culture may allay worker fears about the negative career consequences of addressing work-life issues and also result in a favorable image of their employer as one that cares about their well-being.
About the Author
Shainaz Firfiray is an assistant professor in the Organisation and Human Resource Management Group at Warwick Business School. She received her PhD in management at IE Business School, Spain. Her research interests include work-life balance, social identity, and workplace diversity.
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