What is Success?

Isn’t the secret to success to do what intrinsically comes naturally to you, utilise the talents you have, be genuine to yourself and bring your whole self to work?

I was thinking about this the other day as I reread Frederic Laloux's Reinventing Organizations, whose premise advocates for teal organisations or teams within companies self managing, bringing their authentic selves to work and where organisations give ownership, structure and control to individuals at work. So much of his thinking back in 2014 is now standard practice in organisations worldwide. Although there is still some debate about whether commerciality can truly be achieved without structured leadership, I believe that to have engaged teams, where people are passionate about what they do, and choose their roles, has got to be the way forward in our working world.

However, as a comms professional and not a people management one, I’m not here to advise companies on how to run their companies. However, there is something in understanding that we should look for the utopia of where work integrates with your personality and your passion.

So comms must be a God given, mustn’t it? It’s something we learn from the minute we are born. But in fact, communication, particularly corporate communications, isn’t always easy. So, here’s my five step plan:

Step 1: Lean (and listen) in

You need to lean into your customer and that means listen. I find it amazing how many brands today still TALK AT their customers – how great their product or service is, how wonderful their team is. Before any comms you need to find out who you are talking to, where they go, what they listen to, what they read online and off, and how they speak, to each other and themselves.

Step 2: Don’t apply a blanket judgement

Once you really understand your customer, you need to think again. Often we find one customer type but miss the nuances within those customers segments or miss segments altogether - we might attract old customers, young ones, those who identify as old or young, or female or male, or not a gender at all. We might be missing potential customers, those in different regions, in different fields. We need to understand that they might have different lives, different routes into our brand, and we need to talk to them differently as we would if we were talking to them in the pub or at the bus stop.

Step 3: Have more than one voice, but make it unified

Before the purist marketers cry out in rage, I am not suggesting we have more than one brand voice. Not at all. But I am suggesting that when it comes to amplifying that brand voice, you need several ambassadors to tell your story. Not just senior leaders, but young professionals, those who are just starting out, those who have been there a while, those from different backgrounds. This is how we connect to different audiences, by identifying themselves with the diversity in your organisation.

Step 4: Eat, Sleep, Communicate, Repeat

Consistency is our only constant. Communication needs strategy. To truly be known for anything, you need to be consistent in your communications. This means beating the same drum over and over, and remaining strong on what you stand for, your messaging and your implementation. Of course, we can say the same thing in a different way, according to the customer or the context. But Fat Boy really did have it right when he said Eat, Sleep, (Rave), Repeat.

Step 5: Evolve and update

We never get it right all the time. So, we need to measure, replicate the good, take out what doesn’t work and keep evolving. Markets change, products change, people change, you need to keep adapting and adjusting.

So back to Frederic Laloux and his teal organisations. If we can embrace others in the workplace, we need to embrace customers in the marketplace, the full myriad of those customers. Really put them first and our product, our service, our comms becomes a true reflection of them.