When your leadership team lights up talking about the brand, magic happens
I've worked with dozens of executive teams, and there's one thing that makes the great ones stand apart: They genuinely get excited about their company's brand story.
When you ask them about the brand the whole executive team lights up. They can't wait to get on a stage or platform and talk about it.
You can only get to that point by going deep to understand where the company gets its energy from. Think campfire storytelling. What would you say about the brand that makes people lean in rather than tune out?
It's a narrative built around the inception point. The difference that makes no two banks, insurance companies, or software companies truly the same. The origins, values, and experiences that have shaped something unique.
When you have that the brand really starts to drive the business forward:
Monday morning clarity. Everyone knows what they're contributing to when they get to their desks.
Flowing through everything. Staff feel it, products reflect it, customer experiences deliver it. It's not marketing fluff. It's how the business actually ticks.
Talent becomes easier to attract. Corporate speak gets replaced with inspiring storytelling about an organisation people want to be part of.
External stakeholders feel it too. Investors and partners sense when a company has something special glowing from the inside out.
Landing the brand narrative is electrifying for leaders because it motivates them to step out from behind their desks and spend time with staff, customers, communities, and investors. Not because they have to, but because they've got a story worth telling that they deeply believe in.
Quick test: How does the brand narrative inspire your executive team? Does it make them light up like J&J leaders discussing their Credo or IKEA's team talking about democratizing design?
Getting there isn't easy. You have to dig into the difficult questions: What do we stand for? What gets us out of bed? Where do we win and why should anyone care?
But when you crack it, everything changes, and the brand becomes the engine it really can be.