In this series, I have been sharing some key take-aways from a recent roundtable presentation for the Australian Institute of Company Directors on the board’s role in leading organisational culture.

In this fourth and final instalment, I share my suggested starting points to go to your board with, to begin your review and planning of culture governance.

Starting points for good Culture Governance with your Board

1. Ask the Right Questions of the Board

Initiate meaningful discussions by posing fundamental questions:

• “What is culture?”: Establish a shared understanding of the term to ensure alignment.
• “What is our culture?”: Reflect on the organisation’s current cultural identity.
• “How connected are people to that culture?”: Evaluate employee engagement with organisational values.
• “How do we know that?”: Emphasise the importance of data and evidence to assess cultural alignment effectively.

2. Get Board Buy-In

Build awareness of gaps, risks and opportunities in the current cultural state. Present examples or scenarios you’ve seen that present potential blind spots for the organisation, and invite the board to do the same.

3. Know the Landscape

Equip the board with a comprehensive understanding of the ‘culture landscape’:

• Board Training: Provide targeted training to ensure board members are informed about critical cultural issues and trends.
• Internal Insights: Develop a clear picture of how the organisation currently approaches culture management.
• Competitor Awareness: Stay informed on how peers and competitors are embedding culture in their governance, using this insight to refine your approach.

4. Demand Key Data in Board Papers

Ensure the board receives meaningful, actionable data on culture by asking for what you want to see. Your requirements should be informed by your understanding from the above action points, to focus the board’s attention in a limited amount of time. Insist on reports that provide clear analysis, rather than pages and pages of data for board members to wade through!

5. Assess the Fit and Effectiveness of Purpose and Values

Emphasise the critical task of evaluating whether the organisation’s stated purpose and values resonate with employees and drive desired behaviours. If they lack clarity, relevance, or alignment, work with management to create a plan to refine these foundational elements, to better support the organisation’s cultural goals. While this is an in-depth undertaking, the organisation’s Purpose and Values are fundamental to a healthy, aligned and future-fit culture.

6. Choose a Comprehensive Culture Framework to connect everything and everyone

Select a culture framework that connects all aspects of the organisation – such as strategy, governance, leadership, employees, systems and practices. A cohesive framework ensures that culture becomes an integral part of decision-making, accountability, and day-to-day operations across the organisation. It connects everything and everyone.

In the AICD boardroom discussion, I shared NWC’s Culture Governance Planner for board directors – a way of bringing all the key puzzle pieces of culture on one page, including considering risk factors, key metrics and blind spots in your organisation. This was a starting point inviting discussion on which elements were front-of-mind for directors and which might be currently being missed. For board directors and senior management interested in understanding this planner, get in touch.

Related material

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How boards need to see culture

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Ways of examining and leading Culture (and the best ones)

In this series, I have been sharing some key take-aways from a recent roundtable presentation for the Australian Institute of Company Directors on the board’s role in leading organisational culture.

In the boardroom session, we covered:

• What is Culture “Strategy”
• Guidelines and important questions from AICD and other governance resources to guide directors

(The above is covered in the first post of this series.)

We also looked at:

• Why culture is so hard to pin down and the challenges for today’s boards
• The modern director’s checklist of culture governance responsibilities

(See this post for more.)

In this issue, we review the discussion on:

• Best practice in culture direction supporting business success
• A range of frameworks for thinking about culture / how we do it at NWC

And the final post in the series will cover:

• Starting points for you and your board

In the last issue of How To Talk About The Business, I shared my observations of board directors and leaders lacking a whole-landscape view of culture because of the myriad of ways to think about it – the different approaches and disciplines, the different ‘windows’ into culture that can be helpful but don’t provide the whole picture.

There are a range of frameworks for examining and directing culture. Here are just a few:

• Typical Culture Framework elements e.g. Purpose, Values, Goals, Rules
• Organisational Culture Profiles. Innovative, Outcome-Oriented, Team-Oriented
• Defining Culture by emotional intelligence & engagement levels – C.  Ellis
• Patrick Lencioni’s 4 Disciplines of a Healthy Organisation
• Forbes 18 Factors for Measuring Culture
• Humanmetrics Jung Typology, Briggs Myers, DISC Profiling, Clifton Strengthsfinder…

From my research and experience, here are some of the best approaches I’ve seen in culture strategy that consider a broad sweep of the landscape of culture, rather than a narrow ‘window’:

1. Value through Social Purpose & Stakeholder Collaboration

• As ESG, Sustainability, Climate and Social Purpose are now becoming central to Organisational Strategy & Value Creation,Culture and Brand are key enablers. In Canada and the UK, Junxion are a consulting firm contributing great thought leadership in this space. This article contains a discussion on the role of business connected to social purpose, and the role of community/cross-collaboration.
• B Corp: Many organisations are choosing B Corp certification to demonstrate a dedication to a broader purpose and making a positive impact on society. B Corp certification offers credible assurance to stakeholders — customers, investors, employees and others — that a company’s commitment to sustainability and ethical practices is genuine and backed by measurable results.

2.  Strategy and Culture hand-in-hand

It’s not often we see strategy and culture truly working as close partners! Here are some excellent approaches I’ve done a deep-dive on this year.

• The 4 Disciplines of Execution (Sean Covey et al; FranklinCovey 2021) demonstrates how creating a culture around strategy success through core disciplines results in massive success, problem-solving and competitiveness. The approach emphasises simplicity and transparency from leadership through to whole-team involvement in strategic execution, thereby making it a culture: “People want to win. They want to contribute in a way that matters.” (p.24)
• In Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works, the authors (AG Lafley, former Chair & CEO of Procter & Gamble and Roger L Martin, Dean at Rotman School of Management) ask key questions like: What’s our winning aspiration? / Where will we play? / How will we win? While culture isn’t specifically addressed, it is easy to see how culture becomes a key factor for strategy success. The authors talk about making the strategy framework central to the board and leadership culture and cascading down (P&G culture of assertive enquiry p.138).

3. Scalability, People Engagement, Tangible Expression of Culture

To truly build a trustworthy, lasting culture, your ‘insides’ should match your ‘outsides’. That’s why a culture-brand alignment method is by far my favourite strategy. 

• The most exciting strategic approach to Culture in my opinion is connecting it to the aspirational brand (or the target messaging about ‘Who we are, what we do and why that matters’. This approach is significant because it focuses on crystal-clear communication and practical, tangible, authentic engagement at every level and through every experience inside and outside the organisation.
• In the U.S., Denise Lee Yohn leads in this space – this article beautifully balances the role of leading Culture and the role of company-wide involvement. She talks about leaders and managers being ‘culture-carriers’ and ‘culture coaches’, while also setting up expectations that everyone has a responsibility to build and protect the Culture. Her research-heavy, excellent book Fusion: How integrating brand and culture powers the world’s greatest companies outlines a comprehensive approach.
• At NWC, we work with our own brand-culture connection planning and assessment framework which quickly reveals red flags and opportunities in how the organisation is experienced and represented at each level of the organisation and to important audiences. This series is a good introduction to understand the level of brand-culture alignment and its implications for trust-building and risk at your organisation.
• In Australia, Shane Michael Hatton’s research and teaching offers a practical, people-centred approach to cascading culture through manager-led development and important conversations.

Where does this leave board directors?

What is needed is a way of seeing ‘all the puzzle pieces’ at once – a clear, foundational roadmap for culture analysis and strategy – in order to know that your culture governance is across everything vital.

In the AICD boardroom discussion, I shared NWC’s Culture Governance Planner for board directors – a way of bringing all the key puzzle pieces of culture on one page, including considering risk factors, key metrics and blind spots in your organisation. This was a starting point inviting discussion on which elements were front-of-mind for directors, which might be currently being missed and what else might be a factor at a particular organisation that doesn’t neatly fit a category, perhaps specific to ‘right now’.

Stay tuned for the final post of this series, where I offer some starting points for reflection on culture governance effectiveness and planning with your board.

Related material

What makes a culture scalable?

How boards need to see culture

Work with Julissa

Individuals   /   Organisations, boards & teams

In this series, I am sharing some key take-aways from a recent roundtable presentation for the Australian Institute of Company Directors on the board’s role in leading organisational culture.

In the first post of the series, I outlined the discussion we had at AICD at a roundtable of 20+ directors and senior executives, some of whom are experts in People and Culture leadership of very large organisations. I dove into what the research says directors should know and do when it comes to the governance of culture. I also shared links to guidelines from AICD and The Governance Institute.

Here, we go further into the challenge that governing culture represents… and the risks of not wrapping your arms around all that culture is.

Why Culture should matter to boards more than ever

ESG, Climate Change, AI, innovation, geopolitical and economic uncertainty… with this rate of change, “change management” is every organisation’s challenge now – and that means culture is central to strategy.

When it comes to risk, culture is at the centre too… Your employee, customer and stakeholder expectations have changed and are demanding more of organisations and their leaders. At AICD’s recent panel discussion on Stakeholder & Shareholder Activism, it was clear that boards and their organisations can’t afford to wait for a crisis to ‘do’ culture – the people, reputational, legal and financial risks are too great to not have a proactive approach in place.

We have seen this most recently with the ‘Right to Disconnect’ – changes in legislation that reflect the contemporary world of work, put in place precisely because the already existing psychosocial safeguarding guidelines were not being adequately enforced in organisations.

Remember too that ‘Your culture is visible… and it’s online’ (the title of a Director Download that I presented for AICD way back in 2018, when directors were still getting their heads around Facebook’s impact!). Social media, Google reviews and sites like Glassdoor give us stark insights into exactly what customers and employees think about brands and their connected organisation cultures.

Of particular interest to the guests at the AICD Culture Governance roundtable was a study in the Sloan Review that rated the top 5 elements of a toxic culture as seen by employees leaving reviews on Glassdoor: DISRESPECTFUL, NON-INCLUSIVE, UNETHICAL, CUTTHROAT, ABUSIVE (in that order of frequency).

The Challenge of culture governance

“By nature, culture is complex and organisations are dynamic and this makes the practice of governing organisational culture too complicated for simple prescription.”

– AICD’s guidelines for Governing Organisational Culture (2020)

Modern board directors know that steering a strong culture is fundamental to business success and therefore to their role as stewards. Yet, in my experience, a great many directors struggle to wrap their arms around this big thing we call organisational culture.

Boards still struggle with an organised approach to culture:

• Directors are unclear on how culture connects to the rest of the organisation (e.g. how does culture work with strategy, brand and value-building for customers).
• Lack of culture expertise on the board, through committees, or lack of a strong strategic capability among ‘Culture’ staff informing the board (e.g. HR is focused on one or two key areas, like recruitment and employee engagement, and are not across the business, its strategic priorities, and where culture fits with that).
• Data in board packs are long and hard to make sense of, or not adequate.
• Culture is not prioritized on the board agenda, but glanced over – unless there’s a problem or major change with high stakes. It’s often not about building and achieving or even preventing, but reacting.

Why Culture is so hard to pin down

There are the approaches… Rules of power, rules of belonging, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, values-centred, leadership styles…

There are the elements or ‘windows’ into culture… Employee engagement, recruitment & onboarding, employee lifecycle, management 360s, team dynamics, personality psychology, ethics…

There are the culture ‘types’… high-performing, competitive, collaborative, purpose-driven…

Then there are the questions… What even is culture? Can it be changed? Who changes it? Top-down or bottom-up? (P.S. While you, board director, might have very clear views on the right answers to these questions, let me tell you that other directors, and your organisation’s leaders and managers, will differ greatly in their views! It’s what the research shows and certainly what I have seen reflected in my work across all the levels of organisations.)

With so many definitions, so many approaches, so many ways to measure and to lead (or not lead) culture… it’s no wonder this always-shifting, never ‘done’, living thing made up of complex interactions is so hard to wrap your arms around, in order to be its steward!

Your role: The modern director’s checklist

This is not the 1950s… not the 20^th century at all… gone are the days of directors sitting around making decisions without consulting the people they affect.

Nowadays, initiatives such as the ‘Youth Collective’ at The Body Shop are cropping up to bring stakeholders (in this case, young people’s) voices into boardroom! While that might seem like an extreme approach, directors are now more likely to be actively involved in listening to, engaging with and representing stakeholders.

In last week’s post I offered a range of resource links to help directors think about their role in governing culture. Roundtable participants also received a take-away sheet of PRO-ACTIVE and RE-ACTIVE tasks the director should undertake to uphold this responsibility – happy to share with interested readers.

In the next instalment of the series, I will discuss what it takes to ‘see the whole puzzle’ of culture as a board director, rather than take the classic narrow-discipline or single-assessment approach. I will share some of the top ways of examining and leading culture, including what I believe are the most effective approaches.

Related material

What makes a culture scalable?

How boards need to see culture

Work with Julissa

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The Board’s Role in Leading Organisational Culture – Series Intro

In this series, I will share some key take-aways from my recent roundtable presentation for the Australian Institute of Company Directors on the board’s role in leading organisational culture.

Now more than ever, culture needs to be on the board agenda at every meeting – and must be addressed through rigorous analysis and strategic planning. In the rapidly-changing and increasingly public and litigious business environment companies operate in – along with higher expectations from internal and external stakeholders – it is no longer enough to treat culture as a topic only to be addressed when there is already a problem! To stay competitive and to succeed in business, directors and leaders must make decisions with culture considerations at the centre.

In this issue, I’ll highlight what culture should be to boards, some of the challenges I see in culture in the work I do with medium and large organisations that should be of concern to boards, and I’ll share AICD’s key resources on governing culture.

How Boards need to see Culture

In the words of Commissioner Hayne during the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, companies and boards that are not planning to assess and manage culture are ‘foolish and ignorant’! Yet so many see culture as ‘warm and fuzzy’ and not as the ‘key driver of marketplace success’ that the research shows it to be. In addition, many companies think they are measuring culture, but are instead purely measuring talent and/or engagement, seeing culture as primarily a concern of HR, and maybe, management. (Source: The role of boards in measuring and managing the culture of their organisation, Governance Institute of Australia)

What is needed is a culture ‘strategy’, and a culture strategy that is interwoven with the foundational building blocks of purpose, values, vision and organisational strategy. Then, it is possible for the board to govern culture as a whole, rather than only seeing a slice of culture or only responding to culture in crisis.

Challenges I see in Culture (that should concern boards!)

In my work with boards and leadership teams on clarifying and integrating ‘Who we are’, ‘How we do things’ and ‘Why that matters’ – I have learned that people almost always are proud of their work and want to represent their organisation well… but don’t know how to do that.

Some examples I have seen:

• A CEO says that a successful culture will determine the company’s ability to succeed in the strategy – but staff surveyed reveal 80% are ‘less than clear’ on the organisation’s values and what they mean for the individual or team.
• Different versions of values inductions are conducted in different areas of the business – and while the managers in charge demonstrate passion for certain company values, the experience is inconsistent across the organisation.
• Employees in focus groups say that leaders don’t walk the talk, or they question stated values against current processes and practices on the ground – for example, the value of ‘safety’ versus the felt pressure of fast-paced production.
• In a conference of senior managers in a social services organisation, a board director in her address challenges the audience to name the company values. Most cannot – despite it being a group of very passionate and caring employees, there is no cohesion on ‘what we stand for’ or ‘what defines us’.

AICD’s guidelines on governing culture

AICD states that the director’s responsibility in governing culture includes: 

• Setting the tone
• Identifying Culture as a value lever
• Providing effective stewardship & oversight, taking pro-active steps to understand and assess the informal and formal systems of culture and work with management to leverage

AICD’s guidelines for Governing Organisational Culture (2019, Judith S. MacCormick FAICD) provide a good foundation for understanding the role of the director.

In addition, 5 Key Questions for Boards, AICD provides great questions to assess the effectiveness of the board in governing culture (2018, Gabrielle Schroder FAICD).

In this series:

In the next article, I will discuss the challenge of culture governance: 

• Why Culture should matter to boards more than ever
• Why Culture is hard to pin down
• Challenges in governing culture
• The modern director’s checklist for culture governance

In subsequent posts, I’ll share more from my AICD roundtable presentation, including ways of examining and leading culture (including the best ones!), and starting points and questions for your board.

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Your Board affects your Organisation’s Brand!

Culture: Top-down? Bottom-up? Why still up for debate?

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The organisation’s brand is rarely perceived as the domain of the board, and it is usually not deeply understood across the board or management.

Yet, your brand – not your logo, but your reputation or what you are known for – has a pivotal role to play in the success of the business: its financial health, its growth plan, its risk profile, its stakeholder support, its ability to attract and keep top talent, its social license to operate, its competitiveness into the future.

What’s more, your brand is inextricably linked to your culture.

Your brand is the promise that your culture should deliver.

How much of the above IS considered the domain of the board?

Well, just about everything I’ve listed.

It follows, then, that the board should be across the strategy, challenges and risk associated with the brand.

In addition… it’s important to understand how the board itself affects the health and effectiveness of the organisation’s brand. This happens in 3 key ways:

1. The Chair affects the brand.

Even in the ‘flat’ structure of the board, the Chair has a weighty role to play in the leadership of what the board focuses on and prioritises, as well as what is prioritised in the appointment of the CEO and the board members themselves.

A Chair who ‘gets’ the pivotal role of a strong and aligned brand and culture for an organisation that builds trust, will most likely look for this appreciation in others serving the organisation. As the Chair sets the agenda, if they care about reputation and culture, they will make sure it’s meaningfully and strategically addressed from the top.

2. The Board’s culture affects the brand.

How a board operates may set the tone for the entire organisation. The board works closely with management and this has a flow-on effect to the rest of the organisation’s culture internally and team members’ expression of brand externally.

A board that implements a structure and a set of expectations to build its own healthy culture, connected to management, is more likely to influence a positive culture, and by extension, a positive brand, for the organisation.

And of course, a board with a healthy culture gets things done, moving strategy forward.

3. The Board mix (priorities, ways of thinking, skillset) affects the brand.

The board needs to know what to look for and what questions to ask to dig deeper. This was incredibly clear in a recent AICD panel discussion on the rise of shareholder and stakeholder activism. Reputational and other risks associated with poor management of stakeholders, especially during rapidly changing environmental and social standards and expectations, are incredibly important items for any board’s agenda.

To be informed and to ask good questions is the definition of great stewardship – or, as Dr Kath Hall describes it, ‘the heart of your responsibility’ as a director. The board must make big decisions based on the information it is provided with – so directors must seek to gain a clear understanding of the operating landscape, the potential problem areas, and industry best practice.

A board that has one or more members with strong capabilities in brand, culture, stakeholder engagement and communication (or with an awareness that expertise must be brought in to find the organisation’s ‘gaps’) will set the tone for an organisation that plans strategically for brand and culture, and a management team that can see around corners when it comes to protecting and enhancing their reputation and supporting culture growth – especially in times of major change.

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Spending time with board members, leaders and managers in a range of businesses, and also spending some time taking the pulse on LinkedIn… I see that there is still a range of opinions on how Culture is and should be shaped in organisations.

Top-down? Bottom-up? Either-or, or both? When I look around, there are clear signals pointing to what works best.

The stakes are high… don’t leave it to ‘organic growth’ alone

The ability to build trust with stakeholders remains at the centre of a thriving business, and the stakes have never been higher, with increased requirements in ESG and Sustainability reporting, demands for more diverse representation at the top, and the fast-moving challenges of AI and cyber security. Your stakeholders now expect a clear perspective and accountability on major issues affecting the workplace, community and environment.

Directors now recognise that internal and external stakeholder trust is built on much more than ethics and is more than good PR management.

Strong leadership of ‘who we are’, ‘where we are going’ and ‘what we stand for’, cascaded through every level, function and outcome, is an essential requirement to deliver on a Strategy and Culture that keeps its promises to shareholders and stakeholders alike, and minimises reputational risk.

Best Practice: Top-down (but informed and involved bottom-up)

Although there are different considerations and constraints for different organisations, depending not only on size but other factors, such as company structure, brand model (e.g. global brand with sub-brands versus a single brand) and current goals around change… rather than categorising the approach according to size of organisation, we operate from the premise that Culture should always be led and guided from the top down, with meaningful input and ongoing involvement at all levels of the organisation.

Culture should not be left to chance because it is too critical to the success of the organisation and the wellbeing of its people.

This approach is supported by much of the current practice nationally and globally, including:

• AICD’s guiding principles for Australian company directors around Culture governance – see for example this document on the practice of governing culture (which the executives also need to be across) and this article which references the job of leaders and managers to develop and lead the required Culture.
• Current thinking in Australia in leading Culture from the leadership and management perspective (including the essential role of middle-management) includes the work of Shane Michael Hatton. An excellent tool in understanding practical methods for empowering team managers to engage their teams in Culture conversations (such as around Purpose and Values) is his book, Let’s Talk Culture. This kind of approach supports Managers not only to lead Culture but to work with their teams to shape it in ways specific to their team
• In Australia, we are still catching up to global thinking on leading Culture and the role of Brand-Culture connection to enable practical, tangible and meaningful engagement with and buy-in for an organisation’s ideas on ‘who we are and what we stand for’ – both inside and outside the organisation. In the U.S., Denise Lee Yohn leads in this space – this article beautifully balances the role of leading Culture and the role of company-wide involvement. She talks about leaders and managers being ‘culture-carriers’ and ‘culture coaches’, while also setting up expectations that everyone has a responsibility to build and protect the Culture. Her research-heavy, excellent book Fusion: How integrating brand and culture powers the world’s greatest companies outlines a comprehensive approach.
• As ESG, Sustainability and Social Purpose are now becoming central to Organisational Strategy, this is an important Culture and Brand piece to lead from the top and cascade through the organisation. In Canada and the UK, Junxion are a consulting firm contributing great thought leadership in this space. This article contains a discussion on the role of business connected to social purpose, and the role of community/cross-collaboration.
• And because it’s such a big part of the economy for Australia… In Mining and Resources, this video demonstrates a great example from a former Chief Executive of an oil and gas company, talking about real values and meaningfully living up to them. It beautifully illustrates the role of the senior leader in paving the way.

Your take-away here: Tangible ways to connect the business and its people

“TRUST DRIVES GROWTH…
Now brands will need to operate at the intersection
of culture, purpose and society.”

– Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report

Leading a brand-aligned organisation is at the centre of building and maintaining TRUST, because when the message you are putting out there in your formal communications matches what is happening inside the organisation, and what is experienced outside, you deliver on your brand promise and prove your integrity.

Boards and senior leaders need a practical framework to review and direct a structured alignment between brand, culture, strategy, leadership and operations, to deliver on what’s promised to shareholders and stakeholders alike.

And yes, this starts with the tone and expectations set at the top! Yet, in our work we regularly see a mismatch in:

• BRAND INTENTION & PERCEPTION: What we say v What stakeholders experience
• STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES & RESULTS: e.g. Growth goals v Lack of brand awareness or ability to ‘sell’ the message
• CULTURE ASPIRATIONS & REALITY: Who is on the team & what are they doing v The level we want to be playing at

What are organisations missing?

While connecting your brand, strategy and culture isn’t a new concept, few organisations have a structured, organisation-wide approach to this. We see siloes in teams’ planning and culture development, a lack of aligned leadership from the board through to managers on steering the message, and a lack of participation in ‘who we are and where we are going’ at ground-level. These problems are exacerbated when businesses face major change, such as restructures, new markets or shifts in strategic focus.

Boards and leaders must be across:

• The brand beyond the logo – how are the brand and culture unavoidably intertwined, and where are they being communicated outside of planned, formal ways? What does it mean for risk, and for the ability to effectively execute on strategy?
• Relevant opportunities and scenarios where an overt approach to directing an ‘on-brand’ organisation would create increased competitiveness, power change, and address pressing concerns, such as ESG and AI strategy.

From NWC’s Brand-Culture Connection Checklist, here’s a sample to get you started. A good idea would be to choose one or two questions to bring into your next board meeting. If you want the full Brand/Culture Framework and accompanying checklist, you can request it here.

Enquire about your eligibility for a complimentary Team Personal Brand Awareness Session or a walk through NWC’s Trust Map to see where your organisation sits in building trust with stakeholders. More information on our Brand Culture Advisory page.

Q: As a Brand Culture and Personal Brand Advisor, you look at how trust is built at the organisational level, as well as at the team and individual level. How can businesses build trust in the digital age, and is it any different for individuals?

In the Edelman Trust Barometer report of early 2020 (which measures public trust in institutions, based on perception of competence and ethics), trust in businesses was put into question, and in Australia we saw this reflected in multiple Royal Commissions into different industries and truths coming to the surface. But by early 2021, trust in business had increased, trusted more than governments in 18 out of 27 countries surveyed. Businesses are now seen to be taking the lead on issues of public importance, such as social and environmental responsibility, and wellbeing and equality for staff.

When it comes to business, leaders have an opportunity to showcase how they are taking the lead as trustworthy members of the community, through what is prioritised and communicated. Businesses can address:

• How their culture is displayed, built or broken down in the online space,
• How engaged individual staff members are with the brand, and
• How empowered they are to build trust with external audiences.

One tool NWC has developed to assess and address how their brand is communicated through internal culture and external audiences is the Brand Expression Quadrant. This looks at how the brand is expressed in planned and unplanned ways, internally and externally, in-person and online. It is like a ‘net’ to catch all the brand touch points people come across, in order to see where there may be confusion or disconnects… in other words, which touch points need work.

“It is like a ‘net’ to catch all the brand touch points people come across, in order to see where there may be confusion or disconnects…”

At an individual level, I work with people’s personal brand positioning, communication and confidence to help build trust, as ambassadors for the business and as individual professionals with their own goals for their daily work and their broader careers.

When you are clear and confident, others place their trust in you. So giving yourself or your staff the opportunity to build clarity and focus in the ways we communicate about who we are at work and the value that we bring to stakeholders, and then working on ways to make this visible to audiences, become a powerful pathway to building trust for business and career growth. It also makes for more confident, cohesive teams of people with ‘leadership mindsets’!

“When you are clear and confident, others place their trust in you.” 

The interview highlights, including a demonstration of NWC’s tools, in If Innovation Could Talk’s LinkedIn post below:

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