Matching Your Functional Strategy to your Organization’s Brand

Being in the middle of an organization has it’s benefits but does come with challenges. The one I see most often manifest is a fundamental misalignment of goals between a group/team/department and the larger organizational brand. For all of us working in the middle, this is a critical topic to understand and be comfortable exploring as it can be the key to success and happiness in your role.

What does alignment look like?

Aligning your departmental strategy to the organizational brand may sound very obscure, but it’s actually very fundamental. We often don’t notice alignment in our day to day experiences, but we sure notice misalignment. Just think back to a high end purchase (of your own definition) and then think of a poor experience you had when you needed something afterwards for that product (installation, support, add on services, etc.). I bet you can name 3 frustrating experiences off the top of your head where you felt like “I paid X for this and now you are making me regret it”. I also bet that more often than not, you actually did get service that was what you expected and you don’t readily remember those example nearly as well. That is the difference between misalignment and alignment within organizations and their brand messaging.

For example, if you are the leader of the Service Department (clearly somewhere in the middle of any organization…definitely not the top strategy driver) for an automobile maker, your entire strategy could and should hinge on which automobile maker you represent. If I lead Service for Kia – which is one of my personal favorite auto brands – my strategy will be focused on minimizing customer pain and keeping costs as low as possible when service is required. The focus of the experience will be on efficiency in time knowing that customers will be without their normal transportation (scheduling smartly, realistic repair time estimates, part inventory availability) while providing courteous, consistent service. The waiting area will be pleasant (but not extravagant) and will have the basics (some drink/food options – probably mix of free and for a fee), TV, wifi, and so on based on the assumption that many people will simply sit and wait. I likely will offer pooled rides (shuttle service) for customers who don’t want to wait at the dealership.

Conversely, if I lead Service for Bentley (still in the middle of the organization), my strategy would be wildly different. The focus would be on a differentiated, memorable experience creating some level of customer delight (and bereft of pain) while performing a necessary function. The focus of the experience will be to ensure customers feel no noticeable inconvenience from the service need through a highly personalized, white-glove experience. The Service team ambassador would pick of the vehicle in need at the time and place of the customer’s choosing, at that moment replace it with a loaner vehicle at or above the owner’s current model/trim in the same family (sedan, SUV, etc.) or at the client’s preference showcasing the brand’s potential, and then upon completion of the service, return the vehicle at the time and place of the customer’s choosing swapping the loaner for the owned.

Neither is experience is right or wrong. And neither experience needs to be painful (you don’t deserve poor service just because you didn’t buy a Bentley). Both can be optimized within some guardrails to be great experiences. The key difference is the alignment with the brand however. In my example, the service provided by Bentley would not be feasible for Kia for a multitude of reasons: clearly it would be very expensive and margins wouldn’t support it, the volume of vehicles sold and repaired by Kia is 50 times that of Bentley requiring huge staffs and reserves of vehicles, and customers on both sides would have an issue (the Bentley customer issue is obvious, the Kia issue would be that of “I must be paying way too much if you do all of this” – much like when we see something “fancy” built in a public area and hear the outcry of “my tax dollars are being wasted on something extravagant”; it’s the dissonance between expectation of a value brand and service for a premium one).

Clearly this example is painfully obvious with minimal thought. But now take that logic out a little. What if you lead an IT department at a value Retailer? Or for a high end luxury brand? You want to understand your organization’s brand and try to be aligned with it. If you are in a value Retailer, I would surmise that you likely won’t propose to leadership that you’d like to go out and buy the highest end hardware and software in the marketplace to run your organization, even though that could be the absolute best solution. Instead, you’d want to have a strategy that allows you to find good, durable hardware and software that will accomplish your goals more moderately priced – a value strategy apparent to both employees and customers. The opposite will likely be true at a luxury brand – you’ll want the most elegant hardware and software solutions projecting the most sophistication possible for customers and employees.

So this is obvious…why do I care?

As a leader, understand this up front is critically important before you even join an organization. The brand vision of the organization should and likely will shape your role, your team, and your strategy. You should take time to investigate this during the interview process and see how it plays out day to day with other leaders on the interview panel. Maybe it’s much less pronounced in that organization…or maybe it’s pervasive. Every organization seemingly will tell you they want to be “world class” in every facet of the organization, but that’s often bluster. As a future potential middle of the organization leader, you need to assess if the vision you want to create is aligned with where the organization wants to actually go with your function. If you want to build that white-glove, highly personalized Bentley experience, you probably don’t want to interview with Kia as your vision, desire, and energy won’t be aligned with what’s realistic for the organization.

This doesn’t mean you can’t aspire to make change. It doesn’t mean you can’t try to improve the function within your organization. But it does mean that your functional strategy in the middle of the org must be subordinate to and aligned with the larger brand strategy of the organization. By all means, if your organization wants to move it’s brand from point A to B and your function can lead the way…run for it! But, if it’s just your group straying from the pack with no organizational mooring, you will be causing a dissonance with either employees or customers that will not serve the greater good in a positive way.