Involve employees. We actually had (employees) be a part of the process, and I think that’s extremely important. When we rolled it out to them, (we could say), ‘This came from you guys. This is what we heard from you. You are the ones that decided what the brand was.’
They were part of the focus groups and the discussion; they were a part of the rollout.
That, I think, is extremely important, to get buy-in and their commitment toward it.
We would specifically ask questions like: Did you think the brand was powerful? What did it make you think of? How do you live the brand? How do you make this ‘One world. For everyone’? We would ask them pretty specific questions.
Reach out to everyone. We really take the initiative to invite anybody who wants to be a part of it. We do that in a couple of different ways, and we do this throughout the organization on anything we’re going to communicate.
Sometimes I’ll send an e-mail out saying, ‘I want your ideas,’ so I can touch a lot of people that way. I have regular lunches with the CEO for people who want to come and talk about their specific issues or their concerns or their ideas, so they can come through that way.
At the end of the day, as long as you give everybody the opportunity, people feel they’re a part of the process. Even if they don’t want to be, they don’t want (to share) an idea, at least they felt like if they wanted to, they could. That’s important. I would think it’s hard to say, ‘We’re only going to ask the managers, and we don’t care about the opinions of the other people.’
It’s good just to have them feel a part of the process. If they don’t connect to it, I think they’ll just not even care about it. If they see what they do, like, ‘Wow, I actually made a difference today. I made the brand; I made it one world,’ I think they’ll really connect with it and really talk it up.
Provide follow up. I talk about the brand everywhere I go to employees and outside stakeholders. I’m always making sure I say the words, and I’m giving examples about how we really live it.
We got just a ton of feedback unsolicited from those families, employees and donors. Anytime everybody would say something about it, I would immediately call back and talk to them about it. It was almost engaging them in it, as well.
I think that it is the CEO’s role to keep it going. If I never said the words, it would go away. It’s really part of my job to keep the excitement going. Everywhere I go, I talk about it.
Really engage them like, ‘Oh, what did you think about it? Did you think it captured it? Why did it hit you? What was so exciting to you about it?’
How to reach: Bancroft, (856) 429-0010 or www.bancroft.org
