From the inside looking out

Earlier in my career I worked for one of the most admired brands in Canada.  It’s the kind of thing that makes you proud.  You walk into any situation and people are all over you about how great it must be.  Except it wasn’t.  The buzz and hype had created an external brand that didn’t match the internal reality.

What brings this to mind is that two more of the world’s most powerful and valued  brands have taken big hits to their reputations in the past few weeks.  And both of them for misleading customers.

DELL is accused of hiding significant and potentially dangerous technical issues from their business customers. Recently unsealed lawsuit documents reveal cover-up and purposeful deception that may have gone on for years.

Apple’s iphone customers have complained of dropped calls since the first iphone hit the market.  They were told it was a network problem. A small problem of design which meant you just had to hold it a certain way.  Then a software problem.  Now, according to consumer reports the phone’s hardware is flawed.  And it looks like Apple may have known about this problem for some time.

The thing is when we say DELL and Apple knew and have been misleading customers, we mean DELL and Apple employees knew and have been misleading customers.  Certainly not all employees new.  But, most certainly some of them did.  And, no doubt many of them suspected the truth.

What’s it like to be on the inside of brands like these?  To know that the customer’s brand experience is build in whole or in part on a myth.  To know that if anyone really took a look behind the curtain they’d find behaviours that were questionable if not unethical or illegal.  To know that your boss or your colleague is misleading you?

Rising employee cynicism and plummeting trust in leadership tell the tale. So the next time you’re asked how communications can help reverse these trends don’t start drafting new and better messages to push. Stop yourself from building a inspiring internal campaign or refreshing the intranet.  Do start thinking about how you can help set the conditions for getting the right conversations going with the right people around where and how the employee experience is not aligned with the brand and discovering what needs to change.

Some additional reading

I went to see if I could find the values statements for DELL and Apple.  Read in the context of what is in the news now, they are pretty interesting.

• Check out Dell’s official ‘Soul of Dell’
• Apples doesn’t publish its values statement on the web, but I did find a pdf post that looks pretty credible.  If the actual values statement “customer empathy” is especially chilling.

And, I’ve been following the animated discussion on the smoke and mirrors of employer branding with Sean Trainor at CIPR Inside that adds another dimension to this post.

Tags: Authenticity, Behaviour change, Best in class, Brand, Cultural norms, Culture change, Employee communication, Ethics, Transparency, Trust