PROCESSES VALUES

The Industrial Age brought with it an emphasis on process. A factory owner could design a process for manufacturing a product, then plug semi-skilled workers into it like parts into a machine. Each worker, each part, would have a limited function, thereby reducing errors and maximizing throughput. This worked amazingly well in a marketplace that was stable and predictable, where power belonged to the manufacturer.

But what would happen if the marketplace were constantly changing? And what if power were in the hands of customers? Would process still be paramount?

The changes came slowly at first. Vending machines began to offer self-service. Catalogs offered products by mail. Service stations asked drivers to pump their own gas. Brokerage firms let people manage their own portfolios. Airlines asked flyers to check themselves in. Publishing companies allowed authors sell their own books. Coming full circle, manufacturers are now helping customers make their own products. The marketplace has flipped.

In today’s age of customer control, company processes are still important. But they’re subject to increasing flux. They need to be invented and reinvented on the fly, according to the desires and dictates of customers. They can’t be developed at the top of the organization and handed down for workers to implement. They must be designed by the workers themselves, often in the moment.

To accomplish this, a company must develop a culture of creative autonomy, guided by a shared understanding of “how we work together” or “how we behave.” Company culture is the complement to customer mores, the rules that determine how customers belong to tribes.

The best way to shape company culture is to encourage adherence to a set of values. For example, the world-class experience that Ritz-Carlton provides its guests comes directly from its master value of “service.” This value is broken down into 12 sub-values that employees must agree to uphold.

Johnson & Johnson lives by a credo of five responsibilities—to customers, employees, management, communities, and stockholders.

This credo has been serving the company well since 1943.

Soap company Method has its “Methodology,” five values that express its obsession with culture: 1) keep Method weird, 2) what would MacGyver do? 3) innovate, don’t imitate, 4) collaborate, collaborate, collaborate, and 5) care like crazy. These aren’t just notions enshrined on the cafeteria wall but living behaviors that are consistently discussed, supported, and rewarded. Founders Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry have discovered that culture provides nearly endless benefits, from boosting employee satisfaction to fostering a cohesive brand and a spirit of innovation. It attracts and keeps better talent, inspires more customers, and helps a company outlast its competitors.

When a company culture goes bad, the brand suffers immediately—eroding revenues, tribal trust, and customer loyalty. For example, the flurry of vehicle recalls by Toyota in 2010 was the direct result of a breakdown in company culture. A former executive, Jim Press, blamed the problems on a group of “financially oriented pirates” who, unlike the founding family, “didn’t have the character to maintain a customer-first focus.”

Lori, as the founder of her company, has an opportunity to set strong standards from day one. Her customer tribe is educated, family-oriented, tech-savvy, food-conscious, community-minded, and eco-concerned. In completing the Brand Commitment Matrix, she understands that cultural values must sync up with customer mores. In other words, “how we behave” must align with “how they belong.” Therefore, she decides, the values of her employees should map closely to those of her customers.

Now that she’s completed the matrix, what’s next? It’s time to start building out the brand. Using the matrix, she’ll imagine the experiences that will help her customers create their identities.