Why do I always feel obliged to pick on the airline industry? Well, because the airlines make it so easy. However, there are a few in the airline industry that truly understand the importance and power of a strong brand. As one client leader from a large telecommunications company said to me, "It's just about sucking a little less than the competition."

As most airlines have experienced, it's actually really hard to "suck less". The airlines that "suck less" are the ones that recognize that its people and the processes and behavioral ways that they've been trained on are proprietary to the company. The behaviors are personal and it shows.

Take JetBlue for example. Are they perfect, no, but are they consistently better than the competition, no question about it. Let me share with you a recent, yet very typical, experience designed into the workforce at JetBlue. Aside from the fact that the check-in staff, gate employees, and flight attendants are almost always overtly kind and friendly, JetBlue pilots also get into the service side of the action. It is not uncommon to see a pilot help out with the cleanup inside the plane in order to speed up the turnaround time.

On one particular flight I was on, the pilot came out of the cockpit just before leaving the gate and addressed the passengers using the microphone. He said, "Thank you very much for flying with us today. I am sure you will enjoy the JetBlue experience. By show of hands, how many of you are first-time flyers with JetBlue?"

None of us raised our hands even though there were probably a few first-time JetBlue flyers. The pilot continued, "Great, we have a bunch of savvy veterans who have come back for the JetBlue experience. Then you know what to expect. Great service, a great flight, and live TV. Folks, today we have the best flight attendants in the industry. Please don't hesitate to reach out to them if there is anything we can do to make your experience with us as pleasant as possible."

In less than 15 seconds, this pilot not only mentioned the term "experience" three times, he also set a high expectation for the flight attendants to live up to. My guess is that they welcomed that high expectation because they truly enjoy servicing passengers. JetBlue does a phenomenal job hiring, training, and evaluating its employee base to ensure they buy into the strategy and deliver it at each touchpoint.

Drafting optimal behaviors requires a unique investment by your company. In return, doing so promises to maximize the strategic value of workforce performance and contribute to a sustainable competitive advantage. Bottom line: The behaviors that your employees create become proprietary and lead to differentiation in the marketplace. Behaviors are the way you do business. They drive your culture. They drive your brand from the inside out.

I wonder if United wished they sucked a little less....

Does your company lack strategic direction? Does the path you’ve set change with the wind based on the hidden agendas of your leaders or market and competitive fluctuations? If so, and you’re frustrated enough, it might be time to consider a different approach. A brand strategy might be just what you’re looking for. A brand strategy is the process of aligning what you say (mission, vision, values) with what you do (delivery of behaviors and experiences) in order to positively influence what others (employees, customers, the market) think.

To successfuly implement a brand strategy, you must understand the four realities of branding:

First Reality of Branding: The brand is not a part of the business, it is the business
Every employee interaction within your company impacts the brand. Each one makes it either easier or harder for you to keep and recruit great people and good customers. These interactions directly affect costs of payroll and customer sales, which dramatically influence cash flow for operations. The most successful, future-looking companies (whether large household names or privately held neighborhood shops) recognize that the brand is the playing field for the game of business.

Second Reality of Branding: A brand is about experiences, not logos and taglines
Your brand is a people strategy, rather than a marketing strategy. The purpose of a brand strategy is to influence what people think about your company in ways that cause them to take the action your company is looking for and the only way to influence what people think is to manage the consistent execution
of employee behaviors that will drive customer experiences.

Third Reality of Branding: The little things that you do CONSISTENTLY are much more important than the BIG things you say!
No one is really listening when you tell them how your company is the industry leader in “blah, blah, blah.” Or that you are experts in delivering “blah, blah,” and are known for incredibly high-quality “blah.” Even if you think they’re listening to your salespeople or advertising message, do you really think they’re hearing it? Don’t count on it! People judge a company by the experience they have or someone they know has. So why do so many companies still waste outrageous amounts of money on advertising and marketing tactics rather than focusing on the experiences that are most relevant to their target customers? Well-planned and executed experiences provide reasons for customers to believe what companies want them to believe about their products. The reality: You’re better off doing a few things well all of the time than doing a lot of things mediocre some of the time. Consistency is king!

Fourth Reality of Branding: A brand strategy is the single most important differentiator between a good company and a great company
Great companies have people and processes that make them great. For any company in any industry, this fact remains true: your competition cannot easily replicate your people (human capital) or processes (quality assurance, innovation, customer service, etc.). They can (and probably will) copy your marketing message, but they will not be able to consistently deliver the same experiences without your people and processes. Since this is the case, why not focus energy on talent management and process improvement?

Build and sustain a difference in the market by:

1. Determining the experience your customers want.
2. Finding the right people to deliver that experience.
3. Ensuring your people have the right operational processes to efficiently and effectively deliver experiences for your customers.

Companies that define a strategy to drive their culture will win more, lose less, and make more money.

To read more about how to build and define a strategy, pick up a copy of my book Achieve Brand Integrity.

If you've ever been to the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle then you are probably familiar with the FISH philosophy which has for at least the last decade permeated the global business environment. The idea behind the philosophy being that employees are responsible for delivering a great experience to each other and customers and this experience is enhanced when employees show up to work each day and deliver 4 main concepts:

• Play
• Make Their Day
• Be There [for Coworkers] (Often referred to as "Be Present" This is more to do with giving your full attention to a task or individual.)
• Choose Your Attitude
  

(for more specifics about the FISH Philosophy http://www.charthouse.com)

I have been through FISH training and have seen many companies who have invested the dollars and resources to bring the FISH philosophy into their work environment. I actually really like the philosophy behind FISH and what it stands for, but where I struggle with it is when myopic leaders believe it is going to truly change and evolve their work culture. As a team building exercise it is great, as a  way to build and sustain culture, no way!

If your organization doesn't understand what the culture is today and what the desired culture is for the future, it doesn't matter what team building you do, it won't make any long term difference.

Culture evolution and change is not about team building, it’s about defining the culture for the future, setting expectations, communicating those expectations and holding employees accountable for behavior that demonstrates the culture.

Once your culture is defined and in place, then there is certainly room for team building and other "rah-rah" opportunities to keep things fresh, but i can't think of one instance where team building alone built a corporate culture that was sustainable and was responsible for driving business results.

Team building should be an outcome, not the strategy.

Today we have an employee engagement crisis. Employees are more frustrated and less productive than in any other time in recorded history. And, it's getting worse. Maybe a lot worse!

Over the past year, most organizations have successfully decreased overhead expenses and increased cost-savings. However, they’ve done this at the expense of increasing the stress and burnout of their best people.

Has your company gone through a “reorg” or significant layoffs in the past year? Studies show that 72 percent of companies have since the economic downturn began last year.

How has this affected employee engagement?

• Engagement has dropped nearly 10 percent from 2008 (where it was already at an all-time low).
• Engagement among top performers has dropped 23 percent.
• The number of top performers (A-players) who would recommend their company as a place to work has dropped 20 percent.
• Top performers are 14 percent less likely to want to stay with their company.*

So what does today's employee engagement crisis mean for tomorrow?

Laura Sejen, global director of strategic rewards consulting at Watson Wyatt, had this to say, “Having less engaged and committed workers is a major concern for employers. This could have a long-lasting and detrimental impact on productivity, quality and customer service, as well as increase the risk of companies losing their best employees.”

I predict a mass exodus of A-players is coming! It may have already started.

The best way to get and keep A-players is very similar to getting and keeping customers. Your company needs to Achieve Brand Integrity, i.e., actually be who and what it says it is. Engage employees with the company values/mission/objectives and then recognize them when they do what is expected (or better yet, more than expected) to help the company reach its stated goals. The number-one reason why employees stay loyal to a company is because they feel appreciated for doing a good job. And employees who live the brand every day know how to deliver the experiences customer's want, which in turn leads to increased customer loyalty and greater profitability.

What is your company doing to keep its A-players?



(*Statistics from: WorldatWork, "Economic Downturn Leading to Decline in Employee Commitment, Morale, Watson Wyatt and WorldatWork Survey Finds," news release, September 21, 2009)

The reason for focusing your brand-building efforts on employees is quite simple --- employees have choices. Just like customers, they are attracted to companies with strong brands --- companies that stand for something meaningful.

The best companies realize employees have four choices with respect to achieving desired business results for your company:

1. Join: "I choose to join your company, do great work, and help achieve goals and objectives."
2. Stay: "I choose to stay with your company, becoming a valuable employee over time."
3. Grow: "I choose to develop my skills and capabilities, becoming more valuable to your company over time."
4. Contribute: "I choose to consistently deliver and make a positive impact on bottom-line success."
   

Don't believe me, a few years back Southwest Airlines had 225,000 applications for 1200 job positions. Keep in mind this was while the other airlines were declaring bankruptcy and couldn't get people to show up to work. Same industry, same company function - getting people from one location to another - yet, one is driving profits and the rest are almost out of business.

Another great example is the turnover of Wegmans' Food Markets part-time workers versus the supermarket industry average. Industry average is 76%, Wegmans' 26%. This 50% difference is worth millions upon millions of dollars to Wegmans' bottom-line every year.

You may be tempted in this down economy to lose focus on building and sustaining your culture because no one is hiring and employees don't have anywhere to go. But, be forewarned, your best employees WILL leave if they aren't engaged or even worse, they will retire on the job draining productivity and profits. No matter what the economy is doing, there is always opportunity out there for your best employees to find a job where they are valued and can make an impact every day.

In our recent electronic newsletter, we asked the following question:
When purchasing a product or service, how often do you have an outstanding* customer experience?
(*outstanding = a time when the experience had such an impact that you openly spoke about it to others.)

Here are the results:

These results remind me of when I used to own Buckman's Bakery & Ice Cream in Rochester, NY.

In the early 1990s, Buckman’s was on the verge of bankruptcy but my business partner and I saw an opportunity. We scouted out the business and were shocked to see 7,000+ square feet of pure filth. Even more alarming were the staff—lazy, unkempt, rude, and careless—delivering bad experiences, one customer at a time.

However, having a good understanding of the power of perceptions, we knew that if we could change the customer experience, we could take Buckman's back to the days when it was a special place in the hearts and minds of Rochesterians.

So we set to work to re-establish the Buckman’s Brand from the inside out. We defined our vision and made it meaningful to our employees by providing visible, measurable behaviors that everyone was accountable for doing (such as remembering a regular's name and what they ordered). We provided systems and approaches for delighting customers, and employees and customers liked it. Employees enjoyed contributing to the success of an organization they believed in. We also decreased our product assortment to the core products we knew we could guarantee would always be good.

Over time, our strategy worked. The positive perceptions about Buckman’s started to come alive again.

After some initial hiccups with the limited product selection, customers began to focus on the clean store and energetic, friendly employees. Customers began to appreciate consistent quality and being treated with care and respect. They loved being remembered every time they came in. They loved the Buckman’s Experience!

My business partner and I ended up selling Buckman’s for ten times what we paid for it after just three short years because of the three things we did really well:

1. We hired the best people.
2. We produced only products we could be great at (less was much more).
3. We established a performance-based work culture where minimum wage employees expected to be — and appreciated being — accountable for keeping the store clean and delighting customers at every point of interaction.
   

These three things ended up becoming the foundation for the Achieving Brand Integrity^® process.

Let me relay my recent experience and you can decide.

Every time I’ve flown Northwest, the crew has worked really hard to provide a good customer experience. I cannot say the same for Delta. Recently I’ve had a few trips where half of the journey is on Northwest and half is on Delta, which has amplified the differences. What I want to know is: Which airline’s employee performance expectations and systems are going to win out in the merger?

On a recent Sunday, I boarded a Northwest flight and was greeted by the pilot accompanied by smiling, attentive flight attendants. After we all boarded and got situated prior to take off, the pilot came over the intercom to welcome us and give updates about our destination and the weather. During the flight, he came on a few more times with quick, to-the-point announcements letting us know how the flight was going and what to expect. Upon landing, pilot and flight attendants thanked us for flying Northwest, saying they appreciate our business and hope we had a good experience. They even handed out customer comment cards for providing feedback. (Funny enough, the header on the comment card was for Delta!)

Within forty-eight hours I was on a Delta flight, which I can’t help but label Customer Service Stupidity. As we boarded the plane, maintenance workers were visibly working outside of the plane and a few were actually inside the cockpit. So boarding set an uneasy tone with passengers, but to top it off, we sat in our seats for over thirty minutes before one of the workers tapped the pilot on the shoulder and said, “Maybe you want to tell them what’s going on.”

Only then did we learn that a part needed to be changed and the workers were simply following SOP to make sure everything was in working order. We were delayed more than an hour overall, but those thirty minutes of silence fueled my anxiety and disappointment with the Delta experience. I know I wasn’t the only one wondering if there was something wrong with the plane or if the delay was going to make me miss my connecting flight. And the pilot did not think to give us an update until he was prompted to do so by someone else!

It only got worse from there.

After giving us the initial update on what the maintenance was about, the pilot only spoke five more words the entire flight: “Flight attendants prepare for takeoff.”

The weather was bad and the flight was turbulent. The flight attendants were grumpy and dour. As passengers, we want to have basic comfort knowing the pilot is thinking of us as more than cargo; yet this pilot did not utter another sound the whole time, neglecting to even notify the flight attendants of landing.

Delta apparently does not have nonnegotiable behaviors or protocol in place for pilots to follow, and if they do then shame on this flight crew for not following it. I used my “Northwest” comment card to express my incredible dissatisfaction with Delta’s customer experience and plan on sending additional correspondence expressing my distaste. I sincerely believe Delta hates customers and Northwest wants to love you. I hope Northwest’s processes and systems win out.