Competitive Advantage Archives

Trust Pays Off

The business case for trust is straightforward and continues to grow. Each year, the data shows that companies with a culture of trust are more profitable than those without it. A culture of trust is not just a “nice-to-have.” It’s good business. Trust culture companies have outperformed the S&P 500 by a factor of three, and high-trust companies “are more than 2½ times more likely to be high performing revenue organizations” than lower-trust companies.

Why?

It turns out we come with an evolutionary hard-wired attraction to people we can trust and a visceral aversion to those we don’t.

People are drawn to and prefer to do business with organizations that have earned their trust, which results in greater productivity, higher sales and wider margins. Trust attracts and engages people, says David Rock who focuses on applying neuroscience insights to management. In SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others published by the NeuroLeadership Journal, he lays out not just the benefits of trust within an organization but a framework for establishing and building it:

“Indeed, the ability to intentionally address the social brain in the service of optimal performance will be a distinguishing leadership capability in the years ahead…

The impact of this neural dynamic is often visible in organizations. For example, when leaders trigger a threat response, employees’ brains become much less efficient. But when leaders make people feel good about themselves, clearly communicate their expectations, give employees latitude to make decisions, support people’s efforts to build good relationships, and treat the whole organization fairly, it prompts a reward response.

Others in the organization become more effective, more open to ideas and more creative. They notice the kind of information that passes them by when fear or resentment makes it difficult to focus their attention. They are less susceptible to burnout because they are able to manage their stress. The feel intrinsically rewarded…If you are a leader, every action you take and every decision you make either supports or undermines the perceived levels of status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness in your enterprise. In fact, this is why leading is so difficult.”

Building Trust Starts with Behavior

In business, leadership behavior is what matters. The actions of leaders shape expectations. Each decision and action either reduces or builds trust.

We’ve consolidated the factors that build trust from a review of management literature. Through our analysis we found a consistent set of behaviors that trusted leaders demonstrate.

Clarity and transparency: People trust the clear, and mistrust or doubt unnecessary complexity. Be crystal clear about your purpose, expectations, and priorities. Tell the truth in a way people can verify. Be authentic and lean in on disclosure.

Empower with empathy: People learn to trust those that operate beyond their own self-interest; that show respect for others’ points of view, skills and expertise. People want to be great. Tune in to their abilities. Be the leader that lets others be great.

Consistently demonstrate integrity: People notice those who do the right thing for the right reason. Be true to yourself, your purpose, and your values.

Keep commitments and contribute: Few things build trust quicker than actual results. At the end of the day, people need to see outcomes. Empathy and integrity aren’t enough, unless combined with delivering on commitments. Be the most useful person in the room. Be consistent delivering results.

Keep current: People have confidence in those who stay up to date, relevant, and sharp. Stay curious and keep learning. Be an enthusiastic teacher and learner. Be known for seeking out new ways of doing things, ideas, and trends.

Be open and cultivate connection: Trust requires a relationship, and it is through its relationship with you that your team expresses its trust. Openness is essential to build these relationships. If people can’t get to know you, then they probably can’t get to trust you, either. With openness comes the requirement for a certain vulnerability. Be available and present. Be the type of leader that ‘puts yourself out there’ and make the first move to make a connection.

Trust Takes Time

“Every action you take and every decision you make either supports or undermines the perceived levels of status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness in your enterprise.” – David Rock

So take it one moment at a time. Trust can’t be built overnight. It requires time, effort, focus, and consistency. Inspiring trust requires authenticity and effort. But if you think of these elements as skills to work on and challenge yourself to think of every action or decision as an opportunity to demonstrate one or more, you will be on your way to building trust that will drive results and improve both the top and bottom lines.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy agency.

Missing a Piece of the Picture

A powerful brand strategy that drives business forward requires more than an understanding of what customers say motivates them to engage with your brand or your competitors. It requires understanding the larger cultural forces at play that shape those same motivations and comparisons. That’s where discourse analysis enters the conversation.

For example, in our work with a major cyber security company, analyzing the discourses at play revealed shifts in the larger security conversations happening in our culture. We discovered we were moving from conversations of protection and attention, to those of proactive prevention and accelerated detection, shifting the security landscape from technical to more strategic.

By understanding the larger cultural shifts at play, discourse analysis can help marketers and branders tie their brands to something larger than just products or offerings. What they are really buying into becomes apparent – something more meaningful and resonant in peoples’ lives.

So What Is Discourse Analysis Exactly?

People’s knowledge of a brand is constructed through the discourses – conversations and communications – that surround the brand, the category, the competition, and the larger cultural context. When these discourses shift, so do assessments of brands and their relevance.

Discourse analysis isn’t a new concept. It’s a proven approach from anthropology and media studies that brand strategists have refined and honed to support brand strategy today.

At Emotive Brand, we use discourse analysis to shed light on how and why people think and feel the way they do about your brand, products, category, and competitors. With a clear picture of the discourses at play, no-go areas are revealed, promising possibilities are uncovered, and teams are infused with renewed energy.

The approach is focused on understanding the ways your brand, your competitors, and your category builds meaning and resonance in people’s lives. In the case of cyber security, we learned that the opportunity to reach consumers wasn’t just about offering walls that provided protection, but presenting an entire immune system that could strengthen, flex, and prevent attack before it was even happening. Here you see how discourse analysis can be an ideal method for uncovering fresh and powerful ways to help enhance your brand’s strength.

Discourse Analysis Delivers

Discourse analysis creates a complete and mapped understanding of how your brand – within its competitive landscape – can sustain relevance, stand out, and mean something more significant to the people who matter to your business.

1. Keeping pace with change

Understanding the changing landscape is hard for any business – but failing to understand it inevitably results in missed opportunities. Discourse analysis helps our clients visualize the emerging patterns and existing norms of their category more clearly, while providing a map that can be updated in the future.

The evidence allows brands to see their possibilities in a new light and understand their competitors – perhaps better than the competitors understands themselves. The approach makes the journey easier for brands and businesses today – helping them chart potential directions, realize a vision, avoid pitfalls, and ensure the brand is ready to seize promising opportunities on the horizon.

2. Standing out

Brands and businesses today can’t just say something different, they have to stand for something more significant. This requires understanding both the status quo and the best ways of meaningfully challenging it. And changing the character or intensity of the conversations a brand leads or takes part in can power it in a new direction.

Discourse analysis builds a deep understanding of what the norms are, and why those particular ideas, practices, and values are meaningful to people in the first place. Once people understand the origins of these meanings, they can better tap into their power – challenging today’s norms in inventive ways that help your brand stand above the competition and go against the grain, while not forgetting why you matter to people in the first place. For our cyber security client, they were able to stand out by offering security that meant something different – something more.

3. Becoming more meaningful

When you have a clearer understanding of the discourses that surround your category, competition, and brand, you can more meaningfully position your brand to compete. Your meaningful aspirations will be better articulated to the people you want to reach. Your culture will come to life. Values you align with will get lived and confirmed every day. And what’s authentically unique about your brand will shine true.

Your business will be positioned to thrive because your brand will reach a new level of meaning that resonates in all the domains that matter to your success. With more authentic meaning, people will be more engaged, more loyal, and your brand will be more trusted.

Discourse Analysis, Here’s How We Do It

Step 1: Identify the basis of competition in your category

This first phase establishes the scope of the analysis. It usually includes key competitors, the larger cultural context for the category, and key target audiences at play, as well as the brand itself.

Step 2: Collect data and organize evidence

This stage is all about gathering the naturally occurring data – the real world evidence needed to analyze how people and groups talk about what’s important to them with regard to your brand and its competitors. This evidence can come in the form of social listening, news and media coverage, consumer reviews, individual conversations, primary research, ads, packaging, promotional materials, etc.

Step 3: Conduct the analysis and uncover patterns

In this phase, we use a set of proven tools from social science to identify recurring patterns in the evidence. This includes similarities and differences between the ways people relate to key brand benefits, needs, and desires that surround your brand, the competition, and the category. The key question at this step is: what are the values and perspectives the category, competitors, and brand rely on to construct meaning and how have these developed over time?

This is the stage of deep pattern recognition and mapping. We reveal insights that help your brand discover the biggest opportunities at play – uncovering which ideas and values are not just culturally of the moment, but show the greatest promise for the future.

Because of discourse analysis, our client was able to promise more than just short-term security. They could offer a long-term, sustainable, proactive, accelerated solution for the future.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency.

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Tag: Competitive Advantage

The Business Case for Trust: How Leaders Can Unlock the Full Power of Trust