Brand Reputation

I will tell you that your organization’s Brand is one of the most important assets you have. I think this is fairly logical given that I co-own company that sells branding services.

The challenge and opportunity in a brand is that a single right or wrong action can warp the reputation of a brand, where the brand of the organization is out of sync with the reality of the experience.

One of the hardest things to understand about branding is that the Brand is not something that you create (that’s a logo); the Brand is the experience and narrative that people have about your organization.

In some ways the experience is not unlike the cattle branding of old; I’m sure the cattle would prefer a different branding experience than they received, and yet they wore the Brand given to them regardless.

We are seeing a real life example of the improtance of brand and reputation play out in the local London community with Pillar Nonprofit Network.

Yesterday, Blackburn News posted an artical citing some governance challenges at Pillar (Pillar stakeholders ask for board’s resignation amid leadership turmoil). For weeks since the public termination of their CEO and leader Mojdex Cox, Pillar has been under fire from folks in community for the actions leading up to and following that termination.

I believe the crux of the issue is the misalignment between the stated mission of the organization “To strengthen individuals, organizations and enterprises that are invested in positive community impact” and, in particular, how they say they will achieve their mission. Pillar’s how statement speaks to building inclusive workplaces, facilitation collaboration, and finding new ways to face persistent challenges.

The letter cited highlights examples of how the actions of the organization have been counter to the mission, purpose and values of the organization. In short, what the organization says it’s designed to do is in direct conflict with how the organization has behaved.

Any time an organization is out of sync with its mission, vision or values I believe it erodes trust. I think we are seeing that erosion of trust play out in real time in our community.

What saddens me about this scenario is the Pillar staff have been and continue to do great work in strenghtening individuals and organizations. They have some amazing programs around governance, diversity and leadership.

Personally, I received training from one of their senior leaders, Dharshi Lacey, that transformed my understanding of privledge. Julie Forrester hosted a 2 day workshop that included a piece on aligning personal to professional vision that I continue to use today. Rachel Berdan was instrumental in developing my understanding of story and how it relates to good marking and communication.

There are many other examples of the great work that the current Pillar team has undertaken to advance our community. The staff of Pillar were not involved in the decision to terminate Mojdeh. And they do great work.

I have already seen a few public statements attacking Pillar for the way it is behaving. It is distressing to me to the impact this may have on the staff of Pillar as I know many of them are emotionally invested in the organization.

I think it’s important to highlight that two things can be true: Pillar can be facing a crisis in Governance that is potentially inconsistent with it’s mission and values *and* staff are doing great work “on the ground” to help our community.

Ultimately it is the board and membership that have to resolve the current governance issue. My request to community is to consider the staff who are potentially caught in a crossfire, and to ensure any critisism is directed to the appropriate place, whether that be the Board, membership/stakeholders/activist, or in the case of an actual service dispute, staff.

I believe that Pillar can continue the great work in community if the team at Pillar continues to wake up eery morning and drive the mission of the organization forward. I fear greatly that the reptuation to Brand may continue to taint the work that is being done by the workers in the organization.

I believe there’s an opportunity for Pillar’s Brand to come into re-alignment with it’s mission and the programs and services that are offered to its members and the community at large. I do not believe this task will be easy.

My ask is that if you are active in community discussions around Pillar that you hold staff in mind as you engage in any critisisms and/or support for Pillar. I do not believe they deserve to wear the critism I have already observed, and fear more critisism is coming.

What we can learn from this experience is that the short term actions of an organization that run counter to it’s mission and values can undo years if not decades of work building trust and reputation. I suspect it’s because when an organization acts counter to its values we begin to question if their initial efforts were sincere.

The solution, alibet not easy, is to constantly reflect back on your mission and values and ask the difficult questions of whether or not your actions, decisions or desires are in alignment with what people outside your organization perceive of your brand. If the answer is “no”, I’d encourage the organization to reconsider bringing the activity into alignment with the Brand.

Every action can create an impact to your Brand.

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In the interest of full disclosure, I am a past Board Chair of Pillar and have worked directly with some of the staff. One of the organizations I co-own, rTraction, has had business dealings with Pillar and considers Pillar both a customer and investor. I can not claim to be unbaist in writing this note.