the magic of involvement

how to build trust, activate brand, & create communities for action

©2010 The Involvement Practice, LLC

 Employees’ experience determines brand experience.
The idea of “brand” is now synonymous with “experience.” A brand today is our cumulative experience with and
perception of an entity. Not surprisingly, the single largest determinant of brand experience is an organization’s
employees. Whether an airline flight or a hospital visit, grocery shopping or buying shoes, the way we perceive the
employees we are interacting with has a far greater impact upon our brand perception than years of magazine or
television advertisements.
This recognition has led to a wave of investment in what has
become known as “employer branding” or “internal
branding,” or what traditional branding firms have come to
call “brand engagement.” Placing employees at the center
the single largest of the brand equation has changed the way leaders think
about their organizational cultures – and the ways that these
determinant of brand experience cultures create rewarding employee experiences that in turn
is an organization’s employees. translate into positive and enduring customer experiences.
Despite this awareness, the path to “employee-service-profit
chain” success is mired in obstacles. Current corporate
culture is still largely governed by command-and-control,
industrial-age practices that are a source of alienation to
today’s workers. After all, there’s a reason why we all find the television program “The Office” so immediate and funny
– because in it we see the absurdities of our own work environments and reporting structures mirrored back to us.
What’s worse, the power of these legacy settings and structures to estrange employees has been heightened by nearly
two years of recessionary malaise in which budgets and bonuses have been cut, friends fired, and promises broken.
If employees are distrusting and alienated from their organizations, what are the chances that they will provide
customers and colleagues alike with a positive brand experience? More importantly, how do you get your employees
to rebuild their trust and engagement with the organization so that brand behavior and business strategy align?
©2010 The Involvement Practice, LLC
 Involvement:
engagement’s pearl of wisdom.
Engagement – whether brand engagement or employee
engagement – is a term that entered the corporate
lexicon with great fanfare. Yet for many leaders, both the
meaning and meaningfulness of engagement remain
unclear. This lack of clarity helps explain why so many
organizations eliminated engagement programs during
the current recession, just when they needed them most.
Based on extensive experience with employee and brand engagement programs, it has become clear that the jewel
within the engagement paradigm is involvement. We all intuitively understand what involvement is and how
powerful it can be from experiences we have had throughout our lives. When people tell us something, we often forget
it. Yet when we become involved in something, we feel it and own it on a deep, emotive level, the memory of which can
last a lifetime. Whereas engagement can come across as nebulous and soft, involvement is tangible and real.
Unlike so much of today’s engagement and change management that relies on telling people what to think and do,
involvement is a change strategy based upon genuine participation and human interaction. Involvement is about
moving beyond functions, roles, business units, and titles to become a community of individuals building connections
with one another. Building relationships through involvement is how trust grows, and when trust increases
relationships are strengthened.
The involvement approach holds that the ability to create solutions to organizational issues is widely distributed
throughout the organization. Involving the whole system to address systemic issues is at the center of the
involvement paradigm. No one is as smart as everyone. As author James Surowiecki points out in The Wisdom of
Crowds, “Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant – better at solving problems,
fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, and even predicting the future.” When the whole system is
involved in creating a solution, then trust, ownership, and belief become abundant.
In essence, involvement is an innovative way to mobilize human energy in the service of an organization.
©2010 The Involvement Practice, LLC
 Designing for involvement.
While many times the question of involvement begins with brand,
it is more synonymous with change. Each time we come together,
whether it is an off-site, a training session, a town hall or on a social
media platform, there is an opportunity to further a culture of sincerity,
authenticity, and belief in leadership. If these gatherings are conducted
in a way that evokes people’s optimism and makes them feel trust in
their environment, then whatever the content of the gathering, the
participants will leave more committed and willing to invest than when
they arrived.
Designing programs for increased involvement often requires a major
departure from current practices. In many organizations, key meetings
are all about the PowerPoint. In these companies, a good meeting can
be characterized by a bullet-rich PowerPoint, no disagreement amongst
attendees, and one in which time is not wasted on “feelings”. The focus
of the meeting is entirely upon PowerPoint content as opposed to the
involvement process.
When designing for involvement, a powerful group process is
absolutely essential. Yet many leaders still regard process as “value-
added,” as if process and content were somehow separate and contrary
questions. The belief is that if you make a good presentation and ask
for people’s buy-in, then you have succeeded.

©2010 The Involvement Practice, LLC

 = involvement
TM

Involvement demands that we go beyond trying to sell people and gain “buy-in,” which is just another sales-oriented
concept. Involvement requires that meetings and interactions take on a deeper meaning than merely to cover content
and decide something. Meetings are an important place where commitments and relationships are either offered
or denied. Every brand activation program and change effort requires a meeting at some early point to move the
initiative forward, and it is often the experience we have in that meeting that influences whether we decide to commit
to the change or simply to give it lip service.
Involvement focuses on the social structure of how we come together, and the ability of that structure to create
personal, emotional, and authentic connections, to determine the real, human outcome of the event. You cannot have
a high control, leader-driven meeting to introduce a high involvement, high-commitment change effort. In today’s
business environment, if a leader wants brand values and cultural change to be supported, even embraced, the leader
must focus less on a statement of strategic objectives and supporting data and more on honest conversation, high
involvement, and strong, high-trust relationships.
This explains the growing popularity of social media programs in organizational communications.

Because they represent an overlap between our lifestyles and careers, social media
platforms have an involvement-driven authenticity that is inherently trust-building.

©2010 The Involvement Practice, LLC

 Aspiration & Involvement: a powerful combination.
Everything starts with an organizational desire to be more than you are today. When an organization aspires to
improve performance and elevate achievement, more often than not the path forward lies with their people. Before
inviting employees to become involved, make sure that you have developed a story they will find compelling.
At the same time, remember that how you tell the story and who you involve will determine who will listen. The words
and images you use frame thoughts, and thoughts express connections. Connections enable people to tell themselves
stories about what their brand stands for, and what they stand for. The experience of the meetings carries the message
of the culture and most critically, it is the quality of this experience that determines whether people leave the
meeting with a sense of optimism and a genuine desire to make something happen.

As Fortune 500 employee engagement

and employer branding programs
continue to overlap with performance
improvement efforts, integrated
strategy work and execution will be
increasingly focused on involvement.
There is almost always a direct correlation between
high involvement levels and high-performance
cultures. Involvement creates belief, passion,
commitment, and identification. People feel a sense
of belonging to something bigger than themselves.
Employees come to work with the sense that they stand
for a brand that matters.

©2010 The Involvement Practice, LLC

 Like never before, organizations are hungering for ways to adapt in order to survive in an historically turbulent global
economy. This adaptability requires people and process-oriented innovation. Involvement-driven activities create new
combinations of functions, services, and products or eliminate outdated ones. In this way, involvement is the fuel for
the innovation engine. The genius of involvement is that it creates a critical mass for innovation and change. Critical
mass is akin to a tipping point: the level at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable. It is the threshold
that every change program strives to reach.
Finally, remember that the reverse side of involvement is resistance. Given what has taken place in the business world
over the past 18 months, many organizations are loaded with resistance. Not only are those who are uninvolved in
the change process not advocates, they are often actively oppositional. Use involvement to befriend and convince
detractors, and make it their responsibility to get involved if only to voice their concerns and improve the brand
vision. Involvement provides a stealth mechanism for embracing resisters and bringing them into the fold.
Through involvement, an organization can make their brand the ultimate manifestation of their vision.
When an organization is rich with involvement, its people, values, services, products,
and image cannot help but align. When that happens, we are reminded that culture is the ultimate
competitive advantage.

Jonathan Willard is a Senior Consultant at The Involvement Practice.

A recognized thought leader in brand involvement and global organizational communications,
©2010 The Involvement Practice, LLC he has helped to create several brand culture benchmarks at the world’s most admired companies.
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©2010 The Involvement Practice, LLC