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Our Perspective

What this means for leaders navigating growth, change or transformation in their organisation.

The Missed Lever

When brand impact plateaus, many leaders double down on messaging and design quality. The paradox is that market perception is shaped less by what you announce and more by what people experience in ordinary moments: how a call is opened, how friction is handled, how promises are closed. According to WTW, fewer than half of employees (43%) see their organisation as competent at handling change today, a drop from close to six in ten in 2019. That capability gap explains why big brand statements often meet thin delivery: price pressure creeps in, timelines slip, and credibility wears down.

From Message To Method

A useful shift is to treat brand not as a slogan but as a method for everyday decisions. That means defining a small set of behaviours that translate your promise into patterns under pressure. Keep it practical, observable, and teachable—so people know what “on-brand” looks like at 9:07 on a Tuesday.

• Start strong: a consistent way to open calls that signals value and intent.
• Handle friction: a shared play for objections and trade‑offs that protects margin and respect.
• Close loops: explicit commitments on next steps, deadlines, and ownership.

Put It In The System

Behaviours only stick when the system supports them. Build the cues, tools, and consequences around the behaviours so they hold when volume rises and things get messy. One elegant way to keep this real is to set two visible standards customers will notice—then measure them in the open.

• Wire behaviours into hiring, onboarding, and performance reviews, with examples and scoring rubrics.
• Embed them in playbooks, checklists, and templates used by sales, delivery, and service.
• Track two external commitments (for example, response time and time‑to‑value) on shared dashboards and review them weekly.

What Leaders Signal

Leaders are the multiplier. If executives negotiate trade‑offs using the same behavioural standards everyone else is measured against, the brand moves from rhetoric to routine. If not, people sense the gap quickly and the centre doesn’t hold. In our experience with leadership teams at inflection points, the turning point is when brand becomes the decision filter for resourcing, prioritisation, and how success is recognised.

The commercial effect is quiet but compounding: fewer discounts, faster renewals, tighter handovers, and more confident referrals. Most importantly, customers feel the difference without being told. Leaders who treat behaviour as the brand will see trust build quietly—and then performance follow.

Sources:

• Employee Experience in an age of disruption — WTW

1. Transforming Brand Change with Internal Communications
2. Genuine Brand Adoption: Beyond Compliance in Change
3. Recruiting Brand Champions for Lasting Impact