Clarity and alignment are defining traits of the best organizations out there…but how you acquire those traits is often a mystery. Well, you might only be six questions away from aligning your organization around a purpose and common values. Patrick Lencioni and his company, The Table Group, outline how impressive organizational health is linked to these questions in “The Advantage.” And besides helping you build a positive organizational culture, these questions drive excellent bank and credit union marketing strategies. Because when your people have direction, your marketing will too.
Here are the six questions you must answer to establish clarity and alignment in your organization:
1. Why do we exist?
Answering this question is vital, and your answer likely equates to your vision statement. And while most organizations have a vision, it’s often unexciting or just words on a wall. Your vision should be full of passion and distinctive energy – a real reason for people to get out of bed and go to work in the morning beyond a paycheck. It must inspire and be bigger than yourself. At On The Mark Strategies, that’s “to transform local organizations into community-changing powerhouses.” What’s yours?
2. Who are we?
Another way to describe this: how do we behave? In other words, your organizational values. Like with the vision, values often become trite words decorating a wall rather than lifestyles embedded in team members’ hearts. Don’t manufacture values or institute them from the top-down. Your values currently exist in your best employees’ current behaviors. Define these grassroots behaviors with unique, branded language. If you have sincere values that truly define you, they’ll also be an asset to your bank and credit union marketing strategies. Consumers will experience your values firsthand and tell others about them…excellent word of mouth!
3. What do we do?
This one is simpler but is still worth answering (after all, everyone may not be on the same page right now). For many financial institutions, the answer revolves around providing affordable financial services to people in a certain occupation or geographic zone. Be specific and ensure everyone is aligned around the organization’s core function.
4. How will we succeed?
This is your big picture way of achieving your vision and doing what you do at the highest level. It involves large strategies like differentiating yourself, having the best trained employees in the market, providing the most creative financial products and penetrating a new market with your marketing messages.
5. What is most important right now?
Go one level down from your success strategies and explain what steps reside below those buckets. So, how will you differentiate yourself, train employees and so on? You can’t just jump to your mile markers on the road to success…you need to take the steps to reach those guideposts. Those steps often include your rallying cry (tied to the overall vision of success), defining objectives (specific steps to achieve success) and standard operating objectives (ever-important metrics like ROA, account growth, etc.).
6. Who must do what?
Lastly, you must define roles and responsibilities. If you don’t, people won’t know what to do…which ultimately results in nobody doing anything of note. So, the CEO may lead the executive team and engage consultants where necessary. The VP of Operations might oversee excellent consumer service and run training. The Marketing Director translates the brand into communication pieces and tracks results. The responsibilities may vary, but explaining what they are prevents both inaction and team members overstepping their bounds.
Build Your Playbook to Drive Great Bank and Credit Union Marketing Strategies
After answering all six questions, you ideally should put them in a one-page playbook distributed to every staff member. This helps your whole team stay aligned and on target. On The Mark Strategies has already helped multiple clients answer these alignment questions and create their playbooks for both better cultures and better marketing direction. Do you want to be next? Book a free consultation now.
