Branded Culture – Burn the rule book - MORGO Diary Note 2

How often do we end up with policy and rule making , getting in the way of running our business?

How about  throwing away the rule and policy books and replacing these finite sets of rules with “branded culture” or philosophies.  How often do we get  “ do we have a rule for this ?” ....  The trouble with rule books is you can never have a rule that covers ever instance.  

The issue with many company policies are they get out of control and just waste management time - what ever happened to common sense. As an extreme example I heard of a company that got sick of time-wasting management time processing expenses so it adopted an expense policy of - all expense claims are published on the company intranet for all to see. If your’re ok with all other staff seeing that this is an expense you claimed on the company tab then it’s approved.   

Steve Baylis, Air NZ shared at MORGO shared some great ideas on using a simple set of guiding principles to help staff make decisions themselves and set Air NZ up as a stand out airline in a competitive landscape.

How about this for a guide set of principles for a business differentiating itself on customer service:

• Welcome as a friend
• Be Yourself
• Can Do
• Share your New Zealand

Air New use simple guiding  principles to help  break the need for fat rule books, and allow common sense to prevail. Their simple approach of making hero’s of the staff that follow, rather than spending time producing yet more rules.

By encouraging and supporting this culture you can shift from: Random Service -to Predictable Service to in character service.  It is this interwoven approach of Branded Cause, Brand Communication, branded culture, Brand renewal and Brand Experience that has enabled Air NZ to set itself apart as a true world-class airline.