The Fourth Gimbal

Organisational proposition – Nudge, nudge, think, think

“Are you involved in any charitable activity?” asked the interviewer, …….and there it was – the final question in an otherwise benign ‘magazine-meets-entrepreneur-for-‘in-depth’-interview’ piece published in one of the UK’s most popular broadsheets. Of course, the answer was a gushing ‘Yes!’, followed by a few well-chosen words about a pet project, fundraising for autistic children.
Great [...]

Business personality and the messaging triangle

If you actively manage the three sides of your organisation’s messaging triangle by consciously developing the relationship between Portrayal, Perception and Expectation, you are more likely to nudge the market in your direction. However, get it wrong and the consequences of message dislocation can be costly and very long-term.
Examples of message dislocation abound: -

The big [...]

Capello and the Maverick Potential business personality

To regular readers, my apologies. Illness has meant that posts have been few and far between in recent weeks. During my down-time, the soccer World Cup has provided a thought-provoking source of entertainment. The spectacular rise and fall of the English team made endless front and back-page headlines in the UK, unfortunately for all the [...]

Structured assessment of business personality

Before looking in detail at each aspect of the Surveying, Assessing and Reporting  process, it is important to once again recall the rationale behind understanding more about your organisation’s personality. The goal of an organisational personality assessment is to enable an organisation to portray itself in the marketplace as a uniquely differentiated entity which brings [...]

Using organisational personality to defeat counter-messaging tactics

Ok, so in advanced economies, the demand for services is increasing but there is an inherent problem. More and more businesses have become, or at least claim to have become ‘services-oriented’.
Unfortunately, the ease with which an organisation can use internet-based and social networking-based marketing techniques to rapidly claim service competence makes long-term and sustainable differentiation, [...]