MONOSTORY

THE MONOSTORY

METHOD DEVELOPS

A STRONG VALUES

DRIVEN

FOUNDATION THAT

STRENGTHENS

DECISION MAKING,

COMMUNICATIONS

CHANGE

MANAGEMENTAND

BEST PRACTICE

BRAND CULTURE.

Amy Jo Martin, Founder, CEO at Digital Royalty says“If we really

want to be effective with communication, we have to humanise

our brands.”

I view and build brands as I would encourage a human being to

come home to themselves because I believe that Brand is

identity - to continually be yourself and to possess yourself like

no one else does.

This is as true for organisations as it is for individuals. Oliver

Sacks says

"To be ourselves we must have ourselves & possess our life-

stories. We must recollect the inner drama and the narrative of

ourselves. A man needs such a continuous inner narrative to

maintain his identity, his self” and there is no better way to

develop an inner narrative than to reflect upon, develop and live

out true, meaningful and active values.

“When I talk about values I’m referring to the deeply held

principles that guide our decisions - in a company setting, these

need to be more than buzzwords. Think about it - if you don’t

understand your own personal values, or if they are constantly

shifting, you’ll l ikely experience an identity crisis. The same goes

for companies. Job role and skillset aside, every employee

should be clear about the goal they are all driving towards, and

your company values must underpin that goal.’ says Alex Bard,

CEO of Campaign Monitor,

‘A company’s culture is in a constant state of evolution, while its

values make up the foundation."

WHAT ISBRANDCULTURE?

Simon Sinek in his book Start with Why says, "Customers will

never love a company until the employees love it first." Your

brand is built by the people who work on it. “Culture is simply a

shared way of doing something with a passion.” says Brian

Chesky, Co-Founder, CEO, Airbnb so everyone in your company

has to have a shared sense of identity. Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos

says "It’s really important to come up with core values that you

can commit to- you’re willing to hire and fire based on them. If

you’re willing to do that, you’re well on your way to building a

company culture that is in line with the brand you want to build.”

Marketing is the end of the creative chain. Build creative

cultures.” says Axel Schwann 2017 marketer of the year based

on lions won and author of The Case for Creativity. I believe that

HR is one of the most critical departments when it comes to

brand building...

Do your values resonate with all the people who are building

perceptions about your brand?

I call what Sacks, Sinek, Bard, Martin, Hsieh and Chesky are

advocating for - brand culture.

I believe that integrating brand and culture powers some of the

worlds best companies.

Brand culture is the outworking of brand vision, values, norms,

systems, symbols, language, assumptions, environment, location,

beliefs, and habits. It is a product of such factors as history,

product, market, technology, strategy, types of employees and

management style. Everything that an organisation does to build

a brand - every product or service they offer, every public

statement, advertisement, website, internal policy, memo and

business decision they make must be congruent with this

foundation - this is your brand culture.

There is brand culture in every organisation that will either set

you up to be more innovative, productive and creative or just

maintain your Business as Usual. Are you creating your brand

culture or are you letting your existing culture create your brand?

Either way, your brand will be built and according to the worlds

most valuable brands, it is essential that you understand and

build brand culture if you are going to be healthy and

sustainable.

A list of the worlds most valuable brand cultures according to

Forbes 2017 include:

Apple builds a culture of innovation

It’s the people that make Google what they are today

Microsoft wants to empower every person and organisation on

the planet to achieve more

Diversity is an integral part of who Coca Cola is, how it operates

and how they see the future

Amazon has a culture that rewards innovation, long hours and

purposeful conflict

Disney builds its famed culture on the four circumstances:

innovation, support, education and entertainment

Toyota is built on continuous improvement known as Kaizen

Samsung a place where people execute as quickly as a startup

company.

Facebook is strong, full of benefits and transparent.

Every organisation has a soul crafted by values.

It has a story to tell that is unique to them. Sure organisations

may solve similar problems or offer similar products but it's the

why behind the what that gives it soul. When I was working on

Coca-Cola, we never saw it as another Cola product, another soft

drink. It wasn’t just about physical thirst, it was about a human

thirst for happiness. This is what the brand Coca Cola, at that

time, was about. There is always a brand inside the brand that is

being built - this is the soul, the DNA and the heart of your

organisation.

The corporate world is still marvelling at the three-year

turnaround tale of Microsoft driven by chief executive Satya

Nadella. "Satya Nadella is a values-based leader' says Peggy

Johnson executive vice-president of business development, 'the

leadership team spends lots of time talking about developments

in terms of the company’s broader mission and ambitions.“That’s

where he spent his time first as a CEO,” she says. “He wasn’t

digging in technology and reorganising things, he was asking,

‘What’s our soul?’ The soul that Satya speaks of is found in what

you value. Edward De Bono says we understand how important

values are but we treat them in a vague way.

Monostory means ONE STORY and is aligned with what the artist

propaganda says “We are not called to sameness, we are called

to oneness.”

Oneness is a unified culture. When your organisation has

oneness, it communicates with clarity.

THEMONOSTORYMETHOD

I created the Monostory Method™ to use intentionally with every

one of my clients to develop their values-driven language as a clear,

defined foundation for brand culture.

Language is more than just a means of brand communication, it

informs and develops brand culture, organisational thought

processes, clear decision making and best practice.

The Monostory Method™ is used to find and activate your brand

values so that they can be used as best practice - to bring clear

communication, decision making, productivity and innovation to

every area of your organisation.

The Monostory Method™ is facilitated by Sam Dewhurst with the c-

suite of your organisation, face to face and in group work . We look

at the most important areas of your business across the 5 areas of

brand culture :

• Seeing - active values that create your core brand message

• Being - active values that create brand personality

• Doing - active values that communicate your brand culture

• Living - active values that solidify your brand promise

• Leaving - active values that propose your brand benefit

The Monostory Method™ will unlock and give back to you :

• Brand Culture of each key area of your business

• Value proposition across the various business areas

• The core values

• Brand KPI checklist for management reporting

• Brand counterfeits unlocked to develop bridging strategies

that move your culture towards your true values

Specific to brand communications I also unlock your

• Brand archetypes

• 5 senses for emotional connection

The Monostory Method™ can also be used as a personal brand and

leadership development exercise with team and staff. Monostory has

been called ‘Brand therapy’ by many personal clients because it

helps people ‘come home to themselves in a practical way.

Homesickness is defined as a quality of mild unease, of feeling

unsettled, off-centre perhaps, or a little ungrounded—like there is

some place you belong, but you’re not sure it even exists. There

is a reason for this that brings many personal brand clients to

Monostory. We arrive in the world complete, but as we move

through life we begin to energetically discard parts of ourselves.

Sometimes that is by choice. The things we learn not to like, we

disown—a part of our body that we perceive to be ugly; our

desires, anger, or emotions that we were once chastised for. And

sometimes it is through no choice of our own that parts of us

leave. It is said that during traumatic experiences pieces of our

soul become so frightened that they scatter.

The same is true of organisations.

Hatch and Schultz believe that every healthy organisation has

three coherent elements - vision, culture and image. When these

three elements are not working together homesickness happens.

It can be a vision-culture gap which happens when management

moves the organisation in a direction that employees don't

understand or support or when there is a gap between rhetoric

and reality. An image-culture gap happens when an organisation

doesn't practice what it preaches or an image-vision gap when

there is a conflict between an organisations stakeholders and the

strategic vision of the management.

Seventy percent of change programs fail to achieve their goals,

largely due to employee resistance and lack of management

support.

That is why I work within your organisation and alongside your

departments to build empathy, community, and shared purpose in

managing change - when people are truly invested in change it is

30 percent more likely to stick.

CHANGEMANAGEMENT

The integration of Monostory in bridging gaps and developing your

brand culture from where it is to where it can be is essential when it

comes to lasting self evidence, brand integrity and best practice.

'Doing' Monostory is not always the same thing as 'implementing'

Monostory, especially in larger organisations where change needs to

be managed well.

I believe that a lot of good work is done in ideation of best practice

but not a lot is done to determine where the organisation is at right

now to bridge the Knowing-Doing gap - a space where The

Counterfeit Monostory ™ process can help a company build bridges

towards best practice.

Most of my clients engage me in an ongoing manner to help them

manage change as a consultant, through staff workshops, as an

advisor to the leadership team or to spearhead innovation and

productivity projects alongside team members. This personalises

and builds direct connection between the change required.

I adhere to the McKinsey 7S model of hard and soft elements of

change management.

"Placing shared values in the middle of the model emphasises that

these values are central to the development of all the other critical

elements. The company's structure, strategy, systems, style, staff

and skills all stem from why the organisation was originally created,

and what it stands for. The original vision of the company was

formed from the values of the creators. As the values change, so do

all the other elements."

Whatever type of change your organisation is facing – restructuring,

new processes, organisational merger, new systems, brand launch

or change of leadership – the 7S model can be used to understand

how the organisational elements are interrelated, and so ensure that

the wider brand impact of changes made in one area are taken into

consideration across the whole brand culture.

sam@monostory.us.