”A complex system can only be managed through
adherence to its objectives.”Edgard Morin
How to strengthen your Team’s Branding?
In this era where marketing is king, that of your team, with its talents and successes, is crucial! It’s a fantastic way to increase team engagement, bolster loyalty, and enhance performance
Team branding for what purpose?
Team branding involves building and promoting a strong brand image for your team by identifying its values, talents, unique qualities, and strategically communicating these elements. It’s also an excellent way to attract and retain top talents, enhance employee satisfaction, and boost productivity. In essence, team branding is an effective tool to foster a positive work culture, establish an appealing employer brand, and encourage employees to take pride in their work.
The first step to create your team’s brand is to formalize the strengths of each team member and the team as a whole. I recommend either creating a collective tree of life (see below), or if you are a user of Gallup CliftonStrengths, integrating it as it allows the assessment of raw talents for the entire team with rankings from 1 to 34 across four domains (Execution, Influence, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking). Knowing the acknowledged and shared strengths and weaknesses of team members enhances engagement and collective performance.
An crucial step for your team’s branding is to determine your values, identifying everything that is important to you. For instance, within your team, is collaboration significant? Trust, diversity, responsibility? To achieve this, you can begin with your individual successes and explore what contributed to team achievements.
Discover your team’s ‘why,’ your purpose, what motivates you, gives meaning, and enables each individual to thrive. You can even go as far as crafting your team’s mission or slogan.
Finally, outline your team’s dreams, aspirations, and the direction you wish to pursue.
Of course, consider your company’s overarching ‘why,’ and translate it to your team level.
All of this will enable you to strengthen your team’s image and consequently, your reputation. The reputation of a team can either boost or sabotage the careers of its members, including its leader!
The Tree of Life: a powerful tool for your branding
The Tree of Life is a highly powerful and engaging tool to symbolize individual stories, whether experienced individually or collectively. Each person contributes their lived experiences, their aspirations, and what holds significance for them. The tree metaphor provides a sense of distance, allowing one to step back and gain a better perspective.
Within the context of team branding, I use it as a representation of professional life with the aim of fostering mutual understanding and comprehending what is vital to know about one another to collaborate effectively. The drawing of the Tree of Life represents our professional identity or that of the team we belong to.
For this purpose, each individual creates their tree comprised of:
- Roots: each root represents a past achievement
- Soil: what we need from our environment to excel
- Trunk: what we know how to do and what we love to do
- Branches: our key projects and dreams.
Then, as a group, each person presents their tree, and afterward, we can draw the team tree.
At Be&Lead, this is an exercise we are currently engaging in, aiming to concentrate on our achievements and align our ambitions. It also allows us to pause and assess the journey we’ve undertaken together.
Storytelling
Storytelling and narration are integral to team branding because a strong team has a unique story to tell! Narrating this story, emphasizing past achievements and the team’s experiences, helps reinforce identity and establish a connection among team members, as well as with other collaborators within the organization. Consistent language and communication, using vocabulary and messages that reflect their values and objectives, enable team members to feel a stronger sense of belonging.
The team can also stand out by adopting a distinctive way of working that reflects its identity and values, and may be recognized, for instance, for its innovative, collaborative, agile, or other approach.
Appointing brand ambassadors within the team also contributes to reinforcing the team’s identity through their behavior, ethics, and interactions. Their commitment and role as representatives of the team are crucial in ensuring credibility and authenticity of the brand throughout the rest of the organization.
Lastly, when the team actively engages in the company and participates in collective initiatives that go beyond the boundaries of its own department, it strengthens its identity by demonstrating its commitment to broader causes beyond its individual objectives.
It’s your turn to showcase your creativity by inventing a unique mode of communication for your team! “Everything is possible for those who dare, work hard, and never give up”. I love quoting this maxim from the brilliant filmmaker Xavier Dolan for the optimism and positive energy it radiates. Are you ready to take the leap, and what or who do you need to do so quickly?
#team branding #leadership #coaching #branding #cohesion