[1983 Apple Keynote: The 1984 Ad Introduction YouTube 6:41]

It's an expression you've probably come across, business as usual.

The other side of the no comment coin. It says volumes without saying much. Especially when communications about how the business is keeping its promises are rare and the organization is not inhabiting its vision.

People want to understand how things will change, given that circumstances are constantly evolving the context. Making sense of what is going on helps learn and process information in a way that supports culture — where focus, alignment, and all those good things happen.

It can be simple situations:

• weather-related, which has been on everyone's minds on the East Coast of the U.S. this past winter, impacting travel and testing infrastructure with economic consequences
• digitally-based where your online presence becomes a strong signal associated with identity, impacting privacy, security and creating a halo of weaker confidence
• market-linked, given that there is so much volatility around what used to work, impacting the over reliance on best practices and injecting an unwelcome element of risk into comfort zones

For what is not within our control, we can do our best to prepare, prevent, and tackle proactively. The balance of the equation, where reputations are made and lost, is in how we deal with what happens.

When communications to customers come at the tail end of extensive internal deliberations that take weeks, even months. Yet they fail to take that long process into consideration for external audiences — they're a black box. With all the related intended and unintended consequences.

Communications and messages providing too little data and information either fall flat or raise more questions than they answer.

This is also due to digital transformation and it is affecting your brand. We are moving too fast to be thinking "business as usual".

 

[updated from archives]

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Valeria is an experienced listener. She designs service and product experiences to help businesses rediscover the value of promises and its effect on relationships and culture. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and companies on a variety of topics. Book her to speak here.