An Ethics Thought

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This Weekly Ethics Thought is provided by www.ChristopherBauer.com and Bauer Ethics Seminars. Please feel free to forward it to anyone you believe would enjoy a copy.

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Ethics, Values & Your Brand

I have frequently heard it argued that ethics and values aren't a significant factor in branding because everyone claims that their ethics and values are great. Consequently, claims of great ethics or values don't differentiate your organization from anyone else. Though I fully understand this logic, I believe it is, at best, regrettably short-sighted.

Though it is accurate that claims of terrific ethics and values are the norm - and that great ethics and values should be an expectation rather than a 'bonus' - this misses a significant point. It is not your claims that will differentiate you. Rather, it is the uniqueness, clarity, and influence of your values on the way in which you run your organization that will differentiate you so powerfully.

Once well-integrated into every aspect of your business model, positive, clearly defined and well-articulated values - and an obvious, foremost expectation of ethical employee behavior - will have a significant and direct impact on how your employees do business all day, every day. As a result, that focus on ethics and values will both positively and unequivocally affect your company's style of business at every organizational and operational level. In fact, once you have begun to effectively integrate your ethics and values statements into your organization's fabric, their positive impact will be essentially inescapable. Why? Because every employee's behavior will be guided, coached and reinforced in a manner assuring that your values are integrated into everything they do from management and leadership to product-development and customer-service. In other words, it will be integral to what the public sees that you stand for. Is that not, almost by definition, a significant part of what branding is?

Think of it this way; is your way of doing business a part of your overall image in the marketplace? Of course. Is your overall image a significant part of your brand? They are intertwined! Remember, customers and prospective customers are already noticing whether or not they can discern what you stand for so you better be sure that you know - and carefully manage - what you're seen as standing for too.

Your organization's values are already influencing your brand. Why not take careful control of that process so that you can put your positive values to their most effective use in building that brand? Continuing to hone the clarity of your values, and then carefully integrating them into every one of your business practices, is a necessary piece of that process.

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Christopher Bauer designs and delivers high impact and high ROI programs that will help your organization build and maintain top-notch professional ethics. Information on his programs can be found at www.ChristopherBauer.com, by phone at (615) 385-3523, or by email at: Chris@BauerEthicsSeminars.com.

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