{"id":12004,"date":"2013-05-15T11:32:48","date_gmt":"2013-05-15T08:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mozaicworks.com\/?p=4872"},"modified":"2022-02-01T17:33:55","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T15:33:55","slug":"internal-marketing-is-a-key-leadership-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mozaicworks.com\/blog\/internal-marketing-is-a-key-leadership-practice","title":{"rendered":"Internal Marketing is a Key Leadership Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Guest blog post by Jurgen De Smet<\/a>, originally appeared on his blog. Republished with permission.)<\/em><\/p>\n

The hardest part of an organization, and therefore its management, is sharing the enthusiasm with the entire organization, especially when most of the people in there are making one-tenth to one-fiftieth of what top managers make. Selling the company to their customers, or within their market segment, is a piece of cake compared to selling it to the actual people who work for it. And that\u2019s how we get to \u201cInternal Marketing\u201d as the next most important skill of today’s leaders.
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Gamification<\/h2>\n

Internal marketing, as a name, is great, but it\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0tell you anything about how to address the issue of selling the company to its own workers. I see many of you thinking this is done by the traditional\u00a0MBO<\/a>, but as history has shown us\u2026 it\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0work for most companies around! Why? Simple: selling<\/strong> the idea is not the same as imposing<\/strong> the idea! And that\u2019s one of the reasons \u201cgamification<\/a>\u201d is increasingly being adapted as the next MBO around.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately a lot of organizations around tend to implement gamification in a too simplistic manner, too much focused on wage increases and bonus calculations. Similar to MBO systems, it is a bad thing to link money to these tools, as this will cause some possibly very nasty, non-lineair effects within the organization that nobody expected. Solely focusing on adding the gamification traditional artifacts like\u00a0leader boards, challenges, badges, points\u2026 is a bad idea! Actually\u00a0the story guiding the people into a specified \u201cgame world\u201d is the most important part of your gamification initiative. It is the story that will get people engaged and motivated, that will encourage people to socialize around the subject at hand, that is\u2026 supported, yes, only supported, by game artifacts like leader boards, challenges\u2026 Not the other way around!<\/p>\n

Experience economy<\/h2>\n

In the context of internal marketing we could get some support to craft a good gamification story from what is called the \u201cExperience Economy<\/a>\u201c. The experience economy is where companies stage meaningful events to engage customers in \u00a0a memorable and personal way. In our case: employees.\u00a0Key words in the description are \u201cmemorable\u201d and \u201cpersonal\u201d. It should be some kind of experience people have and will talk about for years to come and as such tap into the personal emotion of each single individual within the system. Going from a single event to a meaningful experience occurs in a process full of collaboration and interaction between individuals involved. This makes experiences intangible. So what do we need to get this going?<\/p>\n

We could list up some characteristics of a meaningful experience, or some keywords, to get you going: the experience involves all senses, people involved are touched emotionally, the process has intrinsic value, people undergo a transformation from within and feel there is a sense of playfulness. But the best thing would be to give you a summary of the 6 design principles of experience economy:<\/p>\n

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  1. Use a theme \u2013 a\u00a0concise\u00a0and compelling storyline that people can recognize<\/li>\n
  2. Use positive cues \u2013 increase the amount of positive\u00a0impressions the person gets throughout the process<\/li>\n
  3. Avoid negative cues \u2013 decrease or remove the amount of negative impressions<\/li>\n
  4. Include memorabilia \u2013 meaningful souvenirs for visitors of the process which can be used for a long time<\/li>\n
  5. Engage all five senses \u2013 use all five senses to stimulate the experience<\/li>\n
  6. Natural and holistic approach \u2013 must be authentic and as such a complete makeover is needed<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Culture Hacking<\/h2>\n

    A magnificent tool to support the experience economy in our context of internal marketing, with a cool name, is\u00a0\u201dCulture Hacking<\/a>\u201c. Culture hacking is the art of changing complex systems in a way that people are changed from within, by tweaking the existing culture either seriously or\u00a0ironically. One will investigate the patterns of the existing culture and hack (or tweak) some small things that re-trigger the group thinking patterns and guide people into a more positive outcome. Most of the time this is done by putting little things in sight that enlarge the current negative cultural aspect; or by removing things that are supporting the current negative cultural aspact.<\/p>\n

    Let me give you an example of some possible culture hacks I have applied to change an organization\u2019s bad meeting\u00a0habits:<\/p>\n