“Better is unsustainable, unique is unstoppable”
– Denise Lee Yohn, author of Fusion: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies.
Lots of people talk about getting better at something – but better is not sustainable – and there is always someone who will figure out how to do something even better. As Denise Lee Yohn, author of Fusion: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies, shares, you don’t want to strive for better, you want to strive to be unique. Unique is unstoppable.
You only have an industry crushing, competition dominating strategy if you’re different/unique. However, if you price the same way as the competition, you’re not different. If you hire the same people as the competition, you’re not unique. If your products/services do the same job for the customer, you’re not different. The key is doing almost everything different in a different way. How are you unique?
Brand + Culture = Results
How is your culture unique? Reflected in your Vision Summary (Values, Purpose, Brand Promises, and BHAG), how is the Employee Experience (EX) different at your firm and does it align with that same uniqueness experienced by the customer (CX). Southwest Airlines is the LUV airline built around Freedom (“ding, you’re now free to move about the country.”). As such, Southwest articulates the 8 Freedoms you get as an employee, unique from the other airlines – while showing everyone LUV in the process. And Southwest prices different – no baggage or change fees, branded as “Transfarency” – vs. the other airlines. Again, how are you radically different from the competition in all ways? And is this experienced by the employees as well as the customers – is there a Fusion of the two?