Rick Wilson Named 2010 HRLA Honoree

Our VP of Human Resource, Richard (Rick) Wilson was named as a 2010 Honoree by the HR Leadership Awards of Greater Washington on June 15th. During his tenure at Centennial, Rick has reduced voluntary employee turnover and expanded employee training programs and benefits packages believing that employees are the differentiator between good companies and great companies.

Since 2001, the HR Leadership Awards of Greater Washington have honored HR executives for outstanding contributions to their organizations and to the field of human resource management through organizational leadership, risk taking, innovation, vision and communication, community service and ethics.

I attended the awards dinner and I thought it was great to hear about all the exciting people development efforts the leading companies in the U.S. are carrying out, like training and development efforts, wellness programs, pay for performance, alignment of the organization with goals, and session planning. At the same time to realize that Centennial is doing the same things as a Northrop Grumman or Marriott Corporation was amazing.

Rick Wilson was nominated based on his HR leadership skills and the outstanding effort at alignment between the employees and the mission of the business. Rick has positively impacted the long term culture of Centennial and it was great to see him honored at this event.

Branding Schmambing Continued – What Color Are The Business Cards Anyway? A Few Branding Examples

Air Products & Chemicals
In the early 1980's (yes, I am dating myself now) I had the grand privilege of working for Air Products & Chemicals. Before "brand" was a fledgling thought in the eyes of the business, Air Products already understood how key this was to their future success. Not only did we have very well thought out brand standards (which I helped with), but they said across all 66,000 employees, the brand must be lived. We are about quality, safety, responsiveness and helping our clients improve results. Think about it, Air Products sold air. But how and what did the liquid nitrogen mean to that company, that hospital, that assembly line? Things like making sure the 3,000 tanker trucks and delivery trucks were designed and painted to match - to stand out. That we made sure the trucks were washed once a week (others in the industry never washed their trucks) or hand wiped every cylinder when it was delivered. To systems, we put in the first telephony system for the liquid cryogenics in the world so that the cryo tanks would call the customers and say (based on their desired refill points) "I am half empty do you want me to send a truck or do you want to talk to a live person?" To the training of employees, and to the safety truck rodeos we sponsored. Even the fact that we had research labs targeting the key markets that any client could use at no cost (food freezing, steel, semiconductor etching, etc.) These were all key to the brand meaning what it did/does.

Center for Job Order Contracting Excellence
CJE transitioned from being part of Arizona State University to a stand-alone organization. I was the industry chairman during this transition. I called for a facilitated session on the strategic planning going forward (key in this was the brand development elements). Here are a few links with information worth looking at: http://www.jocexcellence.org/strategic_plans.htm
http://www.jocexcellence.org/documents/CJE_Strategic_Plan_Session.pdf
http://www.jocexcellence.org/documents/Elevator_Pitch_CJE_12-2-08.pdf
Prior to this effort we had no clear understanding of the organization’s focus, what the members want from us, etc. After going through the strategic planning process, we defined the brand to mean education and sharing best practices in JOC. One key brand platform is the website www.JOCexcellence.org, where the design, flow and message were driven by the brand vision. A second example where brand drove the elements was the development of a new simplified logo (the old one showed skyscrapers being built, when we do not support skyscrapers being built). The strategic effort has helped time and time again. When we are challenged to change or take action, we always go back to “What does this mean to the brand/what are the brand impacts—good, bad, risk, alignment?”

Branding Centennial Contractors Enterprises
I was hired in 2004 to help evolve the Centennial brand from stealth to the world class recognized industry leader that they really were and are. I started at the brand development side. I questioned everything from the mission statement, the core values, the development of a value statement, etc. There were difficult sessions from the president on down. I even talked with the competition. I wanted to know the perceptions, the beauty, the soft and the hard spots. The process took about six months to bring to a point were we could craft a branding statement and move forward. Today we have a brand store that gives insight to this brand thinking, but at the high level look at our elevator pitch. We realized that our brand was about people, solutions, and living up to our promises and that we are a different kind of company. So we made sure that we pulled this brand thinking into our themes, our designs, and our approach to all the marketing and sales. Once the brand platform is crafted and believed and understood, the communications and marketing development efforts flow from here. We realized that our key growth efforts were building brand awareness and building a body of knowledge around JOC and Centennial. We also focused on the media and public relations side based on this brand thinking.

Brand is a challenge, because if left untended and cared for it can grow all weedy and diminish over time. People begin to change it, shape it to their view and next thing you know you are no longer aligned and it is hard to be honest with yourself and the organization all the time.

Branding Schmambing – What Color Are The Business Cards Anyway?

I was recently asked to explain what brand means to an industry association. So I shared some thinking and background on how to look at the importance of branding within the mix of a business or a nonprofit organization. My background includes a large non-profit organization, where I found that branding was even more important in the growth of the organization.

A few high level thoughts.

1.Brand is not the logo (although the logo is a key brand element), the colors, the ads, or the website.
2.Brand is a promise. It is the outward meaning, understanding and value of the company (or product or service) being associated with that entity.
3.Brand must be aligned with the organization and what it represents.
4.Brand is the split second relationship feeling associated with an organization, its employees and the clients.
5.Brand is the spirit, the feel of an organization.
6.A powerful brand is 100% aligned with the value, the meaning, the movement forward of an organization/product/service. It is the most honest thinking and conversations you will ever have - if not, the brand promise is hollow.
So many people end up spending way too much time on colors and business card designs when they say brand, but they miss the underlying key thinking and drivers to a truly great brand. In technical environments this urge to jump into tactical stuff too soon is always prevalent. Branding should be the anchor point for the whole organization and the thinking from which other things flow - like design, message, actions within marketing, sales, etc.

Key: Brand allows for alignment of the whole organization. It brings the history and the future vision into the mix. It challenges us to ask, How is what we say we are demonstrated; how is it coming to life? Brand is the experience. It is the proof that what you say you are, you really are. I use a slide when I get to this point of a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger, all pumped up, with guns blazing and the wording "brand means you can say you are this...." But in realty you are this... and it is a picture of the Teletubbies. You know what I mean, we have all experienced it in our lives. A store that has a tagline, "friendliest store in town" and you never see a smiling face. Or an airline that says "on time and best in class awards for...." and they are hardest people to travel with, or the bank that says in their TV spots "you matter to us" and when you call them you never get a live person and it takes forever to push button your way to one.

I can fill up pages of examples like these. The fact is, the more aligned the brand is with the value you bring, and the people in the organization are living to that brand promise, the more successful you will be in growing and reaching more people. The more off you are, the less alignment there is - well the fact is you can actually create negative brand value and drive the business into the ground.

Podcast: Creating Sustainable Bridges at Fort Eustis

Learn more about recycled structural composite and how Centennial built the first train bridges using this material at Fort Eustis.