Creating A Vision And Clarifying Values

Without a strong sense of purpose, married with a clear and compelling vision, strategy development and implementation will be challenging.

Starting with an understanding of organisational purpose, we work with leadership teams to create corporate visions which are motivational, stretching, and achievable.

Visions unify stakeholders and provide unambiguous direction.  A vision allows for superior alignment, more effective decision making, and the optimum allocation of scarce resources.

Purpose and vision are the starting point for any strategy journey.

Getting the culture right is a foundation stone for success in any professional services organisation.  Indeed, a strong culture will overcome many obstacles that would prove insurmountable to those with disparate or, worse still, divisive behaviours.

The intellectually robust strategies of many firms will flounder on the rocks of a poor culture.  This is an avoidable situation when an integrated approach to strategy development is adopted.  We have a saying, “winning hearts and minds”, which speaks a universal truth in strategy for people intensive businesses.  Professional firms, with high intellectual capacity, can sometimes set out to “win minds” armed only with well-crafted thinking and high-level analytics.  This will never be sufficient without an emotional engagement and shared sense of purpose focused on “winning hearts” too.

We have worked with organisations of all sizes to assess culture, develop values programmes, and describe the underpinning behaviours that will support and strengthen the desired culture (as well as those which would undermine it and so should be avoided).  ‘Baking’ these desired behaviours into recruitment, development, performance management, and reward systems gives meaning to culture.

Brand development is a subject that is often misunderstood within professional service organisations. We define brand as the totality of a client’s experience, at every touch point, when they work with your firm. The brand promise that is articulated must align with this lived experience
if dissonance and dissatisfaction is to be avoided.

Hedley Consulting’s approach focuses on the interplay of strategy, operational alignment, and communications. Leading professionals recognise that unless they are “joined-up” in their approach, clients will quickly become disenfranchised.

A holistic model is vital if a disconnect between the vision and promises communicated to the market and the experience of the client is to be avoided.

This means building a brand “from the inside out”. By committing to the implementation of operational systems and processes which support the strategic vision, clear alignment of external communications and client experience is achieved, and brand equity created.

We give advice on the most appropriate structures for delivery of the brand promise – the optimum levels of resource and the development of systems to improve the efficiency of work processes.

Avoiding the development of a silo mentality and the inefficiencies that this generates is a key element in ensuring overall business effectiveness. ‘Walking the talk’ of the brand promise and ensuring that people across the organisation are aligned and committed is critical for any leadership
team.

Helping professional service businesses to create strong and sustainable brands is an area in which we are highly active.