Framing What We Do with a Noun or a Verb: Are we “___ing”?
Teams must understand their role, how they can be most effective, and ultimately deliver value to improve organizational performance.
This article is not about language usage. It does touch on messaging and communicating to some degree. However, this article is really about framing — the lens through which we view our work and the work we do with others as a team.
Years ago, I gave a luncheon presentation to the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. The topic was “The Seattle Children’s Brand” in which I shared an update on the evolution of the beloved pediatric hospital’s brand. I shared the new positioning, key messages, and the new logo. I sensed my presentation was well received. However, as I exited the luncheon, I was approached by a local advertising executive who shared an observation. He noted my use of the words, brand and branding, and asked which one I was really doing in my role as Vice President of Marketing and Communications. I was a bit miffed and stumped. I left the luncheon and did not think about the incident again until recently while reading Harvard Business School professor, Amy Edmondson’s new book, Teaming. In Teaming, Edmondson outlines a new way of working as a dynamic activity versus a bounded, static entity. She states that teaming is a verb.
As I read Teaming, I began to ask myself as a consultant, senior advisor, and member of client teams — Are we a team? Are we really teaming? As I pondered these questions, I was reminded of that post-luncheon discussion many years ago in Seattle. Like the related but different meaning and use of the words, brand (noun) and branding (verb), team (noun), and teaming (verb), they are related but can and should mean or imply different things. It’s the difference between an active or passive, static framing of what we are doing. More importantly, it could define a team or organizational culture or begin to inform how that team or organization views and approaches their work each and every day.
For years I have focused on “brand” — positioning it, developing messaging for it, being a good steward of it. What I have begun to realize is that my role, and the role of all those responsible for a brand, is active, not passive. We are branding to continue to evolve, drive value, and bring meaning to a brand(s). As the market pace accelerates, we need to have an active, agile mindset and need to be engaged in “branding”. I find myself advising clients to focus more on the “branding” of the brand. You could interpret this as an emphasis on the sexy, graphic identity elements like logos which is linked to the origin of the terms brand and branding (i.e. branding of cattle by ranch owners). However, the modern-day, active term “branding” is more about the activation of the brand with internal and external audiences to drive greater engagement and ultimately brand evangelism. The same applies to evolving or driving greater value for a team. You have to be engaging and doing not just reflecting and proposing.
I now find myself advising on organizational culture and team building as much or more than marketing. So, these noun versus verb issues are very relevant. Why? Because culture eats strategy for breakfast. If you don’t understand the culture of an organization, you really can’t be an effective marketer or communicator …or a consultant to the organization’s teams. More importantly, the teams within an organization need to understand their role and how they can be most effective and ultimately deliver value. Any group of people can call themselves a “team” but I have realized it is much more challenging to practice “teaming” — a similar parallel to brand and branding. It’s all about how you frame your work as a team (and to the organization the team serves). It requires framing — taking an active versus passive or static view of work as you move from a current state to a desired future state (see model below).
We need to be actively “teaming” not just referring to ourselves as a team in the passive sense. How are we functioning as a team? What are we doing collectively to advance the mission, deliver on KPIs, etc? In some cases, a team will need to practice teaming in the face of challenges — redefining a market need, employing a prioritization strategy that results in cutting existing programs, or speaking up when they witness inequities.
In his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni poses two questions — Are we a team? Are we ready to do the heavy lifting? These two questions serve as a forcing function to shift our thinking from a passive to an active frame. Do we describe our purpose or the work we are doing (or plan to do) as a team with a noun or a verb? Looking at Lencioni’s two questions through a new lens, I would add a third, more active, present tense question — Are we teaming?
Whether I am advising on brand marketing or coaching and team building, I now try to view most situations via an active frame that employs a verb. Yes, I think about how we manage or build a brand but I feel the more important question is whether we are actively evolving, stewarding, and managing a brand. Are we in an active mode? Are we branding? Are we prioritizing? Are we teaming?
I felt vindicated regarding my active “_____ing” stance while recently reading Herminia Ibarra’s excellent book, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader. Ibarra is an expert on leadership and development and in her role as the Cora Chaired Professor of Leadership and Learning at INSEAD, she has conducted extensive research on how leaders learn. She posits that the traditional approach of think then act should be reversed. Her “outsight principle” holds that the only way to think like a leader is to first act. In other words, the argument holds that the most effective leaders view situations through an active lens or frame — doing, acting, _____ing.
In the end, the difference between brand or branding, team or teaming, is the mindset or the frame through which we view our work. Do you have enough active “____ing” in your work? In the end, we are either agents of change or victims of it.
Image Source: pine watt from Unsplash
David R. Perry is Principal & Founder of Perry IQ, a marketing and strategy consultancy, and a former CMO in the healthcare and higher education sectors. He will be a member of the 2021 cohort in Bowling Green State University’s doctorate program in Organizational Development & Change.
