The company soul

As a management consultant, Harvard Business School professor Ranjay Gulati was hearing two related questions. Older startups wanted help in getting back their original spark—the corporate equivalent of youthful energy, passion, and purpose. And large corporations wanted help getting that spark that all startups seem to have. 

It led to an idea: the company soul. You can read Gulati’s Harvard Business Review article, but he nicely summarizes it on HBR IdeaCast. 

The company soul is related to the company brand, but aspires to be bigger, incorporating strategic and existential elements, customers and employees. You can get to these dimensions with a solid brand position, but the company soul incorporates them from the beginning. It’s more holistic, with three “pillars:”

• Business intent. Why do you exist? What are you trying to do?

• Customer success. How do you make customers successful?

• Employee success. What’s in place that makes your employees successful?

Gulati includes mini-case studies of brands that regained their souls (Apple, Warby Parker) and one brand that looked within its soul, so to speak, to make good long-term strategic decisions (BlackRock). 

The company soul may not be replacing the brand anytime soon. But it’s a helpful construct for any branding or marketing professional.