Some of us might have heard of few famous credo from successful business leaders as Johnson&Johnsons, FourSeasons Hotels, Coca Cola, Walmart,UPS, Hallmark Cards, Reader’s Digest, Southwest Airlines. And we might be asking ourselves how their credo has guided them to succeed. Then follows some more sets of questions like: What is credo actually? Why does a company need credo? Who should practice credo?
In my owns words Credo is a written code of values that bring all the employees from top to bottom, a sense of purpose. Most people perceived that it’s a mission statement, however I would define it as a mission with values. So when a company’s way of doings is based on its credo, positive culture is being raised.
Credo is as important as having vision for the company. A company will continue driving to a no place of destination when vision is not clear or not even set, just like credo, it will continue doing things not knowing whether they are efficient and doing the right things or not. Any company from any industry needs a credo. Why? It is because credo guides the company & its people do the right thing, unifies the company culture, produce better business results, builds the reputation of the company and brings out the best in people.
So how to create a credo? I came up with some simple steps on creating a credo for a heritage brand we are working with recently and I thought it is great to share them so creating would just be easy. Creating not just writing because it will require heart and mind to help a brand express what they believe in and their purpose. The most inevitable step of making a credo is FEELING THE HEART OF THE BRAND and the rest follows.
Here's a great example of corporate credo from J&J: http://prod-app01.jnj.cl.datapipe.net:10038/wps/portal
Again, credo does not have to be long, it can be short as just a sentence. What’s more important is, it has to be real. A credo can never bring a sense of purpose unless it is lived by from top to bottom employees of every company.
