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Your organization is like a little red wagon. Your goal is to get the wagon up the hill and to the destination established by your organization’s goals. Naturally, you ask all your employees to give 110 percent to help you propel the wagon forward. You’re a team, and that’s what your stockholders are expecting.

But there’s a problem. You need everyone on the team to pull in the same direction if you’re going to get your wagon where it needs to go. Unfortunately, you have not made your company’s brand (not your logo or tagline, but a point of difference and the promise behind that difference) something that every employee knows, breathes, believes and lives.

But they are good people and want to give you that 110 percent. So they attach their ropes (talents and skills) to the wagon. Where THEY think the ropes should go. Guess what?

• Bob thinks it should be “give the customers whatever they ask for. Even if it’s wrong, because you don’t tell the customers they’re wrong.”

•But Betty knows it’s “squeeze costs of goods, even if that means slow shipping” because price is king at your company.

•Now John is convinced that it’s people who make your company special, so he’s going to put his 110 percent of tugging behind better benefit packages so your retention rises.

They are all pulling with all their might. But they are not pulling in the same direction. So your wagon goes nowhere. Your people get frustrated. You get frustrated.

Do you think everyone on your team truly knows where your organization is headed and the promises you need to keep to get there?

Or are you content to be stuck in place?

Drew McLellan is Top Dog at McLellan Marketing Group and blogs at www.drewsmarketingminute.com. He can be reached at Drew@MclellanMarketing.com. © 2009 Drew McLellan