I’ve been asked to become a member of the senior staff of The Breckenridge Institute located in Breckenridge, Colorado. I’ve accepted the opportunity and will begin my research work immediately while maintaining my law practice and working with my marketing clients.
The Breckenridge Institute (BI) is a “think tank” for the study of organizational culture. The staff of researchers and practitioners is committed to developing innovative ways to explore and harness the invisible power of culture. The Institute’s Center for Business-to-Business Consulting has expertise in seven traditional areas of organization development shown below, but views them as “windows” into the underlying patterns of organizational culture.
• Organizational Architecture
• Operations
• Business Strategy
• IT Infrastructure
• Advanced Analytics
• Financial Management
• Human Performance Improvement
The Institute’s problem solving tools and methodologies are based on a solid foundation of research that has been conducted by the Breckenridge Institute and by recognized authorities at universities and other research institutes around the world.
“In an information economy, an organization’s brand is its #1 asset.”
Kevin E. Houchin, Esq.
My professional work and research at the Breckenridge Institute will focus on understanding the effect of organizational culture on the brand, and the brand’s effect on organizational culture. I’ll use the Breckenridge Cultural Indicator (BCI) to benchmark organizational culture, then compare those results to brand messaging to identify disconnects and build strategies to appropriately reconcile organizational culture with brand messaging. The information economy demands that organizations integrate branding decisions with intellectual property legal strategies. Product and service naming, packaging, promotions, Web and email communications, and other branding decisions must be treated not as fluffy afterthoughts, but as critical assets of the organization. Brand messages must truly communicate the culture of the organization to be effective — and the only way to know if you’re branding effectively is to understand your organizational culture.
Another exciting opportunity is to work with universities, research institutes, and healthcare organizations to create the kind of cultural change needed to effectively implement HIPAA and IRB requirments, and to build “Just Cultures.”
This research should be applicable in almost any business situation. It’s a very exciting opportunity.