How to land "the emotional why" of company change

"To choose the ideal brand name for change at IBM, we needed to identify a name strong enough to travel the globe with a minimum amount of unwanted baggage. We needed a name that would encompass everything important about our change initiative, so we ruled out including words such as design or design thinking. We were more than that, and the name needed to reflect as much."

"We had to take stock of the values we would want that name to represent. Initially, I considered the potential benefits of a name that might confer a sense of company continuity and familiarity. Perhaps it should invoke IBM's nickname, and we could call our project teams Big Blue teams. But the risk would be that while dropping the baggage associated with "design," we'd be taking on some new Blue-colored baggage instead."

"There was another brand value that was much more compelling than continuity: that of exclusivity. The highest value products in any marketplace are the ones that have cachet. Think about Louis Vuitton or Rolex. People opt into these brands because of their reputations for high quality and limited availability. That's the same brand reputation we wanted for our change program."

IBM needed a global brand name for a change initiative that carried minimal unwanted baggage and encompassed all aspects of the program. Words like "design" or "design thinking" were ruled out because the initiative aimed to be broader than those terms. Continuity with IBM's nickname "Big Blue" was considered but rejected due to potential resentment, misappropriation, and new baggage. Exclusivity emerged as the more compelling brand value, modeled on high-end brands that convey cachet through reputation for quality and limited availability. The change program would signal distinction by admitting a limited number of teams as a badge of achievement.

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