There's nowhere left for your company's brand to hide

There's a nice piece on Fast Company's design site this morning espousing the idea that every employee of a company should be a product manager -- because every movement a company makes or word it utters speaks to what it represents. (And when it goes wrong, so goes the company.)

Citing IKEA's recent Middle East snafu -- it removed female models from its catalogs, bowing to cultural pressure -- Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen write that corporate values can't be relegated only to the core:

"Brands must always abide by the values they espouse. This is nothing new, but in a globalized and increasingly transparent world, this is more true and important than ever. There is nowhere a brand can hide. Every single place consumers see or hear about the brand is an opportunity to convey the company’s core principles."

If a company treats everything as a product -- from its messaging to its wares to its operations to its own employees -- it can avoid missteps. The thinking goes like this: when everyone is a customer, you're less likely to sweep unsavory activities under the rug and hope that no one notices.

Why Everyone In Your Company Should Be A Product Manager [Fast.Co Design]

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com