Seth Godin wrote a great post “All I Do is work here” last Thursday and fundamentally I agree with him — I’m sure he will sleep better knowing that . However, I would have approached it a bit differently, but that’s because I view things through a slightly different filter.

Seth recounts his poor customer experience with various people within the organization. He rightly links the brand and the people who make up that brand as being the same in the customer’s mind. His closing comment was “If you’re not proud of where you work, go work somewhere else. You don’t get the benefit of the brand when it’s hot without accepting the blame of the brand when it’s wrong.”

However, this implies there is a distinction between the brand and the people who deliver it. This underestimates the linkage between the brand and employee behaviour.

My view is that the brand experience changed because the people inside changed first — not independent of their behaviour. People stopped caring. Senior management stopped holding themselves and everyone in the organization accountable for living the brand vision that made the brand great in the first place.

The customer is just now seeing the result of this internal condition.

The people Seth is talking to in his example are the symptom — not the cause. This problem started right at the top, and it probably wasn’t a couple months ago. Systemic changes in attitude like this are a result of longer term indifference. These people act this way because they are allowed to.

My perspective: Employees own the brand. If the brand is faltering, then senior management needs to refocus the vision and hold everyone accountable for delivery. “All I do is work here” and “It’s not my job” are simply unacceptable.

If you’re not proud of where you work — change it by becoming an internal leader. Then if you can’t — go work somewhere else that shares your attitudes and beliefs.