WHAT IS THE FASHION STATEMENT OF YOUR ORGANIZATION?

Anyone who reads the statement of George Bernard Shaw “A Fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic” may not take this as just yet another piece of satire characteristic of this great thinker, but may feel it is a pretty unfair statement. Leaving aside the bias one might feel on his words, we pass on to another humorist who said, “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” Opinions about fashions have fashioned themselves from time to time. Yet the spirit of fashions has survived.

How do we define a ‘fashion’? Though for a long time this word has been mostly representing a culture of clothes and wearables, one is impressed with the statement of Coco Channel, the French designer who said “Fashion is not something that exists in dress only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”

Martina Micci, the famous Italian fashion designer puts it succinctly “Fashion is an instant language”

In a world haunted by change, the life-period of ‘fashions’ have become so short that we possibly see the changes of fashions at every dawn and dusk. From sporting a latest T-shirt to the sun glasses, one wears, from the use of the mobile phones to the language one uses, the changing fashions have impacted both our thought architecture as well as our life-styles. No wonder, increasingly the imageries of fashion get displayed as the ‘fashion statements’ – in verbal, non-verbal, material and representative architectures.

People tend to make their fashion statements either directly or indirectly in all their activities including the workstations. Many corporates have their own unique ‘fashion statements’ made – as a brand strategy or as a marketing missile to capture the attention of the target clientele.

A few strategies include:

• a.   \\\Wearable clothes
• b.   Wearable workstyles
• c.   Wearable personal profiles
• d.   Wearable technologies
• e.   Brand communications 

Let us try to make note of the few:

1.   Wearable clothes:

Clothes are indeed representative of the “fashion message” of an organization. They do indicate the professional spirit, psychological preparedness, work commitment and the “SMARTNESS” of the company or industry. They largely give a positive image about the organization and what it stands for. As a well-renowned fashion designer remarked “Simplicity is fashion”. Hence such outfits need not necessarily be costly, but need to be good enough to send the required message. Flight attendants, Pilots, Nursing assistants, uniformed services and the like generously draw a respect and display the authority of the profession. Several corporate brands do insist of the fashion statement of their employees which is essentially an effort to articulate a uniform thought culture and a shared vision. When Albert Einstein remarked “Even on the most solemn occasion, I got away without wearing socks, and hid the lack of civilization in high boots” he only confirms his absent mindedness to the civility. However, an exception never makes a statement.

2.   Wearable work styles:

” Work styles” people wear does convey a meaning and wisdom of the organization. Right from the design of the workstations to the articulation of the workspace, the company’s fashion statement is a catalyst to several outputs including its productivity. Defined KPAs, freedom of operation, levels and stages of decision making, time related performances, escalation procedures of an organization clarify the work styles and hence the SOPs. The sensitivity of the work styles to modern work constraints, stress management issues, enabling and delivering trust are some organizational statements succinctly communicated in the current business prospects to the negotiating tables. “Meetings over a cup of coffee” in coffee shops outside the organization, “fun times” to develop and sustain relationships “work from home” for stress free scheduled deliveries, ‘field trips’ with distributors and clients speak volumes of the wearable work styles of an organization. The organizations should remember the classic statement “Fashions change, Styles endure” Organizational work cultures should reflect this spirit.

3.   Wearable personal profiles:

    

    The ‘personal profiles’ of every employee in an organization is itself a statement. Some of the wearable personal profiles include –

1. a.   Scope for scaling up on a learning curve
2. b.   Value for the skill profile of the employee
3. c.   Facilitation tools and environment for unlearning-relearning
4. d.   Leadership and other HR skills

Every employee is an asset to the organization and hence empowered personal profiles add asset value to the organization. In the fashion parade of the personal profiles of the employees, the organization needs to ensure their ‘the fitness’ level. It is important to remember the saying “Don’t change to fit the fashion, but change the fashion to fit you.”  

4.      Wearable Technologies:

The “fashion” of technologies is fast changing and quite mind-boggling. The speed of change is haunting the “fashion profiles’ of the organizations and hence their market value, their global profile and the speed of their profit cycles. Hence organizations are under compulsion to re-examine their technology profiles frequently sometimes at prohibitive cost which in turn will impact their market costs. Further the profiling of their technologies creates a market value for their own shares and future business prospects. Technologies also indicate their future preparedness along with their own learning curve. No organization can therefore avoid making a powerful fashion statement about their existing and future technologies in an ongoing manner. “Automation” is no more a ‘selling’ concept as against ‘intelligent technologies’. The challenge of customizing ‘intelligent technologies’ to local specifications and procedures in a time-bound manner at affordable costs is indeed a concern for most organizations. The fashion statement about technologies is therefore an agenda for most organizations.

5.   Brand Communications

Profiling the brand of the organization appropriately inclusive of all its multi-dimensional features and exclusively to differing client groups with different aspirations and attitudinal structures is another emerging challenge. The fashion statements which are crisp, committing and contextual reap their harvest. The life-profile of these statements could be short and hence may need to be revisited periodically to regenerate them to a newer platform to ensure the sustenance of their reach. Organizations which have a long legacy where their age-old fashion architectures still speak volumes because of the erstwhile neural structures they have established need to replenish with newer architectural interventions that add value to the current profile of their organization without destroying its inherited value.

Fashion statements of the organizations need not be considered as input to market acquisition or aggression but “as an art of self-expression, not as excuse to be pretty, popular or charismatic.”