“We live in a conversation driven world,” writes Paul Worthington for Fast Company online. “Even if your brand is not an active user of social media, your customers and potential customers are.” He warns that “a brand that generates little or no conversation will be killed by one that does.”

According to Worthington, successful brands like Apple, Amazon, and Nike have three traits in common:

• Long term consistency of purpose. They know who they are and what they value and “everyone within that organization makes decisions that are consistent with this purpose.”

• Innovation as a core competence–and their innovations are true to the purpose of their organization and brand.

• Culture as decision making filter. Employees make their decisions based on what is right for the brand.

From a Baldrige perspective, these three traits are evidence of the alignment that high-performing organizations achieve. I’ve worked with five Baldrige Award winners and they all know who they are. They face challenges, consider opportunities, make decisions, and invest resources based on the mission, vision, values, and goals of their organizations. They know when something fits and when it doesn’t, and they act accordingly.

You find evidence of their purpose in their strategic plans and performance measurement systems, which are two primary means of aligning work with purpose.

And they remind us of where to start with both: Know who you are and what you value and then identify strategies and measures that support your organization’s purpose.

And build your brand.

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