Bob LondonHave more strategic, authentic and revealing convos

7 Bob London + Erik Linn - An exercise to translate culture into tangible external messaging points

Name: 7 Bob London + Erik Linn - An exercise to translate culture into tangible external messaging points
Uploaded: 2021-08-02T13:24:35+00:00
Duration: 1 min 36 s
Channel: Bob London
Description: In this conversational segment, Bob London and Erik Linn reflect on an internal strategic exercise called “headlines from the future,” where Cross…

2 Aug 2021 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:36

In this conversational segment, Bob London and Erik Linn reflect on an internal strategic exercise called “headlines from the future,” where Cross Country’s team imagined future media headlines about the firm to crystallize its long‑term cultural aspirations. They describe how the exercise fed into the “Better Experience Model,” a framework that ties a people‑first philosophy to happier consultants, superior client experiences, and community impact. Central to this model is the “Contract,” a set of twelve core beliefs covering people‑first values, talent attraction, professional and personal development, client service excellence, and societal responsibility. The dialogue highlights how articulating these principles helped shape Cross Country’s brand narrative and contributed to external recognitions such as being named a Glassdoor Best Place to Work.

Somewhere there's a virtual scrap of paper or something like the cutting room floor from our work together where we did an exercise, headlines from the future, and had the team write what they thought an article should say about Cross Country in 5 or 10 years down the road. And it's at least been 7 or 8 years. Someone wrote, we want to be known as the best place to work according to a third party. Good. I'm glad that—
Yeah, well, you should be really proud. Bob, you helped us put words to a lot of things we believed in. And sometimes it's really easy to put a thought on paper and have have someone independently look at it and pull out the essence of really what you're trying to communicate. So you helped us with something we call the Better Experience Model. So we talk a lot about it. It's all over our website that we're trying to create a better experience for our people, which translates into happy consultants and a better experience for our clients. And we started with something called the Contract. We actually listed out 12 things that we, we wholeheartedly believe in, and it starts with people first. And attracting and exciting the best. And then it talks about our desire to nurture and grow those employees and as professionals and hopefully nurture them personally. And then that's back to translating into a great experience for our clients, but it also includes things like impact and our view of our responsibility to give back to our community. So it was a way for us to articulate what we believe in. Uh, personally, professionally, and it really kind of translates into, uh, living out those 4 core values that I mentioned earlier, right? So you, you should be really proud of that.
I am. Thank you.
You should have a little bit of, uh, some more of the credits for the Glassdoor Best Places to Work.
Oh, well, I'm—
thank you. I appreciate that.