Johnson & Johnson | Gagen MacDonald

Our Impact

Johnson & Johnson

Aligning and inspiring an organization around a renewed purpose and strategy.

In 2016, Johnson & Johnson defined its renewed purpose, a shared rally cry and ambition for all 250 of its businesses. At the same time, the organization unveiled a new business strategy, to ensure it could continue to care for humanity amidst changing needs and a faltering healthcare landscape.

Challenge

As the world’s largest and most broad-based healthcare company, aligning nearly 140,000 employees presented a unique challenge, which required broad-scale communication, change management and employee engagement. The company partnered with Gagen MacDonald to help unite employees behind the renewed purpose and strategy, align businesses and functions so that they can best contribute to them and equip the whole organization to deliver, “Better Health for All.”

Approach

  • Transformed the one-sentence purpose statement into a compelling story about the company’s journey. Crafted business/function narratives to align global messaging
  • Designed a strategic communications plan for enrolling leaders, communicators and employees in the purpose
  • Led efforts to align and activate leaders and global corporate affairs staff as key champions of the rollout
  • Created a launch experience for employees, including a presentation for a global, all-employee town hall and the development of an internal-purpose microsite
  • Developed business and functional strategic narratives as well as engagement and adoption plans, and helped facilitate leader alignment sessions

Results

  • Connected the company’s credo, purpose and business strategy into a single narrative for the first time, helping tell a cohesive and clear story across the enterprise
  • Drove purpose at two levels — enterprise and business/function — deepening purpose into various business areas and enabling employees to see their role in delivering on the purpose
  • Drove cross-enterprise alignment across 10+ business units and functions through next-level narratives aligned to the enterprise story
  • Inspired more than 200 leaders at global leader meeting around the renewed purpose and their role in bringing it to life
  • Aligned and equipped global corporate affairs staff to drive employee communications and engagement across various business units and functions
  • Drove clarity around the connection between the purpose and the company’s credo — a 75-year-old values document, core to the identity of the organization