Category: Business

Target Corporate Headquarters Tour

jeremy-at-target

Stromberg Consulting Presentation

  • Target and Best Buy are using Stromberg Consulting to help with their branding strategy
  • Brand + Reputation + Perception = Today’s Reality
  • Employees, customers, and stakeholders are all seeking much more transparency in the relationships that they have with companies.
  • Branding
    • Good brand = promise
    • Great brand = promise kept
  • From the moment we are born we are all in networks.    Some of us even find love through our networks.   Stories travel the world in minutes through our networks.    People play different roles in networks.    Using networks to change our professional lives.
  • Referred to Tipping Point book
  • Find out who the hubs of information are in an organization…who are people going to in order to get answers?
  • Asked employees what channels they find most effective to receive communications which ended up being email, managers, and employee toolkit (portal).
    • They then did a cost analysis of each communication channel
  • Drivers of Engagement
    • Team connections
    • Senior Leadership
    • Quality of work
    • Growth and Opportunity
    • External reputation
    • Assesses “a day in the life” of someone and understands hour by hour what spends a day getting fully immersed with the employees.

    Leadership Visibility

    • Has your CEO directly addressed how you’re tackling the economic environment?
    • Have you increased leader visibility in the face of uncertain times?
    • Have you considered a “back to the floor” program?
    • Is there a mechanism for two-way dialog with senior leaders?
    • Have you considered setting a leader’s specific communication targets?
    • Employees are more apt to form/join a union if the relationship with their manager is failing.
    • Measuring seat time vs. productivity (social media)

    Mike Brown – Director, Marketing Planning at Target

    • Target is a “destination for trendsetters”
    • Values mounted on the wall in the highest traffic area of the headquarters
    • To be the best company ever for our guests, team members, and shareholders
    • Want their team members to know the vision, then act on it
    • Want their employees to be fast, fun, & friendly
    • Want to find a leader in everyone
    • Speed is life (we want to know what our guests want before they do)
    • Advance our reputation
    • Recognition
      • Great team cards (peer to peer cards)
      • Use real estate (artwork and digital signage) to remind them of the brand throughout the campus
      • Bullseye boutique (employee store)
      • Doing a dog (Bullseye) dress-up contest for employees for their plush dogs
    • Able to attract most affluent and highest educated customers
    • Target has planograms for Store Manager’s offices so if a Store Manager leaves the next Store Manager can jump in and find things
    • They call their employees “team members”
    • They call their customers “guests”
    • Word of Mouth Marketing Organization (educates employees about social media guidelines)

Inside Best Buy’s Communication Revolution

How one of America’s largest electronics retailers is using video and dialogue to transform its corporate culture

Best Buy Corporate Headquarters

The impressive Best Buy Corporate Headquarters in Minneapolis, MN – home to innovative corporate communication strategies

I recently had the opportunity to attend the CMMA Professional Development Conference at Best Buy’s corporate headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The agenda for the events today were as follows:

  • Keynote Dialogue: Video Fueling Culture. Brad Anderson, Vice-Chairman and CEO, Best Buy
  • Fueling Communications Culture Topic & Discussion #1: Advocating for the Audience (Best Buy’s TAG TV Team)
  • Fueling Communications Culture Topic & Discussion #2: Listening to Employees (Best Buy’s Employee Communication Team)

What I discovered was far more than just another corporate event – it was a masterclass in how one of America’s largest electronics retailers is revolutionizing its approach to internal and external communications.

Leadership Insights: Dialogue with Best Buy’s Top Executives

Brad Anderson - Vice Chairman/CEO

Brad Anderson
Vice Chairman/CEO

Brian Dunn - President/COO

Brian Dunn
President/COO

The day began with a powerful keynote dialogue featuring Brad Anderson, Vice-Chairman and CEO, and Brian Dunn, President and COO of Best Buy. Their candid conversation revealed how Best Buy’s leadership views communication as fundamental to their business strategy and company culture.

Best Buy Executive Presentation

Anderson shared how Best Buy conducted a revealing video series where they asked customers who were leaving stores empty-handed to explain why they hadn’t made a purchase. This simple yet effective approach provided invaluable insights into missed sales opportunities and reflected the company’s commitment to understanding customer experiences.

“In our old days, we sold products to customers instead of solutions for customers.” – Brad Anderson, reflecting on Best Buy’s evolution from product-focused to solution-focused retailing

One particularly memorable moment came when Anderson shared a story about one of Best Buy’s first China employees. When asked why she wanted to work for the company, she pointed to her palm and said, “Mr. Anderson, do you see this? In that time, I want to help change China.” This powerful anecdote underscored Anderson’s philosophy that “We want to be the kind of place that attracts people who have big dreams.”

When asked about the future of consumer electronics, Anderson provided a thought-provoking response about how consumers often feel like “slaves of their devices” and how Best Buy aims to enrich people’s lives by solving the complexity that frustrates many technology users.

Additional insights from the leadership dialogue:

  • People want to do business with companies they can trust – transparency is key to building that trust
  • Best Buy creates video spots where employees tell stories of customers they’ve helped
  • Communications is described as “the conscious of the organization”
  • Leaders who have difficulty with transparency “end up being the butt of the jokes”
  • Best Buy distributes “TAG TV” videos to stores
  • They don’t actively measure video effectiveness, but employee engagement with videos is considered a success indicator

When asked about the story of Best Buy and how it ends, executives emphasized:

  • The center of Best Buy is its employees
  • Things that don’t have a reason to exist tend not to
  • Organizations as large as Best Buy can’t grow without communications and technology that support those communications

The Art of Listening: Best Buy’s Employee Engagement Strategy

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Best Buy’s communication strategy is their sophisticated approach to employee listening. Jennifer Rock and Barry Johnson, both Directors of Employee Communications, shared how the company has developed multiple channels and methods for gathering employee feedback.

They presented a compelling case study of how listening changed a major company decision. When Best Buy reduced employee discounts to save money, they created “The Water Cooler” – an online forum where employees could share feedback. The response was overwhelming, with 54 pages of comments. After just five days, executives reversed their decision based on this feedback and sent a company-wide message saying, “We heard you” and acknowledging their mistake.

Best Buy has developed a sophisticated framework for employee dialogue, recognizing that different types of organizational changes require different levels of conversation. Their approach ranges from simple measurement to complex listening strategies that drive company direction.

The company’s dialogue framework includes four types of interaction, with more complex changes requiring more active dialogue:

1. Measurement – “Rate This”

  • Survey
  • Annual Audit
  • Poll

2. Download with Feedback loop – “Get, then tell”

  • Meeting w/ Q&A
  • Post event survey
  • Suggestion box
  • Survey
  • News w/email

3. Communicate & Discuss – “You jump in”

  • Town Hall
  • The Chair
  • Discussion Boards
  • Social Network
  • Learning Session
  • News w/comments

4. Listen, plan, target, discuss – “Give insights, drive strategy”

  • The Chair
  • Group Summit
  • Survey
  • Discussion Boards
  • Virtual Town Hall
  • Poll
  • Focus Group

The company employs several innovative listening methods:

  • Yearly Communications Audit: Measures both how important each communication attribute is to employees and how well the company is performing in areas like strategies & values, managers as communicators, and tactical information
  • The Chair: A simple yet effective 1:1 feedback mechanism where two chairs are placed in a busy traffic area with an easel with a sign asking for someone that walks by to sit down and talk
  • “If you were COO for the day”: Invites employees to share what they would do if they ran the company
  • Employee News site: Used to convey tactical information to more strategic communications. The example shared was an article titled “Why Do I have to Change my ‘#@&$#*$(‘ Password?” Users can rate every comment up or down. No comments are anonymous except one which dealt with health care (they originally allowed anonymous comments but the community requested this feature be turned off)
  • Water Cooler: The online discussion board tool at Best Buy and the number one way they listen to employees. Not pretty but highly functional, it uses open source tools and includes categories like My Company, My Location, My Department, and My Groups. At the time of presentation, it had 233 visitors in the last hour and over 1,130,574 posts with 64,537 topics to date

Event Photo Gallery

Below are some photos captured during the CMMA Professional Development Conference at Best Buy headquarters:

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Best Buy Corporate Campus Videos

Experience Best Buy’s corporate campus through these video tours:

Best Buy Lobby Tour
Best Buy Fitness Center
Best Buy Eating Area

The Future of Corporate Communications

What became clear throughout the conference is that Best Buy sees its employees as the center of its business. As one executive noted, “Things that don’t have a reason to exist tend not to” – and Best Buy recognizes that meaningful communication gives purpose to their organization.

The company acknowledges that organizations as large as Best Buy can’t grow without sophisticated communications and technology to support those communications. Their investment in varied dialogue channels, video storytelling, and authentic leadership communications demonstrates a progressive approach that many companies could learn from.

Best Buy’s communication strategy reflects a fundamental truth about business in the digital age: transparency isn’t just a buzzword – it’s a competitive advantage. By creating systems that amplify employee voices and building a culture where feedback leads to real change, Best Buy is positioning itself not just as a retailer but as a leader in corporate communications.

Join the Conversation

How is your organization using video and dialogue to transform its culture? What listening mechanisms have you found most effective? Share your experiences in the comments below!

This blog post summarizes my experience at the CMMA Professional Development Conference held at Best Buy’s corporate headquarters in Minneapolis, MN. The event featured presentations from Brad Anderson (Vice-Chairman/CEO), Brian Dunn (President/COO), and members of Best Buy’s communication teams including Jennifer Rock and Barry Johnson, Directors of Employee Communications. All photos taken at the event.