Marketers, Stop Taking and Start Giving

Of course that’s an inflammatory headline; it’s supposed to get your attention.  Now the next thing I do is write a line or two of pain-centered content, then I begin to pull you in with my pitch.  That’s what good marketers do, right?

We send messages.  We pretend to communicate and fire away at our market with little regard to whether or not the message is received, decoded properly or feedback gathered.  In fact, in most marketing organizations I know of, the flow of thinking is: create the campaign, fire away, and start creating the next campaign (all without the concept of action-learning).  Not anymore.

The game has changed, but we’re still playing with our old tactics and strategies, yet wondering why are not able to capture more loyal customers or survive in a struggling economy. The bottom line is that our customers come second in line to ourselves and the gap between the two gets bigger with every level of management that stands between.  The future of marketing is changing faster than marketing management is able to.

Markets are not just ‘markets’ – they are people.  People don’t want to be talked at, they want you to listen.  People crave reliable relationships, interactions that validate them as individuals of worth and value resources that enable and empower them to at least feel like they can do more, even if they don’t.  Take the example of great customer service – at its most fundamental level, focused, personal customer service raises the perception of dignity in an individual and gives them the feeling that they are ‘worth it’. For most of us, whose back is to the wall on a daily basis, a simple experience of self-worth is priceless.  Marketers forget that.  We think it’s about us.  It’s not – it’s about THEM.

With the availability and flow of information today, marketers have to realize that they can rarely control online reputation through a carefully filtered stance of message-leaking.  If an organization does not speak enough, the market will speak for them, often to the chagrin of brand managers and boards of directors.  What’s worse is that even if a company is trying to speak volumes in cyberspace, today’s social spheres quickly attribute even the smallest departure from what they feel is honesty, transparency and moral motive and then do the branding and advertising for you, in a negative light.

Marketing, branding, positioning, etc. is not what we think or say, it’s the net result of everything we do.  Don’t be afraid to invite the customer in and give them a free pass to your world, because if you don’t, they’ll happily be standing there as you sort through your own rubble.

Google CEO on Web 3.0

Though said in 2007 (I believe), its interesting to see how Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s predictions for what Web 3.0 would be:

Schmidt predicted that Web 3.0 applications would have the following characteristcs:

1. Applications that are relatively small

2. The data is in the cloud

3. The applications can run on any device, PC or mobile phone.

4. The applications are very fast

5. The applications are very customizable

6. The applications are distributed by “viraling” – by social networks, email, etc. You won’t go to the store and purchase them; they will be sent to you.

So, how are we doing – on the way to 3.o?

(see the actual dialogue here)

Hey Interviewers, Here’s a Gut-Check for You: “Interview Illusion”

“…We all think we’re good at it. We are Barbara Walters or Mike Wallace, taking the measure of the person. Psychologist Richard Nisbett calls this the “interview illusion” — our certainty that we’re learning more in an interview than we really are.”

I love this. So true. I was a part of a great organization that actually did learn how to interview, and I learned a lot from them. Unfortunately, most don’t.

http://ow.ly/7GoF

Marketing in Social Networks is not Network Marketing

My wife is part of a group of ladies that gather monthly to play a game of Bunco. There is nothing to the game – no skill or feats of strategery can win it.  And they

Marketing in social networks is about the network, not the marketers.

really don’t get together to play the game – they get together to simply get together.  Its their time to pursue a little something outside of the mainstream mom-hood.  And they enjoy it.  That is, until someone starts using the gathering to pitch them their latest networking marketing scheme.

Yes, there is a member of the group who isn’t necessarily a regular participant any more, and when they do show up, they end up talking all about their new business and how much money you can make and by the end of the evening have gone from covert to overt and uncomfortable.  Every time that happens, I hear all about how it ruined the evening and everybody was so turned off by it.  I can’t help but think of our current drive to market using social media.

In a great op ed piece written recently by Gareth Kay, he brought up the perspective (albeit semantic) that we ought not to be talking about social media, but about social ideas.  The media has been around and is really nothing new.  People getting together, collaborating, building networks, etc. – that’s nothing new either.  But to focus on the social media aspect is dangerously close to focusing on the means, and not the ends – the technology and not the results.  Marketing within the increasing waves of online social circles means that marketers will have to actually learn to 1. communicate and 2. listen, neither of which modern point-and-click directors have excelled at.

Marketing within the ‘social’ context includes active contribution, focusing on something other than one’s self and, instead of soliciting sales, soliciting collaboration towards a bigger purpose that fuels the social network itself.  When you show up to Bunco night and start pitching your wares, you’re not only way out of line, you’re way out in left field – nobody is there to get sold on your products or services.  They are there for the bigger purpose, THEIR PURPOSE, and you need to tie into that quick or you’re going to be the one not getting invited back to Bunco.

Migration in Progress – Stand by

I am changing over to word press from another program that I was using.  While not everything is up-to-date, some of the older posts are in – check them out.

The Corporate Athlete

Boy, I’ve been watching an organization for sometime with poor planning habits, and the result is of course what we call in the business – too much work to do at the last minute.  That’s an official term.  But watching the stress levels increase, the sleepless nights double, and the unshowered, “I stayed at work last night” look turn into vogue, it’s made me think of the real impact this is having on the people.  Once or twice, this is probably healthy on a regular basis, renewing the roll up the sleeves and all pitch-in attitude that builds common experience and fosters the forming of solid working bonds and team relationships.  But as a matter of routine fare, the impact is going to kill someone.

I remember the “Online” organization of a certain, large telecommunications company that will remain nameless, even though they are huge, and I mean really huge. These folks had endured torment after torment of reactive, last minute, knee-jerk work flow and were suffering a turnover rate of nearly 80% in the business unit.  When I got to them, they had worked more that 12 weekends straight, and not one soul among them had any confidence in their management team.  They had spun through 3 sets of divisional VPs in 5 years, none of which had any clue about the work that needed to be done there, and most of which were dying to leave the minute they arrived. Yep, it was a bad day at block rock.

You can imagine the business impact that such disorganization caused. The human impact is what really was disconcerting to me.  After some one-on-one coaching and a good talking to about pulling the leadership pants up and stepping courageously forward, we were able to get someone at the top to say, “I am interested, and I will listen.” (Truth be told, it took some head-slapping from behind to get them to stay up there and listen).

The biggest problem we had in turning this organization around was moving the leadership from the view that these employees were human “resources” to the view that they were the keys to competitive advantage, and without them being at their prime, the whole thing would implode. The ways these people were working would be the equivalent of running a marathon every week (an analogy I got from Dr. Jim Loehr).

Just as athletes have a period of full engagement, they also have a period of rest and recovery.  Working 15 hours a day does not give you a period of rest and recovery.  As organizational leaders, we have to pay attention to the disengagement that is critical for our workforce to then fully engage when we need them to be. Remember, we are all people, living lives, and one work often plays a necessarily evil part of that life for many of us.  But it doesn’t have to be that way, if we champion the importance of disengaging regularly and often, as mush as we do engaging while at work.

The Secret Sauce of Transformation

“Right, we get the right tools and processes, but how do I know we’ve transformed?” asked the leader of one very large IT organization that I was working with. 

As I watched the consultants stumble to answer, he continued, “But you’re not telling me anything different from anyone else. I just don’t see the secret sauce. Where’s the secret sauce to this whole thing?”

It may not be the same words, but I guarantee you that this same conversation has been had over and over, in office after office, between endless sets of senior managers, management staff and consultants – all over the world. 

 

How do we know if we've transformed?

“Yeah, we know all this change stuff, but how do we make it stick? Where’s the secret sauce?“

 

The funny thing is, I’d bet that if I told you what the secret sauce is, you still wouldn’t be able to use it, let alone taste it. In fact, I’d bet that most transformation efforts are ended before they’re fully implemented. Why? Because, and legitimately so, the business imperatives change. 

In the space of just a few years, we go from “Customer First” to “Nothing but Quality” to “Best in Class” to “Innovation” and on to “Cost-Effective Operations”. And its not that we have business-initiative-attention-deficit. Or maybe we do. But the environment, customers, regulations, wall street, etc. – continuously flux and change. And so we respond with … whatever seems to be the “urgency-dejour“.

However, like the latest fad diet on on any given New Year’s day, we say we’re going to do it, but we never address the heart of the matter: change. A new diet isn’t about recipes, exercise, ingredients, intake or losing weight. Its about changing behavior that will lead to changes in the other things we are seeking: the results. 

While we proclaim the “new me” for the new year, we fail to address the issues that are made redundant in nearly every large business – that change is not made up of proclamations. Change is made up of behaviors. And unless we get our transformation efforts out of the strategic planning sessions and into what Mintzberg calls the “operating core”, then it doesn’t matter what we call them, because we’ll get the same results from every one: nothing of real substance.

“So what about the Secret Sauce?”, you ask? 

There is no secret sauce. Transformation is no secret. But there is a sauce, and its ingredients are Leadership (consisting of equal parts Humility and Discipline), accountability and flat-out Hard Work. That’s it. No surprises, no secrets, no spying on the Colonel to see what he puts in his chicken. Its all there on the table. 

You need to create leadership by having the humility to face your own shortcomings and recognize the need to change yourself and your leadership core before you ask your workforce to change. Thicken the leadership paste with the discipline required to work on that individual change in yourself, day after day after day. Hold yourself and others accountable, regularly and often. Then add working hard to the mixture, to do the right things, not the easy things, to lay the foundation for the future changes to take place.

No secrets. No proclamations. No mission-statements. No banners, t-shirts, laminated cards, no guiding principles. No way. You don’t get great change by talking – you get there by doing.

First Images of New Solar System – New Organizational Frontiers

It seems that man is always breaking his own boundaries, and at the same time, wondering how could he get any farther?  For centuries, prevailing thoughts have stoned progression by claiming “This is it!”.  Religions have closed the heavens by exclaiming “God has revealed all he has to reveal!”  People tend to shut the future by saying, “It will never get any better”.  Teams win the Super Bowl, and then what? Well, they go to Disneyland.

Whether ignorance or depression, the truth is that we do progresss, there are new frontiers to explore, the sun will rise and we will find ourselves with more to learn and greater opportunities. In fact we, as humans, tend to shut down and mentally and spiritually die when we cease to learn.  And our organizations are the same.

Legacy organizations, those that have been around and will continue to be around, seem to cultivate the ability to learn from themselves and their members. Their learning becomes a chief organizational competency that fuels their capacity to create value for stakeholders.  That’s a shift for a lot of people, especially those who are in business to merely turn a profit.  Such self-centered management reflects self-centered leadership, and like all unsustainable, dying ecosystems that cannot serve a greater good, such behavior will ultimately fall away into extinction, along with its possessor.

But living organizations that learn and deliver greater value than their mere products, reflect a sinew of constant discovery that winds itself through the structure of the organization and into all of its constituents. The resulting fabric becomes a tapestry of value and productivity that gives meaning and life to all stakeholders.

What is the purpose of your organization, and where is it heading?  Think about that as you enjoy these pictures of a new solar system.  What frontiers might you find as you pioneer new organizational boundaries?

Maturity Models

You may or may not have heard the term “maturity model” before, but it is gaining momentum and I would say that before too long, if you are in a senior management role of any kind, you will probably come in contact with the phrase.  Its a good thing.  Anything that helps you think differently about your organization is a good thing. And if you can learn to see artifacts of mature organizations, model it and compare your organization to it, then you have a pretty useful tool.

The Capability Maturity Model, or CMM, is probably the first and most well-known. They have even built a People Capability Maturity Model, which I have used and found very helpful when looking at human capital frameworks.

But here is the best that I have seen yet.  (Yes, it’s a joke).

What they dont teach you (or teach well) in b-school, and most dont practice in b-life, yet accounts for the %80:

I can say it till I am blue in the face, but the only thing that will make a difference is if someone will try it and ‘experiment on the word’.

Culture is the single, greatest factor determining organizational success.  You can’t teach it. It is a trade, a craft, a science and art that has to be apprenticed and learned to be read over time.  Most professors don’t get it. Why would they, when their reward system is about quantifiable research?

But every person in an organization needs the basics of culture, or they are as good as lemmings.  A person armed with culture awareness in an organization, can at least alert leaders and coworkers to potential changes.

Even if culture is not new to you, this is a good read. If you are new to culture, or think you know but aren’t really sure, click here and read this.