THE CMO’S TRANSFORMATION CHALLENGE – PART 3

The three part series on the challenge to transform marketing for today’s consumers and business

What it takes to transform - Capabilities, Structure, Mindset

The capabilities to deliver marketing transformation are diverse and interdependent. 

When you look at the specific and functional programs behind these transformative steps, you will either imagine you have resources or, you will imagine you have nothing of what is needed and desire a complete overhaul. Like most binary decisions in the marketing world, both are part wrong. And the answer isn’t to just add an agency on as a supplier to deliver the functional development needs.

If you really aspire to marketing transformation, you need to leverage existing knowledge with new insight and perspective. And will you will quickly realize there’s a need for a very diverse mix of capabilities, some you would not instantly expect or recognize. And that’s all part of shaping your marketing system for more progressive methods and solutions. The specifics of a project and organization will dictate the obvious people needs like; experience designers and the expertise of technology architects etc. Many of these will be in place, but you must also open up to greater diversity in thinking and perspective. And that means opening up and bringing in new capabilities, talent and thinking.

““If you do tomorrow what you did today, you will get tomorrow what you got today.””

— Benjamin Franklin

Remember the old Ben Franklin line….. Same applies for using the same people. It’s hard to transform from within. It’s hard to transform from outside. Blend the two. Explore different angles, even if for part of the journey. For example, have you considered hiring an organizational culture specialist, or a marketing science expert? What about an anthropologist or cognitive neuroscientist? Injecting diverse expertise to challenge your marketing teams, analyze systems and understand consumers from new perspectives can certainly be disruptive, but that is the very nature of transformation, otherwise you are just optimizing.

What you also need to appreciate and explore is the application of these capabilities – and no, that isn’t solved by the creation of a PMO. All too often I have seen the creation of a PMO as the panacea for transformative change and while important as a management construct, it doesn’t replace great leadership, culture and the flexibility to evolve on the fly. So please, don’t fall for the trap of trying to project manage yourself into a transformation.

To set perspective, I look at three core dimensions of people application: The capabilities, structure and mindset.

Capabilities

This is the collective set of people skills, experience and tools to enable the change and evolution of the marketing system. As discussed above, diversity is key – in all forms, background, experience, perspective, opinion. Think about your current team, how can that be augmented for even greater diversity in perspective and skills

Structure

Structure should provide for efficiencies and also to give people connection. Note, it’s not about authority and order but connection and a sense of place. Flexibility should be built in the same way accountability should be clearly defined. When people know what is expected of them, and there is flexibility to adapt because the structure supports transformation, great people will flourish and drive progress. They will also feel well connected to the transformation and not a victim of it. All of which generates greater and better outcomes for the business and its’ people

Mindset

It’s believing in and creating a culture of leadership mutuality. An openness and transparency where people are inspired to lead no matter their position or role. A failure is an option logic. A collaboration is the only way forward approach. A kaizen spirit for incremental always on improvements.

To get all of this working together you need two more dimensions. One, is a defined transformation leadership team. An “LT” that is accountable, collaborative and cross departmental. You cant change marketing ins a silo, its central to customer experience, which is a whole of company premise. So create a connected team with leads from IT, HR , sales, finance etc. Second, create a plan. Prioritize, the steps, the scope and the objectives of each step with accountable ROI measures and goals. Build in a means to evolve and adapt the plan as internal and external forces re-shape the operating and consumer landscape.  

In conclusion

CMO’s are faced with three fundamental and profound forces; the growing complexity of marketing systems, the ever increasing expectations of the consumer and a continual need for growth. The consequence, is in some cases a dire need to transform the marketing operation to make sizeable sustainable improvements to strengthen the business in the face of competition. The areas of greatest marketing impact are content and communication, experiences and performance marketing, all of which are driven, enabled and fueled by new and emerging technology systems and data capabilities. Fundamental and transformative change can also be disruptive on organizational capability, culture and effectiveness. Therefore, a transformation should be seen as a journey of key steps, tuned to the organizational change and capability readiness and to minimize the risk of negative growth impacts.

Individually CMO’s, often lack the breadth of skills and experience of some dimensions in the more complex tech and data enabled marketing construct. As such, it is key that a diverse (in skill, perspective and background) leadership team be formed to manage and lead the transformation. Additionally, CMO’s need to establish key partnerships for the transformation across the organization especially with core capabilities like marketing strategy, IT and HR.

Establishing a transformation program that is designed to be agile and flexible to capitalize on market and technology changes will support currency and efficiency. Such a program, engaging diverse teams and vendors transparently and effectively, will support a more effective transformation leading to growth.