Thought Leadership

This is part five of a ten-part series that will share my Ten Habits of Highly Effective Chief Marketing Officers, based on my experience and what I have learned from others.  See my January 13 entry for Habit #4 — Get your team right.  And do it early in your tenure.

Habit #5:  Champion innovation, especially disruptive innovation.

This is an especially important habit in these turbulent times, where we are not confident we are out of a recessionary mindset among the people we serve through our brands.

Business history is chock full of successful brands that launched or relaunched during recessions; Google and Apple are two examples.   There is nothing more important a CMO can do in a recession — or anytime really — than to lead the innovation program for a brand or a company.  Usually in partnership with the CTO.    True innovation is impervious to recessions, witness the recent success of Amazon’s Kindle, Motorola and Verizon’s Droid, and the breakthrough results for Avatar.

Leading innovation is too often not a high enough priority for CMOs.   They are distracted by the many short term issues that can consume the best of us. Here is what I have found that has worked for the best CMOs:

– Ensure your forward-looking innovation portfolio is building your value as a brand.  Value is always important, but these days it is especially important. And this is very measurable before your innovation goes to market, so make it important in your pre-launch criteria.   And expedite those innovations that do build value.  When people, consumers, rate your brand a better value than the competition, I guarantee you will grow and achieve market leadership.

– Ensure your innovation portfolio is sufficient to meet your future growth goals.  Sounds obvious, but I am amazed at how many CMOs and CTOs cannot answer that question.   There are a variety of ways to measure this pre-market introduction, and if you do not have those capabilities in place you need to do that.

– Build balance into your innovation portfolio.   Most innovation programs are dominated by incremental product or service innovations,  with 80-90% of the initiatives directed at maintaining the brand’s position in the market.   This would include things like longer protection from a deodorant, more on-time departures for an airline, or an improved taste or crust for a pizza brand (I must say Domino’s is creating a lot of buzz now for an incremental innovation.) You need a balance of incremental innovations like these with a small portfolio of discontinuous innovations.  Discontinuous innovations are things that change the dynamics in a category, create new markets, solve problems in new ways. Clayton Christensen has wonderful insights in this area. Discontinuous innovations are riskier, but great CMOs create and manage a diverse portfolio of innovation … with the obvious benefit of stronger growth and the less obvious benefit of cultivating a culture of creativity and bold thinking.

So, if you are a CMO and you are not championing innovation, start today.  I cannot imagine a higher ROI for your time.

This is part four of a ten-part series that will share my Ten Habits of Highly Effective Chief Marketing Officers, based on my experience and what I have learned from others.  See my January 5 entry for Habit #3 — Live the Four Cs:  Design your organization for what you need to win — core work, capabilities, career path, and culture.

Habit #4:  Get your team right.  And do it early in your tenure.

Hundreds of experts have written about the importance to business success of getting the right people in the right jobs.  Highly effective CMOs do this;  the secret is that it entails deep thought and quick, smart choices based on what a brand or company needs at a given period of time.

A CMO is like any other leader — she is only as good as the people she entrusts.  The key is to assess where you want to be great, best in class, and then to build your team based on that.  And an even more difficult decision is to assess what part of that team you want internal to the company, and what part you want to source externally.

My CMO role was in a large, multi-brand company, P&G.  I determined early in my tenure that I needed two teams — one team comprised of marketing leaders from our many business units, and one smaller team comprised of my corporate staff.  Each team had different priorities and deliverables.

The business unit marketing leader team was focused on advancing our competitive advantage through the business units.  We chose priorities every year, and stuck with them until we baked the capability into our business model.  I needed people on this team who were passionate about marketing, who had allegiance to me and their business unit President, and who would participate in a shared leadership model.  I needed people who would lead, and also reapply work from other businesses.  I formed this team within the first three months of my appointment.

The second team I formed was a smaller, central team, focused on leading innovation, systems and processes that would lead to competitive advantage.  One of the best decisions I made was to move outside the marketing discipline to staff this team with people experienced in skills P&G needed at the time.  I brought in a purchasing manager to help with external agency management, I recruited an HR manager to help with talent management, I leveraged a finance manager to improve strategy and operations in selected areas.  These people and a few others formed the nucleus of my “brain trust” that helped P&G advance to the next level.

With both of these teams, I cannot overstate the importance of setting your standards high for the people you choose.  Especially in the corporate roles.  Too many companies place “second tier” managers in these kind of roles.  That is unacceptable.  These people need to have the highest respect from top management, and key external partners.  Their role is to create sustainable competitive advantage in marketing, and that demands high performers with strong track records.

I find in my research that most CMOs have weak teams.  That is one reason CMO job tenures are still short lived.  And the ones that survive feel burned out.  So for the health of the company and its brands, for your health as CMO, get your team right early!

This is part three of a ten-part series that will share my Ten Habits of Highly Effective Chief Marketing Officers, based on my experience and what I have learned from others.  See my December 17 entry for Habit #2 — Be Clear What You Stand For And Be Visible Inside And Out.

Habit #3:    Live The Four Cs:  Design your organization for what you need to win — core work, capabilities, career path, and culture.

This is the most underrated habit.   And one of the most powerful.   Great CMOs are brilliant organization designers, architects, leaders.   This is hard work, often not understood by CEOs, who are looking for a quick fix to their marketing.   I was fortunate at P&G as A.G. Lafley and Bob McDonald understood this and valued it.

This is hard work as it entails some research, some analysis, but most importantly, it involves hard choices.  And these choices on core work, career paths, capabilities, and culture are difficult as they may be different from what the historical strengths of the organization have been.   And that is when the leadership skills become so important, because the best plans are worthless if not conceived, planned and executed with passion and care.

Let’s talk about each of the Four Cs that make up Habit #3:

Core Work — One of the most provocative questions I ask my clients now is “What are your people working on, what is valued?”  It is amazing how many leaders don’t know.   When I began as Global Marketing Officer at P&G in 2001,  I asked this question of our marketing leaders in the business units, and their staffs, and none of us liked the answer.    We found too much time was spent on internal alignment for decisions, project coordination, and rework.   This kind of work does not build the world’s greatest marketing organization!   So we set out to define the work we WANTED our people to do and excel at,  we changed systems and rewards to implement the changes, and then we measured the progress.

Capabilities — I remember a conversation I had with Scott Cook, the founder of Intuit and a P&G Board member, about the importance of an organization clearly choosing what capabilities they wanted to drive for competitive advantage.  And then resourcing them,  measuring them,  and innovating against them.   One of my mentors in this area, besides Scott, is Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Mangement in Toronto.   He is a “stickler” for this concept, and I learned a lot from him about how to arrive at these choices.    One capability I am very proud we built at P&G was our excellence at Shopper Marketing;  this was a vague concept years ago and is now one of the drivers of P&G’s competitive advantage.

Career Path — There are many areas within brand building we cannot control, that is why authenticity and good intent is so important.   But one area we can totally control is how we move people through careers: what experiences they have, who gets promoted, what skills we value, what work gets valued, what destination jobs we create and how we prepare people for them.  This is where the core work and capabilities come together.   This is the most visible thing we do as leaders,  and if we do not “walk the talk” on this everything falls apart.   One company I really admire here is LVMH.   They really believe their people need to develop an intuitive understanding of the categories, brands  and people who buy their brands,  and they manage careers accordingly.   One principle that underscores this is that LVMH moves their people between brands infrequently, running counter to many practices at other brand companies.

Culture — Culture is the visible sign of what is valued.  Again, this is within the leader’s full control.  Tony Hsieh at Zappos has built an amazing, visible culture around Zappos’ brand ideal of Wow! service.  This drives who they hire, how they train, how they talk with customers,  what they reward, and on and on.   And just look at their results.   Culture does not just happen, it is created, constantly renewed and refreshed, and it is the oxygen for the other Three Cs.

This is part two of a ten-part series that will share my Ten Habits of Highly Effective Chief Marketing Officers, based on my experience and what I have learned from others.  See my December 10 entry for Habit #1 – Reveal Your Brand Ideal And Operationalize It.

Habit #2 – Be Clear What You Stand For And Be Visible Inside And Out.

Too many CMOs are either not clear on what they stand for, or are not explicit enough about it. You cannot lead if people don’t understand what you believe, and your beliefs need to be consistent with your brand ideal, or higher order benefit your brand is giving the world.

When I was leading a training session at Yum! Brands in December, I asked the marketers in the session about leaders who are clear in what they stand for, and are visible inside and outside their companies. They talked about people like Steve Jobs of Apple, Eric Schmidt of Google, Tony Hsieh of Zappos, Eric Ryan of Method, Jeff Immelt of General Electric, A.G. Lafley of Procter & Gamble.  These leaders build confidence among employees and consumers and customers, because they know what they believe and they are constantly reinforcing this.

We also talked about the CEO of Yum! Brands, David Novak. He also is very clear on what he stands for, and he is a relentless advocate of the ideals behind the Yum! Brands. David is a prolific speaker, and he is constantly meeting with groups of employees. David has a book he has authored, and is working on another one to make it even clearer what he believes.

It is important that CEOs and CMOs are clear in what they stand for.  And it’s not for “soft” reasons, it’s simply good for their business:  the people most important for each brand notice this and it builds greater affinity and affection for the brand, and greater confidence in the brand. It’s important for employees, for customers, for investors, and for all business partners.

When I was Global Marketing Officer at Procter & Gamble, I made it very clear to everyone that I stood for transforming our marketing to become the best brand-building organization in the world, benchmarked against the best CPG and non-CPG companies. I also stood for more creativity and innovation in our brand-building programs, and in building a culture that was consumer-centric, empathetic, and driven by higher ideals.

So don’t go another day without clarifying what you stand for, and thinking carefully about your plan to be more visible inside and outside your brand/company.

In early December, I led a full day training program for high potential marketing people at YUM! Brands.

The session was in two parts:  1) A dialogue around what the best brands in the world do differently to achieve better results for the people they serve, and for their shareholders.  This session was based on the study and ideas behind my upcoming book, and was rich with learning.  2) A session on The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Chief Marketing Officers, based on my experience and what I have learned from others.  And a shout-out to Stephen Covey for his great book/work!

Over the next few blogs I want to go through my “Top Ten” list. And with each of the ten points, I will share some of my learning and stories on why I feel this is one of the habits that will make chief marketing officers on any business more effective.

Habit #1 – Reveal Your Brand Ideal And Operationalize It.

I have found through my personal experience that businesses driven by a higher ideal motivate employees and inspire consumers/customers. This leads to sustained strong results. This has been validated by the study I have fielded with the collaboration of Millward Brown Optimor, and the UCLA Anderson School of Management.  Brands that consistently outperform their competition financially and in brand equity are driven by a higher ideal.

The most important work a CMO does is to reveal, rediscover, or reinvent a brand based on a higher ideal that is authentic to its heritage. What would Google be if it were not driven by their higher ideal of helping people access information to improve lives?  What would Method be without its ideal of inspiring happy and healthy homes? What would Red Bull be without its ideal of uplifting mind and body?

That is the first step — revealing the ideal. But, that is only academic unless the CMO and CEO operationalize all of their activities around this ideal. It becomes the basis for their business model and their activity system. And everything must pivot from this — work people do, the capabilities the company builds, the career systems it implements, and the culture it creates. In a few days I will share the Second Habit of Highly Effective CMOs.