First 100 days

(and this really is an unashamedly FMCG view!)

Over several years of involvement with marketing careers, I have found that marketers aspire in general to one of two career outcomes. Either they want to stay close to brands, products and consumers; in other words they want to stay as marketers. Or they aspire to some form of general business leadership role as “General Manager� or “Chairman� of a company. For these latter people the route through marketing is precisely that – a route through to some other form of business leadership role. Some people have said to me that they want to keep their options open and that they aspire simply to a senior role down either path. And clearly there are some people who are talented enough to build the capability to be great in either role. However, it is my contention that truly successful general business leadership is distinct from great marketing leadership, and that each separate role require distinct and different competencies and experiences; in other words they belong ultimately to separate career paths.

Consider this:

As CEO of a regional European business you are appointing a new general manager for one of your major markets. Two promising candidates are proposed, both from a marketing background and both with a strong track record. One of them is a great brand developer, having developed consumer mixes for the region supported by great advertising. He has worked in the relevant country and has some experience of consumer activation marketing. His most recent role has been as regional brand director for a portfolio of brands. The second candidate has an impressive track record as a marketer within local companies. She has some brand development experience, has also spent several years working in sales and had one assignment in logistics management. Her most recent role was as marketing director in a medium sized territory. Pretty obvious which one would get the job, isn’t it?
Reverse the scenario, and assess the candidates for the role of SVP Brands across the region. Once again, the answer is pretty obvious.

Now although this might sound like an invented scenario, in my experience I have found it all too common. The tragedy has been that each of these two individuals would have thought themselves worth a crack in either of the roles; and neither of them would have considered their likely progression into the very senior role with anything like enough forethought and planning.

It is a competitive world, if you will allow me the cliché, and natural talent combined with a successful track record in “marketing� is not always going to land you that top job – because there might always be someone with equal talent and a more appropriate track record. So, figure out what you aspire to be as a marketer, and then plan your career development accordingly!

Posted by david at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The quick wins itch...

The harder you scratch it, the worse it hurts.

There is a real paradox here, of the 'More haste; less speed" variety.

The harder you try, the worse you succeed. The more you plan, the less you control.

Maybe what marketers need - and indeed may have something of a gift for...is a sort of strategic unfocus...

Posted by Editor at 9:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Most organisations who responded to the latest survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development reported that they use external executive coaches, and over a third reported that they will use more external coaches in the future. However, most companies also acknowledge that one of the biggest challenges in using coaches is to ensure that coaching is linked to the business objectives. Coaching does seem to have become a bit of a fashion item or symbol of “executive status�, but used properly a coach can be a major and very positive intervention in executive development.

Personally, I believe that external coaching does have a positive role to play in executive development – well, I would say that wouldn’t I – and in particular I believe that a good executive coach can be a key element in supporting the success of a senior executive as they seek to establish themselves in a new role.
I have recently been working with an executive just appointed to a big regional role. There are three elements to the work that we are doing.

These are:
• Job Content
• Transformational Leadership
• Sustainability

The first of these is self-explanatory, but is in my experience often overlooked. The reason it is overlooked is that the best coaching takes place when the coachee opens themselves up to a need to develop and improve. Doing this implies vulnerability, which is precisely what most new appointees are in fact desperate to avoid showing – viz many of the other blogs around this site. The value of an external coach in this situation is that the coach carries no threat to the longer-term security of the new appointee; maybe unlike a new boss or new colleagues on the board! It is not the coach’s job to come up with the answers to the new challenges, but it is the coach’s role to help and support the new appointee as they explore these challenges and formulate ways of overcoming them.
Most appointments bring with them a big step up in responsibility; and often the most significant of these is about raising one’s capability as a leader. Moving on to the board of a company with shared leadership responsibility for the whole enterprise as well as personal leadership responsibility for a complete business function is often a complete transformation from what has gone before. It requires transformational leadership. And once again it is sometimes difficult to admit to a sense of vulnerability about this transformation to close colleagues, to the CEO or even to the HR Director. On the other hand a properly established and professional coaching relationship can support much of the support that is needed.

Finally Sustainability. I had a boss in the Middle East who said to me about two months after I arrived – “For goodness sake, remember this is a marathon and not a 100m sprint�. In other words, I had started off at a pace that was only sustainable over the shorter term. For the sake of personal well-being and, in my view for the sake of the business too, we should all work at a much slower pace than is generally the case today. However it is simply not possible to run at marathon pace in a new role, and having started at a sprint the expectation builds that the sprint is what you will keep on doing. So personal sustainability becomes an issue. Part of this is quite simply about physical energy – good health and stamina are at a premium; but a large part of it is also about emotional energy, and this is the part that tends to get overlooked. Once again, a properly established coaching relationship can provide much needed emotional support, and can provide the space to rebuild emotional energy, confidence and self-belief.

So, when you have that new contract in your sticky hand and before you actually step into the new role, speak with the new boss and HR Director about getting coaching support. It will pay off – in the short term, the medium term, and the long term!

Posted by david at 9:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)