If I only Knew Then, What I Know Now-A “Play Book” For a High Performing Team

Does this sound familiar?  When campaigns underperform or revenue numbers are missed, Marketing often takes the brunt of the accusations declaring "failure”.  Sometimes the finger pointing is valid, but many times there’s no validity behind the claims. But regardless of fact or fiction, the old adage stands, if people repeat a statement long enough and consistently enough, over time, it will be perceived as reality. (Have I touched a sensitive nerve yet?)   I think it’s also fair to say, no one wants to work 50, 60 or more hours a week and find themselves as the “default” excuse for a campaign that underperforms.  It’s de-motivating to say the least, and it certainly doesn’t solve the key question senior leadership is asking:  “What happened last month? And Why?”  Both are legitimate questions that deserve a reliable explanation.

 

When I was working my way through the ranks I didn’t have the benefit of a “play book” to help me structure a high performing team.  It was all trial and error…..and the errors were sometimes painful.  So in the spirit of “paying it forward” I’ve decided to share what I know today (recognizing I know much less than I did 10 years ago) the following is the first, in a series of articles which will focus on the value of operationalizing your marketing department and increase the overall performance of your team. 

Step I:  Define the Administrative Rules of the Game:

1.     Align your marketing org chart to support the corporate performance metrics.

·         Applying this approach decreases the risk of missing an objective, holds people accountable, and provides individual stakeholders a clear understanding that they are “actively” participating in the success (or failure) of the business.

·         I assign every person with some “piece” of the objectives.  A quantifiable metric which an individual can own and control the outcome.  The purpose of this step is fueled with one part strategy and one part individual development.

·         From a strategic perspective, applying a pyramidal approach can have a significant impact in meeting or even exceeding goals.  Each person or team’s quantified objective(s) should add up to the whole number traditionally held by the Marketing team leader.

·         From a development perspective there are actually 2 aspects to consider:

§ First, every Director, Manager and Assistant should “feel” they are a critical part of meeting/exceeding revenue objectives(and they are). Sales people feel this every day, but rarely does revenue ownership trickle through an entire marketing organization.   When you think about it from this perspective, it’s really not too surprising marketing and sales will sometimes find themselves at odds with one another.

§ Secondly, the only real way for our second and third generation leaders to understand the level of accountability held at the highest levels of the organization is to take on similar responsibilities in much smaller proportions.  The best way to really understand the pressure at the top is to live it.  I encourage anyone who moves forward with this recommendation to integrate mini  “operational review” meetings which take place on a monthly basis.  You should apply similar intensity as experienced in your company’s official operational reviews.  As a leader, be warned, these meetings will most likely be a little rough in the beginning,  but over time, and with your guidance you’ll come to love and appreciate the value of the data that’s presented.

·         Finally, team members will begin to self-regulate their priorities as it relates to revenue.  This doesn’t happen overnight but, once a single review cycle has processed through (managed by the assigned quantified revenue objectives), it’s quite amazing how the team gels together, and insignificant projects which once seemed important start falling off the map.

2.     The revenue and expense objectives assigned to the SVP/VP of Marketing must also be aligned with all other business units leaders including Product, Sales, Operations, IT  and Engineering

·         This is a hidden trap, and it’s not uncommon for an organization to believe “we’re doing this today”.  Take a closer look at the departmental and individual objectives, and you might find that some business units have juxtaposing objectives which inadvertently work against another business unit's objectives. 

·         An example of this might be, if geographic expansion is the agreed upon strategy for growth and engineering or operations have an objective to reduce last year’s expenses by 20% the 2 objectives end up as incongruous and the departments are at odds with one another vs. working synergistically.

3.     Further reduce the risk of missing an objective by designing comp plans for those Directors or Managers who have been assigned a revenue objective and weight their end of year bonuses with a meaningful scale for meeting and exceeding objectives.

·         Nothing adds more motivation, and increased quality to work production, than money.  No news there, but ironically, few organizations attach bonuses to individual revenue achievement.  I’m not sure why this is the case.  But regardless of the reason, it works, and it works well.

 

·         Quantified objectives eliminate the issue of expected bonus “entitlements” derived from working hard over the course of the year vs. making a visible impact on the company’s performance.  Either the individual succeeded in meeting the objective or they did not.    This should not be interpreted to mean you shouldn’t recognize the employee who has worked some irregularly long hours, or done a particularly great job on a special assignment, however that recognition should be more immediate (More on this topic in a near future article).

I am the first to acknowledge that these first 3 recommendations are much easier to state than to implement, but with reviews in progress or quickly approaching, I can’t think of a better time to take this bull by the horns.  In the end, the whole organization will benefit….it’s worth the healthy discussions you might encounter.

Next week I’ll post 3 more “Administrative Rules” that will increase the performance of your marketing team.

Have a thought you want to share?  We all win by hearing other’s opinions and comments….

Comments

[dissertation write up]

Blogs are good for every one where we get lots of information for any topics nice job keep it up !!!