I’ve learned way too much about myself as CEO of my agency for the past 16 years. Being a CEO, especially of a small business where there’s no place to hide, is a TMI role (too much information). Of those many learnings, the one I cherish most is that rarely do I have the best ideas in the room. To think otherwise is simple egomania or, worse, pure delusion.
In my role, I get to see the inner-workings of all types of companies and their marketing groups. I can tell you with certainty that the best ideas for how a company needs to thrive in the digital age are rarely coming out of the executive suite. Now, before you think I might be bashing anyone, let me say that I believe this to be natural and a good thing. Being a CMO or VP of marketing is no longer about possessing the greatest ideas. Rather, a great leader is a brilliant miner for internal innovation. The onslaught of digital over the past 20 years has created a flattening of knowledge, because people are no longer without the tools they need to create. Twenty years ago, not everyone had a computer on their desk with high-powered software, Internet access, and the world’s information—as well as access to each other’s—at their fingertips.
That’s huge. This phenomenon, which I understand sounds totally crazy to any person under 35, has unleashed creative idea potential within companies. The CMO must also know where to look for these ideas. Sure, they might be right under her nose in the marketing department, but I guarantee there are great ideas happening over in IT, customer service, and product design. Those folks in IT understand the opportunities and limitations of technology. They often help us understand that shiny new technology, while cool, isn’t always practical. (OK. Sometimes IT people are also just trying to be pains in our collective asses by being overly practical.)
The fine people over in customer service know with near certainty just how well the company is doing day in and day out, and many of them spend sleepless nights imagining new ways to improve customer experience through online help and forums. If you’re considering a meaningful social media policy, they’d be a good place to start. They might have a much better idea of what those snazzy new product videos should be all about too.
Finally, the hugely creative and innovative people in product design are more and more beginning to think like software developers, with a keen understanding that products in the market are in constant beta and must iterate to stay on top of changing consumer needs. Certainly they could benefit from some leadership around using the Web’s rich data to glean real-time and accurate intelligence about how we’re really doing.
Marketing in particular used to be a classic top down enterprise. The leader at the top was recruited or elevated because he or she had proven through campaigns and/or sales results that he or she had the best ideas. The world of media has become much too fractured, much too technology infused, and much too nimble to expect a single person to harness all of it for absolute mastery. There might be, oh, three people like that in the world, and one of them is the CEO of Apple, OK? Don’t expect that from your marketing leaders. Expect them to be great leaders of people who innovate, who can get teams unused to working together working together, and can keep the brightest light shining on what the customer actually needs to be a great customer.
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