Building A New Marketing Culture

As more and more marketing leaders turn to business agility and its application inside the marketing domain, I’ve observed some common themes that underline the distinct need to bridge understanding and context for the change it brings.

While leaders initially look at the benefits of enabling better performance and improved quality, speed, and value of work, many assume it’s just implementing a ‘plug and play’ system where issues get resolved overnight.

Undoubtedly, if it were that simple, everyone would already be doing it.

The big picture is building a better marketing culture

From the start, leadership must understand and acknowledge the bigger picture. This macro perspective is required because marketers love talking about transformation and innovation but have yet to deliver on it.

So, whether it’s an enterprise-wide transformation or a pilot test, adopting business agility is an opportunity to hit CTL-ALT-DELETE to reshape culture - a chance for a new collaborative culture in marketing.

The very point of it all is that through its mindset, philosophy, principles, and practices is to light the fuse for a fundamental transformation.

For marketing, it allows us to build always-on collaboration with alignment on the right priorities. And sets the foundation for working at a sustainable pace and creating an ecosystem where people grow, are happy, and stick around.

Leaders Can’t Simply Observe

Leaders with that perspective succeed in agile marketing adoption. They know the importance of being directly involved in leading, not simply looking on.

Successful leaders know the real prize is transforming culture for the better. Those are the leaders that dig in to support teams as they gain the necessary ‘muscle memory’ with their practices. Those leaders are the ones who walk the talk and show this is not cosmetic change. It is for real.

The Need is More Urgent Than Ever

The consistent shortening of CMO tenure is no doubt a direct result of old-school marketing management needing fundamental change. From the rise of digital, Martech, and data (amongst other factors), new tactics and slivers of new skills define today’s mix across paid, owned, shared, and earned media. Efforts across brand and performance portfolios now span multiple niche areas, and we continue to double down on new tactics and tech that require deep know-how to set up and execute. (Hello ChatGPT)

Yet, anything that addresses how we work together to orchestrate a consistent and intentional culture of collaboration gets ignored and has become marketing leadership’s biggest challenge and opportunity.

As Marketing Brew outlines, "it is not just working well with other departments, good CMOs also have to work well within their own. It's so important from an individual perspective to be a part of an incredible team culture, and I think leaders have to understand that you're only as good as your team."

Today's CMO is in the spotlight of executives, stakeholders, and peers, but their teams and individuals inside the marketing department await them the most to drive change. So, they must begin, in earnest, putting people first.

Commitment Over Quick Fixes
Real change is much more than a prescriptive quick-fix formula or process. As with anything worthwhile, a new operating system of agility requires patience to see the dynamics unfold. It takes time and effort.

As such, marketing leaders and executives need to be self-aware and avoid any conflicting behaviors or patterns that get in the way of adoption. Then, having set the climate by living values, they must get out of the way to let empowered teams flourish and exercise collaboration at the core.

It might not be a quick fix imagined, but leadership will realize the desired outcome of transformation from the commitment to nurture and evolve a culture of collaboration.

Connect the Dots Early
Here are some ways leaders approach connecting the dots early on for themselves and their teams:

• Know what you want to achieve: Have a vision, communicate transparently, and socialize for alignment. Agility has many features and benefits; look to the longer-term and longer-lasting outcomes and value.
• Establish commitment over compliance: Change is hard. It is harder to embrace change when it's "you must." That's compliance. Commitment is a whole other level needed.
• Tap into the human side of agile: Teams are not abstract entities; they are made up of individuals. Self-organized, energized teams need elbow room to grow and optimize, not micromanagement.
• Quantify Team Success: You can only improve upon what you measure. Just as we measure marketing performance with results, we must also measure across team dimensions for continuous improvement.
• Dive the wreck to find the treasure: CMOs and marketing leaders have known and unknown blind spots. Have the courage to investigate, explore and conquer FOFO - the Fear of Finding Out.
• Go slow to go fast: Don't try everything all at once. It can be overwhelming and stifle early momentum. Optimal performance is when each part is known intimately and linked together.
• Put values ahead of frameworks and processes: The Agile Marketing Navigator framework works exceptionally well - but on its own, without connecting to agile values and principles, it becomes "how," and the narrative of "why" gets lost.
• Ensure a safe environment: Teams and individuals must be able to have a voice and not fear reprisals or negativity with comments, critiques, or challenges (respectfully, of course). 

Yes, You Can

It's always challenging, but real change can be achieved if we consider what is at stake. So, for leaders and teams:

Yes, transformation can succeed even in today's post-pandemic world with a multi-generational workforce operating in a hybrid environment.

Yes, it can begin to build and breed new dynamics from new ways of thinking, working, and sharing.

Yes, it can reshape a self-sustaining culture of collaboration.

Yes, in marketing.

Written By Michael Seaton, Partner, NavigateAgile