Executive Yak

A group of marketing executives recently met to tackle this question and came up with these general observations about Big M small m marketing:

1.       Big M is the vision that is bigger than the year or the quarter. It’s 3-5 years out. What do I want my story to look like in 2012?

2.       Little m is the tactics, executing on the longer-term plan and leading in the areas that result in customer intimacy, such as product definition, generating leads, product messaging and more.

3.       Big M is the starting point for everything, and  the little m follows. Big M goals always end up translating to a tactical measurement.

4.       Big M takes on increased importance when you are undergoing market shifts and when you have to ask yourself if you are heading in the right direction.

5.       Big M is the brand, the promise to your customers and the decisions made on a strategic level to deliver on that promise.

6.       Big M tends to lead when sales are good. Little m takes on enhanced importance when sales are bad and when the economy is down.

7.       Big M is the brand, product and service strategy that make up the integrated marketing programs. Big M leads when those programs are integrated and weave a brand story – they work together seamlessly.

So, which one is more important? Big M or small m?

Perhaps the question is mistaken to begin with. Consider this statement:

Brilliant strategy, poorly executed, won’t win.

Mediocre strategy, brilliantly executed has a chance.

The reality for us at this moment in time when most organizations are experiencing more than usual stress and there are many complex issues, is that we gravitate toward the whiteboard and it’s all about acting quickly and the small m. In todays’ economy it’s much more about tactics. When life is good organizations gravitate toward the big M. On the other hand, in a down economy, we really do have a unique opportunity to be very strategic, stay the course, revisit assumptions, and re-prioritize tactics. Your competitors may even disappear…some companies are taking advantage of this opportunity.

There are in fact many reasons our question cannot be answered with a universal truth. A variety of factors play in. For example: size  and maturity of the company (smaller companies can be more nimble, execute more easily and tend to focus more on tactics), type of industry, organizational drivers (sales research, product, operation), public/private,  culture, age and role of the brand, and what the most pressing and critical business issues are.  

Why does the question even matter to you? For one, if you don’t know with certainty what the answer is for your company, how do you know that your own style, passion and competence is aligned?  How aligned are your drivers with the drivers of your business?  What is your tap root? What is the tap root of your CEO? If you want to live in the Big M space, are you better off if your CEO does not know anything about marketing? Is there  a mismatch? Have you surrounded yourself with people that have different tap roots?  If not, you may not be growing, since everyone is sucking the same nutrients out of the soil.

As a marketing executive managing your career, you need to pay attention to all of these questions.  You need to know who you are and where you are.  Can you be both types of leaders?  Know what you are asking your team to be. Find out what their tap root is. Is it partially because we do not do a good job of aligning our own drivers with those of our companies that the turnover of marketing executives is so high? If you know that you love the day-to-day battle, getting the work done, closing the deal, with the attention span of a pre-schooler,  do you decline the job that requires a “big plan” marketer. Do HR professionals have a good understanding of what makes a god Big M versus a good small m marketing executive and do they hire against the best leadership profile for the company at any given point in time.

Every  three or four years I have the  “seat at the table discussion” with a group of senior HR executives. Just recently it was time again, and I must say I was encouraged by the confidence I sensed. It was a fascinating discussion?  While many HR executives still struggle to gain credibility as business partners, we have come a long way.

So, what do HR executives that are invited to the table do? Here are some of the nuggets I took away:

1.       They speak the language of business, which is finance. One of the first things one of the participating executives asked was: “How many of you know what tripping a credit covenant is? Do you know the balance sheet, the P&L, what the cost drivers are, ROI?”

2.       They are confident about their contribution and take credit when appropriate. Being too humble can be detrimental. They invite their peers into their tent. They do not compete with the CFO…but complement and partner up.

3.       They don’t focus on the past, whine or get their feelings hurt easily.

4.       They develop hard metrics that make a difference to the business and spend time on analytics/implications of business decisions. They talk about how what they do impact assets of the organization. After all, HR controls the number one or two largest expense in the company. One executive suggested that we “count goals while we are on the ice.”

5.       They spend time on the shop floor and experience the product/services first hand. They make sure employees understand the business.

6.       They are the confidant of the CEO, the one that the CEO talks to about what keeps him or her awake during the night. They tell their CEOs the hard truths: “you may fire me for this,  but  you need to know (the emperor has no clothes).”

7.       They are stewards of the company culture.

8.       They have mastered the basics of HR and gained the credibility to move beyond.

9.       They are solution oriented and proactively work on issues before they get to the “no” stage.

10.   They are focused on business issues and understand that what HR does ultimately needs to grow the business or add productivity. Someone suggested we “drop the HR label and  represent ourselves as business persons first.”

11.   They are not embarrassed about the soft skills they bring to the table.

12.   They  focus on their teams and surround themselves with top HR tacticians.

13.   They say “thank you” a lot.

Bottomline:  more HR executives seem to believe and know that they belong at the table. I look forward to revisiting the question again in a few years.