I read two posts last week that got me thinking about superheroes and sidekicks. One was by Rob Enderle entitled  HP’s Hurd, Dunn and Fiorina Could Learn from Superheroes. The other was on AdAge.com by Jack Neff entitled Meet the New and Evolved CMO Rock Stars.

As I’ve been interviewing CMOs for my upcoming book, I’ve met some very talented leaders who go about their roles in very different ways. Some view their roles as supporting their CEOs and bringing about the vision that their bosses have set forth. Others are the lead change agents for their brands and find themselves (comfortably) in the spotlight as they share their plans.

So my question for you is, should CMOs be Batman or Robin? Or is there a better tandem to use as a model for CEO/CMO partnering?

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Should CMOs be Batman or Robin?

I had a great conversation this week with Colin Buechler, Senior VP of Sales and Marketing at Lifesize, a fast-growing video conferencing company, about improving collaboration between the sales organization and the marketing organization. Colin recently added the sales responsibility to his role after guiding the marketing function over the past several years. He has encouraged his team to drop the term “ownership” and replace it with “accountability.” His insight is applicable to the relationships between any two groups or individuals, not just sales and marketing.

Let’s look at these two words according to the Random House Dictionary:

Ownership 1. the state or fact of being an owner 2. legal right of possession; proprietorship

Accountability 1. the state of being accountable, liable or answerable

There is a lot of talk in business journals about getting employees to “take ownership.” The problem with that terminology is it implies I own something and you don’t. This is often used in the context of defining roles and responsibilities. With employment anxiety, owning something is felt to be justification for job security and therefore validates the continued need for a person’s role. It is also used to “keep people off my turf” and conveys an attitude of “I don’t need you.” It leads to extended and contentious conversations that are often unproductive and trust diminishing.

Accountability, on the hand, implies responsibility but not independent authority. It clearly communicates that you have an important role to play and that you take it seriously. It also leaves open the possibilities that you can work with others to achieve the goals for which you are accountable. Stephen Covey says, “accountability breeds response-ability.”

Language is an important tool for building collaborative relationships. If your team is struggling with this issue, try shifting the terminology to accountability from ownership and see if it helps you as it has Colin.

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Why the difference between “ownership” and “accountability” can be huge

In late June Spencer Stuart released its annual survey of CMO tenure and the results were a bit surprising. Tenure has lengthened to 35 months, up almost seven months over 2008. Tom Seclow, in an interview with BrandWeek, speculated that there were two main reasons. “The trend has been increasing and we assumed that marketers were doing a better job getting it right and becoming more attuned with CEOs and management teams and doing all the things they should be doing. I suppose the dramatic jump from last year to this year has got to be influenced by the economy as well.”

In my experience, CMOs leave their jobs for one of three main reasons:

1. They failed – to improve the business results or to fit into the culture. This is the most publicized reason for departures. Often the cause of the failure is due to misaligned expectations by the CEO and executive team. The new CMO is hired to “fix the brand” but is given control over only one of the four Ps: promotion. After launching a dazzling new ad campaign, enthusiasm wanes and, after a year of business results that didn’t fundamentally improve: The CMO must go!

2. They succeeded – in improving business results. They are hailed as “talented change agents” or “effective business leaders” and either promoted into a general manager/COO role within the same company or recruited to apply their skills at a new firm. AdAge recently published an article on the changing nature of CMOs, highlighting their increased focus on business accountability.

3. They got bored – and were ready for a new challenge. Marketing leaders are generally very curious people and are driven to solve problems and overcome challenges. After two to three years, the primary mission they were brought in to achieve has been achieved. The brand has been revitalized. The company has grown. The marketing organization has improved its effectiveness. “Now what? I need a new challenge.” And off they go to slay the next dragon.

During the past two years the economy has affected all three of these reasons. It has been hard to blame the CMO with everything else that has been going on as the industry tries to reconcile itself to the current economy. It has been difficult find major success stories with which to credit the CMO. And it has been too turbulent an environment to risk a secure job just to cure boredom.

So I predict that as the economy improves we’ll see more movement in the CMO offices. That’s my take. What’s yours?

This is a post from Marketing Has Changed by John Ellett. Subscribe to my feed.

Tenure of CMOs is lengthening. But will that last?

I wanted to share a few of the blogs written by CMOs that I follow and add some new ones I hadn’t seen before. What I discovered in researching new ones is that there are very few blogs written by CMOs! I was amazed and a bit disappointed by what I found. Here we are in a year when social media is all the rage and the executives who should be showing the way are absent. Sure, many of them support corporate blogs, but that’s different. And, yes, many CMOs are on Twitter (more on that in another post soon). But come on ladies and gentlemen. Step up!

You are the brand champions for your companies. The change agents for marketing. The ones who say you lead by example. So where are you? I searched Google for “CMO Blogs” and you  weren’t to be found. In fact the Top 10 List of CMO Bloggers returned in the search was published in 2006.

So my hats off to these five CMOs for taking time to share their thoughts in more than 140 characters!

1. Nigel Dessau: Hosted on the AMD blog site, Nigel shares his insights on the business in a personal way. But he also writes separate blog called The Three Minute Mentor, which contains quick, career-related advice and offers answers to common questions.
2. Sam Decker: Soon-to-be former CMO of BazaarVoice, Sam shares his insights on social commerce and digital marketing.
3. Jim Davis: Jim is the CMO of SAS and shares his insights on business, analytics and technology.
4. John Dragoon: When John, CMO of Novell,  takes time to write a post, he really writes a thoughtful piece.
5. Randall Beard: As EVP of Nielsen, Randall shares his insights from his vantage point of seeing lots of media data.

I was going to include Barry Judge from BestBuy but he hasn’t posted in a year (moved to Twitter) and Jeffrey Haylett, but he left Kodak for his book and television future.

Who am I missing? There must be more CMO bloggers out there. Let me know who you follow. Also weigh in on why there aren’t more out there.

This is a post from Marketing Has Changed by John Ellett. Subscribe to my feed.

5 good CMO blogs. Why aren’t there more?

I had an encounter this week that reminded me the difference between policies and principles. The pre-owned car I bought a few months ago came with Sirius Radio and the subscription was still active when I left the lot. That was great until last week when it finally expired and I called to have it renewed. I was willing to pay to restart the service under my name and credit card, but I was informed that the company’s “policy” would not allow that until the previous subscriber terminated the service. I was instructed to call the previous owner to have him take care of the cancellation. Since I bought the car from a dealer, I had no way of knowing who that was, and the Sirius representative couldn’t tell me (based on company policies). Needless to say, I was baffled by the company’s response. Eventually Chris, a representative of the dealership, got involved. It was not the dealer’s standard policy to resolve issues like this, but its principle for outstanding customer service was the only justification Chris needed to go above and beyond the normal procedures.

In an effort to codify a company’s principles, expected behavior is defined as policies. Yet in the case of Sirius, all the training was on the policies, not on the underlying principles. And I would imagine Sirius’ recognition (or punishment) system is oriented around policy compliance. What it seems to have missed, and what the auto dealer got, was the “why” behind the policy.

Here are a few questions to consider at your company:

1. Do your customer-facing representative reply to customers by quoting your policies or by explaining the principles that guide your decisions?
2. Do your team members feel empowered by your principles or stifled by your policies?
3. Does your company respond to corporate incidences based on guiding principles or based on rigid policy?

What situations have you encountered recently where policies got in the way of principles? Conversely, where have you encountered someone doing the right thing despite gray areas in company policies?

This is a post from Marketing Has Changed by John Ellett. Subscribe to my feed.

Do you lead based on “policies” or on “principles?”

Peter Horst SVP, Capital One Bank

I’ve had the privilege of knowing Peter Horst for years; he’s now Senior Vice President of Marketing at Capital One Bank, and I’ve always found him to be a smart and thoughtful marketing leader. So it was a pleasure to discuss his approach to starting his new role at the bank. Among the key steps he took in his first month was to publish what became known as “Peter’s Principles,” a summary of his beliefs about building and operating a high-performance marketing organization. His four tenets are simply stated but powerful if followed. Peter insists on:

1. Clear Accountability: Be 100% aligned with the clients’ business goals and priorities; share the successes, yet have clear accountabilities; be transparent in your actions.
2. Brilliant Execution: Always be on time, on budget, on strategy, on brand; be highly coordinated and totally aligned; set clear expectations and deliver on them consistently with efficient processes and rapid response.
3. Bold Moves: Bring new and provocative thinking with a clear, strong point of view; continuously test bold hypotheses and make major impacts on the business.
4. Seamless Collaboration: Act as one company, one team and one outcome; have each others’ backs; engage in candid dialogue and constructive yet respectful conflict; no drama, no intrigue, no in-fighting, none!

I was particularly struck by that last point. Creating a culture of “no drama, no intrigue and no in-fighting” is not easy, especially in large companies in challenging industries. It starts at the top by declaring a zero-tolerance policy and then reinforcing it with actions on a daily basis. Yet, in the end, it creates an environment that is not only more fun to work in, but one that performs better.

What are your operating principles for building a high-performance marketing organization? If you don’t have any, consider borrowing Peter’s. If you do have a set of principles, please share them with us.

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How to build a high-performance marketing organization: lessons from Capital One Bank’s marketing leader, Peter Horst

Sixteen years ago I started the marketing communications function for a little PC company in Austin, so it was a real pleasure to sit down a few weeks ago with Erin Nelson, the current CMO of Dell, to share stories about leading marketing and being a change agent. Erin is a classically trained marketer with experiences at P&G and Pepsico. She stepped into her current role after 10 years of various marketing responsibilities at Dell. She took over the role from a gentleman who had come into the company two years before and had implemented a series of moves to centralize many of the marketing responsibilities. Those actions were recently described to me by another Dell exec as a “train wreck,” so Erin and I discussed how she approached getting things back on track.

What were your priorities when you stepped into the CMO job?

“The first was to restore the brand and the company reputation. The second was to rebuild confidence in the marketing function.”

How long did it take you to form your hypothesis about your plan to address those priorities?

“Since I had the benefit of being inside the company already, the problems that needed to be addressed were pretty clear. We had to move more control of the marketing resources back under the business unit leaders where they could be aligned more closely with the segment and regional opportunities. We needed to renew faith in our marketing team members that they had career paths and to provide them the training they needed to be successful. We had to fix the agency relationship with WPP so that we could get effective work done. And we needed a unifying brand project that the organization could rally around. Within 30 days the team was in place to begin tackling these issues, and progress was made on all of these over the next 6 – 9 months.”

Was there resistance to change?

“There really wasn’t resistance since the problems were commonly understood, but there was skepticism that things would really get better.”

What is your philosophy on what marketing functions should be centralized and what should be decentralized?

“We have centralized brand strategy, social media, global communications, market intelligence and agency relationships. All the other demand-generation activities are managed in the business units. Like many companies, we’re trying to find the right balance of resources allocated to the centralized brand building programs and business unit demand-generation activities.”

Erin is well grounded as to where the company stands, including both its positive attributes and its challenges. If you were in Erin’s shoes, what would you be doing to further enhance Dell’s brand reputation?

This is a post from Marketing Has Changed by John Ellett. Subscribe to my feed.

Marketing leader of the week: Erin Nelson, CMO, Dell

Are you feeling any of the following:

• Frustration that the economy and budgets remain challenged?
• Exhaustion from working hard just to stay afloat?
• Dismay that it may take two more years just to get back to where you were two years ago?

If so, you are not alone. So why do I believe that it is time to choose the attitude of optimism for the second half of 2010? Not because I have a crystal ball that significantly better economic conditions are just around the corner, because I don’t. It’s because the change in perspective from half-empty to half-full can effect your outcome more than you think.

Sports psychologists counsel their player to turnaround their performance by simply walking with their heads up instead of staring at the ground in the “woe is me” posture. This basic act has a physiological effect on the athlete that improves their mental and physical acuity, which ultimately impacts how well they perform.

The same is true in business. Focusing on assets and opportunities over shortcomings and obstacles makes it easier to see what’s possible and channel your energies in that direction. A great ambassador of this philosophy is Bert Jacobs, co-founder of Life is Good. I spent an evening with Bert at an Inc 500 event a few years ago and was impressed by how he turned a simple idea into a terrific company. If you want a bit of encouragement from him, watch the video embedded on the article page of this post.

I recently used a song at our “half time” meeting that will be my theme song for the rest of the year. Bing Crosby and Dr. John have both sung these lyrics:

You’ve got to accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative. Latch on to the affirmative. Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.

As a marketing leader, you set the tone for your organization. Your positive energy can be contagious. Your sense of what’s possible, encouraging. Your hope for the future, inspiring. As you set out for the second half of this year, which half of the glass will you be focused on?

This is a post from Marketing Has Changed by John Ellett. Subscribe to my feed.

A case for optimism

Margaret Franco, VP of IMC at AMD

Marketing is inherently a team sport. Some team members have leading roles. Others play more supportive roles. I was reminded of this last week while having lunch with Margaret Franco, VP of Integrated Marketing Communications at AMD. Margaret is establishing new methods for her team to work with the broader marketing organization in a more collaborative manner to develop and implement integrated communications programs. Her team gets direction from the product marketing and channel marketing groups, then develops and executes the communications plans. Since this is a fairly common scenario in many marketing organizations, I asked her how the new processes were working and got an insightful answer I thought I’d share.

“In a service role, success is measured by how much others take credit for your ideas. We have a team goal, not an individual goal, so let others take the credit,” said Margaret. “This is a good indication that there is a shared sense of ownership and pride in the work.”

This reminded me of the speechwriter who labors away at creating an eloquent address for which the politician receives all the credit. Some people have a difficult time playing this way, especially in tough economic times when job security is a distant memory. Yet, those that find satisfaction in helping others succeed can actually improve their standing by becoming an indispensable and trusted ally.

If you are in a service organization and want to know how well you are doing, look around and see how much your work is being presented by others. It’s an excellent barometer for your success.

This is a post from Marketing Has Changed by John Ellett. Subscribe to my feed.

Are others taking credit for your work? Let’s hope so!

I’ve been following a debate that was prompted by a column in Entrepreneur Magazine by George Cloutier, The Turnaround Ace. The title, “Your Company Is not a Democracy: The most effective leaders are benevolent dictators who hold employees accountable,” sums up his point of view. Here are a few of the more provocative assertions:

• Let your employees respect but fear you
• Tell your employees: “Don’t think — obey”
• The only opinion that counts is that of ownership
• It’s not your job to dispense praise, affirmation, hugs and cookies to your staff

He does make some good points. Provide clear direction. Reward success. Hold people accountable. Fire poor performers.

A contrary perspective was provide in the post “Biased Justification for Poor Leadership” by Mike Henry. Mike asserts being a tyrant is not being a good leader. “Employees are declaring independence, leaving jobs and going on their own, because of tyrants just like this. If I have to wrangle cats or mow yards for a living, I’d do it to keep from working for another one of these ‘my way or the highway’ types.”

So my question for you is this. Do dictators make good marketing leaders? Do clarity of direction, speed of action, ruthless accountability and dispassionate decision-making outweigh inspiration, collaboration and employee engagement? Which style is most likely to yield positive company outcomes during difficult times? Have you worked with a dictator before? What was your experience? The company’s experience?

Mine was not pleasant! Working in an environment of fear was not productive. The “tyrant” was emotionally unstable, which created a high degree of uncertainty and a desire to get out as soon as possible. Fortunately for me, the “tyrant” was thrown out by the CEO before I had to leave. But the experience made a lasting impact on me.

How about you? What’s your story?

This is a post from Marketing Has Changed by John Ellett. Subscribe to my feed.

Do dictators make good marketing leaders?