How the best CMOs unlock value across the organization

Over the course of my profession spanning corporate marketing, entrepreneurship and promoting, I have witnessed a dramatic transformation of the CMO role. Organizations leverage our unique mix of left- and right-brain capabilities so as to add value to the enterprise in unexpected ways.

No longer confined to the traditional boundaries of promoting and brand management, the modern CMO must turn out to be a “master builder” – an architect of inter-organizational communication and value creation.

This requires breaking out of the marketing silo and taking a more integrated, influential position in our organizations.

The builder’s mindset

The “constructor” approach to marketing goes far beyond constructing campaigns and strategies. He recognizes that a marketer’s true value is revealed outside his departmental sandbox. In other words, to attain true transformation, we must discover and engage directly with the critical organizational processes that have the biggest impact on business strategy. These may include operational workflows, customer support practices, or recent product engineering.

Moreover, a master builder knows that ultimately value creation relies on the organization’s intangible assets, namely talent and technology. Therefore, marketers maximize their influence by directly influencing these areas. We must turn out to be internal thought leaders with a clear field of regard throughout the matrix. However, this may only be achieved through broad organizational integration. In fact, I argue that brand success requires marketing to be the most integrated team in the entire company – a practice I call hyperintegration.

Enabling hyperintegration

Therefore, my first requirement for a chief designer is hyper-integration, something that must be hard-wired into your department’s culture and practices. Here are some recommendations on easy methods to incorporate these qualities into your team’s development:

1. Train your marketing team to be organizational influencers and thought leaders. Encourage them to volunteer frequently for cross-functional initiatives.
2. Set the expectation that executive-level marketers should have the skills to guide, not only participate in, cross-functional initiatives. Our job is to get them there if they don’t seem to be there already.
3. Create an open marketing environment. Everyone should have the opportunity to offer feedback or engage with us in the marketing sandbox. This is a signal of responsibility towards the organization.
4. Construct marketing initiatives in the context of organizational goals. Your team must learn to border their projects based on how they add value to the company and advance the larger strategy.
5. Give your marketing team the opportunity to present to your leadership team. Thanks to this, you possibly can showcase their talents and train them easy methods to effectively persuade and support them.
6. Design your meeting structure to support growth and engagement. Host weekly meetings with comprehensive status updates and details on specific topics presented by team members. Include team-building activities frequently.
7. Make sure everyone attends your marketing meetings. There are no free rides. Find ways for each team member so as to add value, even putting junior marketers in difficult roles to assist them grow.
8. Keep the energy and informality high. Much like a championship football team, you do not need them to play tight. Reduce the power distance and treat marketing as a value creation laboratory.

Main point connector

Have you ever noticed a co-worker sitting quietly in a meeting regardless that he or she doesn’t really understand the discussion? In my experience, this could be attributed to multitasking or simply the fear of appearing ignorant. Regardless, it’s a productivity killer for value creation because the meeting sponsor is denied key information needed for successful execution. Therefore, my second requirement for a master designer is what I call the “master point connector,” a chronically neglected role in most organizations today.

The builder knows he or she must use his or her versatility and unique perspective to bridge communication gaps between departments. Sometimes senior management is not familiar enough with the details; sometimes lower-level employees do not fully understand the strategic context.

Whatever the reason, we’d like to border the dialogue so that it fully penetrates the room. Sometimes this requires asking “dumb” inquiries to make sure all the consequences and implications are fully understood and reconciled. The builder never leaves the meeting until all dots have been properly connected, full participation has occurred, and alignment has been achieved.

Laying the foundations

One of the biggest challenges facing today’s CMO is balancing the need for marketing accountability and return on investment (ROI) with the creative, less tangible facets of branding. Therefore, my third requirement for a master builder is to create the right foundations through transparency and communication. Simply put, if an organization understands what we are proposing and why, it is more more likely to offer the freedom and flexibility to pursue the more imaginative, less quantifiable facets of promoting.

To ensure this understanding, we’d like to border our projects in the context of the organizational goals that have already been aligned. We also needs to set clear expectations for how we are going to measure the success of our projects and all the time close the loop with colleagues after the fact. Moreover, if we do not meet these expectations, it is extremely necessary to not run away from the results. The construction master all the time has the final responsibility, which incorporates sharing lessons learned for the future. This approach builds trust and credibility, allowing greater freedom for future value creation initiatives.

Construction of a hive

As artificial intelligence and other technologies transform marketing, the CMO role will proceed to evolve. In the next 3-5 years, most organizations is not going to have the option to staff all the subject material experts needed for modern marketing.

So my final requirement for a master builder is to cultivate a personal “hive” of freelancers and subcontractors who could be called upon to assist execute the game plan. This means we must turn out to be masters of multi-organizational integration, with plug-and-play external experts who are agile enough to act quickly when called upon, and a core team of marketers who are versatile enough to attach them into projects on a case-by-case basis: individually.

The future belongs to those that can build bridges, connect the dots and drive success in all facets of business. The Master Builder is the custodian of the strategic plan, possessing the mental and practical agility needed to attach with a wide selection of teams inside and outside the organization.

Look for CMOs to turn out to be more involved in technological advancements, customer experience and cultural development, which is where the most added value is created in the company. By leaving the marketing silo, we are going to have the option to freely create value throughout the organization, unlocking the full potential of promoting and becoming irreplaceable leaders in our firms.

Are you able to turn out to be a master builder?