John Ellett
The overriding theme is that, as a new CMO (or marketing leader with another title), you have been hired to be a change agent. In some companies that means dramatic and disruptive change, impacting brand strategy, product plans, channel partners and communications programs. (Location 35)
The first is a preparation phase. It begins in the interview process and usually lasts about 30 days after starting the new job. It starts with getting clarity about the magnitude and pace of change your organization needs and what your executive team will support. It’s followed by you translating those expectations into your agenda. It is important to distinguish your agenda from your strategy. While you are expected to show up with an idea of how you will solve the challenge you have been given, it is not wise to declare “the answer” on Day One. The strategy will follow in the next phase, but you’ll need a clear agenda at the outset. (Location 40)
Finally, you’ll need to get the insights that will inform your strategy. These include “voice of the customer” insights, key market trends, competitive strengths and weaknesses and insights from within your own firm. Armed with clear expectations, a solid agenda, strong relationships and actionable insights, you can focus on the second phase of the process, the planning phase. (Location 48)
If you take too long to formalize the decisions around strategy and organization you may be viewed as a weak and ineffective leader, which will undermine your credibility. Conversely, if you act with too much haste before you have a clear picture, a sound strategy and organizational allies, you may be unsuccessful in the long run. (Location 55)
While the timing of this phase will vary, the sequence rarely does. The order — strategy, structure, people and process — is consistent and provides a framework around which you can order your key decisions. Once you have addressed these areas you can begin focusing on executing your strategy, the final phase of the process. (Location 59)
To execute your strategy you’ll need a detailed action plan with responsible parties assigned to every activity. You’ll want a measurement framework to assess progress toward your goals and to provide feedback for ongoing course correction and program optimization. (Location 62)
I’m not here to maintain the status quo but to be a leader of positive change for my organization. (Location 81)
So what enabled Stengel to get off to a strong start in his first 100 days? “I spoke to people,” he says. “I traveled like crazy. I listened. I did some data gathering, time and motion studies. I looked at what people were working on. I found out what people valued. I talked to a lot of outsiders. Then I put my team together.” (Location 117)
Once his team was in place, planning became critical: “I was real clear on what we were going to focus on, what success looked like and what the plan was. We continually refined it. We measured against it. We met monthly and, every month, we reviewed some area of the plan. We got into a rhythm and it really worked well.” (Location 120)
CLARIFYING EXPECTATIONS SO YOU CAN MEET (AND EXCEED) THEM Success as a marketing leader begins with expectations. Your challenge? That you fully understand and are aligned with… (Location 125)
The beginning of your journey as a new CMO is a moment of profound anticipation. The status quo is no longer acceptable and you — as the new marketing leader — are being brought in to lead some kind of change. The challenge up front is to ensure you are locked on to the overarching goals and objectives that are critical to your organization. It’s vital that there is clear agreement on these expectations. Otherwise you are vulnerable to… (Location 127)
expected of you. That’s why this first factor in the 100-day framework is so critical. This is the point where you align yourself with the individuals who are most essential to your achievement. The steps you take from this point must be consistent with the expectations of your core team. This is the only way to build trust and confidence. This is the only way to establish momentum and continue building it. And this is… (Location 134)
IT BEGINS DURING THE HIRING PROCESS The clarification of expectations actually starts during the hiring process. This is where you have your first conversations with members of your team and, most important, your boss. You typically have an opportunity to ask probing and far-reaching questions that will give you a high-level perspective of the opportunities and challenges before you. Indeed, it’s important to maximize this chance to gain access and insight. You should reach out to the individuals who will have the greatest influence on your performance — and those whose perceptions of your performance matter most. It’s important to learn as much as you can at this point. One common mistake… (Location 138)
You need to know: What are the expectations? What kind of change is expected? Is the level of expected change transformational or incremental? What are the… (Location 147)
This is the time for determining whether the expectations of others are realistic and achievable. If not, it is necessary to refine or reset them. You are in a strong position to suggest — based on your experience — how existing goals might be made more achievable. If, in the end, you have the sense that you are being set up to… (Location 148)
This was his measure of success for organizational improvement. (Location 158)
KEY QUESTIONS TO CONFRONT AT THE OUTSET At the outset of your first 100 days you need to raise a key set of questions that clarifies what is expected of you as comprehensively as possible. (Location 171)
Question #1: What’s the Overriding Goal I’m Expected to Accomplish? (Location 177)
The purpose of addressing this question is to understand what the organization is trying to achieve. You don’t need to know how you are going to achieve it at this point. You are being presented with a challenge. The solution for addressing it remains to be determined — and should be yours to decide. (Location 185)
Question #2: How Will My Success Be Measured in 100 Days? Six Months? One Year? (Location 190)
What you are looking for is clarity about the pace of change. That’s where the 100-day, 6-month and 12-month checkpoints come into play. Since most of a marketer’s activities don’t produce results overnight, you need to evaluate outcomes over time. You need to set particular milestones or timeframes and tie expected results to them. (Location 199)
Memories fade as time passes, so it’s valuable to document expectations. A written agreement — or letter of understanding — can help keep all parties focused on the expectations that have been set and commitments that have been made. When it comes to accountability measures and milestones, it’s best to eliminate as much ambiguity as possible. (Location 202)
There’s clear power in the written word. If you haven’t completed a letter of understanding in the hiring process then it’s best to complete it in the first 30 days on the job. By ensuring you are in full agreement with your boss (and, perhaps, your executive colleagues) on the milestones that need to be reached and at what intervals, you set the stage for a far more productive relationship. Question #3: What Is the Magnitude of Change I’m Expected to Lead? (Location 207)
Through research on transformational alignment, my firm, nFusion, has identified four distinct categories of change involving marketing leaders: Business transformation. This is a far-reaching change initiative concerned with determining what business an enterprise is in and how it will make money. Brand transformation. This approach is concerned with addressing the brand promise or value proposition and how it is expressed and delivered. Organizational transformation. This approach is focused on enhancing the marketing organization’s structure, culture and processes. Particular attention is focused on the people who will be on the team. Executional transformation. This approach revolves around the specific marketing programs and activities that must be deployed to produce results. Particular attention is focused on measuring results. While the first two categories tend to be more strategic and expansive in nature, the latter two tend to be more tactical and incremental. (Location 213)
While he was LifeSize’s CMO, Buechler concentrated on the operational aspects of marketing, lead generation and sales enablement, helping the company meet its growth targets and compete with market challengers Cisco and Polycom. (Location 232)
Question #4: What Resources (Human and Financial) Will Be Available to Me? (Location 238)
One marketing executive who worked with a large global electronics company told me about the conflicts that emerged as his leadership team sought results but refused to provide the funds necessary to launch new programs and campaigns. (Location 241)
Such examples demonstrate why it’s necessary to be careful what commitments you make early on and to ensure that you have real support — in terms of resources — to back up your change initiatives. Of course it’s difficult (if not impossible) to be specific at the expectations stage as to the type and number of resources you will require. You will need to evaluate your situation over the next 30 – 60 days to formulate your strategy and plan. So your commitments at the outset should remain contingent on necessary resources being available to you. You can further clarify your commitments later on in the strategy and planning stages when you have a better sense of what resources — what talent and funds — will be available to you. Question #5: Which Decisions Am I Expected to Make and Which Ones Am I Expected to Facilitate? (Location 248)
Question #6: How Will I Interact with My Boss? (Location 266)
COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID (Location 276)
One is the tendency to make changes they think are part of their mandate that, ultimately, the organization isn’t committed to making. In this situation the new CMO’s desired changes are out of sync with changes anticipated by the CEO and other members of the leadership team. There are limits, after all, to the amount of disruptive change an organization is likely to accept. The second mistake is to believe that you have more control than you really do. You have to recognize what decisions you own and which ones you can merely influence. What are the big things that everyone agrees need to be done? Mistakes are made when the marketing leader has a different viewpoint on this matter than the other key leaders in the organization. The third mistake is making expansive commitments about what you can accomplish before you understand the resources that will be available to you and the amount of change the organizational culture can accept. That will lead to frustration and disappointment. You would be over-committing without knowing the constraints you are dealing with. It’s hard to walk back commitments you’ve already made. (Location 278)
‘You should probably use that opportunity to explain your marketing philosophy.’” England now says it was the best advice he could have possibly received at that point. As he explains it, “I spent quite of bit of time actually pondering what I wanted to tell people about my marketing philosophy on Day One. What do I believe in? It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in things. I just hadn’t committed them to paper or a PowerPoint deck. I spent quite a bit of time actually putting my thoughts down in a deck that only had a few words on each slide. The thought that stuck with people more than any other was this: ‘Great marketers take complex situations and distill simple and actionable truths.’” (Location 309)
By taking time to articulate his marketing philosophy and then share it with his organization, England helped his team quickly learn what was important to him and therefore how they could meet his expectations effectively. SETTING AND ARTICULATING YOUR AGENDA (Location 314)
This is the point at which you must set and articulate your agenda. While your first challenge was to learn the expectations of others, your challenge now is to begin to set expectations for your team. You are now engaged in a process of answering their questions: Who are you? What are you going to do? How much change are you going to make? What’s your basic timetable for the key actions you’re going to take? How should team members work with you? What decisions do you need to be involved in up front? Which ones are you going to defer? Do you like lots of detail or do you prefer summary information from those reporting to you? (Location 321)
It’s important to act fast. You should begin developing your agenda in the transition period between accepting the position and stepping into it. The first day you actually step into the role people will be forming impressions and making assumptions. It’s best that you seize the moment and ensure those impressions are the ones you want to make. You want to demonstrate that you are an active and able leader. You want to show that you’re prepared for the challenge ahead. When you roll out your agenda, present it in a sequence. First, present to your boss and peers. Make sure you have confirmation from them — and that your agenda reflects what has been discussed previously. Then you can present your agenda more widely. Your direct reports will come next and, finally, the wider marketing organization. The forum (or medium) for that presentation will depend on what’s the best way to reach your people, but the point is that everyone will be anxious to know what you plan to do. (Location 331)
Agenda Item #1: Your Principles of Success Perhaps the most important thing you can do when introducing yourself to your new team is to articulate your principles of success, including who you are and what you believe. (Location 343)
His four tenets were simply stated yet powerful if followed. Horst insisted on: Clear accountability. Be 100 percent aligned with clients’ business goals and priorities; share the successes, yet have clear accountabilities; be transparent in your actions. 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. 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. Seamless collaboration. Act as one company, one team and with one outcome; have each others’ backs; engage in candid dialogue and constructive, yet respectful conflict; no drama, no intrigue, no in-fighting, none! (Location 346)
Agenda Item #2: What You Intend to Accomplish (Location 360)
discovery. You have aligned on what your boss and your senior-level colleagues expect you to accomplish; now it’s necessary to communicate this charter more widely to your direct reports and the rest of the marketing organization. (Location 362)
The more clearly you can articulate your goals, objectives and aspirations, the better. This helps to ensure that everyone is moving in the same direction from the beginning. (Location 366)
Agenda Item #3: The Type, Magnitude and Pace of Change You Will Be Leading (Location 371)
As with the overriding goal, your explanation of the change ahead will be shaped by your prior conversations about expectations. Everyone expects change of some sort. Now it’s time to tell your team what sort of change is coming. Will it (Location 372)
address the business? The brand? The organization? Operational processes? The nature of the change to come will require some elaboration. You’ll need to explain in greater depth what this type of change will involve and why it is necessary. (Location 374)
Your team will want to know the timeframes for this change. What are the key milestones ahead and when must they be met? (Location 380)
Agenda Item #4: How You Expect to Work with Your Peers and Your Organization So much of success is tied to personal relationships and interactions. Executives who hope to succeed must learn to manage interpersonal relationships, investing time and effort in the individuals who are essential to effective outcomes. You want to clarify when and how you are going to meet with your executive peers and your direct reports. You want to consider several questions: Who are you? What issues do you wish to address with your executive peers and your direct reports? How are you going to make decisions together? Where will you meet and when? (Location 384)
“I told my people who I am, my history, my Myers-Briggs result — and that’s all I did for 15 (Location 391)
minutes. I actually put that deck together to say, ‘Here’s my family, my wife, me, how I grew up. Here’s how I think, here’s what I think about and this is what I’m interested in. As for what my objectives are, I am just going to listen for the next 30 days.’ (Location 392)
Agenda Item #5: The Decisions You’ll Make (and Defer) in Your First 100 Days To keep everyone focused on what’s important you’ll want to clarify the decisions you will be making in the first 100 days as well as the decisions that will be deferred. It’s easy, after all, to get distracted by all the possible concerns that might arise in this period. That’s why you’ll want to draw some distinct lines. Radio Shack CMO Lee Applbaum stepped into his role with a laser focus on making the brand relevant again. He stated up front that he would be focused on making decisions concerned with the brand’s future strategy in his first 100 days. As such he allowed existing approaches regarding advertising and marketing campaigns to remain in place. He would defer or delegate decisions regarding retail marketing strategy. He recognized that there was only marginal value in making incremental changes in retail approaches early on when a brand transformation would influence those approaches over time. He wanted to keep his eye on the brand itself. (Location 402)
Agenda Item #6: Your Expectations of Your Team Your marketing team will be particularly eager to learn what you expect of them. This is your opportunity to break down your agenda in terms of what will happen in the next 100 days and what you expect them to accomplish, individually and as a group. What are their roles and responsibilities? (Location 414)
Rather, you’ll want to pull aside your various marketing groups — whether it’s your advertising, channels or market intelligence teams — and provide reasonably specific assignments. Let them know what you are looking for and how you expect to receive it. How do they keep you apprised of progress? How should they provide reports and at what intervals? (Location 421)
The CMO from Motorola Mobility, Bill Ogle, asked each one of his direct reports to prepare for him an evaluation of what was working, what was not working and what needed improvement. This exercise helped give him greater clarity in terms of what his priorities should be and where, as a leader, he could most effectively add value. It also gave him a stronger sense of the caliber of his team — whom he could count on as the challenges began to mount. (Location 423)
Agenda Item #7: Your Hypothesis for a Winning Strategy Working with your team to collect data and insight, you will spend a good portion of your first month or so focused on developing a hypothesis for a successful strategy. You’ll want to test elements of your hypothesis on trusted peers and team members, but you won’t want to reveal all of it too early in your tenure. (Location 427)
Some marketing leaders make the mistake of thinking they have to declare a grand strategy at the outset. They want to capture the attention of their people and motivate them. They want to make a big splash and establish a sense of urgency. The problem with revealing too much too early is that you have not proven yourself. If you unveil your strategy too early the people around you will rightly think that you’ve jumped the gun. “You just got here,” they’ll think. “How could you have all the answers already?” Naturally your credibility will diminish. Your team members are expecting you to struggle with the questions before providing appropriate answers. That said, you don’t want to show up and appear to be aimless. You want to have a well informed hypothesis based on what you learned through your prior interviews and research. (Location 430)
DAY ONE IN YOUR NEW POSITION (Location 448)
It’s important to prepare for this first day. You want to make the right first impression. You’ll want to hit the ground running in terms of introducing your agenda — as opposed to your strategy — to your immediate team and, then, to the wider marketing organization. From the start there will be questions that your people are looking to you to answer. You’ll want to give your answers thoughtful consideration beforehand. You’re signaling where you intend to take them on the journey ahead. Seize the moment. Be candid about who you are and what you expect. Address the key items on your agenda. (Location 451)
Just remember: It’s a highly charged moment and there will be a heightened state of awareness. There will be a certain amount of trepidation, anticipation and hopefulness. Your team wants to trust you. They want to believe in you. They want to know that you are acting in the company’s best interests and in their best interests. This is your chance to win them over. (Location 461)
My ears will be open, my hand extended and my mind active. Trust will be built one relationship at a time. And we will succeed together. (Location 487)
“The reason I took the role was because it was positioned as a change agent for the company. So I asked myself, ‘Can I really impact this company? Not just the marketing function but the whole company.’ Obviously the CMO can change the marketing strategy and the marketing approach, but can he really have an impact on the company and therefore actually have an impact on his industry?” (Location 492)
“The difference between a successful CMO and an okay CMO in all my experience having watched bosses, peers, my own roles, is the ability to set the agenda versus having the agenda set for you. And it’s hard to do. So the way that I went about it was to build relationships with my peers. Not just with my boss, but with the other people on the C-suite. I wanted to understand their agendas, to be able to translate their agendas into the good of the company, into my own selfish needs and to find a way to actually serve the people who take the ball. (Location 495)
“That was the only way I was going to be able to figure out how to scope quick and early signature wins. Because whether it’s your first 10 days or 50 days or 100 days or whatever it is, if by that point you don’t have some signature wins, something that you can put your stamp on, you’re probably getting pressed into, ‘My website’s not up,’ ‘I have to run events,’ ‘What’s happening over here,’ and then you’re in pure (Location 503)
firefighting mode. So it’s strong peer relationships that helped me to understand what’s going on in the rest of the business, to help identify what the scope of the role could be and where I could carve out the most impactful space. That was personally challenging and, importantly, delivered some value to the business.” (Location 506)
One of the most compelling aspects of the marketing function is that it has a considerable impact on just about every other function within the organization, particularly if the marketing team is charged with driving growth. So, if you are going to be a successful marketing leader who inspires and leads change you must build relationships across the enterprise. (Location 512)
that inspires the entire organization. The CEO will be looking to you to provide insights on market trends and customer demands that will help to propel the organization forward. The most important issue in this relationship is aligning on the nature of change that’s expected (Location 521)
The next set of relationships that matter to your success exists within your marketing organization. It is particularly critical that you cultivate a dynamic group of lieutenants — your direct reports — to provide insight and help you execute your marketing strategies. (Location 542)
While you will rely on your direct reports to manage and motivate their people, you will be expected to provide overarching guidance and inspiration. This is what it means to be a leader. You set the tone. The priorities and principles you establish with your immediate circle — your marketing team — are likely to be reflected within the marketing organization as a whole. (Location 546)
minimizing their results in the marketplace. To ensure success you’ll want to seek out reliable guidance and advice based on proven results. Indeed, an independent advisor can be critical at this stage — providing a candid and neutral perspective as you formulate your strategy. (Location 552)
Sales and marketing organizations can find themselves at odds. Marketing might contend that sales is failing to follow up on the leads it has generated, while sales will complain that the leads are of little worth. Finger pointing ensues, making failure inevitable. (Location 569)
Alignment of Expectations. This element begins with creating common goals. (Location 596)
A sales leader, whose goal is quarterly revenue, and a marketing leader, whose goal is changes in brand reputation, could easily find themselves at odds. (Location 602)
Take Walgreens CMO Kim Feil. As the first individual to hold that title at the company she focused on communicating how marketing would be accountable for clear and measurable results. (Location 620)
She broke down her progress reports into short-term, medium-term and long-term projections. This system of measures proved to be a powerful way for her to build trust in a new role with the people whose support she most needed to cultivate. (Location 623)
Successful marketing strategies depend on actionable market insights. These insights provide much-needed perspective on your market opportunities and challenges and help to validate the hypothesis you’ve developed. By carefully accumulating them you put yourself in a position to make defensible, fact-based decisions as opposed to merely relying on gut and intuition. (Location 702)
It is the marketing leader’s job to listen to and then articulate the voice of the customer. Marketing is also responsible for recognizing emerging market trends and demands. (Location 706)
AMD CMO Nigel Dessau told me he created a “fact book” in his first 30 days. This comprised the essential data points he gathered through interviews, reports and analysis of other available research. It gave him a solid set of findings to report to his executive team at the end of his first month. And it strengthened his standing because he presented facts, not opinions. (Location 719)
GE Healthcare CMO Sean Burke likes to ask five questions to everyone he interviews when seeking insights. Whether speaking with fellow executives, people on his team or others outside the organization, he relies on these questions to produce a consistent body of findings. What is our strategy? What are our greatest challenges and opportunities? What is the role of marketing in this organization? How can the marketing team be more effective? If you were me, what would you pay most attention to? (Location 729)
Other ways of gathering insights include primary and secondary market research, customer database profiling and analytical reports from particular executives and managers (Location 734)
Analytical research of this kind can tell you which marketing efforts are working and which ones aren’t, which market segments represent the most growth or profit (and which are unprofitable) and what customer needs or problems are going unaddressed. These insights then form the foundations of your strategic efforts going forward. (Location 737)
So what are the insights you’ll want to collect? Based on my discussions with top marketing executives, the following core set of categories was identified: Customers Competition Capabilities Industry trends Sales partners Culture Touch-points Measurements (Location 769)
Customer insights are derived from a number of elements. One is market segmentation. What market segments are most profitable for the company to address? To answer this question you need a clear understanding of the distinctly different types of buyers for a product, service or solution. (Location 777)
it’s important to assess your advantages and disadvantages relative to these rivals. How are their brands positioned? What are their products, services and price points? What do their communications programs look like? What customer segments are they pursuing and how are they pursuing them? (Location 798)
seize. What you are ultimately challenged to do is find the customer needs that your organization can address profitably and distinctively. By understanding your capabilities in the context of what customers value and the competition can (or cannot) provide, you set the stage for strategic moves that can drive your company to new levels. (Location 808)
You can do anything but you can’t do everything. What are you going to focus on? What product segments and market segments are you intent on penetrating? To answer these questions you need to understand your industry and where the growth opportunities lie. What parts of the industry are growing? (Location 811)
One of the roles of a marketing leader is to help the company understand how trends will play out and what new growth opportunities they will enable. By analyzing industry trends and shifts, you help the enterprise adapt to change and prepare for the fast-approaching future. (Location 814)
What does marketing produce that helps the sales force or how do you go about learning what that could be? (Location 819)
You want to know what you need to do as a marketing organization to drive revenue and enhance sales effectiveness. (Location 825)
Gaining insights about your company’s culture is important for many reasons. To lead change credibly you need to understand your company’s values and norms, especially if you are coming in from the outside. You want to avoid “organ rejection” syndrome that can occur in companies where forces will be arrayed to protect themselves from you if you don’t quickly absorb established cultural norms. (Location 828)
It’s essential to ensure that the customer experience is satisfying and consistent. When the customer experience is frustrating or becomes fragmented, your brand erodes. Customers become uncertain about what to expect — or what your brand represents. With this in mind it’s necessary to gather insight as to how the organization is performing at various touch-points, such as the call center, the website or the retail store. (Location 839)
What does the company know about what works and what doesn’t work? What is currently being measured? Why? What is the data telling you? You’ll want to know if the organization is collecting the right data or just the convenient data. Are the measurement systems set up to help your organization better understand how to make money? (Location 858)
If you want to grow customer loyalty and profitability you’ll want to measure the value of customer segments — and even individual customers. If you are merely measuring the margins on your products you could easily miss the mark in terms of your overriding goals. You’ll want to use these measures so your marketing dollars are moving to your most profitable (and promising) customer segments and away from those that are unprofitable and unpromising. (Location 863)
ALIGNING ON INSIGHTS Marketing leaders typically need about 30 days to address the issues we’ve raised in the first four chapters. It is during this first month of your tenure that you will learn the expectations of others, introduce your overarching agenda, begin to establish the relationships that will be vital to your performance and, finally, gather the insights you’ll need to formulate your strategy. You’ll want to present your key findings and insights to your executive peers and marketing team in order to give them a sense of what you’ve learned during your fact-finding mission. You’ll be setting the stage for the strategy you will be introducing soon. You are revealing your assumptions and the findings that back them up. You are providing a survey of the enterprise, its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Indeed, your SWOT summary represents a powerful tool for communicating these findings and inviting further discussion. Your goal at this point is to align your colleagues with your analysis. By driving consensus around your initial findings and how you’ve interpreted them you lay the foundations for introducing a new marketing strategy that others in your enterprise will embrace enthusiastically. (Location 866)
We can do anything, but we can’t do everything, so we must be focused and intentional if we are to be great. (Location 884)
“The primary goal I was asked to accomplish was to pull together a coherent story for the brand. (Location 890)
“At the outset I did some really deep dives into customer insights and research around how customers were feeling, as well understanding how employees felt about the brand. At the same time I began building relationships with other leaders from across the company, making sure I knew where their heads were at and where they wanted to take the business. I also needed to do a deep dive to understand the competitive set, the business and how it made its money so we could push the right levers. (Location 894)
STRATEGY AS YOUR COMPELLING AND UNIFYING IDEA Strategy can be thought of as “the framework by which companies understand what they’re doing and want to do, the construct through which and around which the rest of their efforts are organized,” (Location 913)
Your challenge as the newly appointed marketing leader is to formulate and execute a compelling marketing strategy. You must decide what your company wants to be from a marketing perspective — and, just as critically, what it intends to do. Your marketing strategy, ultimately, will be nested within your organization’s business strategy. (Location 916)
You’ve been hired to introduce a winning strategy — to take your company in a new direction and outmaneuver your industry rivals. So what makes a winning strategy? What are its elements? What do you need to focus on? How do you go about the process of formulating it? (Location 918)
It will hone in on what matters — and what most requires your attention at this stage. It’s important to be discriminating here. As you know, a company can do anything, it just can’t do everything. And so it’s critical to select carefully from an array of possibilities and sharpen your focus. One place to start is with something that can be described as the unifying idea. Some might think of this as the “Brand Purpose,” “Brand Promise” or the “Core Value Proposition.” It is essentially the idea that unites the whole company, not just the marketing organization, with respect to who you are, what you stand for and how you will win. This becomes an essential element in strategy development. (Location 922)
THE PAYOFFS OF A MARKETING STRATEGY Through the process of developing a marketing strategy you can accomplish several objectives that will support your marketing efforts going forward. Most important, you can provide focus, clarity and alignment. (Location 933)
Focus. Your marketing strategy helps to establish where your organization will focus its time, energy and resources. What market segments will it pursue? In which product categories will it invest? How will your company communicate with customers? Your challenge is to answer the question: “What will we focus on so we can win?” Clarity. This is where you resolve ambiguity and bring greater certainty to the question of how your organization will meet its goals and (Location 936)
objectives. You will help set the stage for individuals to engage in activities that will support your larger mission. While you are not yet trying to determine which specific activities are relevant in terms of execution, you are creating an environment in which your people can begin defining those activities for themselves. Alignment. Your strategy helps various groups and departments — product teams, operational teams, customer-focused teams, etc. — to get on the same page and move in the same direction. You’ll never accomplish your objectives if your teams are off on their own tangents, pursuing their own agendas. And the larger the enterprise the more vulnerable it is to fragmentation. Strategy is the vehicle for pulling your organization together. (Location 939)
YOUR THREE-YEAR HORIZON So there’s much at stake as you begin to articulate your marketing strategy. You are building credibility and establishing yourself as a leader in your organization. Early on your strategy will be one of the core factors on which you’ll be evaluated. It will also be an important test of your ability to align with other executives and engage your organization. I’ve found through conversations with dozens of CMOs that it is helpful to think of your strategy over a three-year timeframe. (Location 951)
THE STRATEGIC TRIAD Your marketing strategy should address three core elements: customers, competitors and capabilities, the “strategic triad.” (Location 964)
Your strategy must address all three elements of the triad and the questions they raise. One way of summarizing the essence of your strategy is to develop a positioning statement. (Location 983)
STAGES OF CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT Having a clear positioning is a critical component of your strategy. But it’s not enough simply to develop messages for customers. It’s also important to prioritize how to connect with them based on their stage of engagement. Is your biggest challenge attracting new customers, converting existing opportunities or reducing churn among existing customers? Maybe you must prioritize between stimulating end-customer demand and incenting channel partners to stock and promote your products. (Location 993)
It defines five stages: familiarity, consideration, purchase, loyalty and advocacy. It also recognizes a series of feedback loops and linkages between these stages. By understanding how your brands are performing at each stage of the framework you can align your resources and programs on the stages that will have the most impact. (Location 1000)
Often the first point of consideration is your website or a merchant’s site. (Location 1010)
PREPARING YOUR STRATEGY PRESENTATION Once you have outlined a strategy you’ll want to develop a strategy presentation. (Location 1029)
The presentation begins with the quantitative data I’ve learned. Then I’ll speak to what I’ve learned qualitatively. I’ll come to a conclusion. (Location 1043)
As Dessau explains, “It’s a classic presentation approach: Here’s the position, here’s why it’s a problem, here are the possibilities, here’s what I propose to do. In 45 minutes, you want to be able to make that case.” (Location 1046)
“My charter was to grow the brand. I had three months to deliver the marketing proposal to the executive team on how we were going to do that. I developed a three-component strategy: Balance: Between push and pull. Between long-term and short-term. Between lower-funnel and upper-funnel programs. Between ‘halo’ products and high-volume products. Simplification: We had too many sub-brands and designs. We needed a model more like my former company, Apple. WOW Factor: We needed to stand out with our products and with our advertising. We needed to choose what was different. (Location 1049)
PRESENTATION TECHNIQUES (Location 1059)
Fact-based problems and solutions. (Location 1061)
Insight and opportunity. (Location 1063)
STRUCTURING FOR SUCCESS (Location 1114)
I found that there are five dimensions of marketing that ultimately need to be accounted for in your organizational structure. They are: customer segments, products, distribution channels, communications channels and geography. Your challenge is to determine how all five dimensions will work together. (Location 1126)
I’ve identified different types of marketing structures that have emerged to balance these dimensions: Brand-centric Customer-centric Channel-centric (Location 1152)
Your website is a more mature part of the digital marketing mix. It’s also the one place where everything about your company is always available. It’s critical to have a coherent user experience — an information architecture designed for multiple types of customers and multiple products. (Location 1215)
Everything from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn is part of the social media mix. You are now challenged to engage your audiences more directly and help facilitate consumer-to-consumer conversations. You need to create a dialogue, not a monologue. You have to develop ways to amplify the voices of your advocates, giving your fans greater influence. How do you provide them with tools and techniques to make it easy for them to share a favorable opinion? How are you going to resource and organize for this challenge? Who are you going to allow to blog for your organization? Who are you going to allow to comment on other people’s blogs? Who can tweet? Who can respond to tweets? Part of meeting this challenge is creating a competency within your organization to address this new way of communicating. For this reason, many companies are choosing to keep social media management centralized until expertise, interaction standards and common practices mature. (Location 1218)
Your approach to building a team, managing your people and encouraging employee engagement is central to your success as a marketing leader. (Location 1287)
In my research I found that one of the most common regrets of marketing leaders is failing to act more decisively and swiftly with regard to building the team. Too often individuals are allowed to linger in roles for which they are ill-suited — or they are kept on the team to avoid the conflict of letting them go. (Location 1290)
“I asked each of my direct reports to recommend changes we should make to improve the business,” he says. “How they responded was very insightful and helped me assess the roles they were going to play on my team.” (Location 1297)
“A good marketer has four ‘I’s,” he explains. “The first ‘I’ is an instigator, the next one is an innovator, the next one an integrator, how you leverage and integrate across all the functions. (Location 1306)
After you have learned your company’s culture and defined your strategy, you should have a clear idea of the characteristics that will be important for your people to possess. In my firm, I look for people who typify the phrase “excellence without arrogance.” (Location 1312)
To better evaluate your team members it helps to understand the contributions they have to offer — and to accept the possibility that some may be undermining morale. With this in mind, and based on dozens of conversations with marketing leaders, I’ve identified five categories in which team members can be categorized. (Location 1324)
Stars. These are people who are exceptionally gifted. They have the talent and the drive to be valuable leaders. (Location 1336)
Hard Workers. These are your most reliable and dependable workers. You can always count on them to deliver. (Location 1343)
Misfits. These are individuals who may have much to offer but aren’t delivering to expectations at this point. (Location 1349)
Undesirables. These are individuals who are undermining morale and performance within your organization. (Location 1354)
Wild Cards. These individuals are the ones who are hard to read. They may seem to be low performers but, in fact, they may have much to offer. (Location 1359)
FIVE DIMENSIONS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT (Location 1376)
Through research done at my agency we have come to believe employees view engagement across five core dimensions. Your organization needs to focus on fostering these dimensions year-round to achieve optimal results. (Location 1386)
GETTING TO KNOW YOUR PEOPLE Ultimately your ability to build and lead a team will depend on your ability to engage your people. (Location 1412)
TURNING PROCESS INTO PREDICTABILITY Enduring growth cannot be achieved without a commitment to process. (Location 1474)
YOUR CORE MARKETING PROCESSES Since every organization is different, you’ll need to determine the core processes that you and your team will need to function effectively. To help you kick-start your process planning here is a list of core marketing processes that have proved most important to the success of marketing leaders I have interviewed. (Location 1487)
To ensure you are managing resource allocation as effectively as possible, you’ll need to have a defined budgeting process. Typically, the marketing budget will both reflect and influence the larger budgeting process for the enterprise. (Location 1494)
Your portfolio allocation of those resources is the next issue. (Location 1497)
Market Segment and Product Planning. (Location 1504)
Engagement Planning and Execution. (Location 1524)
Customer Acquisition and Lead Management. (Location 1535)
This process may differ significantly if you are reaching out to businesses as opposed to consumers (Location 1536)
Every company needs to understand the process by which prospects are turned into customers. By identifying the breakdowns in this process organizations can enhance their conversion rates and revenue numbers. (Location 1541)
Do they understand what drives buyer familiarity, consideration, purchase, loyalty and advocacy? How does a buyer move through this cycle? How is a lead managed and assessed? (Location 1544)
As prospects become customers new questions come into play. You want to know what must happen to ensure customer satisfaction and success. What will make them loyal, engaged customers? (Location 1547)
Website Management. Your website is the one place where everything in the company comes together across products, across markets, across all of your initiatives. Given its reach and potential impact, the site raises a number of process questions. (Location 1572)
Social Media Management. Social media is a rapidly evolving force that raises a host of questions. How are you monitoring social media conversations? (Location 1587)
“It starts with succinctly stating the one business challenge that’s standing in the way of growth and the specific metric, such as market share percentage, you want to grow. (Location 1646)
“Therefore what’s going to be your ‘idea to grow?’ Then from your ‘idea to grow’ we break that down into five elements that we want to be addressed succinctly: What is the campaign that you’re going to launch that’s going to get people to act now? What kind of product or innovations are you going to put into the brand experience to support that campaign? What are the margin enhancements you’re going to champion so that you’re adding more value to that experience against that challenge and cutting off the things that have less value? What unique things are you going to do at a retail level to bring this to life? Price and value. What is going to allow you to optimize price or value for the consumer?” (Location 1649)
But now you are challenged to create an overarching marketing plan, which will make your larger strategy more concrete. To do so you’ll need to create a set of action plans that cover all aspects of the marketing mix. These action plans, which may have different owners with dedicated responsibilities, will roll up into your overall marketing plan. This plan, then, becomes the playbook for future action. While your strategy focuses on setting direction and making strategic choices, your plan lays out the actions that will enable you to pursue your strategy and meet your objectives. This will enable you most effectively to allocate your resources, conduct activities and hold your team accountable for results. The plan will serve as a framework for getting things done. (Location 1662)
INTUITIVE AND ANALYTICAL PLANNING One distinction that emerges among marketing leaders lies in their general approach to planning. The two types of approaches that I’ve witnessed are the intuitive and the analytical. (Location 1679)
Intuitive leaders tend to plan with great deference to what seems to have worked in the past — or what seems most likely to work in the present. (Location 1681)
Analytical leaders, by contrast, rely heavily on data and rigorously generated insight. Their plans can be thought of as models. They are looking for data or input to feed into these models — and they are looking for outcomes to guide their next set of moves. (Location 1687)
Intuitive leaders are likely to have well-honed instincts. Analytical leaders will rely on their data-driven experiences. But what is their predominant approach when it comes to planning? What is yours? If you know your leanings, you may be well served to seek out a lieutenant who can offer some balance and contrast. (Location 1693)
First you want to define expectations. (Location 1704)
Second you’ll need to develop actionable insights. (Location 1709)
Third you design your plan for marketing programs. (Location 1718)
Finally you need to plan now for how you will optimize your programs after they are launched. (Location 1732)
VISUALIZING YOUR PLAN One reason you have documented plans is to ensure all teams members know what needs to be done and their roles in the process. One way you can help improve understanding and align support for your plans is by showing the flow between activities. We’ve devised a tool called the Customer Engagement Framework, which shows the interactions of your activities from the customer’s perspective. (Location 1739)
For this example you can measure the number of leads you intend to produce and vividly show how you intend to produce them. (Location 1745)
The third (and probably the most valuable) benefit I’ve seen produced from this approach is highlighting gaps in the process. For instance I have seen situations where marketing attracts prospects to a website and encourages them to register, but there isn’t a database set up to capture the data or a call center to handle the follow-up of leads. By highlighting gaps you can determine what actions are necessary to manage a lead, engage a customer or complete a transaction. And, by making it visual, you make it far easier to identify and discuss these gaps. (Location 1747)
PLANS VS. PLANNING You build credibility for your action plans — and thereby your overall marketing plan — by clearly stating what actions you will take, explaining the logic behind them and by demonstrating how you are going to execute them. By identifying what gaps may exist and then showing how you will close them you make your plan even more defensible. (Location 1755)
your unified marketing plan. What’s important to understand is that much of the value of the plan itself is the discipline of planning. The facts on the ground will continuously change. New findings in the field will require course corrections and program refinements. The plan itself should be dynamic — subject to continual refinements. (Location 1762)
ACTION PLAN CHECKLIST Define the key initiatives or programs that you plan to implement. Adopt a framework or series of frameworks that your team can use to develop plans to support these initiatives. Outline the steps and timetable for your team to develop supporting plans. Establish a cross-functional review process so your team leaders can share their plans with their peers. Establish clear accountabilities for who is responsible for which action plans. Use the RACI method to provide specificity in roles. (Location 1773)
I needed to help me implement a planning process and a monthly reporting process. We started with ‘measure what you can’ and built from there. (Location 1793)
What we looked at were three primary measurements. Effectiveness: What are we doing to move the needle top line bottom line? Productivity: Were we adding value? And efficiency: Were we doing things efficiently?” (Location 1795)
improvement. “I focused first on efficiency and then moved to effectiveness — my primary goal was growth. Like Billy Beane, I needed an operations manager, who was an absolute fanatic on numbers, to complement my vision and passion for performance with his for numbers and analytics.” (Location 1800)
Now that you’ve unveiled your strategy and have presented your plan, expectations are high. Your board, your executive team and others throughout your enterprise are all looking for signals that you can produce compelling results. The language that will resonate most with them is the language of numbers; effective measurements will be critical to meet expectations. It’s the means by which you will mark your progress, demonstrate performance gains and build confidence that you can meet your commitments. (Location 1803)
Over several quarters we had refined a quarterly business review comprised of measures that included brand consideration, Web traffic, ad interaction rates and program efficiency trends. (Location 1810)
During the long meeting, Barney asked lots of simple, yet insightful questions, among them: “Why is this measurement important?” “What is the data telling us we should do differently?” “How did we establish that goal and is it still the right one?” “How does that measure connect with our revenue or unit plan?” “Where does that data come from?” “What should we be measuring that we’re not measuring now?” The way he approached marketing metrics was analytical and directly connected to the business performance for which he was accountable. Having previously been the budget approver, he now was responsible for ensuring that the division’s marketing effort delivered results. The questions he asked are the questions all marketing leaders should ask. Through core measures and key performance indicators you’ll reveal marketing’s impact on the enterprise’s top and bottom lines. You’ll show your return on marketing investment — and build the case for further funding your top initiatives. (Location 1813)
‘If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.’ By having defined measures my team knows what they are accountable for and it gives us non-subjective feedback on whether we’re making progress.” (Location 1838)
CHALLENGES TO SUCCESSFUL MARKETING MEASUREMENT When taking a new role as a marketing leader, one of your immediate challenges will be to identify the metrics that matter to your enterprise. Some measurements and reporting processes may be in place. But you’ll also have an opportunity to introduce new performance indicators and find new ways of collecting missing data. (Location 1840)
One was an information services company that optimized its marketing efforts around two key measures: number of leads and cost per lead. While this doesn’t sound problematic on the surface these measures led to programs optimized to generating a high volume of low-cost leads. As a result the firm was attracting small companies that frequently switched suppliers, which led to a high-churn, low-margin customer base. The company’s stated desired was to penetrate high-margin, high-lifetime value segments, yet its efforts had been misdirected based on the measurement system. (Location 1856)
If the prior marketing leader was unable to connect the marketing activities and the business goals through a measurement framework that made sense to other executive leaders it could have diminished their trust in your predecessor. If you have strong ideas on the matter you may well have a relatively free hand implementing them. But before you do you’ll want to test your ideas out on your executive colleagues and build consensus around them. (Location 1861)
The second potential challenge is related to the capabilities and competencies of your marketing staff. Does your team have the skills and resources necessary to gather, analyze and interpret the data you need — and produce the findings you seek? If not, you may have some new hiring decisions to consider. (Location 1868)
BUILDING YOUR MARKETING MEASUREMENT SYSTEM As you begin to formulate your approach to marketing measurement you’ll need to address these issues and challenges with your own solutions. You’ll want to seek out the advice and guidance of those you trust — and those you most need to trust you. You’ll want to lean on the best practices and insights available for your core measurement issues. What measurements are most appropriate? How will you build measurement competence and a culture of performance? What tools, processes and systems need to be in place to engage in successful measurement? These are the questions that you’ll be challenged to address at some point in your first 100 days. (Location 1887)
Through my discussions with CMOs it appears that marketing metrics tend to fall into one of four general categories: brand metrics, sales metrics, customer metrics and marketing efficiency metrics. (Location 1894)
What tools, processes and systems need to be in place to engage in successful measurement? One of the most unifying activities that marketing leaders can initiate is to develop a marketing dashboard. Dashboards represent a reporting tool that provides you a comprehensive view of major activities, trends and points of progress (or regress). (Location 1933)
The adoption of analytical tools — enabling predictive and retrospective analysis — has played an important role in enabling marketers to identify customer segments that are likely to be receptive to particular offers. Campaign management tools enable marketers to manage and track their campaigns intelligently. Another class of tools enables marketers to track interactions at various touch-points such as a website, in the contact center or, increasingly, through social media. And still other tools enable marketers to integrate and manage customer data. (Location 1939)
But it’s not always necessary to acquire and integrate new tools, technologies and systems. And you don’t have to go it alone. In order to accelerate your learning and adoption of new capabilities you may consider bringing in consultants or selectively outsourcing activities to marketing specialists. However you get there it’s clear that the clock is ticking. The more rapidly you can get effective measurement capabilities in place the more quickly you can produce the results you’ve committed to deliver. (Location 1945)
Martyn Etherington established a monthly operations review for his team at Tektronix. “We mixed all of my regional directors (there were five regions around the world) and all of my operations team. We’d come in and have a four-hour meeting every month to review our financials and our KPI dashboard. And that’s when we had robust conversations about continuous improvement. We were really not focusing on the green items but on the red ones where we hadn’t met our plan and tried to understand why that was. “We used a process called the ‘Five Whys’ to get to the root cause of the problem. Then we’d plan the countermeasures and then they’d become action plans. And then at the next operations review we’d sit down and say, ‘Okay, we said what we were going to do and was that effective?’ We’d review the action plans but, more important, see if the results were trending back to where they should be.” (Location 1962)
As you generate quality metrics and demonstrate real progress toward your business goals you’ll build credibility and confidence with your executive peers. You’ll be able to demonstrate to the CEO, CFO and CRO exactly how marketing has moved the needle since you’ve assumed your role as its leader. By demonstrating how you’ve met (or exceeded) your commitments you’ll elevate your status — and the status of marketing overall — within the enterprise. And even when you hit unexpected problems you’ll be able to explain your challenges — and the ways in which you intend to address them — in the language of numbers. (Location 1969)
ACTION PLAN CHECKLIST 1. Gather the existing measurement reports available in your company. 2. Map out the ideal measurement framework to manage your business. 3. Assign owners to each element in your framework and develop sample dashboards. 4. For each dashboard, determine: a) What will be reported daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly b) Who will be on the distribution list c) In which forums will the data be reviewed and discussed 5. Evaluate the viability of establishing a marketing operations function. (Location 1977)
“Most of the systems and analytics we have are associated with either prospecting or servicing the existing installed base. On an annual basis, 70 percent of our revenue is renewal from existing customers. We run a lot of analytics on the customer base looking at their propensity to renew or their likelihood to cancel. We do a lot of data monitoring and analytic modeling on the customer, their particular industry and how long they have been with us. (Location 1997)
“We look at what we can do with structured data and what we can do with unstructured data. The structured data is what you would expect: We have a lot of information on prospects in a repository and we are segmenting our audience based on our data models. Then we are doing a lot of marketing optimization, meaning, how do we approach this particular prospect: Is it through a phone call, is it through three events? Everybody is different so we look at how to optimize for each particular prospect. It is an iterative process for refining the prospect to the point they become a legitimate lead. (Location 2006)
“The other piece is social media. We do a lot of unstructured data analysis, a lot of text analytics where we look for patterns. We also look at a lot of sentiment analysis. For example, is a particular segment of our audience around a particular product trending in a positive direction or negative direction in terms of sentiment? It used to be we’d do focus groups once a year in a particular area. Now we look at things on a monthly basis and we look at how it tracks over time.” (Location 2011)
In fact, research company Gartner Group predicts that by 2017 CMOs will spend more on IT than the CIO. (Location 2016)
Within your first 100 days it will be important to reach a conclusion on five important questions: Which information systems and tools are critical for your marketing strategy to succeed? Which systems need to be built, enhanced or modified? Of these systems, which ones require your CIO to allocate human and capital resources? And how will you get your needs prioritized along with the numerous other projects on the CIO’s must-do list? Which of your prioritized systems can be built, rented or housed by firms that may not require the CIO’s resources? Do you have project leaders on your team who are capable of planning and implementing the systems you need? If not, how can you augment your team with either new hires or outside experts? (Location 2018)
To help you think about your information systems priorities I’ve organized a brief overview of the most common systems you may need to consider. They are grouped by systems that will enable you to engage customers, to engage partners and to manage marketing operations. (Location 2028)
Let’s discuss some the most critical systems for you to focus on in your first 100 days. (Location 2036)
This means a great deal of attention needs to go into how your website (or websites) is architected, designed, managed and measured. Is it delivering the experience your visitors expect? Are they able to achieve their intended outcomes? Is it helping you achieve your business objectives? Is it helping you build your brand and accelerate sales? What are the roles of marketing, product groups, IT, customer service and legal in planning and managing the site? (Location 2041)
Among the challenges you’ll be facing are: Syndicating your Web content to channel partners Creating optimized landing pages for campaigns and using methods such as multivariate testing to enhance performance Incorporating user-generated ratings, reviews and stories Integrating content to and from social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Deciding what mobile-accessible features should be incorporated in smartphone apps Determining what kind of user community you should build and support Connecting your customer loyalty program into the site and mobile experiences Evaluating what role e-commerce or online ordering might play if it is not currently incorporated Assessing how tightly to integrate retail location or channel partner information, such as where to buy and product availability Providing real-time lead referrals to your sales team via click-to-call or click-to-chat features or accelerated lead-form scoring and dissemination Facilitating repeat contact or retargeting programs Enhancing analytics to get better insights into customer behavior (Location 2045)
Customer Loyalty, Advocacy and Feedback. Building on the direct communications capabilities now available you can take active steps to generate customer insights as well as influence loyalty and advocacy. (Location 2094)
MARKETING OPERATIONS SYSTEMS Marketing operations revolve around planning, budgeting, collaboration, pricing and forecasting. (Location 2140)
Budgeting. One of the most essential tasks for a marketing leader is resource allocation, authorization and reconciliation. (Location 2148)
In some companies marketing budgets might be pegged as a percentage of overall sales, leaving you with a great deal of discretion to decide how they are allocated. In other companies you may have to present a detailed plan and then make the case for various line items. Fellow executives may want a deep view into how resources will be invested with respect to product lines, channels, geographies and market segments — and how these investments will roll up into an overall budget. (Location 2149)
So we started by peeling back the layers on every single process to take out what was not necessary to empower people to make decisions, to speed the pace of change and to increase the agility of our organization. (Location 2231)
Based on my experience and interviews with leading marketers I’ve identified three principles — the three “A”s — that can guide you in your efforts toward top execution. These principles are: alignment, accountability and agility. By acting on these principles you’ll be able to deliver on the promises you’ve made and the expectations you’ve set. (Location 2251)
It’s time now to go create the future you envision. You’ve been put in your role to create positive change for your organization and the clock is ticking. Your initial enthusiasm and energy can be contagious, so make the most of it. But you are bound to encounter obstacles along the way; therefore remain resilient and persevere through the difficult days. Your courage and determination can be motivating for those around you. (Location 2396)
You will clarify your mandate, including the magnitude and pace of change you are expected to lead, and will align with your boss and your peers on a definition of success. You will set clear expectations with those on your team about your agenda and how they can best work with you for mutual success. You will listen actively, build strong relationships with your peers and enroll important constituents early in change initiatives. You will distill insights from customers, from competitors and from inside your organization that will inform your strategy. You will articulate a compelling strategy that will align your organization and set it on a path to achieve the company’s desired goals. You will structure your team to support your strategy and will make the difficult decisions to realign resources to support the future not the past. You will build a high-performance team by promoting your stars, encouraging your hard workers, reassigning your misfits, eliminating your undesirables and bringing in missing expertise. You will define critical processes that allow your organization to operate effectively across departments in pursuit of your goals. You will develop an action plan that focuses your team on the critical activities needed to implement your strategy. You will establish key metrics to measure your progress and a review process to make mid-course corrections. You will initiate the deployment of information-technology-based tools your organization needs to operate effectively in a digital world. You will model the attributes of alignment, agility and accountability so your team will execute your plan efficiently and effectively. (Location 2400)