Mentoring starts at the top
In the May issue, Marketing Update carried an article entitled ‘Our young marketers deserve better: reflections from a CPM’, by Juliette Robertson AFAMI CPM. In the article, Robertson, a business coach, told of how too many marketing professionals were leaving their younger colleagues to sink or swim, offering little in the way of guidance, leadership or mentoring. Robertson was responding to an earlier article by young marketer Emma Scammell AMAMI.
Marketing Update received two responses from members that we would like to share. Do you have any feedback? Email the editor, Paula Ruzek, editor@ami.org.au, about this or any other article in the issue.
Paul Adams AFAMI CPM, managing partner of Adams Marketing in Port Macquarie, NSW, wrote:
Well done. What a timely and important reflection about the most critical role of senior marketing managers.
I was lucky to have several outstanding leaders as my bosses in my early product management days. Thank you Ian Ellis and Ken Criswick (HJ Heinz), and Annette Lloyd (Kraft Foods).
Among the thousands of things I learned was that if you treated people well (including teaching younger staff), they’d jump through hoops of fire for you. Then you’ll be armed and set to fix the marketing challenges.
I’ve often thought that compared to people management, marketing is easy!
Who else shares that thought?
Dan Cudmore AFAMI, managing director of Cudmore & Co. Pty Ltd,
St Kilda, Victoria, wrote:
Juliette’s comments regarding a general lack of management awareness (and willingness) of the responsibility to mentor and coach young marketers coming up through the organisation was of some interest. I have been out of the mainstream of large organisations for many years, but spent some 25 years marketing with companies such as Bayer, Unilever, Merck, etc. It seems not a lot has changed in the past 15 years since I last worked in those areas.
As I have just joined Victoria’s ‘Bright Sparks’ group as a mentor, the article has heightened my resolve to see that my contribution is well focused and of value to my protege.
As Juliette points out, there are likely to be many factors that account for the non-performance of managers to effectively coach and lead young marketers. Certainly time is one; however, lack of awareness, lack of skill, ego, insecurity, lack of any corporate focus in this area and many other reasons I’m sure play a part.
Surely the leadership for things to change has to come from the top? Convincing top management that THEY need to spend the time and resources on implementing mentoring/coaching programs, I guess, is the difficult part. Perhaps it will ultimately be the corporate bottom line that will dictate the need for attention to this area of HR planning.
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