Leadership beyond the war of words
Recently I saw a very angry marketing executive going head-to-head with a young direct report in one of those goldfish offices that leave little to the imagination.
Although their words were muffled there was little doubt who the boss was, who was in charge of the conversation, and who would have the last word. I wondered if those near and dear to the executive would have been proud to see her management style or how her direct report viewed her skills.
In the marketing profession, the technical mistakes made by our staff are often VERY public. A small, careless error can be viewed by perhaps hundreds of thousands of campaign recipients and waste thousands of dollars. Mistakes can be not only embarrassing but have political and legal ramifications. And subtly but powerfully, errors of execution can unfairly sway research results, public opinion, or social views, because what we do is in the public domain and seen by many. The responsibility to get it right is paramount.
When things go wrong and emotions are raised, how easily we are seduced into having conversations of war, to take the high ground and win at any cost. But are we having the right conversations with those we lead to bring about the best outcomes?
The opposite extreme is the marketing executive who hides his/her growing frustration with a staff member’s non-compliance, poor delivery, or skill ineptitude, complaining to everyone but the staff member. This often happens because of the manager’s reluctance or inability to deal with the conflict.
War or hide and seek?
As marketing executives, we are also leaders of people. We have a responsibility to find the best outcome for both the organisation and our teams. This outcome is rarely found in conversations of war or games of hide and seek.
When emotions come into play in the workplace it is a sure signpost to stop, take stock, and question what is really going on. It’s time to change the conversation. Changing the conversation does not mean avoiding the topic. It simply challenges us to look a little deeper at what is really causing the problem instead of focusing on the content.
When we look deeper, we may begin to see the processes that are causing the problems that make us so angry. Addressing processes is a very different conversation to a war of words or hide and seek. It becomes a quest for what is causing the problems and understanding the existing rules and regulations that are hindering our staff to do and be the best they can.
How often do we see campaigns go awry because the call centre was uninformed or poorly trained, or the mail house was sent the wrong collateral? How often are advertisements or brochures printed with errors because of poor quality assurance processes? How often are our websites displaying out-of-date information, or we mail deceased clients? Errors will always occur, but more often than not the cause can be found in our own failure to ensure the processes were created and managed well.
Conversations to understand and improve marketing processes contain constructive questions, not angry incriminations. They invite ideas and feedback, not defensive explanations.
Address relationship issues
When we look deeper still, and if we have courage, we may begin to see the relationship issues that are causing the problems that make us angry. Acknowledging that we need to address our relationships with team members is a VERY different conversation. It raises questions such as: “I’ve noticed that you and I don’t seem to be speaking the same language these days. Why is that?” And: “I feel you don’t respect my judgement the way you used to. Is that so?” And: “I feel that I can’t rely on you the way I used to because of your performance lately and that’s really disappointing. What’s driving that?”
What would it be like for a brand manager who had been evading questions and hiding poor research results to be privately talked to about trust and honesty, rather than being confronted with demands and threats? Or the fast-track, gung ho webmaster who was making web decisions beyond their authority to be spoken to about respect for the judgement and knowledge of others? Or the disinterested marketing assistant to be spoken to about reliability and unused potential?
“Oh too soft” or perhaps “too hard a conversation to have”? “We are not their mothers.” True enough. But if we are honest, every one of us knows that the people we would go to the ends of the earth for are not those who lost control of their emotions or hid their truth from us. It was those who took us aside and spoke honestly and directly, one-on-one, about what they really saw, what they felt about us, and invited us to deliver to our higher potential.
In the long run, choosing to have the right conversation will reap the best results for the organisation, our own marketing department, and get the best performance from those we lead. And that’s what we really wanted all along.
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