Marketing is a Team Sport
By Paul Dumouchelle, Management Consultant, ADVISA
As Central Ohio basks in the warm afterglow of an Ohio State victory in the 2010 Rose Bowl it seems appropriate to roll out a sports analogy for our profession.
Whether you’re a go-it-alone entrepreneur who relies on professional advice and support for your sales and marketing programs or you’re a corporate marketer leading a cross-functional team in a large organization you engage in teamwork to make things happen. Focusing on a marketing team’s leadership role, productive results are most likely when a leader:
a) Has excellent self-awareness regarding their natural leadership style
b) Understands how others respond that natural style
c) Can adapt their style to work effectively with people who don’t respond well to that natural style
Leaders in marketing efforts tend to be proactive, goal-oriented and extroverted. Their natural style is to achieve things by working with and through other people. They find teamwork enjoyable and a natural process to maximize impact. Details, for them, are a sometimes necessary fact of life but not something in which they revel.
Some typical challenges such personalities encounter in team efforts include:
a) Tunnel vision regarding goals, with an emphasis on their own definition of the goal
b) Tunnel vision regarding the best strategy, with an emphasis on their own strategy
c) Competition for “the spotlight” regarding who gets the most credit for accomplishments
d) Impatience with process and methodology and those who advocate following a process
e) Viewing other team members as “resources” rather than valuing them as people
If you suspect your own leadership efforts may suffer from one or more of these (or other) issues, there may be some comfort in knowing you are not alone. More productively, though, use your natural strength of working with and through others to add a “teamwork expert” to your team. Improved facilitation of the team process and building your leadership skills is critical in the team sport of marketing as are smart segmentation and pricing.
