When your marketing department feels good about coming to work, they perform better. When they are disengaged, energy drops, quality suffers, communication is compromised, and good people start looking to leave the organization. These feelings are costly -- both in lower impact in the market, lost faith from the organisation and lower creativity.
To illustrate this challenge, let's look at two fictional employees on their way to work:
Jack is looking forward to doing his best work; he's engaged and excited. Partly because he's “just a positive guy,” and partly because he's part of a great team - his boss listens, the work seems to matter and respected, the agency responds well to his demands and the organisation gets it that his programs are really connecting with the consumer.
Cindy is dreading another day in the office. She's experienced, skilled, and a good worker, but there's something about this organization that rubs her the wrong way. She doesn't think her boss cares, the management team is not interested in marketing but just want the sales and budgets gets cut all the time.
How will they each perform today? How will they affect others? And what do they each need to remain productive and engaged?
All too often, the management team and partly the marketing VP become isolated from their teams - they don't have close relationships with the people two or three layers down. This gap can easily become a source of distrust and organizational dysfunction that impinges on the department's ability to provide superior services.
Employees frequently say they don't know their management team. Leaders tell us they feel disconnected from the front line. Unfortunately, this isolation is usually accompanied by a loss of trust and performance. All too often the people at the top of the organization receive “filtered” information - when more than anyone else, executives need the real story.
Leaders need to hear the “voice of the people,” not a biased perception filtered through layers of management. And they need to hear it on a regular basis.
My recipe for success is simple but hard to implement: Listen to people, identify their needs, commit to meet the needs, and then deliver. At the same time as tactical needs are being met, attention to the underlying emotional needs is key. Employees who care about their jobs and their clients have good ideas, they are committed, they want to be part of the team, and they want you to hear them.
So find out what your team wants and then make sure you deliver on them. Here are a few examples of common gripes that you should address:
1) I don't have access to the sales information or the montly reports that go around to the select few
2) I wasn't aware that brand B was doing something similare as us at the same time
3) I was asked to interview somebody, but then nobody really took my opinion into account when hiring the person or I did not have the opportunity to provide my debrief
4) The workload is getting out of control and nobody seems to care
5) The MT meets every month but we only get a censored debrief
6) Decisions are being made without the input from us. The real details are not known just the brushed up situation
7) HR doesn't really understand what I am doing, yet they control my financial renumeration. I feel there is little relationship between my performance and my renumeration except for the bonus on total results.
