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The transformative CMOThree must-have competencies to meet the growing demands placed on marketing leaders
By Caren Fleit and Brigitte Morel-Curran
As organizations strive to set themselves apart from competitors, marketing has taken on new prominence throughout the business process. The days when marketing simply built brands, created above-the-line programs, and targeted customers are over. Now marketing—and more specifically the office of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)—is transforming how business is done. As a result, today’s top-flight and aspiring CMOs need new competencies to thrive in this expanded role.
CMOs must move well beyond the longstanding role as “the voice of the
customer” to provide strategic leadership, drive change, and achieve
quantifiable business results. Today they are tasked with not only ownership
of the brand, but also with development of overarching business strategies.
For example, one $4 billion retailer recently charged its new CMO with a
360-degree effort to rethink everything related to customer needs:
products, operations, supply chains, store locations, and how the company
communicated internally and to customers. All the while, CEOs and
corporate boards are scrutinizing marketing activities with unprecedented
analytical intensity.
In short, the mandate for today’s CMOs is nothing less than fundamental
business transformation. “Marketing is increasingly intertwined with all
other functions in the company. CMOs need strong leadership skills to
influence across the organization, cross functionally, and geographically,”
March 2012
Chief Marketing Officers increasingly are taking on enterprise-wide transformation. Through interviews and research, Korn/Ferry has identified the three competencies most essential for success in this expanding role: Creating the New and Different, Focusing on Actions and Outcomes, and Inspiring Others.
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says Lauri Kien Kotcher, CMO of Godiva. “We need to be able to adapt our
plans based on rapid-fire feedback; this means moving together as an
organization to drive results.”
Marketing executives have always leveraged their creative, analytic, and
tactical skills. What is changing is the growing complexity of the business
environment, the communication landscape, the consumer and customer
expectations, and the innovation cycle. As a result, companies looking for a
truly successful and transformative CMO, and marketing executives who
aspire to be CMOs, must focus on acquiring three core competencies:
Creating the New and Different: The ability to generate new ideas and
breakthroughs requires vision, creativity, and broad interests and
knowledge. But leaders must also be able to speculate about alternatives,
manage the innovation process and teams, and bring those ideas to market.
Focusing on Action and Outcomes: Transformative CMOs must possess the
potent combination of attacking everything with energy—while also
keeping an eye on the bottom line. They must be unafraid to initiate action
based on incomplete data, then drive to the finish and honestly assess
results.
Inspiring Others: Building motivated, high-performing teams—or even
moving an entire organization to perform at a higher level—demands a
compelling vision, commitment, and superior communication. These
leaders also must understand what motivates different individuals.
These competencies, drawn from a list of sixty-seven defined in the
Leadership Architect® library, were identified through research conducted
by Korn/Ferry International’s Marketing Center of Expertise. Not everyone
inherently possesses these competencies; even those who do possess them
develop and improve them with each job assignment. Likewise, marketing
executives with a level of self-awareness and humility can indeed develop
them. The following sections discuss each competency, how it manifests in
CMOs, and how it can be developed.
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. — George Bernard Shaw
Creating the New and Different
Transformative CMOs push the boundaries of marketing with breakthrough
thinking. Working with this type of blank slate is a challenge that requires
curiosity, foresight, visionary thinking, mental agility, courage, and
perseverance.
Those who create the new and different strike a balance between marketing
as an art and marketing as a science. “If you apply everything by the letter,
getting caught into your own frameworks, repeating models without having
the courage to be true to a vision and have a point of view, then you end up
fundamentally doing the same thing as everybody else,” says Marc Mathieu,
senior vice president of marketing
at Unilever. In his view, CMOs need
a strong personal desire to make a
mark, not just manage. “These are
the restless souls who don’t just
want the right to have input, but
desire to have impact. These are
people with a sparkle in the eye, passion in the heart, a belief that they can
change the world, and a great team and collaborative spirit. You need this
attitude to overcome the many barriers you encounter in creating the new
and different. Creating the new is very hard work.”
Why competencies?
At the core of the transformative CMO is a set of behavioral and cultural competencies—that is, measurable characteristics that relate to success. A competency may be a behavioral skill; a technical skill; an attribute, such as intelligence; or an attitude, such as optimism. Research conducted at several universities and tested in long-term studies involving large corporations indicates that individuals who master the key competencies identified for a given role tend to be high performers. Korn/Ferry International uses a proprietary library of sixty-seven competencies called The Leadership Architect®, developed by Lominger International, and these competencies are integrated into search assessments, 360-degree performance assessments, and interview guides.
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It is also a particularly valued competency for organizations that want to
achieve market leadership. They need innovative thinking to use
macroeconomic trends, new markets, and changes in customer expectations
to their advantage. CMOs who are innovators are able to immerse
themselves in the problem at hand while looking broadly for connections.
By letting ideas incubate, and relaxing and reducing distractions to allow
the breakthrough ideas to emerge, these CMOs are more likely to identify
the ones that are worth pushing forward.
“It is critical to be more outer-directed than inner-directed,” says Jill
Beraud, CEO of Living Proof and former CMO of PepsiCo Beverages Americas.
“This means continually looking outside of your industry, doing competitive
patterning, and looking at other industries and other parts of the world for
inspiration and solutions.”
CMOs who transform their organizations through innovation can have an
impact on the entire business value chain. “Innovation can be across
product design, the service experience, the use of channels,” notes Peter
Horst, CMO at Capital One Bank. “We are looking for a fresh take on the
game. We look to be strategically bold by focusing on breakout moves rather
than incrementalism. There is a growing appetite for innovation, at a faster
pace.”
Even the most well-established brands are constantly trying new approaches
to engage customers and new markets. “Starbucks is in the middle of a
transformational agenda,” says Marie Silloway, CMO of Starbucks China.
The company is constantly examining how to enhance its brand promise
and delight customers through the store experience and by developing new
food products and beverages. “In China, innovation will be around figuring
out how to maintain a consistent relationship with the customer base, how
we can connect more deeply and more frequently,” says Silloway. “We are
also looking for ways to leverage digital technology, which is still a
relatively immature space in China.”
“ Innovation can be across product design, the service experience, the use of channels. We are looking for a fresh take on the game. We look to be strategically bold by focusing on breakout moves rather than incrementalism. There is a growing appetite for innovation, at a faster pace.”
Peter Horst Chief Marketing Officer, Capital One Bank
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Focusing on Action and Outcomes
Today’s markets emphasize speed and agility. Perfectionism,
procrastination, and risk avoidance hamper CMOs’ ability to take quick and
timely action in order to generate desired outcomes.
CMOs who demonstrate a bias for action and an eagerness to take the
initiative generally nurture an overall results-oriented mindset that drives
the bottom line. They also instill the necessary urgency within teams and
organizations to excel. “Focus on results and celebrate achievement, but
don’t overlay staff with dozens of checks and balances,” says Paul Dickinson,
the international managing director of client services for Christie’s
International, and former global sales and marketing director for Virgin
Atlantic. “Errors, even embarrassing ones, happen, but you’ve got to give
people a challenge and give them the freedom to achieve it.”
Transformative CMOs strike the right balance between action and
thoughtful approaches to avoid wreaking havoc with unbridled change.
They stay focused on their vision and maintaining momentum, but also
consider the best courses of action as new data emerge. If CMOs do not
achieve success with early steps, they must be agile and resilient enough to
make adjustments.
Increasingly, CMOs also must demonstrate tangible business results that
align with the goals of the whole organization. They are expected to be
more financially oriented and have
a measurable role in generating
revenue, which requires refining
the way they think about customer
relationships. “We are more
focused on numbers; we push the
marketing team to think about metrics and where are the greatest levers we
can push,” says Deborah Meyer, CMO of PulteGroup.
Appropriate structures and processes can help create sustainable growth.
Global brewer AB InBev, for instance, divides its marketing efforts into
three processes: long-term brand and strategy activities, including
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. —Winston Churchill
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understanding demand, segmentation, positioning, and portfolio thinking;
short-term (twelve to eighteen months) efforts to connect the brand to
consumers; and ongoing renovation and innovation. “All of our ‘brand
dreams’ are translated into specific key performance indicators,” says Chris
Burggraeve, the company’s CMO. AB InBev trains its marketers, spells out
expectations, and rigorously tracks results each year with a proprietary
point-based marketing audit system that is part of its marketing excellence
program. The company is very disciplined about tracking brand health, even
beyond marketing. Since 2008 even top management’s incentive
remuneration is partially tied to achieving specific “brand health”
objectives, and more recently company reputation targets. “This
demonstrates to all our stakeholders that as a top five FMCG (fast-moving
consumer goods) company, we are very serious about our mantra, ‘Brand
health today is topline tomorrow,’” says Burggraeve.
Inspiring Others
Although Inspiring Others is the third identified competency, it is truly the
foundation for all CMO success. In order to create the new and different,
teams need to be inspired and aligned behind a vision of change. Inspired
and motivated teams take action and accomplish much more in terms of
measurable outcomes.
However, motivation is neither automatic nor consistent from person to
person. Transformative CMOs must develop a clear and compelling vision,
and then communicate that vision in a way that appeals to the core
interests and values of their constituents. “Inspiration is making people do
the impossible,” says Ann Lewnes, senior vice president of global marketing
for Adobe Systems Inc. “It is the
ability to show people where you
want to go and giving them the
confidence you can get there.”
CMOs who are passionate about
their vision should be able to close
the gap between the current reality and an envisioned future and, in the
process, ignite passion in others. The overall goal is to inspire followers to
operate at their peak. What motivates each individual might be different,
but each has to give focus, energy, and commitment.
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. —Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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Inspiration can also stem from getting “permission” to fail while
innovating. “It is important to acknowledge that failure is an option, but
that fear is not,” says Unilever’s Mathieu. “That will unleash energy, passion,
and adrenaline that becomes contagious.”
Others agree. “The CMO needs to paint a bold vision that people can sign up
for and get excited about,” says Living Proof’s Beraud. “The role of the CMO
is to provide opportunities for teams to stretch their ideas and encourage an
environment where it’s OK if something does not work. This instills
confidence and encourages an innovative culture.”
Additionally, in order to drive organization-wide transformation, CMOs
need inspirational leadership that extends across functions. That may
require a more nuanced approach that leans heavily on diplomacy,
communication, and other interpersonal skills. In highly matrixed
organizations, “It is important for CMOs to provide thought leadership, be
assertive, and collaborative—allowing and encouraging others to own the
process and the outcome,” says Horst of Capital One Bank.
Enhancing abilities in an unequal world
Although competencies can be instilled through training and experience,
some—particularly the ability to Create the New and Different—are often
difficult for individuals to develop. As a result, companies looking for a
transformative CMO face the added challenge of making sure that
candidates possess these competencies.
For their part, current and aspiring CMOs should look for help wherever
they can find it. Most enterprises’ talent management programs are
designed to help executives in their career growth. However, a generalized
program may not recognize the changing behavioral requirements of
successful CMOs. Simply identifying high-potential leaders and giving them
leadership training is not likely to help them nurture the three
competencies critical for today’s marketing leaders. The development map
for the transformative CMO must cover new ground, perhaps including
individualized coaching and deliberately developmental assignments.
For CMOs, failing to leverage this new set of competencies can severely limit
It is important to acknowledge that failure is an option, but that fear is not. That will unleash energy, passion, and adrenaline that becomes contagious.”
Marc Mathieu Senior Vice President of Marketing, Unilever
“
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their success and hamper their careers. CMOs cannot rely on past successes
to chart a clear course for the future. Instead, CMOs must chart an entirely
new map that relies on these competencies to innovate, inspire, and execute
for success.
Companies that recognize that marketing is central to transformation
efforts and are interested in bringing in a transformative CMO must work
even harder to assess candidates for these competencies. Simply having
industry or category experience is no guarantee of success. The ultimate
measure of successful CMOs is the ability to create the new and different,
to focus on action and outcomes, and to inspire others in order to drive
change in their organizations.
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Becoming a Transformative CMO
CMOs, and those aspiring to the position, can take immediate concrete steps
toward becoming a transformative marketing leader by focusing on the
three critical competencies. Here, we’ve broken each down into critical do’s
and don’ts.
Creating the New and DifferentBeing a creative visionary overflowing with new ideas is fantastic. But there
are other ways to foster innovation in yourself and the marketing team. Just
being flexible, able to shift gears, and willing to take chances puts you a
step ahead. Even with incomplete information, practice speculating about
how things might turn out. And don’t discount the power of follow-through:
you must manage innovation through the organization to bring the new
ideas to market.
You must be able to...> Allot sufficient time and focus for
effective brainstorming sessions.
> Collaborate with colleagues who
have diverse perspectives and can
build on each other’s suggestions.
> Manage workload and schedule to
create space for creative thinking
and experimentation.
> Play the role of idea champion by
navigating the organization and
helping to implement an idea
that has merit.
> Study the methods of great
inventors and innovators.
...Without> Quickly dismissing every offbeat
idea as unworkable.
> Insisting on perfection that can smother the inherent messiness of the innovation process.
> Waiting for a crisis to embark.
> Selling yourself short and ignoring your intuition.
> Relying on old data for new ideas.
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Inspiring Others Getting individuals and teams to perform at a higher level and to embrace
change is the essence of leadership. Interpersonal communication is key: a
compelling vision drives both action and morale.
You must be able to...> Get to know other people and
what really motivates them.
> Adjust your approach to meet other people’s needs and interests.
> Use metaphors and analogies to paint a picture to which others can relate.
> Negotiating skillfully to achieve a fair outcome or promote a common cause.
> Building motivated, high-performing teams.
...Without> Delivering a speech, or worse,
by reading the speech.
> Assuming that delivering a message once is all that is needed to gain buy-in.
> Leaving people guessing about why they are doing this.
> Underestimating the power of relationships.
> Forgetting to express gratitude for efforts and reward.
Focusing on Actions and Outcomes A transformative CMO is focused on the target and the bottom line. He or
she drives to get projects underway, and is resilient and tenacious enough
to see each through to the end.
You must be able to...> Balance analysis with action.
> Break up tasks and find ways to reinforce yourself as the tasks are completed.
> Initiate action before all the facts are known.
> Give progress updates.
...Without> Being afraid to make mistakes.
> Letting obstacles paralyze you.
> Making excuses yourself or shrinking responsibilities.
> Assuming people know what you are doing.
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Caren Fleit is co-leader of Korn/Ferry International’s Marketing Center of
Expertise. She is a Senior Client Partner in the firm’s Consumer practice,
based in New York City.
Brigitte Morel-Curran is a Senior Partner and Country Managing Director,
Switzerland for Korn/Ferry Leadership and Talent Consulting, based in
Zurich.
Contributing EditorsJennifer Carroll, Senior Client Partner
Philiep Dedrijvere, Senior Client Partner
Richard Sumner, Principal
Tierney Remick, Senior Client Partner
Korn/Ferry’s Marketing Center of ExpertiseJacques Amey, Geneva
David Barnes, Princeton
Jan Campbell, Princeton
Jennifer Carroll, Chicago
EJ Chae, Seoul
Jennifer DeCastro, New York
Philiep Dedrijvere, Brussels
Patrick Delhougne, New York
Ann Fastiggi, New York
Keith Feldman, San Francisco
Caren Fleit, New York
Peri Hansen, Los Angeles
Jeff Hocking, San Francisco
Katherine Lee, New York
Grace Nida, Tokyo
John Petzold, New York
Tierney Remick, Chicago
Jane Stevenson, Atlanta
James Stuart, London
Richard Sumner, London
Kalya Tea, Paris
Jeff Wierichs, New York
Kate Wright, Melbourne
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About The Korn/Ferry InstituteThe Korn/Ferry Institute generates forward-thinking research and viewpoints
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