When things go wrong in companies, it’s really hard to achieve alignment between various business functions without the sobering effects of a common understanding of what’s going on. Fingers get pointed (rarely inwardly) and execs take turns throwing each other under the proverbial bus.
An obvious example: sales and marketing execs. Look carefully and when sales aren’t as expected you may also spot a CFO tossing a CMO. Or a COO tossing a CSO. When things go wrong, life at work can become a really big toss-fest. In my view, it’s symptomatic of a much bigger problem – sales productivity – and the challenges execs face in coming to grips with what to do about it.
The problem, in my view, is that there’s no basis for translating CEO, CFO, COO, CMO, and CSO perspectives into a common understanding of what’s going on. Without a common language, the scene is fraught with tons of noise, no understanding, and absolutely no progress. Under the bus, it can get pretty crowded. There are fatalities.
What’s needed is new information that clarifies the impacts on sales productivity of investments made, and initiatives tried. It can be the common language that execs need with which to gain a common understanding of what’s going on and learn from each others’ perspectives. This new info needs to arrive in real-time, in order to shrink the costs of discovering and fixing mistakes. When informed, and informed quickly, execs will throw ideas at each other (rather than each other under the passing bus). It’s an alternative response to sales productivity challenges that’s a lot less fatal and a lot more productive.
Firms that understand this need, and address it, will astonish themselves with how much their execs can learn from each other. They’ll astonish themselves with how much more they can earn, triggered by how much more they can learn.
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Kent Huffman, CMO, BearCom Wireless, thoughtfully provoked this post. Silverpop’s latest whitepaper gives a valuable summary of ‘Why Sales Throws Marketing Under the Bus (and how to avoid fatalities), drawing on the findings of recent research studies. Their points illustrate the communications gulf that exists between departments when sales aren’t as intended. David Cooperstein‘s recent tweet noting how he can’t wait to get Forrester’s research going on CFO-CMO connection provided further grist for the mill. Hopefully this post adds some value.
