Back when I was a publisher of HR resources, I butted heads with our marketing team.
Every piece of collateral was cliched. There was no difference between us and our more successful competitor. The same stock photos, the same wafty copy. To my mind we needed to take risks and define our difference.
Iād just finished reading āUnderstanding Comicsā by Scott Adams, and was persuaded by the notion that our brains process illustrations differently from photos.
So, I argued for a new and different aesthetic. A metaphor rich ācircusā theme for our upcoming trade expo, based on cartoonish illustrations rather than generic pictures of business people high-fiving each other.
After many pointed discussions, I managed to convince my colleagues to go with it.
Trouble was, they were half hearted.
What I failed to do was get the marketing team to own the idea. They didnāt embrace it, they acquiesced. It was my idea, not theirs, so they went through the motions and the result was a lame campaign that simply didnāt work.
Worse, by pushing so hard Iād burned all my goodwill with them and lost the right to have a say in future campaigns.
Working across functions in an organisation is a tough gig. You donāt have authority to tell people what to do, so you have to rely on your ability to persuade.
The funny thing is that āstakeholder managementā gets talked about like we should just know how to do it.
But as my example of working with my marketing colleagues attests, I really didnāt know what I was doing and I could have been so much more effective (and energised) if Iād known what it takes to predictably, reliably, and confidently influence action.
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