Post on 03-Feb-2022
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In recent years, one thing may have remained constant in how marketing executives approach their job: the morning cup of coffee. After that, all bets are off.
Marketing sits at the spot where all the forces of change buffeting business
collide: digital and mobile connectivity, big data, social media, emerging
global markets, new customer demands, and competition from shoestring
start-ups. In this dynamic environment, marketers increasingly are charged
with driving enterprise-wide transformation and creating measurable
value. Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are defining or refining business
models and go-to-market strategies, in many cases completely altering how
business is done. To successfully lead change during such volatile conditions
— not just respond and react — CMOs and other senior marketing executives
must have cutting-edge skills.
The whetstone for sharpening such skills? Learning Agility.
Learning Agility is the ability to deeply absorb lessons from experience and
then extrapolate or reinterpret that knowledge when confronting the
unfamiliar. As Martin Schlatter, Global CMO for Wrigley explained, “The
successful leaders of the future will be those who can adapt best and fastest,
and also recognize that certain things will not or should not change.”
Learning Agility is the attribute that helps best-in-class marketing
executives strike that balance between honoring their expertise and
moving beyond the tried-and-true — the key to mastering the disruption,
complexity, and unforeseen opportunities inherent to marketing today.
September 2013
Learning Agility—the ability to garner insight from experience and apply it to new situations—is a trait that distinguishes best-in-class marketing executives. Two facets in particular, Mental Agility and Change Agility, stand out as differentiators, enabling CMOs to take advantage of new technologies and data, capture new markets, and lead enterprise-wide transformation efforts. CMOs can not only assess and interview for Learning Agility when hiring, but also develop this crucial attribute on their teams.
The perspectives of a CFO master classby Michael O’Callaghan and Chris CampbellBy Caren Fleit, Peri Hansen, and Kim Butler
The Agile CMOLearning Agility gives an edge to marketing executiveswho now operate in a world of constant change
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Understanding Learning Agility
Learning Agility is founded on two streams of research into leadership
success and failure. Over twenty years of global research and practice by
Lominger and Korn/Ferry International, study after study has proven that
leaders’ success depends on their interest in seeking out diverse new
experiences, drawing varied lessons from
them, and then integrating those insights
when facing their next challenge. In fact,
studies have specifically shown that Learning
Agility significantly predicts long-term
performance and career success as reflected by
promotion rates and salary changes over a period of ten years (Dai, De
Meuse, and Tang forthcoming). Additionally, Learning Agility is a better
predictor of success after a promotion than educational attainment, job
performance ratings, or emotional intelligence (EQ) scores (De Meuse, Dai,
and Hallenbeck 2010).
Leaders who are learning agile exhibit the following six characteristics
(Swisher 2012):
• They are unafraid to challenge the status quo.
• They remain calm in the face of difficulty.
• They take time to reflect on their experiences.
• They purposefully put themselves in challenging situations.
• They are open to learning.
• They resist the temptation to become defensive in the face of adversity.
In addition to an overall assessment score, five factors are gauged to
determine the specific bent of an individual’s Learning Agility:
Mental Agility. The ability to examine problems from all angles to come up
with a solution. Those who are mentally agile are able to analyze a situation,
recognize what is new or different compared with previous experiences,
and alter the approach.
Change Agility. People with this ability are willing to step out of their
comfort zone, experiment, and implement something different. They are
comfortable with change in general, and managing change efforts. When
resistance surfaces, they deal with it effectively.
Results Agility. Achieves goals even in challenging first-time situations,
backed by an established track record of delivering results. If obstacles arise
or conditions change, they adapt and find another way.
Learning Agility significantly predicts long-term performance and career success as reflected by promotion rates and salary changes.
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People Agility. Skilled communicators who can work with diverse types
of people. Connections are established spanning functions, cultures, and
backgrounds. When the unexpected happens — deadlines change or
resources evaporate — they know how to keep the team motivated and
aligned.
Self-Awareness. Extensive knowledge of one’s true strengths and
weaknesses. This involves a high degree of self-reflection; sincerity around
understanding strengths and opportunities for improvement; and asking
for feedback and acting on it.
Learning Agility in marketing executives
Among marketing leaders, Learning Agility enables flexibility and
innovation, helping executives adapt and become catalysts for change
within their organization. Plotting the average scores from one assessment
of Learning Agility (viaEdge) reveals how abilities change across leadership
levels (see Figure 1) within marketing departments. Senior executives score
significantly higher than lower-level marketers in three areas: overall
Learning Agility, Mental Agility, and Change Agility.
Figure 1Learning Agility average percentile scores in marketing
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55
50
45
40Individual contributor Manager Executive
Overall
Mental Agility
Change Agility
People Agility
Results Agility
Self-Awareness
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These findings suggest a few things. First, the challenges marketers
encounter as they move into management and executive roles are ones
that develop Mental Agility and Change Agility. Second, marketing
managers who are being promoted to the executive level are more learning
agile than their peers. Finally, it’s important to note that marketing
executives’ average Learning Agility levels — Mental Agility at the 53rd
percentile, Change Agility at the 54th percentile, and Overall Learning
Agility at the 58th percentile — fall toward the middle of the bell curve.
The 67th percentile is the demarcation for high Learning Agility. This
makes assessing for Learning Agility a crucial component of the selection
and promotion process for marketing executives, as all marketing
executives are not created equal in this area.
A recent survey of executives by Korn/Ferry found that 61 percent agreed that Learning Agility is the most important attribute to consider when promoting senior marketing leaders. At the same time, only 19 percent said their company used any form of assessment in deciding whom to promote.
Failure to screen for Learning Agility may mean the CMO responsibilities are not in the hands of the most highly qualified individual. This could prove detrimental to companies at a time when they need to become more customer-centric and better able to make the most of opportunities in a highly competitive global marketplace.
Korn/Ferry has developed three ways to assess Learning Agility. The first is an interview protocol called the Learning From Experience Interview (Hallenbeck and Orr 2013). This method assesses all five factors
plus overall Learning Agility and it is designed to elicit the degree to which a candidate learns from experiences and applies those lessons to other situations. The second is a self-assessment called viaEdge that provides percentile scores across each of the five factors as well as an overall Learning Agility score. Both are appropriate to use in the selection process.
The third assessment, CHOICES, requires input from multiple raters who have worked with the individual, and provides rich feedback geared to deeper individual development.Learning Agility can be informally assessed by reviewing a résumé or curriculum vitae. Candidates who have a “mosaic background” likely have successfully navigated new environments and are probably highly learning agile. For example, a CMO may have a track record of success across a variety of industries, corporate cultures, and
locations, including international postings or experience. Even before contacting a potential candidate, experienced executive recruiters will look for such telltale signs of versatility and adaptability. These are the indications that someone likely has Learning Agility and will be able to drive an innovation or change agenda in an organization.
In interviews and conversations, learning agile candidates will be willing to discuss challenges and failures in the context of being learning opportunities that ultimately led to new ways to influence and effect change. These candidates will exhibit an appetite for risk, challenge, novel experiences, different cultures, cross-functional interests, and working with people from diverse backgrounds. In short, the executive’s varied past reveals a broad set of experiences that can be leveraged in the next role and opportunity.
Assessing for Learning Agility
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“Agility in marketing leadership, culture, process, and content is a must to
be successful in today’s world. It is a must in today’s digital world, in which
the marketing mix has fundamentally changed. When done excellently, it
can lead to differentiation,” said Joseph Kumar Gross, CMO of Allianz SE.
Assessing Learning Agility enables executives and organizations to identify
the most highly agile individuals, or diagnose any agility weaknesses and
find appropriate developmental opportunities (De Meuse and Dai 2011).
Learning Agility in action
For marketing leaders, overall Learning Agility is a clear asset when
dealingwith complexity and ambiguity, problem solving, and making fresh
connections between divergent concepts. “Learning Agility has helped me
navigate significantly different business environments and industries, and
to help grow the businesses in each of those companies,” said Victor Duran,
Amer Sports’ CMO/Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business to
Consumer, whose background includes positions at Procter & Gamble,
Caterpillar, and in consulting. “I’ve always started by looking at the
consumer, finding the gaps in our approach, testing a few directions
quickly, and then rolling out the approach that works.”
Mental Agility — the ability to handle complexity, distill insights, and make
connections — particularly enhances a marketing leader’s capacity to
analyze and leverage big data, which has
completely changed the paradigm. Although a
valuable tool, big data can also be an
inundation of information, quickly becoming
overwhelming without the ability to draw
from it deep insights about individuals and
customer groups. “The more data we get, the more simplicity and clarity of
mind leaders need to display,” observed Jean-Marc Levy, CMO of British
American Tobacco.
John Kennedy, Vice President, IBM Global Business Services, noted that
“CEOs are turning to CMOs to ‘figure out’ big data. … It’s about really
understanding the customer, and delivering an experience that is truly
customized.” In this data-driven environment, many new possibilities are
opening up for marketing executives to connect and engage with customers
and drive the business. Marketing executives higher in Mental Agility will
be better able to sift through the complexity and uncover key insights.
Marketing executives higher in Mental Agility will be better able to sift through newly available complex data and uncover key insights.
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Change Agility, the ability to drive a change agenda across an organization,
enables CMOs and other marketing leaders to help their business globalize
(such as expanding in Asia), reinvent the go-to-market business strategy
(such as furthering an omni-channel strategy), attract an expanded
audience (such as through social media), or create a new value proposition.
“When you have Learning Agility, you face challenges and competitive set
changes, and are willing to take risks, learn new skills, and apply them
effectively,” commented Barry Judge, CMO of Living Social and former CMO
of Best Buy. Leaders who are high in Change Agility seek continuous
improvement and innovation and are personally able to flex or pivot as they
confront obstacles, such as changes in the economy, a recalcitrant business
division, or a lack of alignment among stakeholders.
Overcoming these challenges and adapting to the “new world order”
requires Learning Agility. “Beyond the standard tool kit, marketing leaders
need to have an open mind and a level of excitement about what Learning
Agility is all about,” observed Marc Speichert, CMO of L’Oreal USA.
“The world is changing so fast, leaders have to be in constant rethink
mode about how things are done — and then do things that have never
been done before.”
Building Learning Agility on the marketing team
It stands to reason that learning agile CMOs will look for the same trait in
their teams. Across a department’s generalists and specialists, however,
there need not be a uniformly high level of Learning Agility. For some roles,
a depth of expertise or specific technical
skills are more important. “The key to any
collective effort is to first build a shared
vision of the future,” said Michael Simon,
Executive Vice President and CMO for Panera
Bread. Then, “a leader must be a catalyst in
creating a collaborative culture that leverages the diversity of thinking of
each team member and then allows the team the autonomy to push and
learn together.” A certain threshold of group Learning Agility increases the
team’s adaptability and flexibility, and alignment toward goals is achieved
with more ease.
A whole marketing team need not be uniformly high in Learning Agility. For some roles, a depth of expertise or specific technical skills are more important.
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Developing Learning Agility for team members may involve prompting
them to seek new experiences, such as volunteering for cross-functional task
forces, and seeking mentors outside of their functional area. Individuals
may have opportunities to get training and
development outside their zone of expertise
and take on extracurricular leadership
assignments such as sitting on a board or
participating in an MBA extension course. The
team’s leaders also can build Learning Agility
in a marketing group by encouraging people to challenge the status quo or
engrained approaches. Creating space for “what if …” and “why don’t we try
…” in formal meetings and informal conversations lays a foundation for
Learning Agility and affirms its value.
CMOs should also look for learning agile individuals when hiring by asking
interview questions that probe how candidates have learned from past
experiences. “When I meet with candidates, I ask them to describe three
things that are working for them and three that need to be improved,” said
Christopher Stadler, CMO of IRONMAN. “I place a lot of emphasis on how
candidates define failure and challenges and how they have been able to
overcome and address them.” Steven Althaus, CMO of BMW Car Group,
pointed out how Learning Agility is evident by “collaboration rather than
managing hierarchies — as well as learning from other industries,
enjoyment of learning, and curiosity.”
Building an agile marketing team needs to be a priority for the best-in-class
CMO, who cannot drive transformative change solo. To succeed, the leader
needs to identify the most agile team members and develop their capacity to
lead change. The team members who possess these abilities will soon be in
high demand. To mitigate the “flight risk” to the competition, the
transformative CMO also must make time for coaching conversations, build
relationships, and provide talent the opportunity to drive priority projects.
This approach succeeds on three fronts: individual development, retention
of top talent, and organizational transformation.
Marketing leaders can build Learning Agility on their team by encouraging people to challenge the status quo or engrained approaches.
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Conclusion: Learning Agility as differentiator
To succeed when change is unrelenting, stakes are high, and marketing is
accountable for enterprise-wide transformation — which is the normal state
of affairs in marketing today — CMOs and other senior marketing leaders
must possess sufficient Learning Agility. This all-important trait is like a
capability steroid, building up ability across all leadership muscle groups. It
also helps executives recognize when proven methods are right, when they
need to be adapted, and when it’s time to
innovate new solutions.
As companies put more energy into attracting
the right talent and cultivating it, identifying
Learning Agility will become crucial. Evaluating marketing executives to
pinpoint this key success attribute will improve the chances of finding truly
transformative leaders, who are able to envision a new and more exciting
future — and drive the change to achieve it.
Learning Agility is like a capability steroid, building up ability across all leadership muscle groups.
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References
Dai, Guangrong, Kenneth P. De Meuse, and King Tang. Forthcoming. “The Role of Learning Agility in Executive Career Success: The Results of Two Field Studies.” Journal of Managerial Issues.
De Meuse, Kenneth P., and Guangrong Dai. 2011. “Criterion-Related Validity of viaEdge™ Assessment: Findings From Two Recent Field Studies.” Korn/Ferry Interna-tional.
De Meuse, Kenneth P., Guangrong Dai, and George S. Hallenbeck. 2010. “Learning Agility: A Construct Whose Time Has Come.” Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research 62 (2): 119-30.
Hallenbeck, George S., and J. Evelyn Orr. 2013. “Learning From Experience™ Interview Guide.” Lominger International – a Korn/Ferry Company.
Swisher, Victoria. 2012. Becoming an Agile Leader: Know What to Do … When You Don’t Know What to Do. Lominger International – a Korn/Ferry Company.
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Caren Fleit is leader of Korn/Ferry International’s Global Marketing Center
of Expertise. She is a Senior Client Partner in the firm’s Global Consumer
Market, based in New York. caren.fleit@kornferry.com
Peri Hansen is a Senior Client Partner in the Los Angeles office of Korn/
Ferry and a member of the firm’s Global Marketing Center of Expertise and
Global Consumer Market. peri.hansen@kornferry.com
Kim Butler is a Principal Consultant for Korn/Ferry’s Leadership and Talent
Consulting business, and is based in New York. kim.butler@kornferry.com
Contributing Editors:
Oliver Dange, Senior Client Partner, Frankfurt
Jacques Amey, Senior Client Partner and Managing Director, Geneva
Jennifer De Castro, Principal, New York
Korn/Ferry’s Global Marketing Center of Expertise
Amy Young, Atlanta Anne Park Hopkins, Atlanta Betsy Barrett, New York Caren Fleit, New York David Barnes, Princeton
Eduardo Latham, Miami
EJ (Eun-Joo) Chae, Seoul Elaine Dinos, Atlanta Eve Nam, Newport Beach Grace Nida, Tokyo
Jacques Amey, Geneva Jan Campbell, Princeton
Jane Stevenson, Atlanta
Jeff Hocking, San Francisco
Jeff Wierichs, New York
Jennifer DeCastro, New York Kalya Tea, Paris Kate Wright, Melbourne
Katherine Lee, New York
Keith Feldman, San Francisco Oliver Dange, Frankfurt
Patrick Delhougne, New York Peri Hansen, Los Angeles
Philiep Dedrijvere, Brussels
Richard Sumner, London Scott Coleman, Atlanta
Tierney Remick, Chicago
12 © 2013 The Korn/Ferry Institute
About The Korn/Ferry InstituteThe Korn/Ferry Institute generates forward-thinking research and viewpoints
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