In her 2012 bestseller ‘Mindset’ Dr Carol Dweck, one of the world’s
leading researchers in the fields of personality, social psychology and
developmental psychology, explained how changing the way people
think can help fulfil their potential. She highlighted the two common
mind-sets as:
the growth mind-set
the fixed mind-set
The difference between the two lies in how a person organizes their
work and how they deal with errors and setbacks. These differences
can clearly be aligned with the two approaches to marketing I
discussed in the first article of this series: the principles of agile
marketing. You will probably have guessed it: the fixed mind-set
focuses on command and control and complements the waterfall
approach well, whilst the growth mind-set is more flexible and
applicable to the agile marketing approach. I present both of these in
greater detail in the following sections.
Growth mind-set (Agile Marketing)
Dweck (2012) argues that the core of the growth mind-set lies in the
belief that every person can cultivate their basic qualities through
focused effort. People with a growth mind-set zero in on identifying
the key qualities they have (or ones that they would like to possess)
and exert concerted effort to develop these to the maximum. As a
result, they become more skilled, more effective and more efficient in
completing their tasks, they produce results faster and these are often
of better quality. Growth-oriented individuals usually thrive during
the most challenging times at work (rather than feeling intimidated)
and do not get involved in the blame game but focus on coming up
with solutions to current problems. People with a growth mind-set are
intellectually curious, possess high emotional intelligence and will
identify with the following statements:
Failure is an opportunity to grow.
I can learn to do anything I want.
Challenges help me to grow.
My effort and attitude determine my abilities.
Feedback is constructive.
I am inspired by the success of others.
I like to try new things.
Marketers who employ a growth mind-set are passionate about
learning new skills and developing their individual abilities. Hence,
they are much more likely to embrace the agile approach because they
will not be discouraged by failure while completing marketing tasks,
but would likely view them as an important learning process that
leads to ongoing improvements.
Fixed Mindset (Traditional Marketing - Waterfall)
Marketers with a fixed mind-set are often heavily involved in dirty
office politics because they feel comfortable in their role and do not
usually perceive a need to improve themselves by acquiring new
skills. According to Dweck (2012), people with a fixed mind-set are
confident in their existing skills and often feel compelled to prove
these over and over again.
It is fair to conclude that marketers that actively resist adopting the
agile marketing methodology have a high likelihood of possessing a
fixed mind-set. Think about it: is there a person within your team who
hoards information and keeps them from other members of the team?
Is there someone within the team who gossips and spreads rumors or
blocks creative ideas from materializing? These types of individuals
hinder agile marketing adoption within teams. Bad bosses and toxic
people most of us encounter in the work environment are perfect
examples of individuals with a fixed mind-set. These individuals will
often identify with the following statements:
Failure is the limit of my abilities.
I am either good at it or I am not.
My abilities are unchanging.
I can either do it or I can’t.
I don’t like to be challenged.
My potential is predetermined.
When I am frustrated, I give up.
Feedback and criticism are personal.
I stick to what I know.
In the 21st century, influenced by the shift from interruption to
permission marketing, marketing teams must change from traditional
demand and control (fixed mind-set) if they are to survive in today’s
marketing arena. Embracing a growth mind-set will help marketing
teams fulfil their potential of achieving increased business revenue
whilst supporting the delivery of a healthy customer experience, thus
justifying their existence to the rest of the organisation and
(particularly) the C-suite executives.
Marketers (by default) have a fixed mind-set which aligns perfectly
with the hierarchical company structure which favours the waterfall
project management framework. This works well in marketing
campaigns where we are able to predict outcomes (to some extent).
However, it can be a huge hindrance if the organization wants to be
flexible and able to respond to the needs of its consumers quickly and
effectively, in other words – if it wants to be agile. Developing an
agile mind-set which will support this transition from the waterfall to
the agile marketing framework, however, requires a culture of
openness that encourages mistakes to be made in order to allow teams
to learn from these and improve for the future. Barre Hardy of CMG
Partners, who authored a white paper titled ‘Agile Mindset’, said it
well: ‘Agile leaders put an end to the status quo and promote agility
by setting the tone and vision for what it means to be an Agile
organization, reinforcing and encouraging a shared Agile Mindset
along the way.’ However, this culture must permeate the entire
organization – and not just the marketing function.
Customer Satisfaction – the Holy Grail of Agile Marketing
It is becoming increasingly difficult to understand customer needs.
This is not necessarily due to a lack of trying on the part of the
marketers, but mostly depends on how well customers actually
communicate their needs to marketers. The old adage says ‘If Henry
Ford had asked his customers, they would have told him they want a
faster horse, not cars.’ (or something to that effect). Whilst it is true
that customers are often inside their own ‘box’, today’s marketers
cannot fully discount the input that customers are able to provide via
the gazillion media channels on offer today. Unlike their counterparts
from a hundred or so years ago, customers today are much more
aware of their needs, much more informed about the various different
ways to fulfill these, much less patient and even less forgiving.
Marketers, therefore, do not have much room for error, or even
experimentation.
Adopting the agile approach means recognizing the role of the
consumer in the marketing process and getting to grips with some
interesting practices for communicating and writing down customer
requirements (Stellman & Greene, 2015). Getting a ‘nod’ from
customers about what they like/dislike/want/do not want will greatly
help marketing teams adapt their marketing strategies to be able to
more effectively meet their customers’ expectations. However, this
then begs the question: why do we need to collect insights and
feedback from customers in an iterative manner? Could we not collect
all customer feedback at once and then structure our marketing tactics
around the feedback received?
The short answer is – yes, we could certainly collect all the data at the
beginning of the marketing process and then structure and execute our
strategies and tactics accordingly within the usual 1-year business
cycle. However, with the ever faster pace of life and the speed and
ease with which majority of consumers can get the information they
need about how to best satisfy their needs (primarily via the internet
and social media), it is important that marketers recognize that, in
order to really impact business results, they must not be locked into a
set of marketing strategies and tactics for long periods of time.
Rather, they should be able to evaluate their performance within short
periods of time, so that they are able to quickly divert funds from the
failing strategies and tactics to ones that will be more effective with
their particular target audiences. This is why agile marketing teams
are typically iterative, planning marketing activities around customer
feedback and requirements on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis.
Welcome the Changing Customer Expectations
The growth mind-set is about welcoming and embracing change. A
culture of blame (fixed mind-set) and fear has been one of the major
reasons why marketing teams have been slow in adopting agile
marketing. Can you think of the last time Google made a major
update to their SEO algorithm? How did you feel? Until that moment
you probably had a forecast for your customer acquisition from
organic channels and expected conversions. How did you explain to
senior management that your forecast was accurate?
Being agile and doing agile from a marketing perspective requires a
mind-set that understands and accepts the fact that customers will
change their purchase patterns and perceptions about your product
and/or overall brand. Understanding this is key to agile marketing
mind-set. This first part towards welcoming changing customer
expectations focuses on trying to visualize things from your target
customers’ perspectives. Does your team have relevant information
about the personas of your customers grouped into different segments,
such as ‘new customer’ or ‘most valuable customer’? Do you
understand how your customer journeys through the flow of decisions
before they make the final purchase?
Agile marketers can learn a lot from changing customer expectations.
However, in order to learn, adapt and (ultimately) grow, they need to
embrace this change as a learning process that requires an immediate
response, before it’s too late. This will be made easier if the whole
marketing team, as well as the rest of the organisation, embrace a
culture that acknowledges that mistakes can be beneficial, as long as
we learn from them and adapt our future course of action
accordingly.
Face-To-Face Communication Within the Team
Have you ever been copied in endless streams of emails between team
members when the topic of discussion could be resolved in a face to
face chat in less than 5 minutes? Points made by individuals in
electronic communication (such as emails between team members)
can sometimes be interpreted out of context by others and this will
often result in endless trails of emails which are only creating
distractions and not helping to resolve the situation or offer any
particularly valuable additional information. This can result in a huge
waste of time for everyone involved. This is interesting, considering
the original goal for introducing emails into business was to make
sure an idea that exists in a team member’s head is clearly and
effectively transmitted to other team members without being taken
out of context. Unfortunately, we could argue this is often not the case
in communication streams between teams.
Nonverbal cues in face-to-face conversations, such as body language
or tone of voice, make it a preferred communication tool within teams
because people are able to more easily understand each other, clarify
any issues that may exist in the workload or between individual team
members and encourage team members to openly offer possible
solutions to these. In order for the face-to-face communication to
really produce tangible results, standup meetings are usually
scheduled on a daily basis, which fosters openness and enables teams
to be quick in addressing any issues or obstacles to getting their work
done.
I was recently part of an agile marketing team of 5 people. During our
daily standup in front of a Kanban board, each member was allocated
exactly 3 minutes to update the team on what they were working on
the previous day, what they plan to work on the current day and the
issues that could potentially affect their task completion rate. We had
a squeeze ball hand exerciser which we used for our standup meetings
and the purpose of the ball was to ensure that each member is actively
listening to what is being discussed during the meeting. Person A
would start the conversation, ball in hand, with the mind-set that
he/she has exactly 3 minutes to talk and then passes the ball randomly
to any other member of the team who then spends 3 minutes doing the
same thing. We made sure each individual’s input did not exceed the
3 minutes allocated to them and any conversation that required more
time to resolve was discussed in a separate meeting with the parties
specifically involved in or impacted by that process.
Fostering Trust and Respect Across the Marketing Team
A mind-set of trust between agile marketing team members is
extremely important. Trust ensures team members do not hoard vital
information or hide them from one another. A culture of trust prevents
clique-forming amongst team members and fosters open
communication which is a vital element for information flow across
the team.
Respect for each other is another important requirement for agile
marketing teams. The military is a good example: respecting your
comrades and (particularly) your superiors is important because it can
mean the difference between life and death. Although much less
dramatic, a lack of respect between members of a marketing team will
destroy the trust within the team, make members less open with each
other and this will ultimately impact negatively on the overall
marketing strategy and business results.
Conclusion
There is no single recipe for creating the agile marketing mind-set but
CMOs, other C-suite executives and human resource departments can
certainly make agile marketing governance part of their job
responsibilities.
Training, mentoring and coaching marketing teams in agile
methodologies and setting up recruitment and on-boarding processes
which will favour candidates with a growth mind-set would be a good
starting point. Contact Femi Olajiga for more information about how
to implement agile marketing within your marketing team. I’d love to
hear what you think about this topic.
About The Author
Femi Olajiga is an independent consultant: Agile Digital Marketing
Consultant (Web Analytics, Customer Experience and User
Experience). You can connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter or visit
my website CXconversion.com
Share and find out more about Agile Marketing in my previous post
- The Principles of Agile Marketing: Explained
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