How do I convince my boss to modernize our marketing?
I’ve taught at Rutgers University for nearly 12 years and I’ve received some form of this question in most of them: “I’ve learned a lot, and I know we need to modernize our marketing, but how do I convince my boss?”
Most of my students in these university classes are mid- to senior-level marketing professionals and are frustrated about being locked in an outdated business mindset. They want to move ahead to a process that is more human-centric, rather than advertising/broadcast-oriented, but how do you move an organization along with you?
Here’s the good news. I know how to do it and I’ll tell you today. Here’s the bad news: It’s not easy.
Support from the top
Here is a very short story with a powerful lesson:
My first marketing job was in a large company before the days of email. Hard to believe, right? My boss at the time stubbornly resisted the move to email. He said he wanted every message he received to be documented, on paper, and in a file in a desk drawer.
One day, his manager — a powerful vice president at the corporate headquarters — called my boss to ask why he had not been responding to his emails. Truth was, my boss had never even logged in! Within five minutes of this call, my boss was on email for the rest of his career.
What happened here?
- There was an entrenched anti-progress culture.
- My boss could not be influenced to change by me or anybody working for him.
- Change happened quickly when the person at the top actively demonstrated an expectation of a new work habit.
And that’s how it works. It really is that simple.
There’s no such thing as a grassroots cultural change. Organizational change comes when there is not just an understanding at the top, but a demonstration that this change is part of a new way of doing business.
I define “leader” in this case as the person in an organization responsible for strategy, owns the budget, and is at a high enough level that everybody who has to change ultimately reports to that person.
