Category: Growth Strategy

Join your peers from AARP, Blackbaud, CoStar Group, HomeServe USA, and more at CLIC '24

Join us in Manhattan for our 8th innovation cohort.
Join us in Manhattan for our 8th innovation cohort.

AI has forever changed how we innovate and collaborate. Move your 2024 growth strategies forward faster at CLIC ’24, happening May 1-2 in New York.

Estimated read time: 5 minutes

I love this time of year when I get to help leaders design their annual kickoff meetings and refresh their vision for future growth.

Sadly, some growth grinches roam these gatherings. Much like the grumpy solitary creature in the film “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” some leaders miss the true meaning and mechanics behind this important holiday –the planning season. In 2023, I witnessed how these “bah humbug” habits disrupted investor confidence, demoralized team members, and crushed careers….

Our theme – “The Innovation Songbook” – will help you craft new strategies to outpace competitors, think more strategically, and thrive in the year ahead.

Hype cycles take us—and our stakeholders—on a wild ride. Without strategic guardrails, our brand may be forever damaged. Yet here we are, diving into countless ChatGPT and other generative AI use cases and experiments, skipping the strategic questions and downplaying the consequences of unfettered use.

Marketing innovation is about applying creativity to improve your stakeholders’ condition. It requires us to challenge our established beliefs and assumptions. It often also demands that we learn from our past as a way to inform our future.  We often need to set aside the past, and begin with a clean slate. This process helps us design an empowering narrative to guide us forward. It bolsters our resilience.

That’s the underlying theme of our 6th annual CMOs Leading Innovation Conference (CLIC ’22): “Growth Curves Ahead: The Resilient CMO.”
We’re gathering in historic Charleston, South Carolina at the International African American Museum….

Did you encounter a silver lining from the past pandemic era?

I certainly did. I witnessed an extraordinary number of people who paused, and confronted their existential crisis head-on.

In The Earned Life, Marshall Goldsmith and co-author Mark Reiter meticulously capture the existential moments that we endured. In Section One, Marshall describes how CEO clients become goal-obsessed. It leaves them feeling empty and deflated. He has witnessed these behaviors at the highest levels;…

Hiring an executive coach is a personal choice. Use time to build the right set of screening questions during your vetting process.

  1. Does this coach have a track record of ensuring that my actions, ambitions and aspirations are aligned with my company’s key goals, vision, and values?
  2. Can she point to measurable results from her coaching engagements (versus smile sheets)?
  3. Can I rely on her to help me dramatically grow my external and internal networks, or is she isolated from business communities?

Relationships trump hands-on skills as I climb the career ladder. Will she show me a way to reach beyond the “do good work” model, and help me build a dedicated team of stakeholders?

Jason just saw five years of hard work go down the tubes.

As a CMO of a public company, he has invested five years of emotional capital and energy into team development and recognition.

Yet his team wasn’t immune to the spoils of The Great Resignation.

He just reported 47% turnover within the marketing team. Other departments weren’t proud of their turnover rates, either.

That’s turmoil in a nutshell.

How can we tame turmoil when world events swirl around us?…

Looking back at 2021, career shifting became the norm. Marketing leadership roles are abundant right now.

I’m not surprised–PwC’s 2021 Future of Work survey revealed that 65% of employees are looking for a new job. Also, in 2021, over half of my clients were either promoted or changed jobs.

Landing that new role or promotion can be very energizing. You typically have just 90 days to make your mark as an innovator, not just a doer….

Feeling a bit sluggish as we welcome the new year?

Are you bombarded with inbound requests and priorities?

Catching yourself multitasking to keep up with demands?

You’re not alone.

My top clients are saying the same thing. They secretly wish the holiday break was JUST a bit longer.

In lieu of my normal news approach, I’m going light on the word count this week.

I invite you to take a 2 minute breather and enjoy this Forbes article….