The heart of great brand marketing is passionate, creative, hard-working people. If you feel the same way, these perspectives about supporting, coaching and developing your teams will add immediate, practical value to your playbook.

1. Perspectives for the
TALENT PLAYBOOK
Developing Great Marketing Teams
Image from blog.frankdamazio.com © 2014 Tilly Pick

2. The heart of great brand marketing is passionate,
creative, hard-working people. If you feel the
same way, these perspectives about supporting,
coaching and developing your team will add
immediate, practical value to your playbook.

3. Gifts

4. I recently participated in a conference facilitated by Peter Block, a
highly regarded Organizational Development visionary and expert
on community-building and civic engagement. He let us know that
he is working on the same deficiencies today that he did 60 years
ago, observing that our society is too focused on shortcomings
and blind to our gifts. He cited an example of that blindness as
the Vatican’s attempt to take over the organization that oversees
the majority of America’s 56,000 nuns. Your company’s marketing
activities are an outcome of the unique gifts of your people.
Acknowledging their gifts will mean a lot. Leverage their gifts, and
it will mean even more.

5. Permission
Marketing 2.0

6. Think about permission marketing, but with an internal orientation
versus the original idea of two-way dialogue with consumers that
was coined and popularized by Seth Godin. Marketing people have
a fire burning in their belly. To truly unleash that potential and the
value your team can create, they need to know that you have their
back. Beyond promising empowerment, they need to know that
you are overtly and actively giving them permission to be passionate
zealots, conceive crazy new ideas, contest the status quo, and
connect dots in totally new ways. Watch what happens when you
communicate that. You can count on it being better than the best
motivational speaker.

7. A Leadership Dial

8. The special stuff which powers every one of our people is what
yields the best ideas. Some time ago Mike Buchner, now CEO
of Fallon, introduced me to Situational Leadership to harness
both the uniqueness of the individuals and the collective power
of my group. (Formal credit belongs to Dr. Paul Hersey at The
Center for Leadership Studies.) The core premise is simple:
adjust your approach to an individual’s willingness and skill
based on different degrees of influencing or directing his or her
behavior. I bet you’ll see the quality of your team’s work increase
dramatically when you adjust your leadership to their need.

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Expeditions
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10. The more you get your team fired up about data possibilities, create
curiosity and foster exploration, the better. But, be sure to balance
the “what” with the “why”. This HBR blog post is a good reminder
of why it is important to know and relate both hard and soft data
about customers and prospects. What especially resonated is the
perspective that “companies feel they ‘know’ their consumers, but
that knowing about someone is not the same as knowing them.”
Ask your team to think about what the data is telling them and
what it is NOT telling them. More than likely, completing the story
will be an interesting adventure for them. And, it could yield new
and powerful insights to fuel growth.

11. The shadows
of CREATIVITY

12. Some time ago Alex Bogusky commented that creativity happens
when you put two things together that don’t belong together.
It may seem like a tangible, easy recipe for inspiring your team to
do great work, until you consider all that might be attached to
the things that are being mashed together. It says to me that
conflict and tension may be living in the shadows of creativity,
which is opposite the perception that creativity comes from laid
back, wacky, artistic types. You most likely have the best vantage
point from which to spot that dynamic and provide unwavering
support as your team continues to mash things together.

13. left right

14. The Brand Gap, by Marty Neumeier, is refreshingly honest
about how we work as individuals, teams and companies.
It touches on some fundamental truths in an engaging way,
making for a tangible, timeless and fast-moving narrative
about marketing. I especially agree with Marty about the
dynamics between the left brains and the right brains you
likely have on your team. That tension is both critical and
healthy, but it also has to lead to positive results. Sharing
The Brand Gap with your team and talking with them about
this important dynamic offers nothing but upside.

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think ing
room

16. By Tom Fishburne

17. As we run fast and furiously to chase the latest technologies,
are we still thinking enough about our customers?
In a keynote speech at a 2012 Google event, Tom Fishburne, a
talented marketing cartoonist, suggested that we need to “create
marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing and stories that are
inherently worth sharing.” While today’s marketing landscape
demands speed and agility to succeed, I enjoyed his speech
as a wonderful and fresh reminder of the importance – and
the power – of creative thought.

18. Leader as Teacher

19. As leader of your team, consider the two traits that St. Augustine
believes make a good teacher. The importance of knowing your
subject matter thoroughly, and being passionate about it, is one
trait. Loving your students is the other. And, if you have to prioritize,
focus on the latter. More than likely, you are the passionate subject
matter expert in spades. But, when was the last time you met with
your team and didn’t work? Perhaps this small example offers some
inspiration. A few years ago, I gave a group of junior account people
Dr. Seuss’ Oh, The Places You’ll Go! as a holiday gift. A very kind and
thoughtful creative director at the agency, Steve Mietelski, read it to
them. He may not be John Lithgow, but Steve came very close.

20. creative experience + organizational insight
BETTER OUTCOMES

21. Great teams leverage creativity to solve problems and conquer new
opportunities. Increasing scrutiny of marketing, a crazy long list of
possibilities thanks to social technology and media trends, and the
customer experience contributing more to brand differentiation
than ever before, tells me that complementing your team’s creative
experience with a better understanding of organizations could
yield significant returns. Take a listen to this podcast interview as
one example about better seeing and understanding conflict.
With additional knowledge like that, your team will be much better
equipped to bring people together around ideas that fuel success.

22. tell meNOW

23. Fallon McElligott’s “on-the-level” feedback philosophy left a
lasting impression with me. Better than traditional performance
reviews, OTL is about learning and growing in the moment.
This white paper on mentoring frames OTL as an inclusive,
reciprocal and upfront approach that can improve the growth
and development of your team. Since it is not a stretch to say
that the downturn has gained some permanence, OTL may be
a worthwhile approach to explore with your marketing team
especially right now. It could help them rise to the occasion.

24. “My” Charity

25. We have all participated in charitable activities through work. Some
great, some falling short perhaps because they didn’t feel all that
relevant. When that happens, you are missing an upside — teams
better getting to know each other, pulling together around a shared
goal, and returning with a high level of energy and motivation. You
could change that and instead nurture your team’s values by gaining
them permission to explore charities separate from the company
agenda. Here is one potential approach and how it lives and breathes
on Facebook. Notice the 9 million “likes”. Aside from the inherent
team-building benefit, just imagine the incremental positive brand
awareness that could travel across the social net.

26. We are definitely in an exciting time for marketing. Through our work
we contribute to business and organizational activities in ways we
never have before. You can click on this paragraph to explore a dozen
or so viewpoints by a diverse group of leaders about the future of
marketing that tell a very similar story.
Tilly Pick
tpick@tillypick.com
www.tillypick.com