In this issue: Answers to last week’s Self-reflections. Why it’s okay to make certain decisions without masses of data – provided they’re the right kind. And why it’s also okay to draw on all the data you can get to make other kinds of decisions.

Recap of last week’s post:

No marketer can get every decision right, especially when marketing is both about money and psychology. But we can all get the process behind making the decision right. As I discussed in my last post, that starts with a fork in the road, which means:

• You need to have data, math and money conversations with people who need predictability,

And

• You need to have gut and emotion-based conversations with people who are comfortable with unpredictability.

What framework am I using to structure my ‘personal 5 cents’, when considering last week’s questions?

Please note: I repeat this framework again and again, in every other episode of this newsletter. The idea of using Return on Marketing Career (RoMC) as a framework for career development is explained in great detail in the first newsletter in this series.

Why? Because this has served me well over the 25 years of my career, and because I find that we are all so distracted today (myself included) that unless we see something multiple times, we forget about it.

If you’re already familiar with this way of thinking, please skip this section and go straight to the next one.

To recap my original post, my fundamental belief is that marketers who want to Move Up Faster should treat their marketing career just as we would a marketing campaign. 

Instead of Return on Advertising Spend (RoAS) we can measure our success by Return on Marketing Career (RoMC). 

There are four steps to this RoMC process: 

Step 1. Get out of your Comfort Zone as much as possible, even if that scares you because it’s new.

Step 2. Doing new things will increase your professional skill-set. That’s the only way to learn.

Step 3. A broader or deeper skill-set will increase your Value to your colleagues, your team, your firm and your clients.

Step 4. The higher Value you deliver in your role – now that you have a bigger skill-set – the faster you should move up in your career.

Now that we’ve reminded ourselves about the RoMC framework – here are my ‘personal 5 cents’ on last week’s post.

LEADER (managing Managers)

Step 1, Get out of your Comfort Zone: What if you stood up and asked at the beginning of every complex leadership or exec team conversation, are we having A) an ambiguous no-right-answer ‘artistic’ discussion? Or B) a scientific and predictable, there-is-more-data-to-dig-into conversation? (I know this is hard, I also often forget to make the distinction with my own exec team, especially when we’re having a heated conversation about a complex topic where there is no clear one ‘best’ decision to pick from.)

Step 2, Develop a New Skill: Learn how to help smart and experienced senior people make the best decision regardless of how little data is available. Remind everyone how lack of willingness to make a decision can lead to paralysis. Senior people must embrace uncertainty and make tough calls when there is – or isn’t – data to support the decision. That’s why you fly in business and are paid the big bucks – senior people are paid a shitload to make tough ambiguous decisions!

Step 3, Create More New Value in your Role: Create Value by pushing yourself to make faster decisions, with limited data. Decisions taken too late, but with plenty of data, are already irrelevant. 

Step 4, Set Yourself Up for a Bigger Future Role or a Promotion: Leaders who move up faster are willing to deal with and manage the downstream impact of making an ambiguous decision, when little data is available.

MANAGER (managing Talent on the Rise)

Step 1, Get out of your Comfort Zone: What if you volunteered to draw up a project plan to enable your Leaders to achieve their goals? They can only get to their goals, through Managers like you and your teams.

Step 2, Develop a New Skill: Learn how to take the lead on project planning across your department. Check in with your Leader to confirm the objective and the tools you have available. Then cascade the plan throughout your team.

Step 3, Create More New Value in your Role: Create Valueby ensuring that your Leaders’ objectives are crystallized in a plan that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound (SMART). That way you’re getting your organization from a distant goal to a reachable target. With clearly defined steps along the way.

Step 4, Set Yourself Up for a Bigger Future Role or a Promotion: Managers who move up faster make their Leaders’ aspirations into reality. They can’t achieve their goals except through you. When your Leader wins, through you, you win and your team wins.

TALENT ON THE RISE

Step 1, Get out of your Comfort Zone: What if you asked your manager about how best you could help deliver key tasks in the context of the plan?

Step 2, Develop a New Skill: Learn how to tell your manager in your weekly touch bases what parts of delivering the plan you think you deliver per expectations, but also where you feel you need assistance.

Step 3, Create More New Value in your Role: Create value by making it perfectly clear where you are thriving and do not need support, and where you do need more backup from your manager. This helps your manager know exactly where to deploy resources and save them wasted effort.

Step 4, Set Yourself Up for a Bigger Future Role or a Promotion: Talent that moves up faster is clear about what you can do on your own and where you are struggling and need help. By identifying your own areas for development you make your manager’s job easier – and you get the support you need to get better on your own.

If you’d like to discuss your career journey with me one-to-one, please feel free to email me at Greg@moveupfaster.me or message me on LinkedIn.

Thank you for reading.

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