You’re now finding your buyers and consumers throwing caution to the wind, opening their wallets eagerly and jumping at the chance to buy your product no matter what it costs, right?

Well, probably not quite.  Even with things looking up slightly from last year, your buyers and consumers are still pulling your cost-value ratio through a fine-toothed comb. Read More »

This post was written by Amy Gallo for our Finance and Strategy Practice.

Everyone complains about their boss from time to time. In fact some in the U.S. consider it a national workplace pastime. But there’s a difference between everyday griping and stressful dissatisfaction, just as there is a clear distinction between a flawed manager and a truly horrible boss.

Difficult bosses come in lots of different flavors. Your manager might be overly controlling, giving you little to no autonomy. Or perhaps she rarely shows up at the office, doesn’t give you direction or feedback, and has no idea what you do all day. Bad bosses may be insecure, incompetent, or simply new and inexperienced. First-time managers are often more likely to hinder than enhance employee performance and potential. A 2005 study by CEB’s CLC Learning and Development Roundtable found that nearly 60% of first-time managers underperform in their role.

Working for a bad boss has a large effect on your work experience. Managers have a direct effect on how you perform and whether you want to stay in your job. They are the conduit between you, the organization, the team, and your job. This goes both ways. Not all bosses are bad of course and great bosses can inspire people to do more. CLC Human Resources found in its research Managing in the Downturn: Four Imperatives to Drive Employee Innovation and Performance (for CLC members) that managers are increasingly important for improving discretionary effort: the impact of manager quality on whether employees go above and beyond the call of duty has jumped by 50% since the recession began. On the flip side, bad bosses sap motivation, kill productivity and drive everyone crazy.

If you work for someone you wish you didn’t, consider this: Read More »

This post was written by Amy Gallo for our Finance and Strategy Practice.

In CEB View’s last Talent Matters post we discussed how difficult it is to work for a bad boss. But what if, instead of working for one, you are one?

Of course it’s not easy being the boss. Research from CEB’s CLC Human Resources program shows that the three areas that most managers – even great ones – struggle with are evaluating employee performance, providing effective feedback, and turning around underperformance. These are hard things to do and because the way you do them directly affects your team, any missteps are likely to create friction.

Fortunately, the recession seems to have improved many employee-manager relationships but boss-bashing is still a favorite pastime (as proved by last week’s traffic on the first “bad boss” piece). So, how do you know if your employees are just letting off steam or if you are truly difficult to work with? Unfortunately, many bad bosses are the last to know how awful they are to work under. This may be because you aren’t getting the feedback you need, you’re disconnected from your employees or you just aren’t watching out for the signs.

Here are five indications that you may be a worse boss than you thought: Read More »

Increased number of customer touch points, cluttered channels, more specialized media, global 24/7 buying environment…many of us will admit that the business landscape of today is calling for a very strategic approach to marketing communications, but what is the reality at the home front?

According to MLC research, top marketing organizations are challenged by product positioning getting lost somewhere between product and communications development, consumers experiencing disjointed messages due to lack of clarity in product positioning, and struggles to communicate brand positioning strategy effectively and simply across functional silos.

Sound familiar? Read More »

Do you feel like the biggest change to your 2011 marketing plan is changing the title from “Marketing Plan – 2010” to “Marketing Plan – 2011”?

While you might not exactly be “carbon copying” your previous plan, determining which elements to include in your plan, as well as how to ensure you’re planning around your customer, your products, and your partners requires huge effort and a significant amount of experience and knowledge. Each step of the process requires a comprehensive understanding of various marketing concepts and tools to ensure the strongest possible marketing plan. Read More »

Here’s a common thread that I’ve picked up from conversations recently with CMOs and some research we’ve done into innovation.  There’s an interesting connection between what some call “polycentric innovation”, what I’ll call innovation “crucibles”, and marketing talent development.

Starting with polycentric innovation, in a recent special report on innovation in emerging markets, The Economist described how companies like Cisco and IBM are building innovation centers in emerging markets.  These aren’t just laboratory outposts—these are major innovation centers on par with those in developed markets. These emerging market innovation centers act as a sort of crucible—an intensely pressured, constrained environment that accelerates innovation, and potentially leads to discontinuous solutions that you simply wouldn’t get in other contexts. Read More »

Social media enables any employee in any function to interact directly with consumers.  This makes employee engagement more important than ever – both to limit reputation risks and capture new opportunities for employee advocacy (i.e., employees promoting the brand online).

As a very first step, companies should limit downside risks by implementing a social media policy (MLC members, click here for tips and examples).  In addition to defensive guardrails, companies should also offer simple guidelines or training to help engaged employees make the best use of social media.

Beyond this, now is a good time to redouble efforts to measure and boost employee engagement. Indeed, 46% of executives agree that surveying employee satisfaction and acting on the results is the best way to protect online reputation. Read More »

We are deep into my favorite time of the year – the NCAA tournament – “March Madness.”  Every year we’re treated to the drama of David vs. Goliath matchups and the promise of an upset around every turn (sorry Kansas…).  While I’m eagerly awaiting my beloved Syracuse to steamroll their way to a championship – I also enjoy the egalitarian nature of the tournament that gives all of its entrants the chance to walk away with the trophy at the end.

What do these teams have in common?  Thousands of hours of practice and significant investments from many different sources that got them to the tournament in the first place.  Coaches, families, schools, and the drive of the athletes themselves, are all integral parts  of getting a team to the level needed to compete in the NCAA tournament.  Malcolm Gladwell puts the number of hours training to reach a level of mastery at 10,000.  In real terms, that’s about 10 years of practice. Read More »

Following up on The Five Profiles of Sales Reps, I promised to discuss the ramifications of these findings for B2B marketers.  But first, let me offer some clarity around that work as there seems to be a fair amount of interest from across the membership…

The work previously summarized is specifically designed to help senior sales executives prioritize investments in skill development broadly across the sales force assuming a finite amount of training dollars. In other words, what skill set improvement investments will give us the biggest bang for our buck?

Our guidance is to think about the five profiles like potential college majors – yes, everyone takes the core curriculum (science, math, etc), but everyone specializes as well. These profiles represent the different sales rep “majors” that exist. Read More »

If your company is like mine, the beginning of the fiscal year (now, for most of us) is when we’re thinking about project portfolios and operating plans – and, it’s the one time we managers have to focus on our direct reports’ development plans.  Setting development goals for staff while creating these “IDPs” (as we call them: “individual development plans”) is easy for some functions. Sales has revenue goals. Procurement has cost-cutting goals. But for marketing, setting development goals – and understanding the underlying functional competencies marketing staffers need to develop (and then creating action plans that line up to their current projects) – can be a little tricky. Why? Read More »