Commitments

Commitments: Let the Game Come To You

/ lesliesnavely / Leave a comment

Throughout my career, one of the most helpful pieces of feedback I have received is to “let it come to you.”  My first boss, Joe Haynes, gave me this advice.  I don’t know the origin of the phrase officially, but most often I have heard it used in sports…”let the game come to you.”  About a year ago, after an incident at my current job where I wish I would have applied this feedback, I decided to research a little bit more about this phrase.

One of the articles that I read was a review of Phil Jackson’s book Eleven Rings:  The Soul of Success.  In the review it explained Jackson’s characterization of Michael Jordan’s play.  He described Jordan’s ability to lay back when he wasn’t on his game, and to not force it.  Jordan had a deep confidence in his ability, and he never felt as if he had to prove his greatness.  This was contrasted to Kobe Bryant, who although a tremendous player, pushed hard even when he wasn’t on his game or when the defense had him.

“Jordan was also more naturally inclined to let the game come to him and not overplay his hand, whereas Kobe tends to force the action, especially when the game isn’t going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns. Michael, on the other hand, would shift his attention to defense or passing or setting screens to help the team win the game.”  – Phil Jackson

In my career, I have always been the young one, feeling like the underdog.  I remember celebrating turning thirty professionally.  I felt like I no longer had to explain away my lack of years in life.  For some reason being the young one at the table made me feel like I had to go above and beyond to prove myself and build respect.  I would put the pressure on myself to be good all the time.  When things went wrong, I would overextend myself, giving more than was reasonable and trying too hard.  Let’s call it the Kobe Bryant model.  In hindsight, these moments were times that I should have just backed down…”letting the game come to me.”  This personal reaction, driven often times by a lack of confidence, often hurt more than it helped.

Today, looking back, I am grateful for these experiences as they have helped me to be a better professional, leader and coach to my team.  I have a renewed commitment to “let the game come to me” and to help develop this skill in my team.  Thanks Phil.

Commitments: No Fear. Put Yourself Out There.

/ lesliesnavely / Leave a comment

So, what is it?  After about two months of posting on this blog stress-free, I decided to go public on facebook and at work that I was doing the blog.  What was an outlet for me to write and just be me, became all of a sudden stressful.  What is it about putting yourself out there that brings pressure?

It stems from expectations.  Prior to going public, the only expectation that I had of myself was to enjoy what I was writing.  I started to write this blog as a place where I can be as real as I want to be…a place to bring together the parts of my life.  Prior to blogging, I found myself having so many things that I wanted to say and so many stories that I wanted to tell.  I never had a place for it in my life.  My relationshps, my job and my lack of vulernability just didn’t allow for it.  This blog became a place to channel this energy with no fear and no expectations.

Now, I have lifted the my expectations of myself.  In the process, I became afraid of exposure and failure.  I am hoping that writing about it tonight helps to alleviate this fear and to release my expectations.  Introduce uncomfortable.

image

As I worked on blog topics for this week (which I hope will all show the light of day), this one was the one that I thought I could do. My commitment for this week is to work hard to not fear putting myself out there.  Step 1:  This blog post.

Commitments: The Pursuit of Clarity

/ lesliesnavely / Leave a comment

The power of clear thoughts, words and writing.  As a marketer,  I have built my life’s work about making words (amongst other things) work to drive a purchase or a response.  That said, almost every day I feel as if I learn about how to make my words more effective.  Much of this learning comes through the pursuit of clarity.  In every facet of my life, clarity is critical and difficult to achieve.  As a constant learner, I feel like it is something at which the learning will never end.

In marketing:  Often times when we are working hard so create the most effective marketing, we miss the obvious.  You can get too close to the work, review the copy too many times, overthink the headline, or forget to look at the marketing exection with your customer in mind.  Just this week, I was looking at an email campaig where we were trying to be too cute with a headline, and it just wasn’t clear.  A lack of clarity is often driven by not stepping back and looking at your work with fresh eyes.

In leadership:  My most difficult work experiences have been times where I wasn’t being clear to my employees.  The worst of these has typically been whe an employee is underperforming, and I needed to let them go.  This is never a situation you want to find yourself in, as either a leader or employee, but it happens.  The first time I had to do this, I thought I had been explicitly clear with the employee both verbally and in writing of the gaps in their performance.  The day came that I was going to fire them.  They were shocked, angry and sad.  Angry and sad were to be expected, but SHOCKED?!?  We had been having conversations for going on six months about their lack of performace.  I was taken aback, and decided to just ask why they felt so surprised.  Verbatim…”You never told me that wasn’t doing what you wanted me to.  Isn’t that unfair?”  Ugh.  Despite my best attempts, and even a belief that been clear, I hadn’t.  A lack of clarity is often driven by not confirming that what you think you said was heard.

In being a mom:  The power of words.  In no place in my life is this more apparent than with my two year old Matthew (and prior to him, Katharine).  Matthew is learning words everyday, and it is so refreshing to be able to communicate with him.  Only a short 3 months ago, he was getting frustrated all the time because despite what he was thinking, he couldn’t form the words to tell us what he wanted.  Now, the smille on his face when he tells a little joke, or can tell us he loves us.  Priceless.  A lack of clarity is often driven by not understading each other.

In being a wife:  In my life, everything seems to be planned.  So, a moment without a plan typically means something is wrong (unfortunately!).  One morning as I was running out of the house to work, I yelled back to my husband, “You are picking up the kids from school, right?”  To which he responded with, “I can’t, I have an appointment.”  Unfortunately, I didn’t hear him.  I had asked a question without listening for the answer, and thus our kids were awaiting a pick up at daycare with no parent headed that direction.  After a few calls from the teacher, we got it figured out.  But, a lack of clarity is often driven by not listening.  Particularly detrimental if you were the one who asked the question to gain clarity (and when your kids end up stuck at daycare!).

So, the pursuit of clarity is my commitment for the week.  In the way that I communicate and in the way those around me commuicate with me.

Commitments: Create Space for New Ideas

/ lesliesnavely / Leave a comment

This week I was at the CMO Club Summit in Beverly Hills. It is a great event, drawing 150+ heads of marketing from across the country for a few days of networking, inspiration and learning from each other. This is the second time I have attended, and something I am excited to continue to be a part of in future years.

One of my favorite sessions was one from novelist and screenwriter Justine Musk on “Finding Your Creative Voice.” Justine authors a blog that I have followed for sometime about embracing your creative badass. During her time at the CMO club event, she spent time discussing the hero and the heroine’s journey in a story. You can find her take on it in a recent post.. One thing that really stood out for me was in her account of the heroine’s journey. She spoke of how the heroine goes internal to her (or his) own space to to deal with whatever internal demons are there, and emerges in a better place. She describes this journey in a story as enclosure, transformation and re-emergence. Gender aside, Justine shared that as a heroie goes to this private place to think it is a place of “creative incubation.”

This speaks so much to me because I feel like to truly accomplish creative solutions in my job and my life, it takes me moving into a quiet, internal place of my own to be able to think clearly and to figure things out. Often times I find this quiet (internal) spot on my mountain bike, at the gym, or when traveling alone. However most times, I find that I crave for more time in my “own” place. This could be the ultimate example of marketing meeting motherhood. I need that place to think both for my success as a marketer, my own sanity as well as to be a better mom. And.there.just.isn’t.time. Or at least that is how it feels.

So my commitment for this evening is to create space (time) for new ideas and for my own transformation of ideas to happen so that I (as a heroine) re-emerge with strength. I don’t know how I am going to make this happen, but it needs to happen. I need my creative incubator running. Continue reading →

Commitments: Enjoy What I Have

/ lesliesnavely / Leave a comment

image

Had a wonderful weekend with just our family.  I realize sitting here on Sunday night that we had literally no plans this weekend other than Katharine’s soccer game which was ultimately cancelled due to rain.  I can’t remember the last time our weekend was so unplanned.  And, it was wonderful.  Just a few days of enjoying what I have and feeling lucky.  So, a commitment for this evening….keep enjoying.

Commitments: Staying Fresh

/ lesliesnavely / Leave a comment

How do you stay fresh amongst an ever changing marketing landscape?  I was reading a number of things this week regarding programmatic buying.  I am amazed at the speed of change in marketing as well as the amount of content written about it (insert irony as I am writing about it!).  It made me think a lot about staying fresh.  It is so hard to do while trying to spend my day doing my day job – or at least what I perceive as my day job.  On a daily basis, I pride myself in linking what we do in marketing to sales results.  I often worry that by spending my time so focused on analyzing this linkage makes me and my team too focused in the past.  All the while the future is being scripted through change in the marketing landscape.  Welcome to my mental dilemma.

So, I am channeling my inner problem-solver, and here is what I am going to do…

Listen to my customer:  No matter the change in the marketing landscape, one thing never changes….what my customer needs, we should deliver.  Without listening, it is impossible for our marketing, and ultimately the products and services we sell to deliver.

Ask more questions that I ever have:  I love inquisitiveness.  That said, sometimes it is easy to get lazy versus to ask why.  With enough questions, I learn from every encounter and experience more than I ever could another way.

Read everything for real:  Sometimes in light of my busy life, and my short attention span, I skim.  The number of content outlets, particularly Twitter, just makes this worse.  There is so much to consume and not enough time to consume it.  So, instead of the skimming, I am committing to really reading again.  This almost makes me giggle just writing it.

Look for inspiration in the unlikely:  An Executive Creative Director I know preaches to look for creativity in the ordinary.  My version of this is looking for great marketing in the unlikely.  This evening while watching a movie with my kids (from Disney’s Fairy series), the power of marketing was crazy.  Matthew (my two year old) told me in his toddler-speak, “Mommy, me go to magic kingdom.”  Say what?!?!  How does he know this already?

Discuss:  Per a previous post of mine, often time the best ideas come through discussion.  I am surrounded by smart people every day, and to talking about marketing with them and what is or isn’t changing can help sharpen my point of view.

I am committing this evening to staying fresh and making this a part of my day job.

Commitments: Creativity Through Discussion

/ lesliesnavely / Leave a comment

Today I was able to attend a meeting with my creative team brainstorming ideas to make one of our conventions impactful for the physicians who will be attending, while helping to grow our business.  I loved the vibe…we were all standing amongst an open, collaboration space; bringing ideas to the table; laughing and being serious all at the same time.  I was reminded of the good that can come when you allow boundaries to drop, don’t bring a perceived right answer to the table, and allow for freedom of thought and discussion.  It reminded me of a quote from a great book I read earlier this year and am thinking that I need to go back to study again:  Creativity, Inc.:  Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration.

“Frank talk, spirited debate, laughter, and love. If I could distill a Braintrust meeting down to its most essential ingredients, those four things would surely be among them.” – Ed Catmull

Catmull uses this book to share the lessons he learned as the co-founder of Pixar as they grew from an idea to a widely successful movie studio.  He is passing on great advice to those of us who want to bring creativity into business every day.  These Braintrust meetings were a gathering of most talented minds at Pixar that reviewed projects and ideas to help make them successful.  What I love about this quote, and what I felt today in my meeting was the collective group of brains that were coming together to make something better.  What made this stand out is that so often I feel like within my marketing team individuals feel like their idea is the best idea.  They have a lack of willingness to share their idea for fear of it being taken, critiqued, or worst-case shelved.  Todays meeting, and the fundamental premise of the Braintrust concept, is that ideas flourish with discussion, debate and commitment from individuals to deliver excellent work.  So, a commitment for the week.  Build a culture on my team that encourages creativity through discussion.  Help people learn to realize the strength in sharing their ideas so that the ideas become better.

Commitments: Connect Marketing to Sales Growth

/ lesliesnavely / Leave a comment

One of the things that has been bothering me a lot lately is the perception that our job as a marketer is to “make things look good” or to “come up with a name for catchy name or slogan for something.”  Not to say that we don’t and can’t do that, but I hate the fact that often times this is the perception people have of what we do.  Counter to this, my view of marketing is as simple as the definition:

mar·ket·ing
  1. the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.

Our job at its core is to sell things.  It has a lot more to do with making money through driving profitable revenue than it does with making things look pretty (unless of course making it pretty is what makes it sell).  To be good at what we do, you have to think and research what makes people buy something – considering the process, or decision journey, that our consumers use when considering our goods or services within the industry in which we operate.  From here, a marketer works hard to come up with marketing tactics to help get our brands, products or services at the top of the consideration set for the buyer and ultimately get them to buy. 

So why does the perception exist that we make things look pretty?  Why isn’t it common understanding that our goal is to drive sales?   We do it to ourselves.  I believe that most times this perception exists because we don’t do a good job articulating the goals of our work and being accountable link the ideas we execute to revenue (or admit that they didn’t work if the link doesn’t exist).   We as marketers get caught up in the craft, the pure idea, the way it looks, without staying focused on the business impact of these ideas we execute.   

Don’t hear me say that the idea and the craft isn’t important.  It is the most important thing that we do – produce ideas that drive sales.  The best marketing I have seen has been built from a great idea.  It has been executed in a way that is compelling visually and in words.  It has been executed in a way that drives action from the consumer in a way that drives revenue for the business both in the short-term and the long-term.  This intersection of the idea and the result is the craft.   

We must commit as marketers to get better at linking what we do to driving sales for our companies.  We must talk the language of business growth and link our decisions as much as possible to driving that growth.  We must be transparent when things aren’t measurable – and there are many that aren’t.  And where they are measurable, we must connect the dots for the teams around us.  If we do this well, we will enable creativity within our marketing teams and allow ourselves the time, money and thinking space to come up with the next idea that will build our businesses.  And, we will have a lot of fun doing so. 

 

Commitments: Reach for It

/ lesliesnavely / Leave a comment

 

Yesterday, after a long day at work, as I was playing with my kids at the park, this quotation that I found a few months ago came to mind.  I found it on a particularly rough day….one where I had been dealing with crazy political issues at work which caused me to stay late and miss most of the evening with my kids.  It seemed like I was realizing in real-time that I just couldn’t do it all.  That night, I felt ready to fold, ready to give in.  I got them to bed and spent a bit of time reading and trying to get my head around what to do next to stop feeling this way.  And, I happened upon this quote.  One of my personal principles had always been to “reach for the stars”.  I have always believed that in doing so, I stretch myself to make the best things happen no matter what hand of cards I have been dealt. 

Reading this quote, this was the first time that I had thought about the impact my “reach for the stars” philosophy had on my kids.  It helped me to realize that the act of me stretching myself was helping them learn that they could too.  Often with our kids Jon and I use the saying “never give up, never give up” to cheer them on when they think that they can’t accomplish something.  It is a line straight from “Dora the Explorer”, the most quality television programming we seem to watch these days.  Ironic that we say this to our kids, but sometimes feel like we can’t live it ourselves. 

This quotation was helpful to remind me during the dark night that I found it, and again yesterday, to keep trying, to keep reaching – to prove to myself and my kids that it is possible to be a good mom, a good leader, a good marketer and a good wife.  It doesn’t mean that I am always perfect at any of them, but I promise to always keep “reaching.” 

Commitments: Ask More Questions

/ lesliesnavely / Leave a comment

8706485644_dcc5d37b5b_z

Today at work, I had a hard meeting.  While the objective of the meeting was good, and while the person I was meeting with is one of the nicest people that I know and very well intentioned, it was one of the harder encounters that I have had in a long time.  This evening, after I got my kids to bed and I am here alone watching stupid television shows on my iPad while typing this blog post….I have been spending some time digesting why I felt like I did.

I think it comes down to one primary thing.  The person I met with didn’t ask questions.  He led the meeting with an agenda of things to communicate to me based on the perceptions and thoughts that he had about the effectiveness of my team.  While helpful in the long run, because he has a lot of great ideas and advice, it made me feel a lot like my opinion didn’t matter.  There was a rare moment in what was a long conversation where he asked me what I thought, how I was feeling and what I think we should do, or any question for that matter.  It was primarily a one-way conversation.

As I think of how I want to be both as a marketing leader and as a mom, wife, friend, person, this stands out to me as a great learning experience.  I want to know how my team, how my kids are thinking about things so that they can share their perspective – and not just broadcast things and communicate things one direction.  Easier said than done, but I am hoping that living through today helps me commit to that in my life no matter what the setting.