In my “Big Question #2” post, I asked my blog readers who should start leading forward-thinking change first – the practitioners or the marketing/BD professionals?
The question pertains to an audience survey I posed at a law firm annual conference recently; it relates to the notion that marketing and business development professionals sometimes experience challenges when leading autonomous professionals to accept forward-thinking marketing and business development changes. Here are the answers again, in case you missed it.
- General resistance to change = 36%
- My function is marginalized (i.e., viewed with skepticism) = 20%
- An atmosphere of short-term thinking = 17%
- Unrealistic expectations for what can be done = 27%
I offered this same poll to this blog's readers. One of the early respondents picked "general resistance to change," but commented that he could have chosen all four answers.
Click here if you'd like to add your own vote, and I'll blog about the responses separately.
Not surprisingly, asking this question is like asking which came first – the chicken or the egg? And of course these answers relate back to the orientation of the responder.
Here’s my opinion: Using facts and armed with examples, Marketers and BD pros should lead their revenue-generating professionals toward forward-thinking changes. In doing so, they will indelibly change their practitioners’ understanding of the meaning of marketing and business development for the whole enterprise, and ultimately its real value as the engine for growth. Simultaneously, they’ll change practitioners’ expectations for marketing and BD, and make them more realistic about the optimal functional purview of marketing and business development. Inevitably, this leadership will help many practitioners (especially those in older generations whose belief in tradition fuels their resistance to change) feel a greater sense of shared accountability.
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