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Ironically, it's difficult for creative marketing and content teams to do the one thing they often want (and need) to do: incorporate new, creative approaches into their work.
I always see this challenge in my consulting, especially with companies building internal capabilities. In most cases, they do not lack the desire or appreciation for more creative ideas, higher quality content, better implemented technology, or even more precise strategic goals. Usually the challenge comes from a lack of conscious ownership, charter or even awareness that teams can make such fundamental changes.
The team leader may even explicitly encourage them: “We need new energy, creative approaches, something to get us out of our rut.” But the team has difficulty responding. It's hard to go beyond what they were hired to do or what they say they were hired to do. They believe they are too busy to switch to something new, and they are neither wrong nor right. They do not shirk their responsibilities. They just don't know.
This sounds crazy considering how much marketing content is required and created by most companies. But if you ask most people at most companies how they create or innovate their content, they just shrug their shoulders and say, “We create it.” Content just happens…. I'm doing my job. It just works.”
Or, more likely, the team leader ends up outsourcing it.
I'll come back to that, but first let's look at why this challenge arises.
Are you shipping your marketing team?
Nearly 25 years ago, Steven Sinofsky, product marketer and former president of Microsoft's Windows division, led the launch of a new version of Microsoft Office. In his podcast, he talks about an important lesson he learned: “We were determined to adopt a new mantra: Don’t send the org chart.”
This invaluable lesson means that you should design your offering – be it software like Microsoft Office, a product, a consulting service, or something less tangible like marketing content and customer experiences – to meet customers' needs and wants. Don't build it by thinking about the internal organizational structure, silos, turf wars, budget constraints, or other internal constraints. That makes sense.
Have you ever had to deal with a customer service representative at a large company who had to refer you to another department or, even worse, give you a different number to handle your query? This is sending the organizational chart.
With marketing content, you send out the org chart when a prospect signs up for the email newsletter, allowing you to fully learn from your brand's expertise for a few months. Then one day they respond to the newsletter email and ask to speak to someone who can help them make a purchase. In return, they receive an automated response that includes a phone number for the sales department. And when the salesperson answers their call, the newsletter subscriber is treated as if they have no idea what the company does or how it goes to market.
This is sending the organizational chart.
You cannot send the organization chart
On the surface, Steven's “Don't send the org chart” warning may seem like a warning to ensure that brands are aware of the experiences they are creating and to subject them to some sort of “quality check” to ensure that they are not reflective become organizational silos.
But when Steven says, “Don’t send out the org chart,” he doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t send out the org chart. He means the opposite. Avoiding the org chart is inevitable. They send out the organizational chart every time.
It's inevitable. Inevitable. Predetermined. In fact, Steven consciously invokes Conway's Law, an observation by computer scientist and developer Melvin Conway. In 1968 he noted:
“Organizations that design systems…are forced to create designs that are copies of those organizations’ communication structures.”
In other words, your team design (how you structure the teams and what they do) is essential to the way you communicate. To change the way you communicate, you must first change the structure of your communication teams and their tasks.
However, this brings with it even more insidious and truly difficult challenges. To change the structure of your communications teams and their activities, you need to know what to change and how.
Introduce a new supply chain for creative ideas
In companies large and small, marketing and content teams (your org charts) are typically structured in a linear “creative ideas” supply chain. Most people can't or don't want to develop creative ideas. The generation of ideas or innovations is usually reserved for a few.
According to the roles assigned in the org chart, most marketing and content teams are empowered from the bottom up. Few, if any, of these roles have anything to do with developing creative or innovative ideas.
A classic example of this idea supply chain is where the creative content or marketing team receives their “orders” from other parts of the organization. The primary messaging has been determined elsewhere. The format requested is from another team. The explicit (or implicit) deadline indicates where and how creative the team can be. Innovation or creativity is not part of the idea supply chain.
Marketing team managers don't feel like they have the right, or frankly the responsibility, to do risky, stupid, or innovative things that could disrupt the idea supply chain. They only focus on what’s happening on the ground – their direct manager’s expectations, deadlines, technology activities on their checklist, etc.
Even when these team leaders are explicitly told to “energize” or “shake up,” without any definition of what that means or any change to current approval methods, they see no benefit in doing so.
So what can a leader do? You find an innovation and/or creative expert.
And that brings back the outsourcing question.
Remove the old to make room for the new
Smaller marketing teams often ask me how they can take the time to develop new and comprehensive innovative approaches, such as content marketing, a new customer activation program, or new technologies like generative AI.
Sometimes they put it another way: “How do I get my internal team to break out of their rut and care more about going outside the box, breaking the rules, or just volunteering their time in the creative process?”
They want to know: “How can we stop sending our current org chart?”
The complaint (and it is real) arises because the team is so focused on their work (e.g. managing the existing idea supply chain) that they don't feel or have the will to take on the responsibility of pushing the envelope to spend time or resources to communicate something that goes well beyond the scope of their organizational chart.
Leaders of both large and small teams tend to outsource what is new and innovative. They find themselves unable to get out of their own way, so they enlist an outside source to help them “see the way.” An agency can help them develop a more creative or interesting approach. A subject matter expert can tell you what to talk about.
To be clear, this isn't always a bad choice. Hiring a creative expert, consultant, or subject matter expert can help your team see things from a different perspective.
However, if you acknowledge (as I said at the beginning) that you do not lack the desire (or appreciation) for more creative ideas, higher quality content, better implemented technology, or even more precise strategic goals, then I would say the opposite to do.
Clear away the old tasks to make room for the new ones. Outsource the things your team can do – the elements of the idea supply chain that everyone is way too comfortable with – and make room for the things they don't know or don't have time for.
Let's say your team spends most of its time processing executive thought leadership, web copy, and emails, formatting them into blog posts, publishing them to the system, and optimizing technology buttons to keep everything running smoothly. Why not outsource this? Hire help downstream so these marketers can spend more time on the upstream creative aspects of marketing and content ideation.
This strategy is at the heart of the promise of technology, particularly generative AI, for marketing teams. Ironically, many marketing teams spend most of their energy becoming experts at configuring this technology and then coming up with ideas for implementing it into the technology.
You send the organizational chart.
There's a catch to outsourcing the old to make room for the new, and it's an ideal place to start thinking about bringing in an outside expert. As a team, you need to truly understand the definitions of old and new in your priority experience.
In other words, you can’t just say, “Content happens.” We don’t know how,” when someone asks how your creative or innovative products come about. You need to understand what “new” really means.
Follow these steps
Create space for the new approach with these three steps. First, understand where you are. Then you can better decide where you want to go. And then, and only then, can you understand the obstacles that stand in your way.
But when you're busy delivering your org chart, outside help can be extremely useful to help you understand where you're at. This person will ask all the “stupid” questions to help you see the org chart you are actually sending.
Remember, you can't stop sending the org chart. However, you can design an organizational chart to send out.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
