Functional Battles

Extracted from the public Notion original. Notion record created 2019-07-23. Last edited 2019-07-23.

I can't help but notice that the worst of our organisations is just a lot of functional / profession -based org units battling it out to "win". They all say the same things:

• We can't success without the support of the CEO

• We need a xxxx culture where xxxx is all about putting their profession at the centre of everything

• xxxx is everybody's responsibility

• etc

It always looks like this:

Trying to Implement the Functional Organisation

Examples of functions fighting for the top

It's time for CMOs to rally a cross-functional approach to customer experience

Contains such gems as:

• "It’s time for CMOs to rally a cross-functional approach to customer experience" - tick

• “Marketing is far too important to be left only to the marketing department.” - this is the classic "xxx is everybody's responsibility" trope

• "... developing a more outward-looking, customer-centric culture will be a top priority in managing customers in the future..." - tick, customers are important - yep

• "... quite an advancement from the days when marketing was understood to be just a business function rather than a business philosophy..." - tick, the culture (now philosophy) trope

• "...But for customer-centered strategic planning to really work, top executives from all functions need to participate..." - there it is! executive support!

• "... Even seeming back-office departments — such as procurement, HR, finance, and legal — influence customers’ experiences. And because focusing on customers is the essence of marketing, chief marketing officers (CMOs) are in an excellent position to lead this cross-functional strategic planning process with their C-suite colleagues..." - this is the my-function-must-lead-all-functions trope

• "What caused the shift to a customer-first vision?" - customer-first, digital-first, data-first, culture-first, etc

• "... Why involving the entire C-suite is imperative...Though CMOs are uniquely positioned to lead in this space, there are several reasons why they should include a variety of executive voices in the conversation about how to put customers first." - so all the executives must be involved in what I'm responsible for