Competences - Single idea guys and swiss knives

I have always wondered how easily you get understood and branded with one single competence area. Long time ago (if ten years is a long time) I was very into CRM both from strategic and assets perspectives... but actually for me CRM was just a way to build service business and manage customer base driven business model. But many labelled me as a CRM guy.

Two years ago when I returned from abroad back to Finland and took a role related to online business... and held the role just 11 months - suddenly I noticed that was labelled in Finland as online business guy. It didn't help to explain that yes these services are related to eCommerce but actually we are selling a portfolio of services (even solutions) and the required competence is B2B solutions and service business.

So if I meet people from ten years back they still label me as a CRM guy and these newer relationships label me as online business guy. Actual truth about my competence is that past experiences and responsibilities have shaped me to be a professional in contractual solutions and service business both in B2B and B2C segments with international twist. And on top I can take a sales, marketing, business development or general business mgmt. angle to this arena depending on the case. But it sounds that this is as well unheard of - either you can be a marketeer, seller or general manager but not all of these. It just does not fit to the simple way of labeling people with single competence area.

Of course this is not related only to myself. I have had so many occasions and discussions where you notice that people get labeled as a single idea guy - "oh yes he is the key account management guy or she is the brand expert" - when the truth can be that these persons have this kind of role for the very first time... or it is just one angle in their work.

Another twist for this are the industries and what kind of past experience is suitable for different jobs. Many people work in one industry through their career (and therefore gain beliefs how their industry is so different from others).

For example there are many people who define themselves as IT industry professionals and also want to be labeled as such. When IT/tech. industry has finally understood benefits of service business ideas there needs to be inside IT industry grown service business professionals (and labeled as such). For many in IT industry it does not matter that in reality for example hotel business/travel industry has been a service business for ages and there could be something to learn from. For some reason IT service is so different from hotel service despite you end up serving same people with similar service business encounters. Back to the idea of getting a single label - service business experience from hotel business is not considered to be a valuable asset for IT company when it is transforming itself from products to services. Personally I would hire an executive from Hilton hotel chain to run a consumer IT service business than an IT industry executive. But majority would not.

So why do we label and understand individuals based on their single competence or experience areas? One reason is that there exists so many with single mindset and competence area... so it is easier to treat everyone in the same way. Swiss knife can be used in many occasions but it not perfect in any of them, there is always a single tool which can do a better work. But is it the same with people? Which is better - year after year same industry within same functional area (and very easy to label this person) or multiple different experiences from multiple industries and functional areas (very difficult to label) - if there is a need to for example to do a business turnaround? Many would pick the industry old timer as a safe bet - I just think it is much riskier because nothing transformational will ever happen.

So you get a label - a personal brand - whether you like it or not and most likely it is not the brand you want to be unless you are a single idea guy... and to fight against this I have noticed to be a challenging task

Few thoughts about growth

While working for companies I have been involved in many growth initiatives - either in leadership role or actively participating... and watched from sideline multiple other growth initiatives. So few thoughts about growth more as a flow not as a complete story.

I've been in fortunate position that in most of the cases initiatives I have been involved have been successful but more interesting situation (for this text) is an occasion when growth initiative fails. Not for business itself but more as a managerial and leadership learning point - how the organization will handle failure. For small business it is a true business crisis where even the whole company is at stake but for a large company it is something to just painfully swallow to minimize damage. So it is more about people than business.

Organization is a blend of different individuals with varying career motivations and aspirations. In the case of failure many people show their other side because career is at stake. There are managers with sand bagging mind set who will dig all the proof points they can find how they through the process warned and highlighted possibilities of failure. (In the case of success they would have naturally highlighted their personal contribution) Then we have managers who put the blame only to external factors: market timing was not optimal, customers behaved in unexpected manner, channel didn't buy the idea, etc. But internally everything was done according to plan. Then we have managers who will blame their own people or even want to name some one or a group of people to take ownership of the failure. Of course then we have many humble and analytical managers who will analyze the failure and take it as a learning point - what went wrong both from internal and external point of views. You can pick your own trait how you behave when things go wrong.

One interesting aspect of growth is the growth itself. When one initiative can be named as a growth initiative? Many companies grow while the market itself grows but real growth is on top of market growth. Growth what is on par with market growth is just good basic management but the managers cannot take credit of being leaders with growth experience. Of course the situation is tempting...

For "real" growth managers last year was tough. If you worked in a small company growth opportunities nearly vanished because the whole business market shared the negative attitude towards "nearly everything" especially investing money into something new or for the future. If you worked in a larger company managing a growth unit you were under pressure to cut costs even if your own business was growing "everyone needs to feel the misery equally". In general growth was a bad word to discuss no matter where you worked.

Maybe 2010 is better but the concept of growth is still difficult to many. What is the year or financial climate does not change that growth requires risk taking, thinking and acting differently, stepping out from your comfort zones, identifying people to your team who have growth genes and lot of hard consistent work. Most of us are more comfortable just managing operational business - to keep the engine running, managing main street business, main stream business, large revenue streams - it has many names. It is not only more comfortable for many but also wiser decision because in many cases heroes are named from that side.

Growth is anyway my cup of tea with all the down sides it has. Especially it is so much more fun.

Titles and managers

Interesting how the words in manager titles can have such a big difference. During my career I have met several managers having in their title "sales and marketing" only to discover that actually they are sales managers. On top of sales responsibility they manage marketing but marketing is diminished to brochures, leaflets, customer events, fairs and other marketing communication tactical tools. These managers have little competence from marketing therefore to do the actual job they have outsourced the work by hiring a marketing communications manager. Marketing has become marketing communications but is titled as marketing.

I have also met several managers whose title is marketing manager only to discover role actually covers only marketing communications. These managers have more strategic view to the marketing communications when role covers aspects of brand management... but normally only from the marketing communications view point. When discussing aspects of sales with these managers they rather quickly withdraw from the conversation indicating clearly it is not in their comfort zone. Real marketing managers have and should have sales in their comfort zone - to face and convince customers to buy.

Then we have managers whose title is sales manager - in this text these are not my in focus because their role is clear and simple as their title indicates - to sell today and tomorrow. More interesting are these various titles and definitions of marketing because in many cases actual real activities of marketing are missing. Discussions around pricing management or offering development just as examples are out of bounds with these earlier mentioned marketing managers even with the first one mentioned "sales and marketing managers".

Things get more complicated when we add to the plate partnerships development, solutions development, online services, channel mix design, customer relationship management, customer base management, experience management, etc. - all part of real marketing at least in my vocabulary. Maybe I have just misunderstood something or my definition of marketing is too much business development flavored. For too many marketing is closer to communications than business development and I must accept this fact of life.

Still one more try - anyway companies need to develop and manage things I mentioned above in an integrated manner. Whose role it is and what should be the title when titles above are reserved for operational aspects of business. Marketing business development managers (no) or just business development managers... but then marketing managers should be called as marketing communications managers.

In the end titles are just titles but words in titles and their defined meanings in the organization indicate the mindset of the company. Thank god sales is so much more simple with its definition.