Combatting Misinformation: How CROs can reshape the reputation of Clinical Research

Clinical Research Organizations often fall victim to bad press. “Guinea Pigs” and other rodent comparisons are bandied about without thought to the complexity of the issue, and certainly without thought to the immense good the industry has brought society. Laying low and gritting your organizational teeth through the adversity is one strategy, but what if everyone did their small part to change perception? It might yield some great results in your volunteer database…

Combatting misconceptions is a difficult task. Addressing misinformation spread by an erroneous few is an entry into politics! What can be done to join the conversation and effect change, or at least create the opportunity to persuade? In a tightly regulated industry, that’s a challenging question. Holistic Marketing can help.

Ask yourself:

• Do you make information available to everyone, including potential volunteers, journalists and the general public about your organizational mission?
• Do you promote the benefit to science, society and special populations that volunteers are creating?
• Do you support and share content and information from other professional groups that tell the story of clinical research?

The solution to misinformation is transparency. It is vital that your message is loud and clear AND believable. Messages you share from outside sources increase your credibility. It demonstrates confidence that you’re willing to share important information, even if you didn’t create it. Never engage in a shouting match – CROs know that better than anyone – but don’t sit silently, either. State your case plainly, frequently, and in lots of different ways. Any questions you don’t answer, someone else may answer for you, with varying degrees of, uh, “truthiness.”

Client Example

We’ve helped CROs bring appropriate content to the right place to help transform hostile environments, and helped volunteers understand that they’re progressing science, or even just a loved one. Whether that’s a website, social media, printed collateral or staff training to ensure verbal messages are supportive, opportunities to change perception are all around you.

Understanding various audiences and their motivations allows us to craft messaging that’s audience-specific, as well as being consistent in the message and tone. Holistic Marketing is more than just integrating your communication across a variety of channels. It’s integrating your message across a variety of audiences. This messaging optimizes all channels and increases profitability.

Another great strategy is to empower your advocates. You’ve got lots of advocates in your volunteer database. Ensure you’re doing everything you can to help them act on your, and the industry’s, behalf. And don’t stop at your own database – recall the many potential advocates you have in support groups, special population groups and partner organizations. Engaging all critical audiences will generate strength in numbers and build greater allegiance amongst your team.

Some ways you can empower your advocates are:

• Provide easy-to-digest information (so easy they can remember and repeat) to volunteers, particularly when they’re onsite
• Communicating regularly with your database of volunteers and partner groups
• Clearly state what you want them to do with the information
• Remember that you’re appealing to people. They like stories, they like emotional connection, and they require relevance.

People are inspired to act by their emotions. Offer an emotional hook as well as an intellectual one. That could be humor, heartstrings, or it could be the opportunity to contribute to something greater than themselves. You may be doing clinical research, but your messaging shouldn’t be clinical. Think that can’t be done in a regulated environment? It can.

Client Example

One CRO we worked with allowed us to use social media to grow their volunteer database. Through the use of self-deprecating humor, we appealed to an older and more educated group than they’d seen before, and reached critical healthy populations that wouldn’t normally have considered volunteering for research. Along with this, this audience was able to actively speak on behalf of our client with greater credibility than a younger, less educated group.

As a result of our Holistic Marketing approach, we knew we could bring their brand to life over social media because it was authentic to the internal experience. We knew from our inside-out understanding of their business and their audiences, that using humor would align them with a more educated audience and attract these volunteers they needed.

Holistic Marketing successfully addresses the challenges CROs face. Holistic analysis, optimization and alignment allowed these CROs to meet these challenges head-on and build opportunities that hadn’t previously existed.

Are you interested in a free Holistic Marketing brand assessment? Give us a call on 612.315.5200 or drop us a line at hello@macleodandco.com and let us know you saw this blog post. We’re looking forward to helping you contribute to the conversation.

About the Author: Tanya Korpi Macleod is the founder of Minneapolis-based Macleod & Co. After more than 25 years of marketing and advertising experience in the U.S. and Europe, Tanya noticed that chasm that often exists between an organization’s theoretical marketing “plan” and its realistic ability to execute it. This led her to pioneer in the concept of “holistic marketing,” which redefines marketing as the complete process of bringing a product, service or company from inception to maximum ongoing profitability. Her mission is to show organizational leaders that a holistic mindset not only promotes a healthier culture, but a more profitable business.

It pays to think ahead: How we almost solved world hunger

Fascinating article in the Independent on Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMO wherein the CEO of Monsanto admits “hubris” is to blame for public fears about GM technology. His hubris. Their hubris.

He says several things that so many of us will recognize in ourselves; primary among them he states that consumers were “an abstract” to their discussions. They were so focused on the “cool science” and the ability to actually solve world hunger that they got excited and didn’t think about how the shopper might react in the grocery store. I’ve gotten really excited before! I’ve popped off at the mouth without thinking!

I’ve never gotten close to solving world hunger before, though. And I certainly haven’t screwed up the opportunity to solve world hunger by popping off because I’m all excited. Wtf, Monsanto? Why didn’t you tell us this is what you are trying to do??

GMO is a huge and very important debate. We have a client, InHarvest Rice Grains & Legumes, and we’ve been helping them talk about this issue (and many others) for our entire partnership. InHarvest has always been really thoughtful about it. They see the potential for not only solving the food shortage, but also fighting malnutrition, creating edible vaccines, and fighting autoimmune diseases. The individuals who make up the company believe in the technology’s power to do great things.

But what InHarvest didn’t do was say, “This is great! Let’s put it in our products!” Instead it was a lengthy and thoughtful debate about what kind of customers they have (high-end chefs), what kind of values they have (transparency, treating others with respect) and what kind of company they want to be (one that does well by doing good). And the internal debate continues – to this day. When a shipment came in that had unexpected GMO in it, they didn’t accept it. Despite personal beliefs in the fundamental importance of the technology, the organizational values trumped it all. “We’re not doing it,” was the consensus, “we respect our customers who say they don’t want it and we are transparent.”

Monsanto and InHarvest represent a similar outlook on GM technology, and two fundamentally different approaches to bringing it to market.

Holistic Marketing wouldn’t have let Monsanto fall victim to their own excitement. The holistic mindset would have had the consumer – the ultimate arbiter of the technology’s success – firmly in mind. Holistic Marketing would have helped them see the potential for abject failure if it had been wrongly positioned. And it certainly would have told them that Europe is not a market to brush off.

So I’m not making any value judgment on GMO. It’s interesting, to be sure, and it does address a massive problem we all share. And the Monsanto CEO has a very valid point that the anti-GMO lobby hasn’t provided an alternative to feeding infinite populations with finite land without using new technology. But I am saying that a respectful and thoughtful approach will lead the conversation in a more productive direction and produce better results.

Are you looking at how to bring a disruptive idea to market? Give us a call for a free consultation on how a Holistic Marketing approach can help ensure not only success, but maximum on-going profitability. 612.315.5200 or drop us a line at hello@macleodandco.com. We’ll be glad to hear from you.

About the Author: Tanya Korpi Macleod is the founder of Minneapolis-based Macleod & Co. After more than 25 years of marketing and advertising experience in the U.S. and Europe, Tanya noticed that chasm that often exists between an organization’s theoretical marketing “plan” and its realistic ability to execute it. This led her to pioneer in the concept of “holistic marketing,” which redefines marketing as the complete process of bringing a product, service or company from inception to maximum ongoing profitability. Her mission is to show organizational leaders that a holistic mindset not only promotes a healthier culture, but a more profitable business.

Your Org Chart is Lying To You

We would all love to believe our organizational chart is a blueprint for how power flows through our businesses. But let’s be honest: it’s really just a flowchart of who does whose review.

People are political beings. We respond to our environments based on our personal experiences, fears, and desires. We have our own agendas and motivations and, consciously or not, we make choices based on our values.

Sue in sales doesn’t trust Jack in marketing, so the connection between those two departments is broken – and efforts to improve either function will be considerably challenged. Jack’s got a great relationship with Cassie in HR, though, so Jack gets first pick of recruiting resources, and Cassie overlooks little things about how Jack runs his department. Tom at reception yields an incredible amount of power because he’s infecting everyone who calls with his unacknowledged frustration, thus setting the tone for inbound sales calls.

The situation is doubly dangerous because it isn’t a problem you can throw money at, and it’s easy to ignore: two huge reasons not to tackle it.

Net-net: the business suffers. The sooner you understand how things work, the sooner you can harness what is good, and root out what isn’t working.

Where to start?

1. Get intelligence.

The truth is the first step in setting you free. Active listening by a third party will yield tremendous insights. Exercises we’ve done with organizations generally undertake to listen to 6% – 100% of staff from all levels, depending on the size. We start with a list of questions and rarely get past the second one; once the organization understands what’s going on, they never fail to open up. Everyone wants to talk, and everyone wants to know they’re being heard.

2. Map the reality.

We use a tool called TrueChart™, which is an org chart that shows how things really operate. You might see that Tom at reception does have a lot of influence in the organization. You might also find out that Tom has some great ideas that could not only help the company in the short term, but might yield some positive long-term strategies as well. Conversely, you may find that Tom just isn’t a great fit for his role.

3. Understand the significance.

Now’s the time for triage – what areas require immediate attention? Where are your quick-wins? Another tool we use is called TouchPoint HeatMap™, which gives a clear, visual representation of positive and negative interactions, as well as customer touch points. It’s eye-opening, it’s actionable, and it gets things moving in the right direction.

These three activities are the foundation of a holistic marketing program. A clear articulation of organizational goals coupled with a clear articulation of organizational truth means the optimization process can begin.

About the Author: Tanya Korpi Macleod is the founder of Minneapolis-based Macleod & Co. After more than 25 years of marketing and advertising experience in the U.S. and Europe, Tanya noticed that chasm that often exists between an organization’s theoretical marketing “plan” and its realistic ability to execute it. This led her to pioneer in the concept of “holistic marketing,” which redefines marketing as the complete process of bringing a product, service or company from inception to maximum ongoing profitability. Her mission is to show organizational leaders that a holistic mindset not only promotes a healthier culture, but a more profitable business.

You’ve got to reach diverse audiences with diverse motivations with the same message. How can CROs boost their effectiveness?

Clinical Research Organizations are among the most challenging businesses to market. They must appeal to intellectually diverse audiences with equally diverse motivations– from sponsors to regulators to volunteers to special populations. This is further complicated by the plethora of downright imaginative misinformation sources and a rigid regulation structure. As we play our part in furthering scientific breakthrough and increasing quality-of-life, the hurdles can really make a dent in your mojo.

We’ve seen a lot of attempts to address this in our work with CROs, and solutions often feel incomplete. To achieve their desired outcome, marketers need to analyze, optimize and align. A process of Holistic Marketing can root out issues and, oftentimes, turn them into opportunities.

To address the specific challenge of appealing to diverse range of groups, brand analysis is a critical starting point. When read “from a distance” what’s the likely impression of each of your constituent groups? Does it represent the experience that a sponsor will have? A volunteer? It’s important to evaluate these as objectively as possible and resist the urge to go with a kitchen-table focus group. Unless you’ve got a few execs from Pfizer over for dinner.

Here are three key questions that measure your brand:

• Does your brand evoke your organizational strengths?
• Does your brand call to mind your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for volunteers?
• Most importantly, does your brand resonate with your organizational culture?

A powerful brand will do all of these things. ALL of them. It’s common that leaders of CROs (or any business) haven’t actually considered their organizational strengths, or the USP, or organizational culture… Who cares about that? Well, your customers do. Your volunteers do. And once you start paying attention and see the benefits of a managed culture, you will, too.

A weak brand, on the other hand, will create dissonance with your target audience. No one engages with dissonance. A bright, happy brand and a rude receptionist? You’ve ruined your credibility. A super-scientific brand and hand-written notes on a faxed report? Your data is called into question. It may not be conscious, but it happens.

Know what your organization is good at, engage your staff and customers on it, and talk about it often and in lots of different ways. It lends credibility to all of your efforts.

Client Example

One CRO we worked with had a USP they didn’t know about – an uncanny organizational ability to listen. By talking with customers, we learned that the client’s ability to listen kept sponsors coming back, but their sponsor communications did nothing to espouse it. A rebrand and a new name helped sponsors who hadn’t worked with the company yet see this advantage. Additionally, those who were already converted felt better about recommending the company to colleagues.

The successful solution would never have been uncovered if we hadn’t talked to our client’s customers. And when we talked to the staff about what their customers were saying about them, they were all very proud of their reputations. Everyone wins.

Interested in a free brand report card for your CRO? We’d be happy to give you our honest assessment. Call us on 612.315.5200 or email us at hello@macleodandco.com and let us know. We’d love to help!

About the Author: Tanya Korpi Macleod is the founder of Minneapolis-based Macleod & Co. After more than 25 years of marketing and advertising experience in the U.S. and Europe, Tanya noticed that chasm that often exists between an organization’s theoretical marketing “plan” and its realistic ability to execute it. This led her to pioneer in the concept of “holistic marketing,” which redefines marketing as the complete process of bringing a product, service or company from inception to maximum ongoing profitability. Her mission is to show organizational leaders that a holistic mindset not only promotes a healthier culture, but a more profitable business.

When your customers belong to someone else: Creating demand through distribution partners

How do you grow your customer base when they belong to your distributor partners? With a Holistic Marketing program that ensures everyone’s goals are met.

Distributors and brokers are still very much a reality in foodservice. While the model is becoming slightly friendlier to the little guys; fundamentally, it’s still difficult to reach your end-user customers without a large budget that funnels through a large distributor. Holistic marketing turns this very model on its head.

Distribution networks are successful when they’re large. As a result, they need to be self-serving to grow their reach. This is the primary benefit to the brands they carry. But at the same time, this scale requires acutely streamlined operations that are not conducive to getting lesser-known or artisanal brands out in front of their customers. These smaller brands take more resources, mainly time and money that are a premium in distribution networks. Not to mention turnover among reps that can set you back to square one with a customer. Several times a year.

Your opportunity lies in the individual sales reps as the engines driving the distributor. They have a level of autonomy that allows them to do what’s best, so they, too, are going to be self-serving to some degree. This is good for the distributor because a sale is a sale. It’s also good for you, because a sale is a sale. Your key is to unearth how can you make it good for them. Because they will split hairs: is it easier to sell this over that? Will I make more money with that instead of this?

You must make the sales person see more value in representing your product, even for a short time. Then you win, the distributor wins, and the sales person wins. Not to mention the customer and the diner.

How can you compete with the larger brands and turn your sales person into a brand advocate? Here’s an example of a situation we encountered with one client.

As an agency, we were frustrated with the lack of customer data our client had due to (happily) growing distributor relationships. We needed to know some basic information they weren’t able to provide.

• What products were moving fastest in what segments?
• What products created upselling opportunities?

We created a program called “We Sell, You Profit.” The program allowed our client to have complete access to chef customers of distributors. We wanted to know:

• Who are they?
• How do they use the product?
• How can we implement upselling strategies?

Sales reps are paid to sell, not to upsell. We had to find a way to reward the reps for upselling. This was key in growing the business for our client.

To participate in this program, sales reps simply had to register their customer with our client and then request that samples be sent directly to the customer. At this point, the sales rep’s work is complete. Our client fulfills the samples and follows up with the customer. As long as the sales rep is employed by the distributor, all products the customer orders from our client generate commissions for the sales rep.

The sales reps are happy because they get paid commissions on sales they weren’t involved in. Our client is happy because they get direct access to chefs who are using the product. We get direct access to the customer, the rep is making money, the distributor is moving more product, and turnover at the distributor isn’t an issue. Everyone wins.

Our holistic approach told us that we needed to get direct access to the chefs. Analysis of the distribution network sales cycle showed us that our opportunity was not with the distributors, but with the sales reps. We had to find a way to get past the reps and to the chefs. Our strategy to pay reps for work they hadn’t done was a calculated risk we knew had to be taken to get direct contact with the chefs – but it was also money that we’d have gladly paid for the opportunity to upsell. By optimizing our messaging and aligning our clients’ goals with the sales reps goals, we created a plan that rewarded sales reps and sold more product to chefs.

Tanya Korpi Macleod is the founder of Minneapolis-based Macleod & Co. After more than 25 years of marketing and advertising experience in the U.S. and Europe, Tanya noticed that chasm that often exists between an organization’s theoretical marketing “plan” and its realistic ability to execute it. This led her to pioneer in the concept of “holistic marketing,” which redefines marketing as the complete process of bringing a product, service or company from inception to maximum ongoing profitability. Her mission is to show organizational leaders that a holistic mindset not only promotes a healthier culture, but a more profitable business. 

Hitting Your Prospects at Their Most Receptive: A Holistic Marketing ‘How-to’

Imagine that you’re considering taking a beach vacation six months from today. You’re glancing at destinations—happily researching attractions, restaurants and activities at your leisure. Are you picturing sunsets and umbrella drinks as you read this? Good. Now consider the same vacation, but you’re leaving in five minutes. Where do you pick up the rental car? How do you get to the hotel? Did you pack the sunscreen?

Different points in the vacation. Totally different mindsets.

The sales cycle works the same way. Whatever you’re selling, if you don’t slice and dice it to suit the consumer’s psychological buying cycle, you won’t reach their imagination at the right time. In other words, if I’m just thinking about a beach vacation, I don’t care about the parking details at one hotel in Aruba. Whether you sell toothpaste, technology or beach vacations, your buyers all go through the same 5-step process. The key is hitting them in the right way during each one.

1. “I don’t yet have a need or desire”: What are you doing to spark desire or remind people of their potential needs? Are your messages in places where your prospects will see them coincident with a potential desire? Think “photo of happy people and umbrella drinks.” You’re not giving much away at this point; it’s all about the category (beach vacations) and making it easy to want what you’ve got.

2. “I’m aware of a need or desire”: This stage may have come about because you (or your category, if you’re lucky) have created that desire. At this point, your prospect doesn’t want to be assaulted with information; she’s just admitting that she’s open to it. Now we’re at “happy people with umbrella drinks and the hotel logo.” You’re making it easy to want your product or service.

3. “I seek information to help make a choice”: This is where Holistic Marketing really pays dividends. Too many organizations shoehorn everything they’ve got into one thing (e.g. a brochure) that they use for every phase of the sales cycle. But that’s not how we behave. At this stage, all your marketing chickens come home to roost, because customers go to their networks—real and social—to see what their peers think. They examine your customer service. They scrutinize your brand’s authenticity. And they hammer your product with the bluntest instrument of all: the anonymous reviewer comment. At this stage, your customer is looking at the various menus of umbrella drinks and evaluating exactly where the best sunset-watching places are. Your offering must be there for comparison. Be brave, be yourself and be amazing. You’re not for everyone, and that’s okay. Just be true to your brand, because that’s what they’re buying.

4. “I make a choice”: Conversion! The trigger is pulled, the purchase is made and we’re done, right? Not if we’re lucky. Depending on the cost and nature of your offering, customers could go for repeat purchases. You also need to prevent buyer’s remorse, and you definitely want recommendations and positive reviews. Which brings us to …

5. “I reflect on my choice”: After I bought my first nice car, I was inundated with J.D. Power satisfaction surveys. Every few days, I’d get a question asking me what I thought about the smell of my car. What’s the thing I like best? Did I ever use [insert feature here]? I got to know my car better. I felt like I was part of the club. And I encouraged my husband to buy the same brand. In effect, the car company was reminding me that I was on my beach vacation while congratulating me on my wise choices. I felt good, but more importantly, I didn’t regret my choice. Your customer relationships only end if you go out of business. Post-marketing and after-purchase support are like vacation snapshots we like to share. Make sure they’re good—and feature lots of sunshine and umbrella drinks!

Tanya Korpi Macleod is the founder of Minneapolis-based Macleod & Co. After more than 25 years of marketing and advertising experience in the U.S. and Europe, Tanya noticed that chasm that often exists between an organization’s theoretical marketing “plan” and its realistic ability to execute it. This led her to pioneer in the concept of “holistic marketing,” which redefines marketing as the complete process of bringing a product, service or company from inception to maximum ongoing profitability. Her mission is to show organizational leaders that a holistic mindset not only promotes a healthier culture, but a more profitable business. 

Are you positioning against your fiercest competitor? Probably not.

Time and time again we see in traditional marketing plans that companies have identified their competitors and are aggressively positioning against them. This is usually pretty good advice – your target customers have choices in your market, so help them understand why you’re better than other options out there.

What we rarely see, however, are organizations that position against the fiercest competitor of all: inaction. And that stems from not looking at your marketing from the perspective of your customer.

There are a lot of assumptions in traditional marketing. One of the biggest is assuming that your target market has your product or service offering on their radar. That they care. Chances are, they don’t. And if you expand your target market to include those that aren’t necessarily considering your product or service, your potential universe of profitable customers or game-changing constituents just got a lot bigger.

Think about it: do you describe yourself as a consumer? Are you walking around thinking, “Boy, I sure hope someone tries to sell me a credit card.” Not very often.

But if we start from a holistic perspective and we include inaction in our competitive set, we see a clearer picture of our target customer. We have the potential to capture them before they enter the market, and where we might have significantly less competitive noise.

Consider your prospects in their entirety, not just when they’re actually looking to engage. A holistic approach opens up the whole road, rather just putting out a doormat.

Tanya Korpi Macleod is the founder of Minneapolis-based Macleod & Co. After more than 25 years of marketing and advertising experience in the U.S. and Europe, Tanya noticed that chasm that often exists between an organization’s theoretical marketing “plan” and its realistic ability to execute it. This led her to pioneer in the concept of “holistic marketing,” which redefines marketing as the complete process of bringing a product, service or company from inception to maximum ongoing profitability. Her mission is to show organizational leaders that a holistic mindset not only promotes a healthier culture, but a more profitable business. 

Feeling like a fake? Maybe that’s a good thing.

I recently came across an article called “The Authenticity Paradox” (Harvard Business Review) that threw me headfirst back to my own early struggles with leadership. Not that long ago, I thought I totally knew what I was doing. I was the president of a small company. I’d been doing the work for 20 years and felt like I’d mastered it. I was comfortable (and even a little bored), because although I liked my job, I found myself wanting a bigger challenge.

Man did I get it …

One day, I literally woke up a president and came home from lunch a CEO. No warning. No planning. No nothing. Boom, I was there. Suddenly I had to complete a gazillion different tasks that depended on skills I hadn’t yet developed—all while a bunch of expectant faces looked at me and wondered (I assumed) why I wasn’t doing a better job of it.

The mantra in my head was the old Dry Idea antiperspirant slogan from the ‘80s: “Never let ‘em see you sweat.” I probably earned a “C” on that front, because I felt like people on the street could see that my mind was on fire. There was so much to this new phase of leadership I hadn’t done yet or flat out didn’t know—like how to be “tough.” Hey, I’m not hardball kind of person. I want people to like me. I meditate and do yoga, and I’m all about empowerment and making people feel valued. Now I have to be the hammer? All I could think was, that’s not authentic to who I am!

And that’s where the article hits home. After studying leadership transitions, author Herminia Ibarra came to this important conclusion:

“Because going against our natural inclinations can make us feel like impostors, we tend to latch on to authenticity as an excuse for sticking with what’s comfortable. But few jobs allow us to do that for long. That’s doubly true when we advance in our careers or when demands or expectations change.”

In other words, when you’re new to a leadership role, you want nothing more than to cling to something you know you’re good at. You justify that retreat as “being authentic.” And this is the kiss of death. Because if you continually return to your comfort zone, you never get anywhere.

I thought my choice was to be inauthentic or become someone I don’t like, but it wasn’t. Ms. Ibarra’s point is, “Don’t mistake a refusal to change for authenticity.” While I faked my new CEO role, I was actually learning how to be a CEO (secret: I Googled it). I made mistakes. I acknowledged them at the appropriate time (after the fact) to the appropriate people (sometimes just me). And—most importantly—I used a core value of mine (learning) to be truly “authentic” while also learning new skills to become a leader.

Growth is difficult, but is there anything valuable in life that isn’t? As you move toward positions of greater leadership, don’t trap yourself in the past. The key is to see leadership with curiosity, not judgment. Instead of thinking, “I’m not cut out to lead,” ask yourself, “I wonder what kind of leader I’ll be?” and commit to exploring it. You might be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

Tanya Korpi Macleod is the founder of Minneapolis-based Macleod & Co. After more than 25 years of marketing and advertising experience in the U.S. and Europe, Tanya noticed that chasm that often exists between an organization’s theoretical marketing “plan” and its realistic ability to execute it. This led her to pioneer in the concept of “holistic marketing,” which redefines marketing as the complete process of bringing a product, service or company from inception to maximum ongoing profitability. Her mission is to show organizational leaders that a holistic mindset not only promotes a healthier culture, but a more profitable business. 

Article link: [https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-authenticity-paradox]

Two Common Failures of Leadership (and How to Correct Them)

by Tanya Korpi Macleod, President & CEO

The hardest part about being a leader is knowing when everyone is lying to you.

I’m not talking about people being deliberately deceptive. It’s more like The Emperor’s New Clothes, or the phenomenon Malcolm Gladwell describes in Outliers, where co-pilots from rigidly hierarchical cultures are too afraid to tell pilots when something’s wrong, leading to a series of fatal mistakes. The two most common failures of leadership are: 1) failing to recognize a culture where employees don’t trust the information they get from you; and 2) not making people feel safe enough to tell you the truth about problems.

How do you solve or avoid these problems? It’s all about culture. And positive cultures spring from an honest flow of information—a coherent, inspiring and achievable vision going out; accurate market and organizational intelligence coming in. In short, you win by taking a holistic approach to leadership.

1. Holistic leadership articulates a business-driven vision that also gives people something to believe in.

Developing and nurturing a vision is difficult enough. But the courage to communicate it separates the leaders who can from the leaders who do. Can you articulate your business goals for 2015? Are they realistic, actionable, measurable and widely understood at all organizational levels? Even more important, can you articulate the vision behind them? Your vision doesn’t just sit inside the cover of your annual report. It gives employees and customers something to believe in. No one (especially Millennials) wants to feel like they’re trading their waking hours for a paycheck and a meaningless cause. We all want to feel like we’re spending our time on something truly valuable.

2. Holistic leadership shows the true context in which your business operates.

A funny thing happened when I interviewed an organization’s employees as part of a holistic transformation exercise: Even after their interviews, some continued to leave anonymous notes in my purse about how things “really operated.” Many corporate cultures make people feel like they can’t tell the truth without being punished, thus pushing the truth farther and farther underground. Our goal as leaders is fly the plane safely and land at the right destination, and we can’t do that if we foster a culture that only tells us what we want to hear (or advances someone’s personal agenda). A holistic approach rewards honesty, makes people feel safe, and aligns your culture with your vision.

It’s easier to hide behind a position of leadership than it is to break formation and actually lead. And being “holistic” isn’t about embracing some touchy-feely buzzword; it’s 100 percent about maximizing profitability. The difference is this: Instead of leaving fear, confusion and dysfunction in its wake, a holistic approach empowers leadership with better information to set a more meaningful vision, make smarter decisions and create a more positive culture.

Tanya Korpi Macleod is the founder of Minneapolis-based Macleod & Co. After more than 25 years of marketing and advertising experience in the U.S. and Europe, Tanya noticed that chasm that often exists between an organization’s theoretical marketing “plan” and its realistic ability to execute it. This led her to pioneer in the concept of “holistic marketing,” which redefines marketing as the complete process of bringing a product, service or company from inception to maximum ongoing profitability. Her mission is to show organizational leaders that a holistic mindset not only promotes a healthier culture, but a more profitable business. 

Holistic Marketing: Where Process Meets Profitability

At Macleod & Co., holistic marketing starts with expanding the scope and definition of marketing itself: To us, marketing isn’t the act of promoting a company, product or service; it encompasses the entire process of bringing something from its point of inception to its point of maximum ongoing profitability.

That means it starts at the point when the company is formed, the raw materials are turned into product, the candidate is nominated, the vision is born and the mission becomes real—not later down the road.

“Profitability,” on the other hand, is defined by you. And it isn’t always about making money; it can just as easily be about changing public perception, winning that election or curing cancer (okay, maybe not just as easily … ).

Based on that change in scope, where does holistic marketing “live” in an organization? To us, it brings planning and execution together, so it lives at the intersection of marketing and organizational effectiveness. After all, you can develop the greatest marketing plan in the world, but if it makes promises that can’t be delivered—or your people and structure aren’t equipped to make it happen—then what good is it?

Our holistic perspective means that we evaluate every aspect of your organization in service to your ultimate business goal, including the focus areas of:

• Culture
• Brand and Product
• Human Systems

As Peter Drucker says, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” In our experience, culture is always the point that makes or breaks an organization. If your people are not pulling in the same direction—and the same direction as the leadership—then you’re not going to maximize your profit.

Brand is the promise you make to your customer, and product is the fulfillment of that promise. Is the promise appropriate and achievable? Does it resonate with your target market? Does your product (and culture) support that promise? What revisions are needed to align everything for maximum profit?

Human Systems is where the rubber meets the road. How do people work together? Have systems evolved organically that are counter to your profitability goals? Counter to the culture you strive for? How is the product you’re putting out being used? By asking and answering questions through a human lens, we generate invaluable intelligence that allows us to strategize effectively and efficiently, saving you time and money.

The ultimate deliverable: a marketing plan coupled with strategic execution that supports your goals, is supportive of your organization and, most importantly, is supported by your organization.

See how we’ve helped other companies at: www.macleodandco.com/our-work/.