In the organisations I work with, the marketing/pr section (in harmony with the CEO) is the main influencer on culture, delivering the board’s mission/vision/values.
The NRMA’s Tony Stuart in this article challenges Boards to ensure there is marketing expertise at their top table to give the organisation sales/marketing strength. One part of the article addresses cultural change, describing how the NRMA is attempting to “reinvent its 94-year-old brand for the 21st century”, with an example (emergency IT).
A colleague, in discussion, added a dimension to this by saying that these days “every person is their own communication channel…” and so is in ‘marketing’ to some degree. It alludes to the potential power that the marketing department can harness.
So here’s the leadership crisis and change management issue: an organisation’s culture is broadcast from the top and weakens down the line. And yet the biggest potential influence on culture, social/digi comms, is mostly strongest with juniors and weakens up the line. You don’t get so much two cultures, as a sort of disconnect where each ‘doesn’t get’ the other.
In which case is it the marketer/pr’s task to persuade ‘old style’ leaders, who struggle with this more than Tony Stuart, to change a career’s habits and become socially/digitally savvy?
Related reading:
The social/digital competancy, one of the essential leadership qualities: 7 simple steps for a CEO to catchup.
Leadership and the Social/Digital Revolution: Are you becoming the Laggard?
