Taking over as Director of Marketing during a pandemic
New beginnings
Earlier this year, in the month of February, I went back to work after a 12-week maternity break. Almost immediately upon return, I was promoted to Director of our division’s marketing team. In my new role, I would be overseeing the field and product marketing functions. The official transition date for this was marked as April 1st.
Between being promoted to Director and actually stepping into the role, a global pandemic unfolded. I found that I was going to be managing my new team in a remote posture and would not have had the opportunity to meet with them even once face to face and establish the kind of one on one connection and relationship that one would consider so essential to be an effective team builder.
In addition to this, I also did not have the luxury of doing what I have always done in any new role- build a 30,60,90 day plan. By the time I started, our business like everyone else was learning to operate in a dramatically new world. This new world presented a completely different set of customer problems and priorities than a few weeks ago. It was a hit the ground running..at Usain Bolt speed.
As I began to plan and navigate the next 10 weeks, it dawned on me that the ask from the team was nothing short of extraordinary. This team of young marketers was now being asked to adapt to not one but three big changes:
- A new normal of working from home
- Report to a new manager and leadership style
- Execute on a completely new marketing plan to support our business in the time of an unprecedented crisis
Connecting with the team while remote.
Any one of these alone is challenging. Springing all these changes on the team all at once was definitely a stretch. Recognizing this helped me think through a plan that would help us bond, build trust and continue to deliver results to support our business.
- Building trust
I wanted the team to know that as the team leader I measured my success completely in terms of their success. While as an individual contributor I cared a lot about the impact I was making on the business, almost immediately my vision for success shifted. If each person on the team felt like they were motivated to do their best work and they were completely supported in doing so, then I would know that I did my best work. An expected collateral benefit to this would be that we as a team impacted the business in the most positive way possible.
One immediate opportunity where I was able to communicate this commitment to the team was when I was asked to deliver a completely new marketing within 7 days of taking over. I resisted the urge to meet the deadline put forth by the president of my division. I could have met the goal, had I gone at it alone. But this was not the time to do so. I pushed back on the date and committed to providing my first deliverable on the job 1 week late. I felt like I had a strong reason to do so. I wanted to make sure that the new plan would be built together as a team while erring on the side of over-communication. This would mean a delay in delivering the plan but it seemed worth it. The team will have an opportunity to define the next few months of our work together, strategise and bring the best ideas to the table. We would develop a plan that reflected the sum of all strengths by actively seeking input. In the following 10 weeks, we executed against this plan in harmony, always motivating one another and bringing in metrics on our campaigns that we had not seen before (more on metrics later).
2. To gain trust be trusting
The second aspect of building trust with my new team was to be open with my own lack of knowledge and expertise in certain areas and lean on them on topics they knew better than I did. I shrugged any lingering concern about the potential to be seen as a less competent leader. I was honest when faced with a topic where I had little to no subject expertise. This could be something as simple as the approval process within the company’s internal asset management tool or the nitty-gritty details of a sophisticated marketing management tool like Marketo. In addition, if I ever made a mistake (and of course I was going to) I would immediately own up, apologise, share what I learnt from it and how I plan to fix it moving forward.
3. Show up
Third, I showed up. In a time of an unprecedented crisis there is bound to be some anxiety on members of any organization. This would be more exaggerated when a team member was working in an area that was new to them or not a particularly strong skill. When this happened I worked in the trenches with them, paying attention to the details, supporting them by being available, and taking the time to work through things together, sometimes learning myself along the way. This took time out of my schedule and often bled into my personal time but it was important to me.
4. Seek feedback
Last but not the least, I asked for feedback. When I sensed something was off I immediately reached out to each member and welcomed the opportunity to understand their perspective and explore if there was something I could have done better. Naturally, I kept an open mind to the possibility that sometimes I may have to push back, be prepared to amicably disagree and offer an alternate perspective. Being prepared helped me navigate a specific instance when the collective feedback was that we were moving too fast on execution. I had to gently highlight that for the next few months we were operating in a less than optimal world and it would not be appropriate to compare things to old SLAs for execution. That said, I also understood that as the team leader I could better set up the team for success on these quick turn around projects by investing in more detailed communication upfront. In particular, I remembered that providing context along with the “why” behind any decision we make is critical.
As of June 1st, I am coming up on the 3rd month in this new role. After the completion of 12 weeks, I plan to ask my team for 360 feedback and also have my manager, their skip-level manager ask for feedback on my performance. Managing a team is a tremendous opportunity to drive strategic initiatives at scale and to increase the impact on an organization’s common goal. But even more gratifying is the opportunity to support, cultivate and empower others to achieve their own goals and in the process learn more about yourself and continue to become better.