Here, Kavita Singh shares Jada Balster’s advice at the 2019 Festival of Marketing on how people, processes, and technology can be tweaked to make your marketing team more unified.
UK employees spend just 43 percent of their working week on the jobs they were hired to do. The other time is spent doing administrative tasks, such as attending meetings or answering endless emails. So how can you get your team working more efficiently? These are the factors you should consider.
1. People: Assemble the right team
The people on your team are your biggest asset and investment – and the best teams are the most diverse. That doesn’t just mean a range of skills, it means a team built without bias regarding social stereotypes. Diversity of age, gender, race and personality types should be considered during the recruitment process.
She explains: “It is really common to work with people who all look similar. Most of us, whether we’d like to admit it or not, have an unconscious bias.”
Jada continues: “We have a myriad of excuses, such as they’re not qualified or not a good cultural fit. These are excuses that we see time and time again. Being aware of an unconscious bias through the recruiting process is really important.”
“Being equal does not mean they are the same.”
Hiring diverse personality types
Diverse personality types are also essential. Jada suggests using a personality test to discover people’s mindsets at work. At Workfront, their team used the Insight Discovery tool to find out everyone’s ‘colour’.
Jada says this can affect how managers hire, moving them away from unconscious bias.
“If you’re very red, which is a director, then you need to be aware of that when you’re in an interview situation. For example, if you’re in an interview with someone who is blue, and you ask a question, they might take some time to think it over.You might get frustrated, thinking ‘they’re not quick enough for me’.”
2. Process: Simplify to succeed
Once you’ve established a well-developed team, you need the right process.
When marketers are introduced to a new process, it’s natural for some to think it’s just a waste of time, or a burden on an already busy schedule. However, without boundaries your team are prevented from performing their best work. Constraints are essential.
Jada says: “The best tip I’ve ever been given to making an effective process is to keep it simple. Quite frankly, it is complexity that kills production. What’s the point of putting time and effort into creating a process if people aren’t going to follow it?”
Once your process is in place, start small and slowly expand. The key is to manage all requests in one place. With various daily requests, whether it be on your desk, phone calls, Slack or a post it note left on the desk, it can get confusing to juggle multiple platforms. Here are three tools you can implement:
1. Email alias
Implementing a simple system request is key. Your company can designate a traffic manager on a newly created email. For example: requests@b2bmarketing.net.
2. Work request tool
For a more mature function, you might need more of a work request tool. That is an opportunity to remove excess paperwork and allow for collaborative management requests.
3. Standard work request form
The third option, whether it’s a hard copy or online, is to have a standard work request form. You can make sure you include all the information you might possibly need such as budget, time scale, as well as information of the request. However, make sure it’s always submitted by one person.
There’s no point in doing this if you’re not going to stick to it. If someone comes up to your desk for a request, you have to redirect them to the tool you’re using because otherwise, your system will fall apart.
Bonus tip: Make sure the tool you use is generic enough for all services in your company to use.
3. Technology: Buy-in before buying
Workfront’s study found that 87% of respondents believe leaders need to reconsider the way they think about technology. Added to that, there are always plenty of people who say they prefer the old way. This means workers are not buying into the technology their organisation is using. When it comes to tech, consider these three factors.
1. Build users’ trust
Anything new has a learning curve. Navigating that curve is a really critical piece in keeping a team unified. You need to get buy-in before launching technology. This will always make the process smoother when you’re asking someone to adopt something new. You need to take time to understand how it’ll impact employees individually, and what challenges they might face. Without doing this, you’re implying that you’re not aware of your challenges, or even worse, that you don’t care.
2. Cultivate influencers
You need to look for influencers within your team to help recruit if you’re adamant about implementing a certain technology, you need to look for influencers and supporters within your team. Give them access to the technology, and be open to feedback. They will be your ambassadors, so be sure to recruit those who inspire confidence and change in the office.
3. Open lines of communication
Finally, you’ll need to consider three aspects of communication:
- What’s coming? Communicate this to your team as early as possible.
- Why change? We hear people say they don’t understand why they have to do something differently. The more you can answer that question, the more open they will be to change.
- What’s in it for them? Everyone cares about what’s in it for them, so communicating how you’re personally going to help your individual team is really important – that’s when they help simplify work.
