higher education sig event: marketing leaders born or made?

Marketing Leaders: Born or Made?

Deborah Maue

Associate VP for University Marketing

2/29/12

My Background

• Kellogg MBA – (a long time ago when it was still called an M.M.)

• 15 years in brand management/new product development– 11 years at Unilever– 2 years at Schering-Plough (now part of Merck)– 2 years in brand management/innovation consulting

• Came to DePaul 6 years ago

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Are Leaders Born or Made?

• A little of each


Leadership Vacuum

• Leadership isn’t modeled– Strong leaders often are not attracted to

higher ed• Not enough hierarchy

• Leadership isn’t rewarded

• Leadership vacuum often causes higher ed institutions to look to the outside for leaders



Does this sound familiar?

• You have a great idea

• Let’s say it’s a portal for prospective and current graduate students

• A place where they can:• Get their questions answered about all things

related to their program• Conduct transactions• Connect with other students/prospective students



• You need to hold a meeting (obviously)

• Whom to invite?– Well, depending on how you’re organized,

you probably need• Admissions• IT• Staff representative from the college• Marketing Communications



• The day of the meeting arrives

• Everyone brings an extra person to the meeting– And people from new divisions show up

• Alumni relations• Student affairs• Career center

• 5 minutes into the meeting, this starts:– “And wouldn’t it be great if we could…”



• The result of the meeting:– The scope of the project went from:

• narrow to wide

– The number of participants in the project went from:

• manageable to herding cats

– The timeline went from:• 6 months to infinity



• The next meeting…– Even more people show up to jump on the

bandwagon– You spend most of the meeting re-capping

the last meeting for those who weren’t there– Lots more discussion– No agreements– And finally after several meetings you give up


So what happened?• Too many people involved

– And no sense of roles and responsibilities within the project

• Everyone’s got an equal vote on everything

• No clear sense for how the project fits with strategic priorities– How important is it?

• No agreement to the project objectives and strategies

• No agreement to the project scope• No clear agreement to next steps and timing• No buy-in to your vision


The situation isn’t hopeless

• There are five simple things that you can do to be able to lead more effectively


The five secrets to getting things done

• Position every major project as a pilot– With expansion phases as you gain learning

• Pre-sell your ideas before the meeting

• Always write a brief upfront

• Always have a RACI matrix

• Recap every single project meeting


Everything is a pilot

• Lower perceived risk of failure– Signals that you will learn and modify before

moving on to the next phase– If it’s not working, you can pull the plug before

too much investment

• Reassures people that they’ll eventually get what they want– May not be until Phase 3, but it will happen


Pre-sell your ideas

• Talk to everyone invited to the meeting before the meeting– Outline your vision– Manage scope

• Deal with “and we could also do this” comments before the meeting

– Talk in person if possible, on the phone if necessary

• Mention your idea in hallway/water cooler talk to build momentum– Talk to the supervisors of people who will be

attending the meeting


Write a brief• Write a “draft” version of a brief as you envision

the project• Send it in advance of the meeting• Ask for questions/comments/clarifications in

writing prior to the meeting• Address as many of the above before the

meeting• Use the meeting to get final agreement• Don’t leave the meeting until you have

agreement– If approval is needed from higher-ups, charge the

group with getting agreement from their management


Elements of a solid brief

• Background• Objective• Target audience• Rationale/fit with strategic priorities• Strategies• Key issues

– And how they’ll be addressed

• Timeline• Next steps


RACI Matrix

• The single most valuable project management tool I’ve ever seen

• For each project task, identifies the role of each team member– Doer– Decision-maker– Consultant


RACI Definitions

• RACI stands for:– Responsible

• The ONE person doing the work, or responsible for seeing that it gets done)

– Accountable• The decision-maker

– The ONE decision-maker

– Consulted• A person who needs to be consulted before a decision is

made– Can be many names in this box

– Informed• Someone who needs to be informed of the task once a

decision is made


A caveat to the “traditional” RACI

• We split the “C” in two– C-Decision

• A decision cannot be finalized until this person is in agreement

• This person is usually a HiPPO (or several)

– C-Input• This person’s opinion must be heard, but they

don’t have to be in agreement with the decision to go forward

– They have something to add, but don’t have the power to stop it if they don’t agree


Using the RACI

• Break the project into meaningful tasks– If you have too many people in one box, your

tasks are probably too big

• Can be developed prior to the first meeting, or once the players are identified

• The value is in the discussion, not the documentation– I’ve never gone back to it to see what

someone’s role is


Using the RACI

• Most helpful for projects, vs. on-going teamwork– Unless the team’s charge is very clear

• Not a timeline or process grid– Doesn’t tell you when or how decisions are

going to be made


Meeting Recaps

• Recap all agreements• Use bullet points

– Not paragraphs• Recap all outstanding issues and how they will be

resolved• Recap next steps, timing and owner of each• Don’t recap every discussion point

– It gets tedious• Put the recap in the body of the email

– Not a separate attachment• Send to all team members and anyone else who needs

to know– Let team members send to their own managers as necessary


Please feel free to contact me

• [email protected]

• http://twitter.com/debmaue

• http://linkedin.com/deborahmaue

mailto:[email protected]

http://twitter.com/debmaue

http://linkedin.com/deborahmaue

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