The inspiration for this article is my favorite poem by Robert Frost because it applies every single time in every single circumstance.
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference.”
Could it be that a poem first published in 1915 could apply to Commercial Strategy?
As we stand at the fork in the road, do we continue to walk the worn, paved path that now has potholes? Or do we take the road less traveled, the one that has yet to be defined, requiring a traveler willing to remove the obstacles in its way to pave a new path and one that can make “all the difference”?
I was asked earlier this week what I thought the hesitancy was in companies embracing the move to Commercial Strategy. I believe it is due to the lack of a worn path of best practices and proof of concept that has yet to be shared. Ultimately it is the lack of a “How to” guide on leading three separate teams into one. Making such a change straddles multiple complexities, one of which is the human factor in protecting what is ours. We must define where the teams come together and where they stay apart. Let’s consider these complexities for a moment.
Why take three individual disciplines of expertise and make them one? To avoid sounding cliché, I will answer this question with another quote, “we are better together than we are apart.” In this instance, the resistance comes from the myth that in breaking down the siloes of three well-defined disciplines, we all become the same “one.” In reality, the superpower in working together is individual expertise. Pairing Revenue Management, Sales, and Marketing under one discipline magnify the power of each incrementally. This week I witnessed a real-life example of this as my commercial strategy team reviewed our strategies as one. It was magic and proof that if you are willing to do the work, it will work for you. The bottom line is that the combined team could find more paths to the goal than they would have found on their own, solving for their respective disciplines simultaneously.
When you talk about combining teams of people, you cannot do so without acknowledging the human factor. It is inherent in who we are that we protect what is ours. The willingness to share only comes with trust. Trust takes time. Trust requires security. Leaders are the key to ensuring that every person on the combined team feels secure in sharing their knowledge and expertise for the good of the group and the common goal. In doing this, it requires lines to be drawn. Some of those lines are dotted to allow merging lanes, and others remain as solid lanes that give integrity to each discipline’s role in the team. The leader must manage the dynamics of the team. As discussed in an earlier post, the stages of forming, storming, norming, and performing are undeniable and done best when led in a fearless environment.
To start the process of clearing the path to Commercial Strategy in a “How to” guide, I offer a place to start:
- Define the common goal of the three disciplines, and that will define commercial Strategy. How does that goal apply to each of the respective departments? Can each department affect the goal? Everyone must have skin in the game to create the optimization that Commercial Strategy has the power to influence.
- Combine the planning meetings and documents, so everyone is “singing from the same hymnal.” Are the teams currently writing department-specific plans? What might it look like if you write one shared plan that encompasses the tactics of all three departments under the same goal? Change the “divide and conquer” strategy into a “combine and conquer” mentality. Every department will still walk away with its list of tactics; however, the difference is that they now align with each other, creating robust optimization.
- Meet as a commercial strategy team regularly to share feedback collectively. WARNING this is where it can get messy! Your role as a leader is to stay objective, ensuring everyone has an equal voice and that the conversation moves the team closer to the goal. A leader creates the rules of engagement for the teams sharing what is working and what is not, and then gets out of their way.
The immediate benefit of starting here is that these meetings and tactics are likely already happening in each department. In combining them, the time savings should be threefold and the impact on the goal POWERFUL.
There will be a day that we will reflect on how we used to do it. We will be in awe that sales, revenue, and marketing worked separately. Commercial Strategy will roll off of our tongues, and it will be more than the name of a conference. It will be a noun, an adjective, and a verb, a triple threat to all goals that stand before it. Let’s do this; let’s come together as Commercial Strategists to make a difference in an industry that is only limited by our willingness to forge new paths.
Beating the path, not the horse — Lori Kiel
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.