In 2002 Rajat Gupta, then managing director of McKinsey, pushed the firm’s head of marketing and public affairs, Javier Perez, out of the firm. The reason: multiple partners had shared their dissatisfaction with the firm to writer John Byrne in a wide-ranging feature in BusinessWeek.
Gupta had spent his tenure refocusing the firm on growth. He put a halt to what he considered money-wasting research, implemented what was known as “100 percent cubed”—bringing 100 percent of the firm, 100 percent of the time to 100 percent of the world. The firm had grown from 58 offices to 81; from 3,300 consultants to 7,700 and it nearly doubled its revenues from $1.2 billion to $3.4 billion.
The average tenure of a Fortune 500TM CMO is around 18 months. While the tenure may be longer for marketers in a professional services firm, life can be a lot messier. I have held senior marketing roles at some of the world’s best consulting firms and have consulted at many others. A theme that arises time and time again is how ineffective marketing is—whether the problem is strategy, organization, leadership, or something else.
Firms’ actions swing like a pendulum as they try to drive growth and get marketing “right.” They hire “doers” and then they hire “thinkers.” They fire the “thinkers” and then hire “doers.” Partners want only marketers who understand law firms, accounting firms, architectural firms, then they want anything but. They centralize, and then they decentralize marketing. They align marketing with geography, and then they swing to lines of business. Firms buy technologies, hire cold-callers to get leads, add budget and take budget away. The pendulum swings back and forth desperately searching for a solution to their “marketing” problem.
When these activities and the co-morbid destabilization are in a firm, it is a telltale sign that the firm is not focused on the right “problem.” After achieving its results, McKinsey’s directors had begun to worry if the focus on growth had cost the firm its soul. Do you believe that Gupta’s firing of Perez had any impact on the quality of press coverage the firm was getting? Do you think it appeased the dissatisfaction of the McKinsey managing directors? Do you think that bringing in another marketer changed the trajectory of the Gupta’s vision?
Takeaway
Marketing is a visible and easy scapegoat for problems that the leadership of a firm may be unwilling to address. True: there are incompetent marketers, but let’s be honest about how much pull any non-partner marketer likely has inside most firms.
At the heart of any thriving firm are a culture of integrity, leadership, authenticity, stewardship, client-focus, and great people. Market opportunities come and go. Brand relevance ebbs and flows. Competencies grow and die. Culture remains.
What was the culmination of Gupta’s tenure at the top of McKinsey? It was his indictment and ultimate conviction for insider trading. While your firm may not be dealing with insider trading, ask yourself, “Do I have a marketing problem or is something else going on?”
Be prudent.
