There was a lovely analogy that Alison Orsi used in the latest Google Firestarters episode (podcast links here) in which she talks about the secrets of effective marketing transformation. The analogy relates to how important it is for leaders to empower teams to experiment, but for them to test and learn within ‘safe to fail’ boundaries.
She talked about the shift in leadership mindset and how often there is a fear that leaders have of losing control, particularly when you are giving teams seemingly free reign to experiment. The easiest way around that is of course to put up some guardrails – to focus initial experimentation on some specific projects, to be clear about what can change and what can’t be changed. It’s like, says Alison, the difference between traffic lights and roundabouts:
‘When you’re in control it’s a set of traffic lights. It’s a red, amber, green scenario. But you can also control traffic flow with a roundabout. So think about how you might deploy some rules of the road that mean that the team may need to make a conscious decision about something but they don’t have to wait for someone to give them the green light to move forward.’
Encouraging teams to experiment is an essential part of the modern marketing organisation, and marketing transformation. But the challenge for leaders is resisting the temptation to tell the team what to do and insist on being a part of every decision (traffic lights), and instead giving them the autonomy to work it out for themselves and to learn from failure along the way of necessary (roundabouts). It’s a huge mindset shift, but this is an excellent way of framing how to do it well. More roundabouts, less traffic lights.
You can see the full episode here.
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