It’s funny…when I was in my mid-20s, I was working for a boss that was promoted from being just an engineering manager to actually sitting on the executive board of the company. My colleagues and I were all gangbusters at the idea because we thought that with him sitting on the board, we could work with him to get all of our initiatives pushed through much more quickly to approval.
Needless to say, my young ambitious ass marched right into his office as soon as I heard the news and quickly laid out all of the fantastic initiatives that my team and I were working on that he could now help ram straight through to approval!
He sat there quietly and kind of smiled and after pausing a second proceeded to tell me that his plan was actually to spend about the first three months or so that he was sitting on the board just observing the meetings and the other executive team members to get a feel for how the meetings went, how topics were brought up for discussion and how things moved through the process from discussion to actual serious discussion and then on to talks about approval. He said that he was definitely going to take things slow and not make any waves, taking a very strategic approach as not to jeopardize his or the department’s standing in the eyes of the board.
Sitting here today, writing this, now the age that he was at the time, his approach sounds so reasonable. His approach was very thoughtful, very strategic, and above all, probably very smart. What I marvel at today is how absolutely insanely ridiculous this approach seemed to me at the time!
Why not bust into that first board meeting, take charge of the room and throw down on the table all of the great initiatives that your team is working on and take advantage of the situation immediately and furiously to get what you want?
Like I said, it’s funny…it’s funny to see now how much of a hurry I was in back then and how little I understood about tact, corporate culture and above all, being reasonable. Today, I must say, that I have slowed down and calmed down a bit, and while I have maintained my passion for work and for loving what I do, I have recognized the importance of pausing a minute or two to observe, take mental notes, and develop and implement a strategy before bursting into a meeting.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe that each of us needs to be bold and take risks to advance our businesses and our careers, but we have to remember that when it comes to risk-taking, we also have to be thoughtful and patient.
Image via Gerd Altmann via Pixabay
I remember us worrying…worrying that all of those poor journalists would be out of work once those environmentally-unfriendly newspapers started boarding up their windows and chaining their doors like something out of an old black and white movie about The Great Depression (or a Michael Moore movie).
But it turns out, the ones who have not already found a second life writing for websites on the print-newspaper-killing internet, actually have a pretty good chance of being hired by large enterprises to serve as storytellers in their very own corporate newsrooms.
That may sound odd and leave you wondering why in the world America’s enterprises would need their very own journalists, but, as consumers are evolving, so must the marketing department and the ad agency. Consumers fast forward through ads on TV, change the radio station as soon as a commercial comes on, ignore a-hell-of-a-lot-a online display ads, and things are only going to get worse for marketers and advertisers.
While this all seems scary for companies that rely on advertising to help generate revenue, many are finding a silver lining, a light at the end of the tunnel. While consumers simply don’t care to be bothered with advertising anymore, apparently, they are still interested in a good story, even if it is published by the very same companies whose advertisements they are ignoring throughout the day. In fact, not only did marketing web magazine CMS Wire call 2014 the year of storytelling, but based on what they’re seeing so far, 2015 might turn out to be…you guessed it…the year of storytelling.
And who better to research, develop, and tell the stories these consumers want than the folks that were classically trained in gathering and disseminating stories in a way that makes people want to listen…journalists.
Needless to say, the journalist at a dying newspaper or the barely-hanging-on-by-the-skin-of-their-teeth news site is going to jump at the chance to translate their skills into some real big, evil corporation money.
So, gone may be the days when our top journalists are working for newspapers, online rags, magazines, and the evening TV news. We just might be witnessing the dawn of the age of advertising and storytelling where our top journalists are reporting on the historic ties between Coca-Cola and Santa Claus, reporting on the philanthropic efforts of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet for either Microsoft, Berkshire, or the Gates Foundation, or maybe even compiling a seven-part series on the history of Mercedes-Benz Racing for mbusa.com. It’s a brave new world out there, people…
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
