And I'm not just talking about getting rid of jargon (will anyone join me in a pact never to use the word "leverage" as a verb?) although the lack of clarity and often fuzzy thinking that jargon hides is a big problem in marketing. That's a separate posting. What I mean about the breakdown in language is that marketing often doesn't value what CEOs or CFOs or CIOs do. If the CFO wants to talk about return to shareholders and the CMO is talking about number of followers, you've got a communications problem. If the CEO wants to talk about business strategy and the CMO wants to talk about TV advertising campaigns, you have a communications issue. CMOs need to become fluent in the language of strategy business goals, business KPIs, return on sales, and business ROI if they want to have the influence they should be able to exert in the C-suite.
Marketing needs to learn to speak C-suite language
I read a great interview with my colleague, Jonathan Gordon, and Brian Solis (Marketing learns to speak the C-suite's language) - it provides a useful overview of the issues marketing is facing when interacting with the C-suite. What I love is the idea of speaking the right "language" because so much of leadership is effective communication.
Article Author(s)
David Edelman
Affiliated Author