How to Market "Marketing": a primer for business people who market

I just returned from a Frost & Sullivan marketing conference in which I participated in discussions around the alignment of sales and marketing.  The mere mention of the topic brought out emotions on both fronts and it was clear that done poorly, the relationships devolve into a Dilbert cartoon (or “sock puppet theater” as one presenter noted), with both parties suspecting the others of subterfuge and buffoonery. Marketers are often left wondering how they can better market “marketing” within their organizations and to their leadership teams.  

Let’s face it, many companies de-value marketing.  Some consider it the department that makes pretty pictures or that it is simply the administrative support for the sales team.  Others strongly value the strategic involvement of marketing in product strategy, branding, strategic planning, and industry leadership.  I am blessed to work for an organization that models the latter, but I certainly am familiar with the former.

Usually, this lack of respect or understanding for the role of marketing in the organization takes two forms:

• Exclusion from decision making and strategic conversations (a focus on tactical execution only, often exemplified by only having junior marketing staff who report up into another function like sales or G&A)
• Lack of adequate resources to do high-quality marketing work (budget, time, or resource limitations that keep the work tactical and reactionary)

This topic is a big one (worthy of more than one post).  To get the conversation started among follow marketers, here are four key questions that you can ask yourself to help you answer the question of how to market “marketing” in your organization.

1. Can you express your motivation for wanting to market marketing in terms of overall business results?

Do you think that investing in a marketing automation system and nurturing campaigns will generate 20% more revenue next year?  Do you believe that improving the brand consistency across the organization will lead to higher customer perception of quality and improve gross margins by 2% for the next product launch?  Do you believe that developing a new interactive platform for sharing product benefits with your sales channel will reduce the sales cycle by 2 months resulting in a 13% increase in revenue with the same effort?  Do you believe that having a seat at the decision making table would improve the company results or employee engagement demonstrably? Can you describe, in plain English or in understandable data, the financial benefits and returns of marketing investments? These are the types of questions you should be asking, when you are thinking of advocating for anything in a business environment.  What is the business impact for the change you are advocating?

If you don't know how to answer these questions, it could be an indication that you are not yet ready to advocate for a larger and more impactful role for marketing in your company... and that you should get ready.  That in itself, should be a call to action to learn more about your business, your drivers of value in the market, your customer problems, your solutions, revenue or customer attribution models, and overall business strategy...and how score is kept financially in your business.  You must strive to be a business person, as well as a marketer.  And today, those should be distinguishable.

And don’t be lured into advocating that there is no ROI on marketing investment.  That is an archaic way of viewing the world and simply isn’t true.  Sure, people have wasted money in “marketing activities” (I’ll get to that below).  Sure, some data is just too expensive to get reliably in marketing (and I would argue, in every other function of a business), so business decisions must be made based on the limited information available. But you can describe the financial impact of nearly every decision of your business and marketing is no exception.  If you find yourself defending "marketing" without data, go watch the movie Moneyballand see yourself reflected in the dialogue between the salty sports recruiters and Brad Pitt’s character.  It’s a new era for business people doing marketing, with more transparency and accountability than ever before, and you must be leading the charge.

2. What is the perception of your brand and that of "marketing" in your organization? What should it be?  What is the gap?

Before you would embark on a brand building campaign, you would always begin with data to identify the "as is" state and to quantify the "to be" state.  And to identify the gap between these states.  Often this accomplished with surveys, voice of the customer, share of voice analysis, or other tools.  Why not do the same thing within your organization to gauge how far away the organization is from what you envision as the ideal?  

It is also important to know whether your brand is strong enough in the organization to lead that charge?  What are you known for, personally, in your organization?  Why do people come to you?  Does that align with what you need it to be to advocate the change you are advocating?  What can you do to change the perception and reputation, if necessary?  Are there projects that you need ot delegate to others (ie, the company holiday party, responsibility for the receptionist, etc) to improve the perception of marketing as strategic in your organization?  Who else do you need to advocate on your behalf?

3. What "marketing" does your customer really need?

This should probably be the first question, as anything (besides that which is required for regulatory, legal, or financial compliance) that isn't seen and appreciated by customers, probably isn't worth doing.  It is the definition of waste and the hallmark of bureaucracy.  But coming back to my point, what value does the customer perceive in the marketing you do?

Are your customers able to make better and faster purchase decisions because of their access to technical information?  Are your resellers able to sell more because of the sales tools you provide?  Are they able to reduce their costs with more accurate quoting resources?  Are they able to achieve business results because of the value proposition of the products you provide?  Does your marketing help set your company and brand apart in measurable ways?

Some service firms have found that dedicated sales and marketing staff is not nearly as effective as sending their consultants right out to their clients to share expertise directly and we their appetite for more (a topic covered extensively in Patrick Lencioni's book Getting Naked).  Some technical engineering firms, web site developers, or agencies find that their engineering teams are best equipped to sell and market to their technical buyers and that all that is needed from marketing is some communication tools to help facilitate these conversations, as learned from colleagues at a recent event held by the Technology Association of Oregon at which I presented on this topic.  In our business at Planar, there is a lot of "marketing" that happens in customer conversations with account managers and technical sales professionals in the field.  This is good and necessary for our technical, system-style products.  Part of the marketing team’s role in this case is to equip their sales colleagues to have these conversations and to aim them at the right targets for best success.  Each business will be different, but successful marketing begins with an understanding of the customer.

and finally...

4. What is the winning formula that is worth repeating?

Like any system, it is important to look and inputs and outputs.  If you want to answer questions 1-3, a good place to start is your wins.  Where are some situations that have gone well that you think are worthy of replication?  Go back and analyze a big order, a design win, or project award and ask everyone involved how it came to be, the touchpoints with the organization, what sales tools or marketing resources were used, and what made the difference.  There is no sense automating or "improving the efficiency" of things that are not effective.  Said another way, finding faster ways to lose money is to find a better way to drive yourself out of business.  But, if you focus on what is going right, you will find a platform from which you can advocate smart change and gain the respect of the organization and the resources to replicate what is working.  And chances are, if you know it is a winning example that can be replicated, others in the organization will as well, and you will have a common foundation to build trust and understanding.

Special thanks to Lisa Cole, Allison Cerra, Leilani Brown, and Mark Wilson for helping to refine these lessons learned.

Jennifer Davis Featured Blogger on Sales and Marketing Alignment

The Small Business Forum on web.com just published a blog post on "The Ties that Bind Sales and Marketing".

Connections Are Everything

Call it the network effect.  Call it crowd sourcing.  Call it networking.  Call it relationship building.  Call it follow-through.  Call it asking for referrals.  Connections are everything.

It is connections that lead to new business, new insights, and new connections.

And the connections of your connections are even more powerful and far reaching.

Don't Limit Yourself to How: What Butterfly Grove Taught Me About Being Visionary Part 2

Some children have imaginary friends.  I had an imaginary town.  It was called Butterfly Grove.  Between 2nd and 4th grade, I worked on this multi-faceted project in which I envisioned the life and times of an entire town.  Read more about it here.

In those formative years, Butterfly Grove taught me a lot and allowed me to experiment in ways that I have applied since then.  The second is this:

Don’t Limit Yourself to How

As an amateur city planner, I had no idea how to build a city.  I didn’t know the ends and outs of running these businesses.  Designing the city was play and I was free to envision boldly. 

This is reflected in some of the design choices I made.  The high school was designed in the shape of a football (as I had envisioned a very strong sports program, apparently).  The residential area of town was in a single “neighborhood” with streets named after wood varietals: maple, rosewood, and pine. I didn’t build a single major employer (or several) in the town, besides the various service businesses that I dreamed up.   I guess I envisioned a community that just shuffled our money around, showing a lack of understanding of economics and the future eventuality of internet commerce.

As I grew up, however, I gained more skills.  Like you, I became more capable.  I now knew how to do things and have increasingly found my ideas constrained by the questions “How would we implement this idea?” or “How would we get started?” I can see the flaws and potential in things more quickly.  I am quite accomplished now with coming up with an idea and then turning immediately around to make a list of all the steps required to execute.  This has made me both an effective (and sometimes infuriating) leader.  It has helped me communicate complex and bold visions to people by breaking down the steps necessary to get there.  And it has caused me to unwittingly close off feedback or concerns early in the ideation process.  It is never my intent to have my enthusiasm overwhelm a better idea or a word of caution, but I admit that it can at times. 

These were not problems that my 8-year-old self encountered.  I could dream unencumbered by the realities of execution.  I could build, sketch, paste, and draw without worrying about the details.  I could think about alternatives, seek inspiration from multiple sources, and most importantly, engage experts if I wanted to switch to the implementation phase (which I never really did).

The best and boldest ideas are ones that people might not have known how to do, but they knew clearly why they wanted to do them and what they would feel when the product or service was a reality.  We see examples of this throughout the world of design and industry.  I recently toured a factory where they employed a department of engineers to design the equipment used in the factory to move materials around (they were too big to do with conventional conveyor equipment so had to be invented).  Large manufacturers, like those in the semiconductor industry, regularly have design all the production equipment in parallel to the processes that they will deploy the make the chips smaller and faster in the future.  When they start designing the processes, they don’t know how they will do it, but they know it must be done. 

A vision of where they are going is more important than having all the answers about “how” they will get there.    It is precisely the “how” that the team is assembled to solve.  But without the “why” and the “what could the future hold?” visioning, they have nothing to aim for.

Jennifer Davis Interviewed for "Innovation on Display" in Oregon Business

Planar and it's innovative marketing is featured in the latest issue of Oregon Business magazine.

Making Up Words

This is one of my favorite made up words: consolidarity.  It is the combination of solidarity and consolidation. It is a group believing things should be combined.  I like thinking about this as it relates to integrated marketing.  Campaigns should be internally consistent and focused on a goal and they should bring groups together for that common good.  Consolidarity.

Jennifer Davis to present at SEGD Xplorer Event

Jennifer Davis will be present a hands-on session on media integration at the Xplorer Digital 101 Bootcamp in Seattle on August 6th, hosted by SEGD, the Society for Experiential Graphic Design.  These session will highlight the technical necessities around developing and deploying experiences in 4k, interactivity, transparent display, and video wall installations.  Click the link above to register or for more information.

In the News

The article "5 Things I Wish I Knew..." appeared in the Oregon Business Report this morning. Excited to see this article getting so much attention.

I had a chance to deliver a presentation based around this article at a meeting of the Women in Leadership at Planar this week.  My colleagues gave me some fantastic feedback and shared with me what they liked and thought could be improved.  I can't wait to present it again to integrate that feedback.  It is wonderful to have a room full of mentors!

Love Your Product: What Butterfly Grove taught me about being visionary? Part 1

Some children have imaginary friends.  I had an imaginary town.  It was called Butterfly Grove.  Between 2nd and 4th grade, I worked on this multi-faceted project in which I envisioned the life and times of an entire city. 

Taking a fairly comprehensive design approach, I laid out the city (even built a clay model at one point), wrote the town newspaper (The Butterflyer) and envisioned the businesses that would be in the town.  The pet shop was named after my sister, who loved animals.  There was a local branch of the Bank of America.  I designed a book store and coffee shop combo (decades before Starbucks had the idea) called the “Book and Bagel.”  I even have a coupon book from the “Welcome Wagon,” I drew up to promote these businesses.  It was a consuming project that I think back with fond memories to this day.  It is just the kind of thing that I’d probably still enjoy doing.

In those formative years, Butterfly Grove taught me a lot and allowed me to experiment with innovation in ways that I have applied since then.  The first is this:

Love Your Product

Butterfly Grove was a city that I would have wanted to live in.  It had a small town feel, but modern amenities.  I designed all the buildings and decided where they were located. I even got to pick the name of my street. It was the perfect town for my purposes.

In product development circles, there have been experts on both sides of this issue for decades:  should product managers and entrepreneurs be data-driven, maintain passive attachment to their businesses, and keep an open mind with regards to customer feedback to see where to take their products or should they design things for themselves to use?  Those in favor of the dispassionate approach, note the success of professional managers building conglomerate businesses without direct involvement in the business propositions of any one product line.  Biz Stone, a co-founder of Twitter and author of Things a Little Bird Told Me: Confessions of a Creative Mind, falls squarely on the “you have to love and use your product” side of this argument.  So does, Jason Fried, the founder of 37Signals and author of Getting Real, Remote, and Rework.

I had an experience with Jason 10 years ago that illustrated this well.  I had contacted the support group at 37Signals whose produce Basecamp I have used to manage a variety of projects over the years. I had been highly recommending this tool and I knew they are always developing new offerings. I suggested to them that they develop a new interactive, collaborative scheduling service. The idea would be that it would allow a person to set up a calendar of events and allow people to RSVP. However, it would be more than an Evite (which is another tool I love and use all the time). The innovation that I was suggesting was that the tool would allow multiple events to be managed from one interface and that it would include an element of capacity planning. Let's say, a hair studio wanted to use a tool like this to accept online appointments. They could enter the number of stylists available throughout the day and the software would prevent people from overbooking, perhaps suggesting alternates that might work or managing a waiting list. I thought this would be cool for a variety of their small business customers and I knew that I could use it right away for a project I was working on for a non-profit “mothers of preschoolers” group.

But, I digress. I sent the idea to them in some detail. I received a response back that surprised me. I thought that I would get a "thank you and we appreciate your submission" generic email and that would be that. Instead, I got a personal email back from Jason at 37Signals that read "We will not be building the software you suggested. We only build things we can use and we wouldn't use this."

Needless to say, I was a little taken back. Jason is known for his strong opinions and, perhaps, email missives of this type are common in their organization. But, the whole thing got me thinking.

Here is a company that is very well-respected and builds great tools. They got a suggestion for what would be a great product (in my humble opinion) and they said, "no." No, because it wasn't something they were passionate about. No, because they wouldn't personally use it.  If they had been running a pet grooming salon, a community center, or a doctor’s office, perhaps they would have seen the value.  Since then, others have developed online scheduling tools for various purposes (from SignUpGenius to Doodle), but there still isn’t a great single tool that I know of for scheduling.   So, my "collaborative scheduling" idea is out there for someone to develop!

Thinking back to those days spent on Butterfly Grove, I was certainly an amateur city planner in every sense of the word.  The definition of “amateur” is someone who engages in an activity for pleasure, instead of financial benefit. The root of the word is the same French-Middle English word for "love."  Someone who is motivated by the love of something.  It has been said that if you do something you love, you will never have to work a day in your life.  Butterfly Grove didn’t feel like work.   I think this is a powerful lesson for innovation.  Work like an amateur and build something you love.

Come Bloom With Me

Your lasting legacy won't be your accomplishments, but the accomplishments you enabled in others.

Learning Styles at Work and Play

Some can visualize words.  Some need to be shown pictures.  And some need to experience things before they can learn.  In any case, one style of communication doesn't work for everything.  This affects not only formal education, but advertising and branding experiences as well.

Collaborate

On things big and small.  With team mates you have known forever or those you have just met.  Don't delay in collaborating.

The Secrets to Great Emails (or how to avoid big problems)

My life revolves around email. I use it to communicate with colleagues and customers at work. I use it to organize volunteers for the neighborhood block parties.  I use it more than it should, for sure. It is a horrible medium in many ways.  It doesn’t have the advantages of body language of face-to-face conversations or even the phone of voice of a phone call.  The asynchronous nature of the medium is great for convenience, yet it is not great for building understanding.  And still, I rely on it more than I should.

As a result of this personality flaw, I have learned a thing or two about email communications that are worth sharing.  Before you hit “send” run through this quick check list that has served me well.

1.Watch Your Buts

In spoken conversation, the words “but,” “however,” or “that being said,” all have a way of deflating energy.  They have a way of negating whatever positive thing you might have said before the word but and over email the negative tone comes through even stronger.

You are beautiful, but you have spinach in your teeth.

You are doing a great job, however you could do better.

It’s going to be a sunny day, although it will likely be too sunny and hot

You get the idea.

Before you hit “send,” go through and edit out the buts.  Break the sentence into two.  Think about how you can start the sentence with “Yes, and” instead of “But.” 

2.Scan for I’s

Have you ever finished up a note and noticed that every sentence in the email begins with the word “I.”  That is a great way to communicate selfishness in your email communications as they come off a little more one-sided than they would in a face-to-face conversation.  Scan your emails for sentences beginning with pronoun word “I” (or variations “me,” “myself”, “my”) and if there are too many, edit them out.  Instead of saying “I appreciate the invitation” say “It was great to receive your invitation.”  Those little edits will go along way to communicating gratitude and your regard.

3.Watch Your Column Inches

I am famous (infamous) for the long email.  Just because I can type like a bandit on my iPhone (or Blackberry before that) doesn’t mean I should.  Journalists writing for the newspaper would get a certain number of “column inches” to fill.  You should think about email in the same way.  A lot of email is read on mobile devices (or in preview panes in email software) and if your recipient has to scroll too much they will miss things or refuse to read it at all.  It is good to remember that not everyone is as comfortable with lots of words (I confess and you know who you are).

4.Don’t Bury the Lead

Taking another page from newspaper journalists, they assumed that most people would read the headline, some people would read the first sentence and most would not finish the article.  This means they would organize the facts, explanations, and outcomes of their story and prioritize the important things to the top of the article.  You should do the same.  Don’t bury action items, questions, or the like at the bottom of an email.  Put them at the top or in the subject line so that people know why they are reading.  You can always repeat them at the bottom (with some highlights for the most important things) for emphasis.

5.Be Prepared to Walk

Some things are best not handled via email.  Even for those of us who love it, it is not the best way to confront bad behavior, deal with sensitive or controversial issues, or to build relationships with new people.  So, if you read your email and sense there is an emotional tinge to the conversation or things not being said, walk away from email and walk over to that person instead.  Call them, visit with them, call a meeting, take them to coffee (or happy hour), anything to take the issue away from email where it will only get more spun up and complicated.  You wouldn’t think something as innocent as email would be capable of such rabble rousing and drama.  Don’t let it take control of you.  Email is a great tool and it is there to serve you.

How To Get Promoted in Four Easy Steps

There is a ladder, if you will, that you must climb to be qualified and recognized to take on more responsibility (in exchange for more authority, more compensation, and more influence that may come along).  There are many rungs to the ladder, but today I want to talk about the first four and how you can give yourself a promotion and grow as a leader.  In short, you should be secure on each rung before you could expect to climb to the next.  Together, you can give yourself a promotion in four easy steps.  Let’s begin.

Rung 1: You can manage your time

Most individual contributors (that is, people who are not managers, but responsible for their own work) have one main resource that they alone can allocate: their time.  We all have the same 24 hours a day and how people choose to allocate those hours makes a huge difference in their results.  A lot of experts have written tomes on this subject (some of my favorites are Getting Things Done, the classic 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the provocative 4 Hour Work Week, and the insightful Better Than Before), mobile apps have been written to help track and monitor time allocation, and there is no shortage of life hack websites that will walk you through best practices for time management.  But if you can not manage your own time and get work done in a reasonable timeframe with reasonable effort, no one will consider you ready for more.  If you don’t know how you spend your time or feel like you are chronically under-estimating the amount of time things will take, missing deadlines, or letting down your team mates, this is a place to start.  To be a manager, you must first manage yourself.

Rung 2: You can optimize your potential

Once you have mastery over your deadlines and tasks, you can build upon that to make the most of your capabilities and interests.  You start with an understanding of your style, approach, and thinking processes (using tools like Myers-Briggs, StrengthFinders, Kolbe, and others that I have blogged about in the past).  You get feedback from worthy mentors.  You seek out professional development opportunities.  You strive to get better and to outgrow your current assignment.  You broaden your perspective beyond how you spend time today to apply yourself in new ways to new problems.  You know what you need to inspire and drive you and you make sure your environment is right (which is described in detail in the book Triggers).  You never stop managing your time and you never stop growing, of course, but you have reached this rung of the ladder when you have a vision of your best self and understand yourself well enough to play from your strengths and propel yourself to new heights of performance.  If you want to be a leader, you must first lead yourself.

Rung 3: You can manage other people’s time

The first supervisory job that most people have involves managing other people’s time.  You make sure people show up for their shift.  You make sure the phones get answered as expected and the call queues are not too long.  You make certain that there is adequate coverage to handle expected traffic at a trade show or retail environment.  You sign time cards.  You help them know what to do between punching in and punching out.  You offer up work instructions and on-the-job training.  In many cases, you can help others reach the first rung of their ladder by managing projects and allowing more capable people to manage their time towards the good of the project.  This is where basic employee engagement comes into effect.  Good managers have employees that have the time and resources to achieve the goals at hand.

Rung 4: You can unlock other people’s potential

This is the run where leaders emerge from among the sea of managers.  Their employees not only want to use their time better, but they want to be better.  Using both encouragement and discipline, they realize that honestly, delivered respectfully, is a gift and can help high potential individuals achieve more than they thought possible.  Identifying latent talents.  Probing for unrealized motivations.  Describing hidden possibilities and bringing those to light.  Establishing new standards and enabling people to do more than what is required so that they can feel pride in their work. Helping individuals bloom, where they are planted and to find new landscapes to explore.

These first four rungs on the ladder illustrate a great truth about getting recognized and promoted: most things are within your control.  

Whether or not you want to be a manager of people (that is not everyone’s ambition), these same principles apply.  As I have said before, you don’t have to wait for someone’s permission to get the experience you want and need to further your career in whatever direction you wish to direct it.   You, alone, can effectively manage your time for maximum results.  You alone can be curious about your own potential.  And without a job change or a fancy title, you can help others do the same.  From whatever role you are in today.  It won’t be long before you are ready for the next challenge and that will be recognized by others. You’ll be doing a bigger job already when the opportunities come your way.

Celebrate

It was great to celebrate with the students, mentors, and sponsors of Marathon Scholars, this weekend and see the amazing potential that is being realized in these young scholars!

The big thing and the small things.  The unexpected and the planned.  The new and the old.  Don't delay in celebrating all that is great today!

Know Thyself: The Toolbox

I must start out with a confession.  I am a self-assessment junkie.  I love analysis tools that help me better reflect on my strengths, style, and effectiveness and how I relate to the world and approach problem-solving.  I understand that not everyone does.  But even more so, not everyone even knows that tools like this exist or how to use them. This post is meant to remedy that.

Below is a round up of some of the best assessment tools that I have used in the past.  With a short description of each (not exhaustive or complete by any means) and a link to where you can learn more or take the assessment.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on your favorites (or these or others that I might not have heard of before).

They are in rough alphabetical order.  I have no professional relationships or affiliations with any of these organizations, although I have taken all of these assessments over the years.

DiSC: This personality assessment might be one of the best known.  It is administered by hundreds of consultants (chances are your own HR team might have a certified trainer) and can be accessed online for less than $40 (and there are plenty of free "knock offs" out there as well).  It identifies people's dominant dimensions (Dominance, Influence, Stable, Compliant) and graphs individuals and groups into different combination profiles like "Promoter" or "Counselor".  This is a simple tool to help people understand each other better.

EQ-i: This is a measurement of emotional intelligence, thus EQ-i stands for Emotional Quotient Inventory.  It is administered by lots of professional coaches and trainers and can be accessed online for less than $40.  It provides composites along several factors includes self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal, decision making, and stress management.  I have been told that a high EQ score is more important than any other single factor (IQ, etc) for professional success, but I do suspect that is subject to the field and role of the individual.  However, there is no denying the impact of interpersonal relationships on success.  

The Flag Page: The Flag Page was developed in cooperation with the marriage expert, Mark Gungor (Laugh your Way).  Although it is used by organizations, it is an inexpensive tool ($10) designed first for individuals.  It uses the language of citizenship to identify which "country" is dominant in your style (Fun, Control, Peace, Perfect). This is very accessible assessment and they even have one for children to use for family dynamics.

Harrison: The Harrison Assessment is a complex tool administered by trained professionals often as part of a team workshop.  It is based on paradox theory, which illustrates how individuals can act in seemingly contradictory ways, especially under stress.  It highlights 12 paradoxes that relate to the workplace (things like diplomacy and frankness or organization and flexibility) and plots each individual in a default position and indicates what behaviors they might demonstrate when under pressure.  The resulting individual assessment is over 20 pages long and the team assessment is equally as rich.  I understand the assessment is relatively expensive (over $300 per person), but I have never personally purchased it, so I am not certain.  It is much more complex and requires more work to understand and apply the insights than the other assessments.

Kolbe: Designed based on the research of Karen Kolbe,  the Kolbe Cognition Survey looks at how individuals approach problem solving and rates them on four dimensions (Fact Finding, Follow Thru, Quick Start, and Implementor).  The individual assessment is $49 and available on their website (a Kolbe A index).  They also have a series of products for determining job fit (managers complete a Kolbe C to develop a profile for a job and the employee completes a Kolbe B to identify their perceptions of the job requirements and when compared these B and C indexes show areas of gap or opportunity).  It can be used for recruiting and job fit analysis.  There is a youth version (Kolbe Y) as well.  This assessment is easy to digest, but allows for nuance and discussion than some of the more simple tools.

Myers-Briggs:  This is probably the most popular and extensively used "personality test" given.  Myers-Briggs is administered by thousands of practioners and is available online for less than $50 (and there are a number of free knock-off versions out there as well).  The survey gives back a score along four criteria (covering interpersonal styles, structures, decision making, and information) and sorts people into one of 16 personality types based on their responses. This is used in casual and in-depth coaching settings with success.

OAD: The Organization Analysis and Design survey is administered by an independent consultant or trainer certified by the organization.  It measures individuals along several constructs including assertiveness, extroversion, pace/patience, detail orientation, versatility, emotional control, and creativity.  Doing this as a group can reveal patterns and organize individuals into four profiles (architects, builders, experts and facilitators).  I have seen this used effectiveness to identify general patterns in groups.  It can be explained fairly easily (it is more complex than Kolbe and less than Harrison).

Clifton StrengthsFinder: This survey (developed by the "father of strengths psychology" Donald O Clifton and Gallup Organization) came free with my copy of Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham.  It allows you to self-identify your top 5 strengths and identifies how we can use those talents.  

There are many other assessments that one can do individually and in facilitated conversations with executive coaches or consultants, which I can cover in future posts.  

Which are your favorites and why?

No One Knows

Since your potential is unknown, and as a result is virtually limitless, use your imagination, ask your friends and mentors, and believe in yourself.

Blogging for Technology Association of Oregon

You can read about "Five Things I Wish I Knew in the First 5 Years of My Career" on the blog for the Technology Association of Oregon.

Appreciate

Whether it's little things or big things, people you have known forever or those you have just met - never delay appreciation.

Eavesdropping on Success

You learned your native language largely through eavesdropping.  Listening in on conversations.  

The language that might be critical for your career success will likely be learned in the same way.  Whether it is insight about how work gets done in your organization or the vernacular of your industry, you will pick it up by proximity.  If you want to accelerate your learning, how can you do that?  I don't suggest spying on meetings or lurking on conference calls (who has the time anyway?), but there are ways you can get this access in other ways.  

• Reading trade publications,
• reaching out to executives at your companies and offering to take them to coffee to ask questions,
• researching your company's financial filings and analyst coverage,
• following an influential blogger in your space,
• by studying the moves of competition,
• by talking to your sales team regularly.  

These are all ways in which you can, with intention and integrity, eavesdrop on success and learn the language through immersion.

How have you accelerated your own learning?  Share your success stories here.