Rather than measurement, the biggest reasons marketing leaders get fired tend to center around communication and collaboration
Two of my favorite hobbies are SCUBA diving and skydiving. Both activities come with certain obvious risks, though I’d insist there’s more risk in your daily commute. That’s not just my opinion either because the statistics prove it.
Each sport has a safety organization that documents accidents, compiles data and reports on incidents. This allows divers of either variety to read and understand the sources of such accidents – so others can avoid making the same mistakes.
In my observation, based on years of reading these reports, there’s rarely one single factor contributing to an accident. Usually, it’s a combination of several issues, some of which are preventable.
For example, failing to perform the requisite maintenance on gear, diving beyond one’s training level and making a poor decision. In the blink of an eye, the combination of seemingly separate issues snowballs into a big problem – and an accident occurs.
Hold that thought and I’ll come back to it at the end.
* * *
If you had to guess: what is the top reason marketing leaders get fired? My hypothesis has always centered around measurement and the perennial challenge of proving value.
That’s the Achilles heel of marketing, especially in B2B marketing. Metrics and measurement are always at the top of the list of survey reports that ask about the biggest challenges and obstacles facing marketing.
Yet that’s not what a recent survey by the tech analyst firm Gartner found. The company polled 123 CEOs and CFOs and asked them to rank probable reasons for firing the top marketing leader – in this case the chief marketing officer or CMO.
The results stacked up this way:
- 69% said the CMO failed to deliver promised results;
- 58% said the CMO neglected to adapt to market changes;
- 54% said the CMO did not earn the respect of C-Suite peers;
- 41% said the CMO failed to communicate a vision;
- 33% said the CMO didn’t relate marketing metrics to business priorities;
- 22% said the CMO didn’t continuously improve the function; and
- 20% said the CMO took on responsibilities beyond their skill set.
Did you notice that measurement is the fifth-place reason?!
And it’s only true for a minority – about one-third – of respondents. The biggest reasons marketing leaders get fired tend to center around communication and collaboration.
What about 69% that voted for promised results?
That probably has more to do with the company’s overall performance. Often marketing takes the brunt of the blame when growth slows or stalls – without examining the contribution product issues or weak sales performance might add.
In other words, it’s not the results being delivered per se, but the perception about those results. And the perception of those results is, in part, contingent on how well the marketing leader plays with others in the proverbial sandbox.
Marketing Charts, where I first spotted this survey, summed that point up aptly:
“…the results show the need for CMOs to improve their relationships with other management, as fewer than 4 in 10 CEOs and CFOs believed that their CMO consistently collaborates effectively with other senior leaders.”
Does this mean marketing measurement is a non-issue?
The curious thing about all this is that I’m confident if you asked 123 CMOs the same question, they’d tell you it’s all about measurement. While this survey says something different, I don’t think they’d be wrong.
It’s not quite accurate to call measurement a scapegoat, because if you work in business, it clearly still matters. However, just like diving accidents, it’s probably not just one factor at play, but a combination of things.
Think about it this way: a marketing leader who communicates with their peers effectively, works to build relationships across the executive team, and pursues continuous improvement, will probably find the C-Suite has a very different outlook on their metrics.
That’s probably good advice for all of us across marketing and PR, regardless of rank.
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Image credit: Google Gemini and the respective Gartner survey
